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President Biden gave a speech Thursday afternoon begging folks to get vaccinated. A CDC document warns that the very contagious delta variant means "the war has changed" against COVID.

The bipartisan infrastructure deal which passed its first vote in the Senate this week is evidence that President Biden may be able to foster cooperative lawmaking in modern Washington, as he promised during the campaign. Will it help his party hold onto congressional majorities during a difficult midterm election cycle?

This episode: White House correspondent Asma Khalid, White House correspondent Tamara Keith, and congressional correspondent Susan Davis.

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The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was born from the civil rights movement of the '50s and '60s, but in recent years the Supreme Court has effectively nullified its key provisions. We explore why the law was first passed and what it means for voters of color now that its powers have been gutted.

This episode: congressional correspondent Susan Davis and national justice correspondent Carrie Johnson.

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The White House says it is "following the science" on masks after the CDC issued new guidance, but some experts say they're falling short on the social science: how to convince the remaining 40 percent of American adults to get vaccinated.

Alabama has the lowest vaccination rate in the nation and residents there aren't likely to listen to President Biden. Can football coach-turned-Senator Tommy Tuberville convince the rest of the state to get inoculated?

This episode: White House correspondent Scott Detrow, White House correspondent Tamara Keith, national correspondent Debbie Elliott, and senior political editor and correspondent Domenico Montanaro.

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The officers — Pfc. Harry Dunn and Sgt. Aquilino Gonell of the U.S. Capitol Police, and Michael Fanone and Daniel Hodges of the Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police Department — testified before a congressional committee investigating the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol by Donald Trump's supporters. The officers each detailed brutal violence and abuse at the hand of protestors that left them with ongoing physical and mental injuries.

This episode: White House correspondent Ayesha Rascoe, congressional reporter Claudia Grisales, and justice correspondent Ryan Lucas.

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Customs and Border Protection reported encounters with 188,829 migrants and asylum-seekers at the U.S. southern border last month, the highest level in a generation. The Biden administration has struggled with how to respond.

This episode: White House correspondent Scott Detrow, White House correspondent Franco Ordoñez, and national political correspondent Mara Liasson.

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A hearing next week featuring testimony by Capitol Police officers will be held without any members nominated by Republicans. Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy is boycotting the process after the House's top Democrat Nancy Pelosi vetoed some of the members he selected to serve.

And the rate of violent crime is sharply up in some cities across the United States. There are no simple answers about what's driving the increase, but it it is certain to be a central issue in the Republican effort to retake majorities in Congress next year.

This episode: White House correspondent Scott Detrow, congressional reporter Claudia Grisales, and senior political editor and correspondent Domenico Montanaro.

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A group of 21 senators from both parties but out a statement that they're close to a deal and another vote is expected as soon as Monday.

And an Ohio Democratic primary race to replace Biden official Marica Fudge in the House of Representatives is getting a lot of national attention, including from this podcast.

This episode: White House correspondent Scott Detrow, congressional correspondent Susan Davis, and demographics and culture correspondent Danielle Kurtzleben.

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Coronavirus cases are on the rise in parts of the United States and there have been new cases among fully-vaccinated lawmakers and government staff. The country as a whole saw a nearly 150% increase in the seven-day case average compared with two weeks prior.

The vaccines, though, are still preventing serious infections and mostly keeping people out of the hospital. Now, President Biden and the White House are struggling to figure out how to get the remaining one-third of American adults vaccinated and stop a pandemic backslide.

This episode: political correspondent Juana Summers, White House correspondent Tamara Keith, and science correspondent Rob Stein.

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Ben Shapiro's conservative commentary and news aggregation site The Daily Wire is a dominant force on Facebook, where sharp headlines drive massive engagement.

The upstart The Georgia Star News has pushed outright disinformation about the 2020 presidential election and subsequently scored an exclusive interview with Donald Trump.

The two sites illustrate a number of distinct ways in which outrage, social media, and political polarization have reshaped the media landscape.

This episode: congressional correspondent Susan Davis, politics reporter Miles Parks, and Georgia Public Broadcasting reporter Stephen Fowler.

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President Joe Biden's primary policy initiatives, his trillion-dollar infrastructure and economic plans, face their first test in the Senate this week. And does a federal court ruling limiting the Deferred Action For Childhood Arrivals program, known as DACA, increase the urgency around immigration in Congress?

This episode: White House correspondent Scott Detrow, congressional reporter Susan Davis, and national political correspondent Mara Liasson.

