Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Samanta Schweblin is not a science fiction writer. Which is probably one of the reasons why Little Eyes , her new novel (translated from Spanish by Megan McDowell) reads like such great science fiction. Like Katie Williams's 2018 novel Tell The Machine Goodnight before it, Little Eyes supposes a world that is our world, five minutes from now. It is a place with all our recognizable horrors, all our familiar comforts and sweetnesses, as familiar (as if anything could be familiar these days) as yesterday's shoes. It then introduces one small thing — one little change, one product, one tweaked application of a totally familiar technology — and tracks the ripples of chaos that it creates. In Tell The Machine , it was a computer that could tell anyone how to be happy, and Williams turned that (rather disruptive, obviously impossible) technology into a quiet, slow-burn drama of family and human connection that was one of my favorite books of the past few years. Schweblin, though, is more

Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Samantha Bee is the host of the late night comedy show Full Frontal, so we've invited her to play a game called "Full Backtal." Three questions about the people who stand in for actors when a posterior shot is required, and the star is either unwilling or unqualified to do it. Click the audio link to find out how she does. Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Der Bundespräsident nennt die Auseinandersetzung mit der NS-Zeit einen „langen, schmerzhaften Weg“ – in seiner Gedenkrede zur Kapitulation der Deutschen Wehrmacht vor 75 Jahren formuliert Frank-Walter Steinmeier schöne Sätze. Doch den Punkt trifft er nicht.

Die EU-Kommission hat wegen der Corona-Pandemie eine Verlängerung des Einreisestopps nach Europa um einen weiteren Monat empfohlen. Zuletzt gab es immer mehr Forderungen, Deutschland solle die Kontrollen an den Grenzen zu seinen Nachbarländern aufheben.

Nach dem Ausbruch des Coronavirus in einer Fleischfabrik in Coesfeld werden die Lockerungen teilweise verschoben. Mit mehr als 50 Infizierten pro 100.000 Einwohner gilt der Kreis als Risikogebiet.

In den USA haben allein im April 20 Millionen Menschen ihren Job verloren, infolge der Corona-Pandemie. Präsident Trump versucht, durch Optimismus gegenzusteuern, und zweifelt die Zahl der Todesopfer an.

Viele Länder planen in der Corona-Krise ihre Rückkehr zum normalen Leben. Doch wer lockert, riskiert auch steigende Infektionszahlen. Der WELT-Überblick zeigt, wo sich die Entspannung rächt – und wo es Hoffnung gibt.

Wie sind Beschränkungen bei sinkenden Infektionszahlen überhaupt noch zu rechtfertigen? Und werden nach dem neuen Notfallmechanismus bei neuen Ausbrüchen ganze Städte abgeriegelt? Hessens Ministerpräsident Volker Bouffier (CDU) hält die kommende Phase für heikel.

In der Fleischfabrik Westfleisch in Coesfeld hat sich das Corona-Virus in den letzten Tagen rasant verbreitet: Mindestens 151 Mitarbeiter sind infiziert. Trotzdem ist lange nichts passiert.

Die Coronavirus-Pandemie bestimmt weiterhin das Leben überall auf der Welt. Laut Robert-Koch-Institut liegt die Reproduktionszahl in Deutschland derzeit bei 0,83 – ein leichter Anstieg zu den vergangenen Tagen. Sehen Sie alle Entwicklungen hier live.

Nicht nur in Deutschland wurde am 8. Mai der Opfer des Zweiten Weltkriegs gedacht. In Großbritannien feierten Menschen Menschen gemeinsam auf den Straßen – und die Queen wandte sich in einer Ansprache an die Bürger.

Der Strompreis ist auf ein Rekordhoch gestiegen – nicht zuletzt wegen der Energiewende. In kaum einem anderen Land zahlen Verbraucher so viel für Elektrizität wie in Deutschland. Doch mit ein paar einfachen Tricks lässt sich viel sparen.

Die allgemeine Reisewarnung ist die höchste Eskalationsstufe der Hinweise des Auswärtigen Amts. Normalerweise wird sie nur für Kriegsgebiete und besonders gefährliche Regionen ausgesprochen – jetzt gilt sie weltweit. Was Reisende wissen müssen.

Egal ob in Fugen, an Wänden oder an Fenstern: Schimmel in der Wohnung sieht nicht nur alles andere als schön aus, sondern ist auch gesundheitsschädlich. Wir erklären Ihnen, was Sie gegen Schimmelbefall tun können. 

Endlich Fotos schießen wie die Profis. Mit Spiegelreflexkameras ist das möglich. Doch Sie kennen sich mit den angesagten Kameras noch nicht gut aus? Wir stellen Ihnen die beliebtesten Einsteigermodelle vor.

Zahlungen per Karte oder Handy nehmen in der Corona-Krise stark zu, manche Experten sagen schon den finalen Tod des Bargelds voraus. Doch so schnell wird das nicht gehen. Nach Covid-19 könnten Scheine und Münzen ein Comeback erleben.

