NPR News

A surge in migration at the U.S.-Mexico border is, again, causing issues for federal authorities and local officials in Texas.

On a hot afternoon in California's Sequoia National Park, Alexis Bernal squints up at the top of a 200-foot-tall tree.

"That is what we would call a real giant sequoia monarch," she says. "It's massive."

At 40 feet in diameter, the tree easily meets the definition of a monarch, the name given to the largest sequoias. It's likely more than 1,500 years old.

Still, that's as old as this tree will get. The trunk is pitch black, the char reaching almost all the way to the top. Not a single green branch is visible.

As the headline unambiguously states, here at NPR we've kicked off Hispanic Heritage Month.

Not Latino Heritage Month. Not Latinx Heritage Month. Not even a compromise or a combination of the three: Hispanic/Latino/Latinx Heritage Month.

To be honest, as far as this team goes, NPR began to participate in the national event that is called Hispanic Heritage Month with no discussion about existing tensions within Latino communities regarding the use of the word Hispanic, its origins and whether it may be time to swap out the catchall label for something different.

Early Tuesday morning, Melissa Breyer set out to do her usual volunteer work — collecting the bodies of migratory birds who had died colliding with skyscrapers in downtown Manhattan.

A Washington attorney who specializes in cybersecurity issues has been indicted for allegedly lying to the FBI ahead of the 2016 election in a conversation about possible ties between Donald Trump and Russia.

Michael Sussmann, a former federal prosecutor who had worked at a law firm with longstanding links to the Democratic Party, is the second individual to be charged in special counsel John Durham's investigation into the origins of the FBI's Trump-Russia probe.

CBS thought it had a win when it announced The Activist, a reality show where six contestants would compete in a variety of activism-themed contests before appearing at a summit of world leaders in Italy — a format that press materials called "awe-inspiring," "ground-breaking" and sure to "inspire real change."

But in the week since the network's announcement, backlash has come from all corners — including an apology from one of the program's own hosts.

U.S. Border Patrol agents found a toddler girl and her baby brother abandoned along the Rio Grande near Eagle Pass, Texas, this week, in what the local chief patrol agent calls a "heartbreaking" discovery. The agency released a photo of the children, who were taken into custody but did not require medical care.

Once again, country music star Reba McEntire is a survivor.

She was rescued from a historical building in Atoka, Okla., when a staircase collapsed.

The 66-year-old singer was removed from the building through a second-story window by a fire ladder, local TV station KXII reported.

France's health minister has said that thousands of health care workers across the country have been suspended without pay for failing to get a required COVID-19 vaccine.

"Some 3,000 suspensions were notified yesterday to employees at health centers and clinics who have not yet been vaccinated," Olivier Véran, the health minister, told France's RTL radio on Thursday, according to a France 24 translation.

The United Nations' human rights chief has called on member states to put a moratorium on the sale and use of artificial intelligence systems until the "negative, even catastrophic" risks they pose can be addressed.

The remarks by U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet were in reference to a new report on the subject released in Geneva.

Microsoft is about to make it easier for those of us who struggle to keep track of our passwords or remember which one we used for each account.

Starting this week, the tech giant is rolling out passwordless sign-in for consumers, so you no longer have to enter a password to gain access to your Microsoft accounts.

Philip Morris International is buying British pharmaceutical firm Vectura in a deal that will see a company synonymous with Big Tobacco taking over a firm that makes asthma inhalers. The American Lung Association, Asthma UK and other health groups have spoken out against the takeover.