Consider This from NPR

The federal government will shut down on October 1st if Congress doesn't pass funding legislation for the next fiscal year before then. That looks increasingly likely as House Republicans continue to hold out for deep spending cuts before agreeing to any deal to keep the government running. A shutdown could potentially affect millions of Americans, among them some of the country's most vulnerable people. Host Ari Shapiro speaks with a trio of NPR correspondents about the potential impact of a government shutdown. Email us at considerthis@npr.org.

The U.S. government and 17 states sued Amazon on Tuesday in a landmark case that could take down the tech giant. The Federal Trade Commission and a bipartisan group of state attorneys general say that Amazon is a monopolist that chokes competitors and raises costs for both sellers and shoppers. Lina Khan, the head of the Federal Trade Commission, has spent years arguing that a few big companies have too much control over corporate America. The new lawsuit against Amazon is the biggest test of these arguments yet. NPR's Ari Shapiro talks to FTC Chair Lina Khan, the driving force behind the case.

President Biden made history on Tuesday when he joined members of the United Auto Workers union on a picket line outside Detroit as they strike for better pay and benefits from the Big Three automakers. Biden is walking a political tightrope. He wants a better contract for workers–and to win union members' votes in battleground states. He also wants to support carmakers as they transition to a future of electric vehicles. NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with Micheline Maynard, the author of The End of Detroit: How the Big Three Lost Their Grip on the American Car Market, to understand how profitable the big carmakers are right now. And NPR's Michel Martin speaks with historian Jefferson Cowie about the unprecedented nature of Biden walking the picket lines. Email us at considerthis@npr.org.

146 days. That's how long it took for the WGA to reach a tentative agreement with major Hollywood studios. WGA leadership is scheduled to vote Tuesday on accepting the new three-year deal. They'll pass it on to the guild's entire membership for ratification. It will take longer for the WGA membership to learn the details and vote. While this is happening, actors are still on the picket line. SAG-AFTRA hasn't reached an agreement yet. Until then, writers say they will stand in solidarity with actors, which means many TV shows and movies won't be resuming production right away. NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with Kim Masters, The Hollywood Reporter's editor, about the WGA's new deal and what it means for the industry at large as actors continue to strike. Email us at considerthis@npr.org.

As president Joe Biden's campaign for a second term gets underway, a slew of recent polls show that voters have concerns about his age. At the end of a second term, he would be 86 years old. The Republican frontrunner, former president Donald Trump, is just a few years younger. We wanted to check in with some voters who have first-hand experience with aging: seniors. So we headed to Pittsburgh and the surrounding suburbs, a pivotal region in a pivotal state in the 2024 race, and spoke with older voters how they're thinking about age in this election. Email us at considerthis@npr.org.

Close to five thousand people have died in federal prison since 2009. There are 100 federal prisons across the U.S. An NPR investigation found that a quarter of those deaths happened at one federal prison. Butner Federal Correctional Complex in North Carolina. Inmates have a constitutional right to health care. Being denied care is considered cruel and unusual punishment. But many of the sick inmates who wind up at Butner don't get the healthcare they are entitled to – and some end up dying. NPR's Meg Anderson tried to find out why. Email us at considerthis@npr.org.

New York City has become an unlikely battleground for migrant rights. The city, like others, has struggled to deal with the arrival of tens of thousands of migrants - bussed in from Republican-led states like Texas and Florida. Amid rising pressure to do something to alleviate this problem, the Biden administration announced on Wednesday that it was granting Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, to nearly a half million Venezuelans - thousands of whom are in New York City. TPS protects them from deportation and allows them to apply for work permits. Host Ailsa Chang speaks with NPR's Jasmine Garsd about how New York has landed at the center of America's immigration debate and what the Biden administration's policy announcement means for migrants. Email us at considerthis@npr.org.

On Tuesday, five Americans detained for years in Iran stepped off a plane back onto US soil. They were released in the US-Iran prisoner swap that also saw five Iranians freed and the US agreeing to 6 billion dollars of Iranian oil money being unfrozen. Per the deal, Iran is supposed to spend the money only on humanitarian goods like food and medicine. Among the five freed Americans: Siamak Namazi. The longest-held US citizen in Iran, detained since 2015. When he stepped off that plane yesterday, his brother Babak was there to greet him. NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with Babak Namazi on what the prisoner swap means for his family. Email us at considerthis@npr.org.

The state of California has filed a massive lawsuit against oil companies. The charge is that oil companies knew they were causing climate change, and lied to cover it up. And now, California is suing for damages. The state is suing to force fossil fuel companies to help fund recovery efforts related to California's extreme weather related events — floods, fire, dangerous heat --which have been made more common and intense by climate change. Back in the 1990s, states across the country sued tobacco companies - demanding that they be compensated for healthcare costs associated with treating people for smoking-related illnesses. It was a long and complicated process, but states won more than $360 billion. The victory brought a big change to the tobacco industry, forcing companies to accurately label cigarettes as potentially lethal, and limiting where and how cigarettes could be marketed. Host Ailsa Chang speaks with Richard Wiles, president of the Center for Climate Integrity on the ramifications of the climate lawsuit. A previous version of this episode did not include a statement from the American Petroleum Institute responding to Richard Wiles' comments.

