Consider This from NPR

The total fertility rate is a small number with big consequences.

It measures how many babies, on average, each woman will have over her lifetime. And for a population to remain stable - flat, no growth, no decline - women, on average, have to have 2.1 kids.

In the U.S., that number is 1.6, and dropping. It's driving a new political debate about what – if anything – can be done about it.

The thing is, beneath that demographic data point are millions of families making intimate decisions about kids. NPR's Sarah McCammon and Brian Mann dug into the politics and personal stories behind America's shrinking birthrate.

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Imagine standing in water shallow enough to just barely hit the soles of your feet. And then it rises so fast that in just about ten minutes, it's up to your neck. That's how fast the Guadalupe River in Texas rose last week, according to state officials.

Twenty-six feet in less than an hour.

That flooding left dozens dead, devastated homes and businesses. Officials, emergency crews and volunteers are hoping more survivors will be found. But in a press conference today, officials warned the death toll will continue to rise.

In the Texas Hill Country, climate change and geography conspired to create one of the worst floods in generations.

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If you're a parent, decisions about vaccines have gotten a lot more confusing recently. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.'s health department is walking back longstanding recommendations.

NPR's Pien Huang speaks with a pediatrician and a vaccine researcher to discuss how the changes may affect public health - and how frontline conversations are going between pediatricians and families.

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Independence Day means different things to each of us. On this 249th birthday for America, we spend some time looking at different definitions of America by revisiting NPR's 2018 series: American Anthem — which had the simple goal of telling 50 stories about 50 songs that have become galvanizing forces in American culture.

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President Trump put essentially his entire domestic agenda in one bill.

It would significantly cut clean energy incentives, Medicaid and food assistance programs — and double down on tax cuts, immigration enforcement and national defense.

Despite opposition from Democrats, and divides within the Republican Party, it passed through Congress.

How did that happen? And what does it mean for American taxpayers? NPR correspondents explain.

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This summer marks 80 years since the end of World War II when Allied forces liberated Nazi-occupied Europe, and also began to discover the horrific scale of the Holocaust.

An estimated six million Jews were systematically murdered by the Nazi regime.

With the passage of time, there are fewer and fewer survivors who can tell the stories of what they witnessed and endured.

Once fringe ideas of Holocaust denial are spreading. Multiple members of President Donald Trump's administration have expressed support for Nazi sympathizers and people who promote antisemitism.

The stories of those who lived through the Holocaust are in danger of being forgotten. And there's a race against time to record as many as possible.

In this episode, the story of a Jewish man who survived Buchenwald and an American soldier, who helped liberate the concentration camp.

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The massive tax and spending bill central to President Trump's agenda is one step closer to reality.

After weeks of negotiations and 49 consecutive votes that started Monday morning, the senate approved President Trump's signature domestic policy bill around lunch time Tuesday. It now goes back to the House of Representatives where Republican Speaker Mike Johnson will have to reconcile the senate changes with his members' competing priorities.

Michael Ricci has had a long career in republican politics, including working as Speaker Paul Ryan's communications director and Speaker John Boehner's Chief Speech writer. We talked with him about the stakes, and the bill's prospects in the House.

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The massive budget bill that Senate Republicans are debating pays for some of its tax cuts by slashing hundreds of billions of dollars in Medicaid spending. The latest report from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office estimates nearly 12 million people will lose health insurance if the Senate version of the bill becomes law.

Trump insists the cuts come from eliminating waste, fraud and abuse. Democrats have said they break Trump's promise not to touch Medicaid — and over the weekend, Republican Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina agreed. "What do I tell 663,000 people in two years or three years when President Trump breaks his promise by pushing them off of Medicaid because the funding's not there anymore?"

We asked Sarah Jane Tribble, the chief rural correspondent for KFF Health News, what the cuts will mean for rural residents of states like North Carolina — and the hospitals that serve them.

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A number of Supreme Court decisions handed down this term have expanded the power of the president while limiting the power of the courts.

How has this term changed the relationship of the judicial and the executive branches?

NPR's Scott Detrow speaks with Greg Stohr from Bloomberg about what we've learned about the makeup and direction of the court from this year's rulings.

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Although President Trump launched air strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities, the administration has chosen a different path when dealing with Kim Jong Un, the leader of nuclear-armed North Korea.

For our Reporter's Notebook series, host Scott Detrow speaks with NPR correspondent Anthony Kuhn about covering Trump and Kim's past negotiations and the difficulties of reporting on North Korea.

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