1A

By NPR

What's 1A about?

1A is home to the national conversation. Joshua Johnson hosts with great guests and frames the best debate in ways to make you think, share and engage.

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The Hit List: From 'The Cro...

11.24.2020

We're breaking down the latest movies, music and television we love with writer Brooke Obie, NPR TV critic Eric Deggans and Vox's Emily VanDerWerff. Want to support 1A? Give to your local public radio station and subscribe to this podcast. ...

1A episodes:

11.24.2020 The Hit List: From 'The Crown' To 'Good News,' We're breaking down the latest movies, music and television we love with writer Brooke Obie, NPR TV critic Eric Deggans and Vox's Emily VanDerWerff. Want to support 1A? Give to your local public radio station and subscribe to this podcast. ...
11.23.2020 Donald Trump's Destruction Of Documents "Because of the desire to avoid disclosure of information...people have been moving to these commercial messaging systems like Signal...this is really changing the way civil servants and government officials behave," says author Richard Ovendon. Want to support 1A? Give to ...
11.20.2020 The News Roundup For November 20, 2020 Over 250,000 people have died of COVID-19 in the United States. The acting Defense Secretary announces American troop withdrawals in Afghanistan and Iraq. We got to all that plus a lot more, as we covered the top stories from this ...
11.19.2020 Native Voters Shaped the 2020 Election. What's Next? "It brings joy to my heart," says Kansas Representative Sharice Davids about the historic number of elected Native candidates this election. "I think more native folks in congress is going to mean the education of Native issues among our colleagues ...
11.18.2020 Polling Your Leg? The Pitfalls Of Predicting An Election Feeling like you can't trust the polls again? We talked about the perks and perils of political polling with The Marist Institute for Public Opinion's Lee Miringoff, HuffPo's Ariel Edwards-Levy and Gallup's Mohamed Younis. Want to support 1A? Give to ...
11.17.2020 An Epidemiologist And A Psychologist Talk About The Holidays Are you canceling your Thanksgiving plans? If you are, you're not alone. After a massive surge in coronavirus cases, getting together is becoming even more risky. We talked about what to do during an upcoming holiday season like no other. ...
11.16.2020 Why Do We Still Have The Electoral College? It might have seemed like a good idea to the framers of the Constitution in the 1780s, but we've been arguing about the Electoral College ever since. Who is at the forefront of the fight for a fairer system? Want ...
11.14.2020 1A Presents: Gun Play 2018 was the deadliest year in U.S. history for school shootings. In the podcast "Gun Play," hosts Hady Mawajdeh and Jerome Weeks follow Cry Havoc Theater Company as its student actors set out on a cross-country journey to create an ...
11.13.2020 The News Roundup For November 13, 2020 The U.S. breaks its single-day coronavirus infection record. President-elect Joe Biden's national lead in the election widens. The European Union agrees to buy a coronavirus vaccine. Iran's supply of uranium is far above the agreed limit. Want to support 1A? ...
11.12.2020 Prop 22 Passed. What's Ahead For Gig Workers Nationwide? After Prop 22 passed in California, organizers and tech companies expect the fight over whether gig economy workers should be classified as employees or independent contractors to go national. Want to support us? Give to your local public radio station ...
11.11.2020 What We Know About Pfizer's COVID-19 Vaccine "It seems the states that had previously avoided COVID-19 are getting hit," says reporter Dan Diamond. "And in those states, there may have been fewer protections over the last few months because people felt safer." Want to support 1A? Give ...
11.10.2020 A Conversation With Author Kiese Laymon "It's sort of hard to hurt yourself and not hurt anyone else," says author Kiese Laymon about his republished essay collection, "How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America." Want to support 1A? Give to your local public radio ...
11.09.2020 How Whiteness Affected The Election Professors Eddie Glaude Jr. and Brittney Cooper joined us to talk about the role of race in President-elect Biden's presidential victory and President Trump's relative success. Want to support 1A? Give to your local public radio station and subscribe to ...
11.06.2020 The News Roundup For November 6, 2020 Votes are still being counted in the presidential election. The pandemic reaches a grim milestone. The U.S. withdraws from the Paris Climate Agreement, and a large iceberg breaks off of Antarctica. This podcast was recorded between 10-12 p.m. ET. The ...
11.05.2020 Answering Your Questions About Lawsuits And The Election "I have yet to see a single lawsuit filed on the Trump side that I think could credibly call into question a significant number of votes that could plausibly affect the outcome in any of these states," says the ACLU's ...
11.04.2020 The 1A Election Results Roundup One thing we know for sure? "The polls were very, very wrong in these swing states," says politics reporter Reid Wilson. Follow NPR for the latest updates on the election. Want to support 1A? Give to your local public radio ...
