Fiery Twitter threads and endless news notifications never capture the full story. Each week on The Assignment, host Audie Cornish pulls listeners out of their digital echo chambers to hear from the people who live the headlines. From the sex work economy to the battle over what’s taught in classrooms, no topic is off the table.

If you’re reading this, you’re probably looking at a phone or a computer screen. These days we spend most of our lives looking at screens – whether it’s for work, school, or fun – but how is it shaping us? On season six of Chasing Life, Dr. Sanjay Gupta takes us on his most personal journey yet, while he dives into the science behind how technology is impacting our brains. As a dad of three teenage girls, he explores how worried we should be about the effect screen time is having on kids’ health.

Anderson Cooper takes us on a deeply personal exploration of loss and grief. He starts recording while packing up the apartment of his late mother Gloria Vanderbilt. Cooper begins a series of emotional and moving conversations about the people we lose, the things they leave behind, and how to live on - with loss, with laughter, and with love.

CNN’s Chief International Correspondent Clarissa Ward travels to some of the most volatile corners of the world to document the greatest power struggles of our time.

Explore why the traditional rules of money management no longer apply to new generations. This podcast humanizes money by examining the culture we make it in and how to make it work for you.

Unpack the scandal, partisanship, and celebrity of the Golden State’s 2003 recall election – and explore what it might have forecasted about politics today.

Whether you’re a political novice or longtime expert, this podcast will bring something new and vital to your understanding of what it means to be democratically elected.

Hundreds of people are killed by the police in the US each year. Much of the media attention has been on the race of victims, but there is another disturbing pattern to the deaths. A large number of those killed in interactions with police have a disability, with some research suggesting the figure is as much as half of the total number. We dissect some of these cases - reconstructing events, speaking to eye-witnesses and to officers involved in such fatal incidents - to ask why they happen so frequently. What are revealed are some deep-rooted issues concerning not just police culture, but also concerning the attitudes of society as a whole towards the disabled. (2018)

In 14 US states, there are already schools in which some teachers carry guns. Before they can be armed in the classroom, teachers in one of those states, Ohio, go through a three-day training course. An estimated 400 more teachers have gone through that training there this year. I joined the latest group of Ohio teachers trying to qualify to carry a gun in the classroom. There were simulated scenarios the teachers were put through in which they would be expected to use their weapon. This is how these scenarios unfolded. (2018)

Gases which help to heat the atmosphere and contribute to climate change are a by-product of the cattle industry. They include direct emissions of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, from cows, and carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide from the likes of packaging, transportation and fertilizers. But one farmer in the US state of Georgia believes a different way of farming means his cows can be part of the solution. Will Harris says "it’s not the cow, it’s the how". (2019)

Once hunted to near extinction, North Atlantic right whales are now facing new human threats that could end the species. Here are the people risking their lives to save them. (2019)