NPR's Juana Summers speaks with Stafford Braxton about his company, Santas Just Like Me, which provides Santas of color and representation for Christmas celebrations.

NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with Rep. Katherine Clark on her election as House Minority Whip.

NPR's Ari Shapiro speaks with far-right extremism expert Sam Jackson about the conviction of Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes.

In the 1980s and early 1990s, a Los Angeles DJ named Deirdre O'Donoghue ran a late-night KCRW show that championed underground musicians, often in live performance. That archive will soon be released.

NPR checks in on a woman in Ukraine, six months after her town was liberated from Russian occupation.

Young volunteers blast techno music while helping people in destroyed villages and then hold dance parties to blow off steam. "Listening to music keeps us balanced, so we can keep working," one says.

A group of volunteers are spreading joy in Ukraine by organizing cleanup parties. Young Ukrainians blast music and dance as they clean the debris of obliterated homes.

The attacks came only hours after Russia blamed Ukraine for a weekend explosion that partially damaged a strategic bridge that connects Russian-occupied Crimea to mainland Russia.

As Russia completed its controversial annexation of four occupied regions of Ukraine, the Ukrainian army is taking back some of that territory village by village.

In Ukrainian villages on the front line, Russia's illegal annexation of Ukrainian regions may further complicate life.

Final results from so-called referendums in Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine indicate overwhelming support for joining the Russian Federation. The voting is widely condemned as a sham.

Voting is done for the so-called referendums in Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine. Preliminary results show a landslide victory for Moscow. Ukraine and its allies have dismissed the voting as a sham.

The so-called referendums — which Ukraine, the U.S. and others have denounced as shams — are widely viewed as an initial Kremlin move toward formal Russian annexation of the territories.

Ukrainians are fleeing from Russian-held areas to avoid the sham referendums, which could pave the way for annexation. "It was all staged," said one Ukrainian. "How can you vote when they have guns?"

NPR's Ari Shapiro talks with 22-year-old jazz singer Samara Joy, who recently took to the stage of legendary club Blues Alley in Washington, D.C. Her album, Linger Awhile, is out now.

On the outskirts of the recently liberated town of Izium, investigators have found what Ukrainian officials are calling a mass grave. It is now being inspected for possible evidence of war crimes.

The city of Izium, Ukraine, was occupied by Russia in early March and became their hub of operations in the region. It was liberated just last week. Residents describe surviving months of occupation.

Europe's largest nuclear plant will remain shut down until Russian forces leave, the head of Ukraine's atomic energy agency tells NPR. Under Russian occupation, he says, "staff cannot operate freely."

All three of the backup power lines to the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine have been restored, but the situation at the plant is still worrisome.

NPR's Ari Shapiro speaks with Alex Gibson of the Kentucky-based arts and media organization Appalshop, about how recent floods affected their archives of Appalachian music, film and heritage items.