Trump is trying to chuck the post-WWII order and firmly pivot American foreign policy away from Europe and toward Putin—the poor guy who got dragged into totally-not-a-hoax Russia Russia Russia. And Lil' Marco and Lindsey rushed to defend Trump and JD against Zelensky, who dared to question in the Oval Office whether Putin could be trusted in any ceasefire deal. At the same time, DOGE is putting the lives of malnourished children and pregnant women at risk in the name of cost-cutting while Trump is planning to use taxpayer money to prop up crypto, so he and his cronies can personally profit off it even more.
Bill Kristol joins Tim Miller for the weekend pod.
The Federal Trade Commission appears to be preparing multiple lines of attack against the autonomy of big tech firms in the name of cracking down on content moderation. Why? David Inserra and Jenniffer Huddleston comments.
Unlike any other religious leader around the world, the leader of the world's one billion Catholics is also the leader of a sovereign nation. And Pope Francis hasn't been shy about using that political power.
He's pushed for an end to the wars between Hamas and Israel, and Russia and Ukraine.
And he's repeatedly tried to point the world's attention to two ongoing challenges: immigration and climate change.
Much of the world has spent the last two weeks focused on Pope Francis' health. And the reason why has as much to do with the fact that he's a powerful geopolitical force as it does with the fact he's a key religious figure.
For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org.
Unlike any other religious leader around the world, the leader of the world's one billion Catholics is also the leader of a sovereign nation. And Pope Francis hasn't been shy about using that political power.
He's pushed for an end to the wars between Hamas and Israel, and Russia and Ukraine.
And he's repeatedly tried to point the world's attention to two ongoing challenges: immigration and climate change.
Much of the world has spent the last two weeks focused on Pope Francis' health. And the reason why has as much to do with the fact that he's a powerful geopolitical force as it does with the fact he's a key religious figure.
For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org.
Unlike any other religious leader around the world, the leader of the world's one billion Catholics is also the leader of a sovereign nation. And Pope Francis hasn't been shy about using that political power.
He's pushed for an end to the wars between Hamas and Israel, and Russia and Ukraine.
And he's repeatedly tried to point the world's attention to two ongoing challenges: immigration and climate change.
Much of the world has spent the last two weeks focused on Pope Francis' health. And the reason why has as much to do with the fact that he's a powerful geopolitical force as it does with the fact he's a key religious figure.
For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org.
In Charlotte Wood's Stone Yard Devotional, an unnamed narrator renounces modern life in Sydney, retreating to a cloistered religious community in her hometown. But soon after, a series of three visitations causes the narrator to rethink the choice she's made. In today's episode, Wood speaks with NPR's Ari Shapiro about the novel, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2024. They discuss Wood's decision to withhold judgement of her character's actions, the biblical nature of the story's disruptions, and Australia's position at the forefront of the climate crisis.
To listen to Book of the Day sponsor-free and support NPR's book coverage, sign up for Book of the Day+ at plus.npr.org/bookoftheday
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy received a warm welcome in London from the British prime minister and other European leaders, after a contentious meeting with President Trump in Washington. Israel and Hamas are at loggerheads over the next phase of the six-week-old Gaza ceasefire. And, an NPR investigation finds gaps in the systems to report misbehavior by federal judges and a widespread culture of fear about reporting abuse.
Today's episode of Up First was edited by Miguel Macias, Didi Schanche, Krishnadev Calamur, Alice Woelfle and Mohamad ElBardicy. It was produced by Ziad Buchh, Claire Murashima and Chris Thomas. We get engineering support from Zac Coleman, our technical director is David Greenburg
About 25 years ago, James Whitford and his wife founded a ministry to the poor and homeless in Missouri. Not long after starting the ministry, Whitford felt led by the Lord to see for himself what it was like to be homeless.
After several conversations with his wife, the couple agreed that Whitford would take a short period of time to live on the streets, and Whitford left his home with nothing but the clothes on his back.
Whitford found himself sitting on a street corner next to a young homeless man in his 30s named Ralph. Whitford had known Ralph for some time and had ministered to him many times, but now, the two were homeless together. It was well into the day and Whitford was hungry. Ralph pulled out a sandwich and offered Whitford half.
“And if you put yourself in that position of a homeless person offering his food to you, how do you respond? I didn't say it,” Whitford recalled, “but I remember feeling or thinking, well, ‘no, I'm not gonna take your sandwich, Ralph. I'm not gonna do that. I can go somewhere if I need to, and you're the ministry, and I'm the minister.”
At that moment, Whitford says he realized he had been “treating Ralph and thousands of other people as objects of my good intentions … rather than subjects who have autonomy, capacity and agency.” The experience changed Whitford’s perspective on serving the poor, and permanently affected the way he led his ministry, moving from a “handout model to a hand-up model.”
“If we're not engaging people in reciprocity in our charity, we are failing them horribly, doing them a disservice and not really upholding the inherent human dignity that is in every person,” Whitford said.
Unfortunately, Whitford says much of the government's programs intended to help the poor, and many charity programs, don’t engage the recipients dignity and have instead created significant harm through creating dependence on programs instead of empowerment.
What's with all the "sex worker" talk at the Oscars? Why couldn't Adrien Brody just condemn anti-Semitism in his acceptance speech for a role in which he plays a Holocaust survivor? Who was to blame for the fight in the Oval Office? And what is the "Witkoff framework"? Give a listen.