11.03.2020 1A And The Moth Present 'Voting Day' By Juliette Holmes Juliette Holmes' parents could technically vote, but they had to pass a test. The questions were not fair. "How many jelly beans are in this jar? How many bubbles are in this bar of soap?" In partnership with The Moth, ...
11.03.2020 The Hit List (Or, The 1A Pop Culture Roundup) This Election Day is historic. But the news coverage might be a bit unrelenting, so if you're looking for a reprieve, we're offering you an episode of The Hit List. Find all our latest political coverage here, and be sure ...
11.02.2020 Poverty, Politics And The Presidential Election "64 million people who are poor or low wealth are eligible voters," says Rev. Dr. William Barber. "They could change who sits in the White House, who sits in Congress, who sits in the governor's mansion." Want to support 1A? ...
10.30.2020 The News Roundup For October 30, 2020 The United States passed nine million coronavirus cases. Tens of millions of Americans vote early during the home stretch before Election Day. France deals with a new wave of COVID-19 lockdowns and Chile votes to write a new constitution. Want ...
10.29.2020 The Latest On Senate Races In North Carolina, Georgia And Maine "There's outright voter suppression and tacit voter suppression. When voters have to bring lawn chairs to vote that's a problem. That's what happened in 2018," says reporter Greg Bluestein, of voter access in Georgia. Two Senate seats are up for ...
10.28.2020 How Armed Militia Groups Are Preparing For Election Day And Beyond Guns & America reporter Heath Druzin defines a militia as "a group of people who do weapons training, for a potential conflict, often with the explicit or implicit idea that if a tyrannical government comes down on the people, they ...
10.27.2020 The 1A Movie Club: Bad Hair "Black movies and movies about the Black experience, they deserve to get criticism just like the white movies," says critic Ronald Young, Jr. But because there are not enough Black movies, we are afraid to criticize them. Want to support ...
10.26.2020 Tech Check: The Google Antitrust Suit And Section 230 "Big Tech have [...] become gatekeepers over things like commerce and speech," says reporter Cecilia Kang. "There are a handful of tech companies with tremendous power." Want to support 1A? Give to your local public radio station and subscribe to ...
10.23.2020 The News Roundup For October 23, 2020 Days before the election, we watched the final presidential debate. Judge Amy Coney Barrett now faces a full Senate vote for her Supreme Court confirmation. Plus, we have the latest on protests in Nigeria against police brutality, Bolivia's election of ...
10.22.2020 W. Kamau Bell And Hari Kondabolu On 'Politically Re-Active's' Return "Satire has gotten hard under this president. Every headline sounds like an "Onion" article. What we're competing with is reality," says comedian Hari Kondabolu. "There is always a need for comedy and politics to intersect," W. Kamau Bell adds. Want ...
10.21.2020 The FDA's Role In A COVID-19 Vaccine "There's a distinction between the public perception that politicians are trying to influence the agency and what's actually going on in the FDA's day-to-day regulatory work," says former FDA commissioner Dr. Mark McClellan. Want to support 1A? Give to your ...
10.20.2020 Is 'Latinx' The Future Of Latino Identity? "Unless we start understanding the collectivity of us, and what makes us one...we risk falling into a pretty big identity crisis," author Paola Ramos says. She says exploring the term "Latinx" forces those hard questions. Want to support 1A? Give ...
10.19.2020 How Young Activists Are Fighting For Change "Grassroots activism is so important for an issue like climate," says Kiera O'Brien, of Young Conservatives for Carbon Dividends. "What we've seen for the last 20, 30 years is a complete punt by our government." Plus, we start the show ...
10.16.2020 The News Roundup For October 16, 2020 Trump and Biden answered questions at two separate town halls, while Amy Coney Barrett answered questions at her SCOTUS hearings. COVID cases rise in the US--and Europe--as the holidays near, causing France in particular to declare a state of emergency. ...
10.15.2020 The Challenge Of School Discipline During The Pandemic Danielle Elliott says it's a lot more difficult for teachers to engage with special needs students remotely. "My son does struggle with ADHD," she says. "I would think it'd almost be easier when my child gets distracted to just hit ...
10.14.2020 How Conspiracy Theorists Are Disrupting Efforts To Fight Human Trafficking How can you reach someone who's starting to believe conspiracies? "Part of QAnon is to completely reject reality ... you have to get to people before they get there," says NBC's Ben Collins. Want to support 1A? Give to your ...
10.13.2020 Unpacking The Amy Coney Barrett Nomination Hearing (So Far) We broke down what Judge Amy Coney Barrett's nomination to the Supreme Court could mean for the future of the court and the country. Want to support 1A? Give to your local public radio station and subscribe to this podcast. ...
