1A

Thanks in large part to the pandemic, home prices are soaring. In March, the median hit a record high of over $370,000. One affordable housing option is the mobile home.

Around 22 million Americans live in a mobile or manufactured house. It's the largest sector of non-subsidized affordable housing in the country. Unfortunately, they aren't turning out to be the haven many were hoping for. Now, investors are scooping up these parks during the pandemic.

New ownership from out of state has meant restrictive rules, price hikes, and sometimes even eviction. Mobile home residents are particularly vulnerable to these buyouts with few rights and protections.

We talk about what this means for affordable housing in the U.S. and mobile home parks across the country.

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As abortion gets harder and harder to access in the U.S., Latin America is moving in the opposite direction. In December 2020, Argentina legalized abortion up to 14 weeks and became the largest nation south of the U.S. to do so. Mexico and Colombia's courts did the same shortly after. The feminist movement responsible in part for this change is known as "the green wave" and has gained traction in a region where the Catholic Church has significant influence over politics and social beliefs. Now, activists have their sights set on Chile and Brazil.

However, the latest news of the leaked draft opinion on Roe v. Wade is concerning for Colombians. The U.S. Supreme Court's potential decision could sway the South American country's own courts which legalized abortion up to 24 weeks in February.

We speak with experts on Latin America about the lessons the U.S. can take away from these movements and what overturning Roe v. Wade could mean for global abortion rights.

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There's one person with the power to end the war in Ukraine in an instant: Russian President Vladimir Putin. He's a powerful figure, and new reporting on the source of his wealth reveals just how powerful he really is.

We discuss Putin's personal fortune and why he doesn't want anyone to know where he got it.

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While the term self-care was reimagined in the 1980s by Black civil rights activist and feminist Audre Lorde, the concept has been co-opted and commercialized.

Has the pandemic changed how we view self-care? What do we get wrong about it? And what does it take to really take care of ourselves?

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A leaked draft of a Supreme Court majority opinion suggesting the justices voted to overturn Roe v. Wade leaked this week, sparking nationwide protests in support of federally-protected abortion rights.

The Federal Reserve implemented its first half-point interest rate rise since 2000.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has asked the U.N. to help evacuate the wounded from his country. Some 300 people were taken out of the contested city of Mariupol. Ukrainian fighters have pushed the Russian forces back from the city of Kharkiv.

The U.S. now says WNBA star Britney Griner is wrongfully detained in Russia after the player was held up by authorities as she tried to leave the country following its invasion of Ukraine.

We cover the most important news this week on the international portion of the News Roundup.

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The Midterm elections are six months away and the most recent polling suggests Republicans have an early edge. If they take the House, Rep. Kevin McCarthy is likely to become the majority leader.

He garnered attention in the past two weeks when The New York Times released audio of private phone calls and meetings he had with other GOP leaders. They were recorded in the aftermath of the Capitol riot and they tell a very different story than what he said publicly.

In the leaked tapes, McCarthy is critical of Donald Trump's role in the insurrection and other members of his caucus. But do Republican voters care?

We listen to the sound with one of the reporters who broke the story before heading to McCarthy's district to get a response from his community.

This conversation is part of our Remaking America collaboration with six public radio stations around the country, including KVPR, NPR for Central California. Remaking America is funded in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

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A leaked draft of a Supreme Court opinion suggests that the justices have voted to strike down Roe v. Wade, eliminating 50 years of federal abortion protections.

Whatever the court decides, abortion laws are already changing across the United States.

We discuss how the Supreme Court's potential decision could impact what happens at the state level, and the ways abortion providers are preparing for those changes.

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The Ohio primary kicks off a month of similar contests in vital swing states from Pennsylvania to Georgia. And there's one unofficial candidate on the ballot: former President Donald Trump.

According to a New York Times count, the former president has endorsed candidates in at least 40 Republican primaries.

We discuss what's at stake for the Republican Party — and for Trump — in these midterms.

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For almost all of us, $44 billion is an amount of money we can't even fathom—let alone access in order to buy one of the largest social media companies in the world.

But Elon Musk is poised to do just that. If the deal between Musk and Twitter pans out, it could be the second-largest deal of its kind in American history.

Here's the catch. Much of money isn't lying around in his bank accounts.

So how does someone—even a billionaire—borrow that much money?

We talk about Elon Musk's plans to purchase Twitter—and where he's getting the money to do it.

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Her claim to fame came in 2014 with her fourth novel, "Station Eleven" — a post-apocalyptic pandemic survival tale that's garnered new meaning over the last two years.

Now, Emily St. John Mandel is back with her latest work of speculative fiction, "Sea of Tranquility." It's a pandemic novel written during a pandemic... about an author who wrote a pandemic novel right before a pandemic — so it also hits close to home.

We talk with Emily St. John Mandel about making meaning with speculative fiction.

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