NPR News

Despite strong opposition from Republicans and rural voters, Missouri on Tuesday joined 37 states and the District of Columbia in expanding its Medicaid program.

Voters in Missouri approved Amendment 2, creating a state constitutional amendment that will open Medicaid eligibility to include healthy adults starting on July 1, 2021.

Voters approved expansion by a vote of 53.25% to 46.75%. A total of 1,263,776 voters weighed in on the measure.

Former Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach lost the Senate GOP primary on Tuesday, delivering a victory of sorts for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's strategy to hold on to his majority this November.

The coronavirus pandemic has laid bare many of the problems of societies around the world. In Italy, the first Western country hit by COVID-19, it revealed how much the country relies on its migrant work force. Many undocumented migrants work on farms, as field hands and harvesting crops — jobs that Italians don't want. With the pandemic, they were suddenly recognized as essential.

One African-Italian became the spokesman for hundreds of thousands of migrants — those who couldn't stay home, who were risking their health to go out to work.

It was supposed to be a great year for Golden Daka. He would be the first member of his family to graduate from college. He had a big commencement speech planned for his graduation from Morehouse College, where he was a valedictorian.

"I wanted to give that huge speech on stage with my family, friends and loved ones there, who made it very possible for me to go to Morehouse," says Daka.

But in March campus emptied and classes went online. And then the moment he'd been waiting for — commencement — it was postponed.

Three stranded mariners were rescued from a remote island in Micronesia on Monday after search crews spotted their "SOS" message written in the sand.

The three-person crew of a skiff had not been heard from since July 29, and were reported missing on July 31. The mariners were reportedly sailing a 23 nautical-mile journey from Pulawat to Pulap atolls in the Federated States of Micronesia, in the western Pacific, when they sailed off course and ran out of fuel.

Presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden says if elected, he would not tear down the parts of the barrier along the U.S. Southern border built during the Trump administration — but he would cease construction.

"There will not be another foot of wall constructed on my administration, No. 1," he told NPR's Lulu Garcia-Navarro during an interview with journalists from the National Association of Black Journalists and National Association of Hispanic Journalists.

Nearly 30 years ago, Hindu extremists armed with pickaxes tore down a 16th century mosque in the northern Indian town of Ayodhya, sparking riots that killed thousands of Muslims.

Today, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi fulfilled a campaign promise to his Hindu nationalist base by laying the cornerstone of a grand Hindu shrine on that very same spot. The ceremony coincides with the first anniversary of India's revocation of special rights in Kashmir, its only Muslim-majority state.

Lauren Beukes' new Afterland takes place in a world that exists not long after our own — a very near future in which a terrible virus has wiped out almost all the men in the world, leaving a scant few million, mostly held in government research facilities.

Thousands of foreign workers who entered the U.S. on temporary work visas received $1,200 checks in error during the first round of stimulus payments, and many of them are spending the money in their home nations. One tax preparation firm told NPR that it has clients from 129 countries who mistakenly received stimulus checks, including Brazil, Canada, China, India, Nigeria and South Korea.

American football is famous for being a full-contact sport. That presents a challenge for trying to keep the coronavirus at bay.

But the NFL is going for it, with some changes.