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Elizabeth Hinton's book America On Fire explores how aggressive policing sparked thousands of incidents of mass violence in Black communities across the United States beginning in the 1960s. NPR's Danielle Kurtzleben talks to the author about how the government's typical response to these "rebellions" — more policing — is both escalatory and inadequate.

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Voting rights activists feel that they have done the work of energizing and organizing voters to care about the issue. Now, they want President Biden to step up the pressure on Congress from the bully pulpit. And Hunter Biden's art sales will be anonymous, which the White House is calling an ethics win. Good governance experts aren't buying it.

This episode: White House correspondent Scott Detrow, White House correspondent Tamara Keith, political correspondent Juana Summers, and senior political editor and correspondent Ron Elving.

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In his April address to Congress, President Joe Biden said he hoped to prove that democracy and the federal government were still capable of delivering for the American people. This week, Senate Democrats unveiled Biden's chief effort to meet that promise: a $3.5 trillion dollar plan that would — among other things — dramatically expand access to child and health care, as well as overhaul the energy sector to curb climate change. The proposal faces a difficult road to passage and could see considerable revisions.

This episode: White House correspondent Asma Khalid, White House correspondent Tamara Keith, and congressional correspondent Susan Davis.

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Faced with food and fuel shortages, Cubans have begun unprecedented protests against the country's communist government. President Biden's response could help boost Democratic support among Florida's many Cuban American voters. The party has lost a number of key elections in the state, thanks in large part to lackluster support among conservative expatriates who hope to see Democrats take a harder line against Cuba's communist government.

This episode: congressional correspondent Susan Davis, White House correspondent Franco Ordoñez, and international correspondent Carrie Kahn.

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Vice President Harris talked to NPR's Asma Khalid about the administration's path forward on their voting rights agenda given the major roadblock in the Senate: some Democrats in the chamber are unwilling to change the filibuster, a rules quirk that forces a sixty-to-forty majority to pass most legislation.

And many Democrats from the Texas statehouse have come to Washington D.C. to meet with federal lawmakers, fleeing their own state in a procedural stunt to stall a suite of voting restrictions proposed by Republicans there.

This episode: White House correspondent Scott Detrow, White House correspondent Asma Khalid, and KUT reporter Ashley Lopez.

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Domestic travel is surging as the country reopens, but there is still an international-sized hole in the bottom lines of some U.S. tourism businesses. Would-be foreign visitors are mostly barred from coming stateside as coronavirus travel bans persist — and there have been few concrete answers from the Biden administration on when that will change.

And vaccine maker Pfizer has begun talking about providing a coronavirus vaccine booster shot. That could be a huge financial windfall for the pharmaceutical giant, but federal government health groups were quick to say that they're not sure if or when a booster shot will be needed.

This episode: congressional correspondent Susan Davis, White House correspondent Tamara Keith, and health correspondent Pien Huang.

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President Biden gave a defensive speech Thursday updating the American public on his plan for withdrawal from Afghanistan. He said that the United States accomplished its mission in Afghanistan, though his administration acknowledged earlier in the day that the two-decade war "has not been won militarily" and that there are ongoing risks to the safety and prosperity of Afghans.

Domestically, the White House is stalled on voting rights reforms: Democrats in Congress can't find a route around the filibuster and conservative courts have throttled historic enforcement options made possible by the Voting Rights Act.

This episode: White House correspondent Tamara Keith, White House correspondent Scott Detrow, Pentagon correspondent Tom Bowman, White House correspondent Ayesha Rascoe, and national justice correspondent Carrie Johnson.

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Former president Donald Trump filed a lawsuit this week claiming that his rights are violated by social media bans, claims legal experts say are spurious. But there has long been a push for big tech regulation in Washington, and it appears that the wheels are starting to turn.

This episode: White House correspondent Tamara Keith, congressional editor Deirdre Walsh, and technology correspondent Shannon Bond.

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Though crime rates remain well-below historic highs, assaults and murders have spiked since the pandemic began. Democrats in New York picked ex-cop Eric Adams as their mayoral nominee; he's likely to win. Biden traveled to Chicago to talk gun violence with the city's mayor Lori Lightfoot.

This episode: White House correspondent Asma Khalid, national justice correspondent Carrie Johnson, and WNYC reporter Brigid Bergin.

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More than five hundred people have been charged in what is on track to be one of the largest criminal investigations in the country's history. Now, a House committee is charged with an impossible task: establishing a widely-accepted set of facts about what happened on January 6th.

This episode; White House correspondent Tamara Keith, congressional correspondent Kelsey Snell, and justice correspondent Ryan Lucas.

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