NPR News

A Springfield man pleaded guilty Monday to trafficking young women for sex in central Illinois.

For the NHL, the bubble experiment paid off.

On Monday night, the Tampa Bay Lightning beat the Dallas Stars 2-0 to win the Stanley Cup.

The NHL carried out more than 33,000 coronavirus tests over the course of nine weeks — and says none of them have come back positive as of Sept. 26. The league is expected to release a final report soon.

The Trump administration has compared Operation Warp Speed's crash program to develop a COVID-19 vaccine to the Manhattan Project. And like the notoriously secretive government project to make the first atomic bomb, the details of Operation Warp Speed's work may take a long time to unravel.

World Cafe celebrates Hispanic Heritage Month from Sept. 15 to Oct. 15. In doing so, we look back to some of the incredible live performances from artists that have been featured on World Cafe, Latin Roots and WXPN's XPoNential and Nuevofest music festivals. Check out this 25-song video playlist, featuring a studio performance from Chicano Batman, a festival performance by Xenia Rubinos and much, much more.

When Joe Prude called Rochester, New York, police to report his brother missing, he was struggling to understand why Daniel Prude had been released from the hospital hours earlier. Joe Prude described his brother's suicidal behavior.

"He jumped 21 stairs down to my basement, headfirst," Joe says in the early hours of March 23, in a video recorded by the responding officer's body camera. Joe's wife, Valerie, described Daniel nearly jumping in front of a train the previous day, on the tracks that run behind their house.

Youli Lee is proud of the years she worked for the U.S. government, prosecuting cybercrime in some of the world's darkest places. These days, she's the one hiding out — mostly from her three children, ages 8, 11, and 13.

"I just actually locked my door so that nobody could come here," she says, from her bedroom.

The ruler of Kuwait, Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah, has died at the age of 91. Born in an era when the tiny Gulf emirate's economy relied on pearl diving, his life spanned the discovery of oil and Kuwait's emergence as one of the world's richest countries.

Kuwaiti state television announced the emir's death Tuesday after playing Quranic prayers.

Updated at 4 p.m. ET

Firefighters are battling multiple fast-spreading wildfires in Northern California, including the heart of the state's wine country, as authorities say at least three civilians have been killed by the Zogg Fire in Shasta County.

This broadcast originally aired on July 14, 2020.

We talk to the best friends behind the podcast “Call Your Girlfriend.” Their new book details what it takes to maintain long distance friendships.

National security officials say the Kremlin is at it again: Just like in 2016, Russia is using social media to try to undermine the U.S. presidential election, only with even more sophisticated tools.

Senate Republicans plan to move forward with Judge Amy Coney Barrett's Supreme Court nomination with hearings before the Judiciary Committee starting Oct. 12.

Barrett's likely confirmation will lock in arguably the most conservative Supreme Court since the 1930s, with the potential to weaken patient protections of the Affordable Care Act and abortion rights in Roe v. Wade, among other decisions.

The census is up against a lot this year.

Despite months of closed movie theaters, postponed releases, and stalled productions, the pop culture well has yet to run dry. Whether you found a screening for “Tenet,” or you’re staying at home to stream “Mulan,” there’s plenty of new releases to go around.

Rumaan Alam's Leave the World Behind is a slippery and duplicitous marvel of a novel. When, deep into the night, a vacationing couple hears a knock at the door of their remote Airbnb rental in the Hamptons, as a reader you think, "Oh, this is a suspense story." Then, when that couple, who are white, opens the door to a couple outside who are Black and conversational awkwardness ensues, you think, "Oh, this is a comedy of manners about race, a kind of edgy riff on Guess Who's Coming to Dinner."

Since the release of the Mueller report in April 2019, it's been analyzed, praised and criticized — and cited by President Trump as proof that there was no collusion with Russia in the 2016 presidential election.

Andrew Weissmann was one of the lead prosecutors on special counsel Robert Mueller's team. In his new book, Where Law Ends, Weissmann looks back on where the Mueller investigation succeeded — and where it fell short.

When a man pulled a shotgun out from under a long coat and started shooting into a church congregation near Fort Worth, Texas, last winter, Jack Wilson didn't hesitate. Within seconds, the volunteer security guard unholstered his weapon and returned fire.

With one shot, Wilson killed the 43-year-old gunman and then kicked the shotgun away. Keith Thomas Kinnunen had already shot two congregants, who died. But there were more than 250 people in the West Freeway Church of Christ that day, on Dec. 29, and many credit Wilson for saving many more lives.

A Lake County power couple has allegedly been breaking state campaign finance laws for years, allowing the pair — who sit on the Lake County Board and Lake Forest City Council — to take in more campaign contributions than legally allowed, including from Republican mega donors Dick and Liz Uihlein.

Months before she died, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg received a letter from the chair of the board of a Jewish museum in Tel Aviv: Would she donate an artifact for the museum exemplifying her contribution to the field of justice and world civilization?

Two weeks later, on Jan. 27, Ginsburg replied on Supreme Court stationery: "I would be glad to contribute to the Museum of the Jewish People in Tel Aviv one of the collars I wear with my robe at oral arguments. Would that be satisfactory?"

The jade gemstones that generate billions of dollars a year in Myanmar — the world's biggest exporter of the stone — are beloved in China, where they can sell for more than gold. But they are a symbol of tragedy and suffering for the people who live and work in the country's mines in Hpakant, in Myanmar's northernmost Kachin State.

In Glenwood Springs, Colo., the restaurant Masala and Curry was having its best summer ever. Residents of the densely-populated Denver Metro Area eager for a COVID-19 summer staycation flooded the mountains along the critical transportation artery that is Interstate 70. And many stopped in to try the restaurant's Indian cuisine.

The recording of grand jury proceedings in the Breonna Taylor case will be released this week — an unusual step that comes after a juror disputed Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron's public explanation for why no charges were filed that are directly related to Taylor's killing by Louisville police.

Jefferson Circuit Judge Ann Bailey Smith has "ordered attorneys to file a recording of the grand jury proceedings" by Wednesday, member station WFPL reports. It's not yet clear when the recording might be released to the public.

On Nov. 4, the day after the election, the United States will officially exit the 2015 Paris climate agreement.

The date is a coincidence. Still, the timing underscores a crucial victory for the Trump administration in its efforts to derail federal action on global warming, which the president dismisses as a hoax.

Citing a "reprisal" by the Indian government against its human rights work, Amnesty International said Tuesday that it had to lay off staff and halt operations in India.