When Bug got home from school one winter afternoon in late 2024, his mother was on the couch, watching 30 Rock re-runs. Bug sat down next to her; he had an announcement to make.
Bug, who was assigned female at birth, told his mother he was a boy — and would be using he/him pronouns.
"OK, cool," his mother, J, remembers saying. Bug, who was in sixth grade at the time, had previously come out as non-binary, but this felt like an even bigger step.
"We started talking about, like, 'What are you wanting to have happen? What do you need to be supported?'" J said. "And he asked to get health care."
Bug is a nickname, and his mother asked NPR to identify Bug that way, and identify her by her first initial, J, because the family fears harassment.
This was the kind of moment J had been anticipating for a while. She felt immensely grateful that the family had left Texas in 2024, and resettled in western Massachusetts, a state with laws that she felt were more supportive of bodily autonomy, and a culture more welcoming of diverse lifestyles.
A shovel, hand weights and a construction hat now displayed in the foyer of New York City Hall are symbols of what Mayor Zohran Mamdani says are the "pothole politics" behind key achievements in his first 100 days in office. That's where we started our conversation this week during a wide-ranging interview for NPR's Newsmakers video podcast.
Iran will shut the strait of Hormuz if the US blockade continues, Iran’s parliamentary speaker has warned.
A San Francisco-based coffee chain that sparked backlash with a policy to remove Pride flags from their stores has reversed its decision over a week later.
The University of Michigan regent Jordan Acker, who helped lead the university’s crackdown on pro-Palestinian students, appears to have made obscene sexual comments about a Democratic party strategist in a group chat, messages provided to the Guardian reveal. The Slack messages, attributed to Acker, also include lewd comments about a female U-M student and a picture of her with her friends.
State and local prosecutors in Minnesota charged an ICE officer Thursday with two counts of second-degree assault with a dangerous weapon.
A US blockade of Iran’s ports is in place with President Donald Trump warning that any vessels approaching the blockade of Iranian shipping would be “immediately eliminated.”
Two former student leaders at the School of Oriental and African Studies (Soas) in London have reached a settlement with the university’s students’ union after taking the union to court over wrongful dismissal for their anti-Zionist beliefs and pro-Palestine activism.
US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth read a fake Bible verse from Quentin Tarantino's 1994 cult classic film Pulp Fiction on Wednesday, during a Christian prayer and worship service at the Pentagon. 
