Marc Silver

NPR's Jason Beaubien is in Kailahun, Sierra Leone, covering the Ebola outbreak that began in March in Guinea and has spread to neighboring countries. This morning, he talked with us about a controversial burial, the impact of the "no touching" recommendation — and a sign of hope.

Yesterday ...

NPR's Jason Beaubien is in Sierra Leone, covering the Ebola outbreak that began in March in Guinea and has spread to neighboring countries. We'll be speaking with him throughout the week about what he's seeing on the ground. Today he's in Kailahun, the largest town in the country's eastern ...

The great novelist Nadine Gordimer, whose stories told of the immorality of apartheid in her beloved South Africa, has died at age 90.

Gordimer was not only a writer. She was an activist in the fight to end apartheid. In her writings and speeches, the Nobel Prize winner offered ...

Last Sunday I literally was clueless about a New York Times crossword puzzle clue: "Menace named after an African river." The answer was five letters long. WHAT WERE THEY?!?!

I finally did figure out the answer from the crossing words: Ebola. And that's how I learned the origin of the ...

"Goats and Soda: Stories of Life in a Changing World."

That's the name of NPR's new blog, covering health and all sorts of development around the world.

You may be thinking: "Goats? Soda? This blog is going to look at communicable diseases, education struggles, sanitation concerns ... and it's called ...

He was a little boy, 9 years old. He and his mother had both been infected with Ebola. She likely caught the virus while washing a deceased Ebola victim, as is often the custom for burials in Guinea. Then she probably infected her child.

Once she began showing symptoms, she ...

People are hiding from health care workers. New cases are turning up in unexpected places. At funerals, family members don't always follow the advice not to touch the body of the deceased, which may still harbor the deadly virus.

These are a few of the signs that, in the words ...

Who's a member of the Pepsi Generation? Anyone?

Would anyone still "like to buy the world a Coke"?

Yes, it's tough times for Big Soda in the U.S. The numbers alone make it clear. "The entire [U.S.] carbonated soft drink category has been down for nine years," says John Sicher, ...

Alec Baldwin, you were salmoning!

The actor was ticketed in New York on Tuesday for riding his bicycle the wrong way on a one-way street.

Cyclists use the term "salmoning" to describe a biker going against the stream on a one-way bike lane. Surely the definition can be broadened ...

The sexy male model makes bedroom eyes and says, "Malaria."

The sexy female model twirls her glossy hair in a flirtatious manner and says, "Diarrhea."

It's part of a 2 minute, 17 second public service spot called "The Most Important 'Sexy' Model Video Ever." And no, it's not a spoof.

...

On April 24, an American health care worker based in Saudi Arabia flew from Riyadh to London to Chicago, then took a bus to Indiana.

Three days later, the man began experiencing shortness of breath and coughing. He also ran a fever. He visited the emergency room on April 28 ...

You've made a commitment to yoga to improve your health.

So there you are in class, with a teacher you've never had before. And while you're flipping your down dog, you realize you're not exactly flipping over the teacher.

Maybe the teacher is a yoga bully: "OK, everybody up for ...

It's not every fruit that gets its own international symposium.

Then again, the jackfruit is not your typical fruit. It's got a distinctive, musky smell, and a flavor that some describe as like Juicy Fruit gum.

It is the largest tree fruit in the world, capable of reaching 100 pounds. ...

Imagine that you've just been told you have cancer. The good news is that it's early stage. Still, your doctor believes a course of chemotherapy would boost your survival odds.

Then this week you read the headline, "Chemo for breast cancer increases unemployment risk."

What are you supposed to ...

Children in northwestern Nigeria are no longer dying by the hundreds.

That's the promising word from Mary Jean Brown, chief of the lead poisoning prevention program at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

She is a co-author of a recent assessment of the lead poisoning crisis ...

This Easter, you can drown your sorrows in a glass of Jellybean milk — or with a pile of beer-flavored jelly beans.

The new twists are a sign that jelly beans are continuing their march to candyland domination. Americans buy 16 billion beans in the Easter season alone (mid-February until ...

Yes, it is true that gardening requires patience.

But face it, we live in an impatient world. And gardeners everywhere were depressed by the brutal and endless winter. (True story: The polar vortex killed my fall kale crop!)

So we are understandably eager to get sowing. And to see results ...

They have recovered from the deadly virus that is ravaging Guinea. They feel blessed by their good fortune. But family and friends are often afraid to welcome them back with open arms.

Yet another entertainment figure has gone public with her decision to have a double mastectomy after a breast cancer diagnosis. Samantha Harris is the latest in a series of entertainers who've decided on that surgery as treatment for the disease.

Harris, a 40-year-old mother of two and former co-host ...

Passover is famously the holiday when Jews ask four questions at the ceremonial meal, most notably, "Why is this night different from all other nights?"

This year, there's a new answer: For the first time, the Orthodox Union, the ultimate authority on kosher foods, has put its "kosher for ...