10.12.2020 What Is Anarchism? "Anarchism is actually a highly organized idea that requires a lot of cooperation and planning because it doesn't rely on forms of authoritarian and state violence," anarchist William C. Anderson says. Want to support 1A? Give to your local public ...
10.10.2020 Jacob Collier Hasn't Let Lockdown Pause His Music "Music is one of the places in my life I think I feel the most empowered and safe to stretch my idea of what's right and wrong, what's possible and what's impossible, and to kind of blur those lines," says ...
10.09.2020 The News Roundup For October 9, 2020 The president is home from the hospital after a positive diagnosis for coronavirus. German leaders are preparing for the possibility of a new COVID-19 outbreak. And conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia over the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh continues to escalate. Want ...
10.08.2020 What Matters To Urban Suburban Voters Suburban women are a coveted voting demographic. They were key to President Donald Trump's win in 2016, and they're shaping up to be a pivotal demographic in this year's election too. But President Trump's version of the American suburb is ...
10.07.2020 Power Player: Why James Baker Is The Man Who Ran Washington "I think that [Baker] has this ability to engage with people across many different lines...in a way, coming from this very patrician background gave him a kind of self-confidence others don't have, coming into Washington," co-author Susan Glasser says. Want ...
10.06.2020 Tracking The Coronavirus Cluster At The White House "I've spoken with five former residence staffers and they are losing sleep over this. They're concerned about the butlers in particular," journalist Kate Brower says about White House employees in close proximity to President Donald Trump, who has returned from ...
10.05.2020 Historian Jill Lepore On The Corporation That Invented The Future "I find myself baffled by what we have tacitly or unknowingly agreed to with regard to the collection of personal data about each of us and its use by for-profit corporations to predict our behavior and therefore manipulate our behavior ...
10.03.2020 The Struggle For Working Mothers During The Pandemic Women workers have been hit particularly hard by the pandemic. "In March, the unemployment rate for women was about 4%, and now it's hovering around 14%...for Black women it's about 15% and for Latina women it's about the same," researcher ...
10.02.2020 The News Roundup For October 2, 2020 President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump tested positive for coronavirus at a time when the nation was still reacting to recent revelations about his tax returns and the presidential debate. Protests have erupted in Venezuela over power cuts ...
10.01.2020 Election Day...Election Week...Election Month? Experts have been warning us for months that the presidential election may not be decided on November 3. And we might not know the winner for a while after that. So what could happen in the interim? Want to support ...
09.30.2020 What President Trump's Tax Returns Reveal About The Tax Code "A lot of the complication [in the tax code] comes from carve-outs and special rates for particular types of activity ... particularly for wealth," says economist Chye-Ching Huang. Researcher Veronique de Rugy adds, "Every exemption in the tax code serves ...
09.29.2020 The State Of The Census "After learning the effect that an undercount has on my community, it just really opened my eyes. Everything about the resources that are available to my community is determined by census data," says Rosemary Soto, who leads the census committee ...
09.28.2020 All That Matters Is That You Get Hyped: The Enduring Power Of Boy Bands What makes a boy band? Researcher Maria Sherman says generally, "they're young, they're cute, they don't have facial hair but their hair is a big deal." But there's a lot more to boy bands than that. Like what you hear? ...
09.25.2020 The News Roundup for September 25, 2020 President Donald Trump raises questions about the 2020 election, while a grand jury ruling on the police officers that killed Breonna Taylor reignites protests. China commits to carbon-neutrality. The situation around Belarus remains contentious and Prince Harry ruffles feathers over ...
09.24.2020 Block The Vote: Texas Voter ID Laws + Gerrymandering In Michigan We travel to Texas and Michigan to talk about two things that influence the way people vote and the power your ballot has: voter ID laws and gerrymandering. Want to support 1A? Give to your local public radio station and ...
09.23.2020 How Generation Z And Millennials Are Fighting A Poll Worker Shortage "I compare being a poll worker to being a fast food worker, except that there's not as much room for mistakes," says poll worker Evan Malbrough. "If you make a mistake with somebody's ballot you've suppressed their right to vote." ...
09.22.2020 ICE, A Whistleblower And Forced Sterilization "Women [in detention] are faced with this problem where they don't have [medical] choices and they don't have the liberty to go find those choices," says migrant rights advocate Michelle Brané. She also remarks about how for-profit prisons fit into ...