On Monday, five Americans who were imprisoned in Iran, stepped off a plane in Doha, Qatar. They were freed as part of a prisoner exchange deal between the U.S. and Iran. Despite the happy news, the Biden administration is facing a lot of criticism for this deal, which also gave Iran access to about $6 billion of its oil revenue - money that had been frozen under sanctions targeting the government in Tehran. The deal also comes just a little over a year after the death of a young Kurdish-Iranian woman named Mahsa Amini. Her death sparked the biggest anti-regime protests that Iran had seen in years. NPR's Arezou Rezvani tells us about the legacy of those protests a year later. We also hear reporting from NPR's Michele Kelemen about the U.S.-Iran prisoner swap. Email us at considerthis@npr.org.

Since becoming Speaker of the House of Representatives Kevin McCarthy has faced the constant threat that members of the right wing of his own Republican Party could move to oust him from power. And now, many view his launch of an impeachment inquiry into President Biden as a political move to protect his flank. Host Scott Detrow speaks with former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich about McCarthy's political dilemma and with NPR's Congressional Correspondent Deirdre Walsh. Email us at considerthis@npr.org.

If you're over a certain age and you love movies, when you think "movie critic", you probably picture Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert and their popular TV shows. Their iconic "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" move made it clear what each of them thought about a film. In some ways, the movie review website Rotten Tomatoes is the opposite of Siskel and Ebert. Their viewers depended on the insights of two individuals that they trusted, and felt they knew. Rotten Tomatoes aggregates and averages reviews from lots of critics to assign a movie a number ranking, and declare it "fresh" or "rotten". Since its launch 25 years ago, it's become the the go to site for lots of potential movie goers, offering everything they need to decide whether or not a movie is worth seeing. But for a while now, there have been complaints about the way the site ranks films. And concerns that those rankings unfairly influence whether a movie succeeds or bombs. Host Scott Detrow talks to Lane Brown, who took the site to task in a recent article on Vulture, and film critic Jamie Broadnax, editor-in-chief of the culture site, Black Girl Nerds.

It can be hard to see how big government policies have a direct effect on an individual's experience. But it was easy to measure the difference made by the expanded child tax credit. Giving more money to low-income families with children had a big impact. After the expanded child tax credit took effect, child poverty hit a record low of 5.2% a year ago. But less than a year later, Congress let it expire. New census data shows that child poverty has more than doubled. Host Ari Shapiro speaks with pediatrician and researcher Megan Sandel, who has seen the health consequences for kids play out in real time.

The president of the United Auto Workers says the union is planning to carry out sudden, strategic and partial strikes at plants should contract talks with Detroit's Big Three automakers fail ahead of a contract deadline on Thursday night. UAW President Shawn Fain also held out the possibility of an all-out strike in the future of the nearly 150,000 union members. In addition to concerns over pay, workers are worried about what electric vehicles mean for their future. NPR's Camila Domonoske reports on how the transition to electric vehicles has many autoworkers concerned about their job security. And Senior White House Correspondent Tamara Keith reports on why the UAW hasn't endorsed President Biden for re-election in 2024. Email us at considerthis@npr.org.

Right now it seems like people all around us are testing positive for COVID. But for the most part, they are not getting seriously ill. The Food and Drug Administration just approved a new booster. And on Tuesday advisers to the CDC recommended it for everyone six months and older. With a new variant and a new booster, how should we think about the pandemic in this moment? Email us at considerthis@npr.org.

When North Korean leader Kim Jong Un visited Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2019, both countries were in a different position. Russia had yet to invade Ukraine. Four years later, Russia is trying to secure weapons from North Korea. The two leaders are expected to meet this month to discuss a deal. NPR's Ari Shapiro talks with Jean Lee, the former Pyongyang bureau chief for the Associated Press, and Georgetown University's Angela Stent, about the upcoming meeting between Kim Jong Un and Putin — and what North Korea might get out of it. Email us at considerthis@npr.org.

The National Football League's regular season is finally underway. And for loyal fans who have been devouring all the news of their favorite teams, it couldn't have come soon enough. But even if you're just a casual viewer of football, or really any network television program, you've probably seen the star-studded ads for a related business: sports betting. The league's partnership with major sports betting sites continues to draw criticism. Ten NFL players have been suspended for gambling violations since April, leaving critics and fans wondering if the relationship between football and gambling will harm the integrity of the game. Host Nathan Rott speaks with David Purdum who covers the gambling industry for ESPN. Email us at considerthis@npr.org.

The Endangered Species Act turns 50 this year. The landmark law has been successful for decades at stopping extinctions of several plants and animals. Recovering endangered or threatened species to the point where they no longer need federal protection has been more difficult because of climate change. NPR's Nathan Rott speaks with Martha Williams, Director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service about the agency's plans to mitigate threats of extinction caused by climate change.

The writers and actors strikes have been grinding on for months with no end in sight. Many on the picket lines are struggling to pay for basics. NPR's Ailsa Chang talks to Fran Drescher about what it's going to take to end the strikes. Drescher's the president of SAG-AFTRA, which represents the actors on strike. Email us at considerthis@npr.org.

Giant machines sucking carbon dioxide out of the air to fight climate change sounds like science fiction, but it's close to becoming a reality, with billions of dollars of support from the U.S. government. And a key player in this growing industry is a U.S. oil company, Occidental Petroleum. With a major petroleum company deploying this technology, it begs the question, is it meant to save the planet or the oil industry? NPR's Camila Domonoske reports. Email us at considerthis@npr.org.