NPR News

With the national death toll from COVID-19 passing the grim 150,000 mark, an NPR/Ipsos poll finds broad support for a single, national strategy to address the pandemic and more aggressive measures to contain it.

Two-thirds of respondents said they believe the U.S. is handling the pandemic worse than other countries, and most want the federal government to take extensive action to slow the spread of the coronavirus, favoring a top-down approach to reopening schools and businesses.

For most public officials, battling the coronavirus and keeping their constituents safe is an incredible professional challenge.

For Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia, it's also personal: His mother died of COVID-19 complications last month at age 61.

His mother, Gaby O'Donnell, was a medical assistant for more than 25 years in Southern California. She immigrated from her native Peru with 5-year-old Garcia and other family members in 1982.

Kathleen de Leon is frustrated with the U.S. handling of the coronavirus.

"Well just look at the news," she says. "It's a disaster."

De Leon is German, and she and her husband, an American, and have been living in the United States for more than a decade. She says their daughter Zoe is happy here and so the family wasn't planning a move to Germany. But now they're talking about it.

Voters head to the polls in a handful of states Tuesday, in the latest tests of voting systems stressed by the ongoing pandemic.

Mississippi is heading for a title that no state would want: It is on track to overtake Florida to become the No. 1 state for new coronavirus infections per capita, according to researchers at Harvard.

The state already faces high levels of diabetes, hypertension, heart disease and obesity.

At least 36 crew members from a Norwegian cruise ship have tested positive for COVID-19, according to Hurtigruten, the company that owns the ship. Several passengers have also tested positive in what the cruise line describes as an "outbreak" onboard the MS Roald Amundsen.

Four patients were admitted to a hospital in the northern Norwegian city of Tromso where the ship is now docked.

Nearly 1 million renter households across the Ohio Valley are unable to pay rent and at risk of eviction, according to research firm Stout. That amounts to 42 percent of renter households in Kentucky, 46 percent in Ohio and 47 percent in West Virginia.

Federal grants of about $10 million from the U.S. Department of Commerce were awarded to four West Virginia projects Monday to help with infrastructure maintenance and economic development in the state.

Two of those projects are in the southern coalfields where the need for a more diversified workforce remains crucial.

In April 2018, Tianna Spears joined the State Department, looking forward to the promise of a fulfilling career. Then 26, she had spent three years learning Spanish in the Dominican Republic and Spain to help land a position in the Foreign Service.

"I was super-excited to start," she says. "I had dreams of being a diplomat and living in several places in Latin America."

Adria Gonzalez still remembers the blood, the screaming, the bodies.

On August 3, 2019, she was shopping with her mother at a Walmart Supercenter in El Paso, Texas, when a gunman opened fire with an AK-47, killing 23 people and leaving more than two dozen others wounded.

Miss international travel? Why not recreate the experience in the comfort of your own home with some airplane food?

A leading airline food company in Israel is offering its in-flight meals to the general public as a low-cost delivery option during the pandemic.

Tamam Kitchen, which services Israel's El Al airlines, Turkish Airlines and other international carriers flying out of Tel Aviv, piloted the idea in late July as a way to stay in business.

Updated at 5:10 a.m. ET Tuesday

The National Hurricane Center says Isaias came ashore near Ocean Isle Beach, N.C., on Monday just after 11 p.m. ET with sustained winds of 85 mph, but it lost some of its steam within hours, weakening into a tropical storm.

The system was expected to swirl up the Mid-Atlantic coast and into the northeastern United States on Tuesday night.

Despite progress made on a vaccine against COVID-19, "there's no silver bullet at the moment and there might never be," the World Health Organization's director-general warned on Monday.

The U.S. Navy says it is investigating footage that shows a man wearing a Colin Kaepernick jersey being attacked by dogs during a K-9 demonstration hosted by an independent Navy SEAL museum.

A viral video shows four dogs attacking a man wearing protective gear and a replica of former NFL star Kaepernick's red and white jersey. A second video shows the man in the jersey falling to the ground. He is heard making a joke about standing — an apparent reference to Kaepernick's protests while kneeling — eliciting laughter from a crowd of onlookers.

Afghan forces have retaken control of a prison in eastern Afghanistan, a day after it came under an attack by ISIS militants.

A suicide bomber drove a car loaded with bombs into the prison's main gate, exploding it. ISIS fighters moved in through the gap, firing on prison guards.

Attaullah Khogyani, the provincial governor's spokesman, told The Associated Press that 29 people had died, including civilians, prisoners, guards and Afghan forces. Another 50 or more people were wounded, Afghan Defense Ministry spokesman Fawad Aman told Reuters.

A collapse in demand for suits and other office attire is leading another storied retailer across the brink, with the parent company of Men's Wearhouse and Jos. A. Bank filing for bankruptcy.

Parent company Tailored Brands had been struggling with debt and flagging demand before the coronavirus pandemic. But the temporary store closures and collapse in apparel sales during the health crisis took their toll.

In mid-April, hundreds of scientists from around the world were supposed to fly to Ecuador for a five-day meeting about the latest research on reducing greenhouse gas emissions and removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Federal Judge Esther Salas says more must be done to keep judges and their families safe after an attack on her home in New Jersey last month left her son dead and her husband wounded.

"My son's death cannot be in vain," Salas said in an emotional nine-minute video released Monday. "Which is why I'm begging those in power to do something to help my brothers and sisters on the bench."