Older episodes

1A

What's 1A about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

1A episodes:

The Hit List: From 'The Crown' To 'Good News,'

Donald Trump's Destruction Of Documents

The News Roundup For November 20, 2020

Native Voters Shaped the 2020 Election. What's Next?

Polling Your Leg? The Pitfalls Of Predicting An Election

An Epidemiologist And A Psychologist Talk About The Holidays

Why Do We Still Have The Electoral College?

1A Presents: Gun Play

The News Roundup For November 13, 2020

Prop 22 Passed. What's Ahead For Gig Workers Nationwide?

What We Know About Pfizer's COVID-19 Vaccine

A Conversation With Author Kiese Laymon

How Whiteness Affected The Election

The News Roundup For November 6, 2020

Answering Your Questions About Lawsuits And The Election

The 1A Election Results Roundup

1A And The Moth Present 'Voting Day' By Juliette Holmes

The Hit List (Or, The 1A Pop Culture Roundup)

Poverty, Politics And The Presidential Election

The News Roundup For October 30, 2020

The Latest On Senate Races In North Carolina, Georgia And Maine

How Armed Militia Groups Are Preparing For Election Day And Beyond

The 1A Movie Club: Bad Hair

Tech Check: The Google Antitrust Suit And Section 230

The News Roundup For October 23, 2020

W. Kamau Bell And Hari Kondabolu On 'Politically Re-Active's' Return

The FDA's Role In A COVID-19 Vaccine

Is 'Latinx' The Future Of Latino Identity?

How Young Activists Are Fighting For Change

The News Roundup For October 16, 2020

The Challenge Of School Discipline During The Pandemic

How Conspiracy Theorists Are Disrupting Efforts To Fight Human Trafficking

Unpacking The Amy Coney Barrett Nomination Hearing (So Far)

What Is Anarchism?

Jacob Collier Hasn't Let Lockdown Pause His Music

The News Roundup For October 9, 2020

What Matters To Urban Suburban Voters

Power Player: Why James Baker Is The Man Who Ran Washington

Tracking The Coronavirus Cluster At The White House

Historian Jill Lepore On The Corporation That Invented The Future

The Struggle For Working Mothers During The Pandemic

The News Roundup For October 2, 2020

Election Day...Election Week...Election Month?

What President Trump's Tax Returns Reveal About The Tax Code

The State Of The Census

All That Matters Is That You Get Hyped: The Enduring Power Of Boy Bands

The News Roundup for September 25, 2020

Block The Vote: Texas Voter ID Laws + Gerrymandering In Michigan

How Generation Z And Millennials Are Fighting A Poll Worker Shortage

ICE, A Whistleblower And Forced Sterilization

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