NPR Staff

Listen tonight at 9pm on 88.1 WVPE as NPR explores an extraordinary electoral season that’s coincided with the global pandemic. With early voting now underway, hosts Scott Detrow and Juana Summers report on how to navigate unprecedented challenges to casting a ballot this year. We’ll also hear about long-existing impediments to voting and how they’ve been exacerbated this year. And we’ll help listeners prepare for November 3rd, with some tips on avoiding misinformation as the votes are counted.

Join 88.1 WVPE tonight at 9pm for a special hour from NPR and StoryCorps. At one of the most divided times in American history, StoryCorps and NPR Member stations around the country are inviting people to take One Small Step to better understand those with whom they disagree. One Small Step pairs people of differing political views to have conversations with one another out of respect and recognition of their shared humanity.

The Senate Judiciary Committee is holding hearings on President Trump's Supreme Court nominee, Judge Amy Coney Barrett. Barrett would fill the seat left vacant with the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Watch the hearings live.

Vice President Pence and Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris are debating in Salt Lake City. Their only face-off of the 2020 campaign comes with a wave of uncertainty with President Trump undergoing treatment for COVID-19. Follow live updates and fact-checks on the debate.

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The 2020 election is going to be different from any election in American history. Experts are anticipating record-high levels of people choosing to cast their ballots by mail because of concerns over the coronavirus.

Officials are giving periodic updates on President Trump's condition since he tested positive for the coronavirus. A briefing is expected today at approximately 3pm. This comes as Pres. Trump tweeted he will be discharged tonight. Watch the briefings live.

President Trump's medical team held a briefing with reporters at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center again on Sunday.

The doctors said that since testing positive for the coronavirus, Trump has had two episodes of a drop in oxygen — one Friday morning before he went to the hospital and again on Saturday — and began a steroid treatment for that specifically.

Editor's note: President Trump's doctors gave a briefing Saturday morning outside Walter Reed National Military Medical Center and answered questions from reporters.

In a statement later, Dr. Sean Conley said he misspoke during his news conference. He said he incorrectly used 72 hours instead of "Day 3" for the president's diagnosis. He also said a reference to 48 hours ago should have been "Day 2" for administering Regeneron.

"The fact that the Afghans are sitting across the table for the first time in 42 years is a moment of hope and opportunity," U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation Zalmay Khalilzad tells NPR. "But this moment is not without its own challenges."

Peace talks began in Doha, Qatar, last month between the Afghan government and the Taliban, even as deadly violence in Afghanistan continues.

Members of the White House Coronavirus Task Force are briefing a Senate panel on the federal response to the pandemic. Witnesses include Dr. Anthony Fauci of the National Institutes of Health and CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield. This is expected to start at 10am. 

American policy toward Russia for two decades has struggled under a mistaken belief that presidents or positions can break through with President Vladimir Putin, former national security adviser H.R. McMaster said Monday.

And actually, he argued, they probably can't.

McMaster told NPR's Rachel Martin that he sought to help President Trump recognize the need for a tougher suite of policies against Russia after its aggression in Eastern Europe and interference in the 2016 election.

Follow live updates and analysis of the Republican National Convention, where the party is set to formally nominate President Trump as its presidential nominee. Live coverage begins at 9pm. You can also listen live on 88.1 WVPE. 

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Steve Bannon, a former adviser to President Trump, was indicted along with three others on Thursday in connection to an online fundraising campaign called "We Build the Wall." The campaign was advertised as an effort to build a wall on the U.S. border with Mexico, and according to federal prosecutors in New York, "hundreds of thousands of donors" were allegedly defrauded in the scheme. Read the indictment below:

Joe Biden announced on Tuesday that California Sen. Kamala Harris would be his vice presidential running mate. They are giving remarks together on Wednesday. Watch live.

Last month, we asked our audience: What are some of the inventive ways that people are addressing COVID-19 challenges in their community?

What TV are you bingeing these days?

It's a question you've probably been asked a lot — and asked others — five months into the pandemic. Movies are shut. Theater is on hold. So there's not much else to do. I myself can't stop watching Korean dramas (just finished Crash Landing On You) and reruns of Gossip Girl on Netflix.

At 11am the body of Rep. John Lewis crosses the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala, where he was brutally beaten as a young man, for the last time.

Cardboard beds. Urban farms. Roving mariachi bands.

These are some of the ways that regular folks are solving problems and spreading happiness during the pandemic.

The solutions aren't perfect — public health experts have some critiques and suggestions. But at the same time, they applaud the ingenuity and positive vibes.

Read the stories of six grassroots change-makers — then nominate your own at the bottom of this story.

Our blog covers the globe. And as we in the U.S. mourn the citizens who died of novel coronavirus, we also wanted to pay tribute to lives lost around the world. Since the start of the pandemic, COVID-19 has claimed the lives of nearly 500,000 people worldwide.

It has been five months since the novel coronavirus started infecting Americans. Since then, the U.S. has lost more than 120,000 people to the sickness it causes — COVID-19.

So many have been touched by the deaths of family and friends. Here we remember just a few of those who continued working during the pandemic because their jobs called for it and who, ultimately, lost their lives.

Senate Republicans are unveiling their proposal on Wednesday to reform law enforcement in the United States in response to the national protest movement that followed the death of George Floyd.

Floyd, a Minneapolis man, was one of a number of black Americans who died at the hands of police in recent weeks and sparked a wave of demonstrations and debate about law enforcement and race.

The Republican-led Senate Judiciary Committee is holding a hearing on policing as lawmakers work on legislation to combat police brutality. The hearing comes amid nationwide protests on the subject. Watch the proceedings live.

Across the country, a national reckoning with race has sparked wide-ranging debates on defunding police, racial profiling, public monuments and systemic racism. This comes as protests continue nationwide, sparked by high-profile deaths of African Americans.

Updated at 10:30 p.m. ET

Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., is stepping aside temporarily as chairman of the Intelligence Committee amid a Justice Department investigation of his stock trades, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced Thursday.

The White House released guidance on coronavirus testing on Monday, which reiterates the administration's work on testing and includes recommendations for states to further develop and implement their own testing plans.

COVID-19 is keeping most of us inside, isolated from others, for days on end.

For kids (and parents!), school work can only extend so far into the day. Earlier, the NPR Arts team offered some of our favorite distractions when we are feeling worried. Now we have some heart-felt recommendations for how to enjoy the rest of the time you have in close-quarters with your family.

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