National

NPR's Michel Martin talks to marketing expert Professor Marcus Collins about how organizations decide whether to speak out on prominent social issues.

Taylor Tomlinson has found the kind of success many comedians dream about, with multiple Netflix specials and a late-night hosting gig — After Midnight on CBS. She tells Rachel that part of the secret to her success is fear. They also swap stories about their Christian upbringings, the search for validation and getting things stuck up their noses.

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Median home prices were about five times the median income last year, according to a Harvard report, and it could get worse. And centuries-old cherries were discovered at George Washington’s home.

One day in late April 1958, a young economist named Madeleine Tress was approached by two men in suits at her office at the U.S. Department of Commerce. They took her to a private room, turned on a tape recorder, and demanded she respond to allegations that she was an "admitted homosexual." Two weeks later, she resigned.

Madeleine was one of thousands of victims of a purge of gay and lesbian people ordered at the highest levels of the U.S. government: a program spurred by a panic that destroyed careers and lives and lasted more than forty years. Today, it's known as the "Lavender Scare."

In a moment when LGBTQ+ rights are again in the public crosshairs, we tell the story of the Lavender Scare: its victims, its proponents, and a man who fought for decades to end it.

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Philadelphia has hired a service to clean up after violent shootings outdoors. The idea is to minimize community trauma when neighbors do the cleaning themselves or firefighters hose away the blood.

Louisiana is the first state to require the Ten Commandments to be displayed in public school classrooms. Opponents have threatened to sue, questioning the new law’s constitutionality.