NPR News

Bernie Madoff, the financier who orchestrated one of the largest Ponzi schemes in history, has died. He was 82.

He died Wednesday at the Federal Medical Center in Butner, N.C., the Federal Bureau of Prisons confirmed, and had been serving out a 150-year sentence.

As a money manager, Madoff defrauded thousands of investors out of tens of billions of dollars. The former NASDAQ chairman pleaded guilty to 11 criminal counts in 2009 at the age of 71.

The United States will withdraw all remaining troops from Afghanistan by the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, President Biden will announce on Wednesday, turning the page on a conflict that has cost trillions of dollars and the lives of more than 2,300 American troops.

The Biden administration is moving to reverse a Trump-era family planning policy that critics describe as a domestic "gag rule" for reproductive healthcare providers.

A bill that would establish a commission to develop proposals and a "national apology" to help repair the lasting effects of slavery is moving closer to a vote in the House.

The legislation has been stalled in the House for nearly 30 years, but the idea of reparations for African Americans has gained new traction amid a racial reckoning in this country.

In the next several days, the Biden administration is expected to announce plans across the economy to reduce America's greenhouse gas emissions dramatically by 2030.

More than three months after the U.S. Capitol riot, a bomb-maker remains on the loose.

A majority of the public's attention has been focused on the hundreds of people who have been charged for their role on Jan. 6. But the night before, someone committed a different crime: The person placed two explosive devices near the Capitol in Washington, D.C., and that person is still at large.

Kristen Clarke grew up in public housing in Brooklyn, as the daughter of Jamaican immigrants.

Now, she's in line to become the first woman and the first woman of color to formally lead the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division since it was created in 1957.

That's if she can get through a closely divided Senate, where Republicans have signaled they will put up a fight.

Clarke will appear before the Judiciary Committee Wednesday, when lawmakers are preparing to assess her record.

In certain circles of San Francisco, a case of syphilis can be as common and casual as catching the flu, to the point where Billy Lemon can't even remember how many times he's had it.

"Three or four? Five times in my life?" he struggles to recall. "It does not seem like a big deal."

At the time, about a decade ago, Lemon went on frequent methamphetamine binges, kicking his libido into overdrive and silencing the voice in his head that said condoms would be a wise choice at a raging sex party.

U.S. Capitol Police officers were hindered by leadership decisions and equipment deficiencies that left the force ill-prepared to respond to the Jan. 6 insurrection, according to a new watchdog report, which found that some advance intelligence offered a "more alarming" warning ahead of the day's events.

The U.S. Coast Guard and multiple good Samaritan vessels rescued six people from a capsized commercial lift boat 8 miles south of Port Fourchon, La., in the Gulf of Mexico.

Efforts to rescue other possible crewmembers of the 129-foot vessel were ongoing as of 10 p.m. local time, the Coast Guard said in a press release.

Italian art police recovered a 1st century Roman statue that had been looted from an archaeological site nearly a decade ago after off-duty officers spotted it in an antique shop in Belgium, Italian authorities said this week.

In their first public press conference, the family of Daunte Wright, the 20-year-old Black man shot and killed by police in Brooklyn Center, Minn., expressed grief and anger, called for accountability, and questioned why police felt the need to use any force on their son.

Kenosha, Wis., police said Tuesday that Rusten Sheskey, the police officer who shot Jacob Blake last summer, has been found to have acted within the law and department policy.

A use-of-force witness gave a new point of view to former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin's trial on charges of murder and manslaughter. The defense witness said Tuesday that Chauvin and three other officers' actions were justified during the arrest that ended in George Floyd's death and that they used an appropriate amount of force.

The defense called on Officer Peter Chang of the Minneapolis Park Police to testify in the trial of Derek Chauvin, who is on trial on murder and manslaughter charges in the death of George Floyd.

Chang was stationed at a nearby park last May 25 when he heard a dispatch on his radio asking for assistance. He was one of the closer officers to Cup Foods, so he went to the scene.

It's common for park police to assist Minneapolis city police, Chang said, and explained that officers in both forces attend the same police academy.

In a historic move, President Biden is naming Robert Santos, one of the country's leading statisticians and the American Statistical Association's president, as his intended nominee to head the U.S. Census Bureau.

If confirmed by the Senate, Santos, who is Latinx, would be the first permanent director of color for the federal government's largest statistical agency, which is in charge of major surveys and the once-a-decade head count used for distributing political representation and funding around the United States.

Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin's attorney called on Shawanda Hill to testify on Tuesday morning. Chauvin is on trial on murder and manslaughter charges in George Floyd's death.

Hill told the court she was at the Cup Foods store last May 25 when she ran into Floyd, whom she knew. She described his behavior as "happy, normal, talking, alert."

She said Floyd offered to give her a ride to her house, and she went with him to the car he was driving.

Kim Potter, the Brooklyn Center, Minn., police officer who shot and killed Daunte Wright, has resigned. Potter had served 26 years on the force before the fatal encounter Sunday where officials said she mistakenly fired her handgun instead of her Taser.

Police Chief Tim Gannon, who on Monday released the body camera footage and characterized the shooting as an "accidental discharge," has also stepped down.

President Biden will withdraw all remaining U.S. troops from Afghanistan by Sept. 11, the 20th anniversary of the terrorist attacks that prompted America's involvement in its longest war, a senior administration official told reporters on Tuesday.

Some 2,500 U.S. troops remain in Afghanistan, and as many as 1,000 more special operations forces are also reported to be in the country. There were more than 100,000 at the war's peak in 2011.

Top congressional Democrats are calling on their Republican colleagues to support legislation introduced by Sen. Mazie Hirono and Rep. Grace Meng that addresses the rising number of hate crimes and violence against Asian Americans.