Ab dem 28. April werden Geschwindkeitsverstöße deutlich härter bestraft und Radfahrer besser geschützt. Der Schilderwald wird größer, und der Führerschein ist viel schneller weg als bisher. Das steht in der Novelle der Straßenverkehrsordnung.

Viele Senioren möchten mobil telefonieren und Apps zur Organisation des täglichen Lebens nutzen. Allerdings sind moderne Smartphones häufig auf jüngere Nutzer zugeschnitten. Doch es gibt Ausnahmen. Hier erfahren Sie, worauf Sie beim Kauf achten sollten.

Spaß macht es nicht unbedingt, aber wer einen Garten hat, muss regelmäßig den Rasen mähen. Vom Rasentraktor bis hin zum Mähroboter – hier erfahren Sie, welcher Rasenmäher zu Ihnen passt und welches das beste Modell ist!

Die richtige Poolreinigung ist wichtig, damit Schwimmen und Planschen auch wirklich Spaß machen. Hier erfahren Sie, worauf Sie achten sollten und welche Produkte Ihnen die Arbeit erleichtern. 

About 17 million people have applied for unemployment benefits in the U.S. in recent weeks. It's an astonishing number that's nearly 10 times what the system has ever handled so quickly. But, by one estimate , that money is still not flowing to about half of those people who desperately need it. And others are only getting a trickle of what they should be receiving. Many people have been out of a job for a month now. That's a long time to be without your income in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. "It's really intense and it's really frightening," says Nicolena Loshonkohl, a hair stylist NPR has been checking in with in Roanoke, Va. She's a single mom with a 2-year-old daughter. As a regular employee at a local salon, she says it was pretty easy to file for unemployment online. And she's now started to get payments. Loshonkohl feels fortunate about that. But so far, she's only receiving $340 a week. And that doesn't cover her rent, health insurance, food and other basic costs of

Updated at 8:43 a.m. ET The number of people filing for unemployment climbed by another 5.2 million last week as the toll of the nation's economic dive amid the pandemic continues to mount. That number is down from the revised 6.6 million in the week that ended April 4, the Labor Department said . But in the past four weeks, a total of 22 million have filed jobless claims — nearly wiping out all the job gains since the Great Recession. The dramatic reversal followed a decade of spectacular growth in jobs that brought the unemployment rate to near 50-year lows along with record low jobless rates for blacks and Hispanics. Now the job market is on its knees. Don't see the graphic above? Click here. The unemployment rate is expected to surge in coming months , with many full-time workers pushed into part-time jobs or not working at all. The economy lost about 700,000 jobs in March — ending 113 straight months of increases. And overall job losses are likely to be 10 to 20 times that big in

Updated at 4:04 p.m. ET $600 per week. That's what the federal government is now offering to people who've lost their jobs because of the coronavirus. For many workers and employers, that money is a godsend — a way to keep food on the table while also cutting payroll costs. But the extra money can create some awkward situations. Some businesses that want to keep their doors open say it's hard to do so when employees can make more money by staying home. "We basically have this situation where it would be a logical choice for a lot of people to be unemployed," said Sky Marietta, who opened a coffee shop along with her husband, Geoff, last year in Harlan, Ky. Their goal was to provide good coffee, good Internet service and some opportunity in a community that has been starved of all three. "We're very committed to helping to transform the downtowns and main streets in eastern Kentucky," Marietta said. When the couple advertised for workers, nearly 100 people applied for just a handful of

Editor's note: This is an excerpt of Planet Money 's newsletter. You can sign up here . US Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS / AFP via Getty Images As the global economy shuts down, the U.S. Federal Reserve has begun sending billions of dollars to central banks all over the world. Last month, it opened up 14 " swap lines " to nations such as Australia, Japan, Mexico, and Norway. A "swap line" is like an emergency pipeline of dollars to countries that need them. The dollars are "swapped," i.e., traded for the other country's currency. The Fed has also started allowing around 170 foreign central banks that hold U.S. Treasury bonds to temporarily exchange them for dollars. Sending billions of dollars abroad in the middle of a historic economic crisis might seem crazy: As America's economy crumbles, why are we moving our precious dollars *out* of the country? The answer has to do with the Fed's unique position in the global economy. Dollars are the lynchpin

When the British economy ground to a halt a few weeks ago, Reda Maher suddenly found himself among the ranks of the unemployed, alongside untold millions of other people around the world. But unlike many others, Maher can rest easy, knowing that money will keep flowing into his bank account until he's called back to work. "I woke up a couple of hours later than I normally would. I won't lie," Maher said one afternoon earlier this month. "I took a nice long masked and gloved walk. I've got a remote personal training like fitness session in about 20 minutes." The United Kingdom recently began paying 80% of the salaries of workers laid off because of the coronavirus pandemic. The government caps the pay at about $3,000 a month, but many employers, including the London-based video streaming service where Maher works, add to what the government hands out. Maher also doesn't need to worry about being left without health care coverage, thanks to Britain's National Health Service. Across

Updated at 8:46 a.m. ET The number of people forced out of work during the coronavirus lockdown continues to soar to historic highs. Another 4.4 million people claimed unemployment benefits last week around the country, the Labor Department said . That brings the total of jobless claims in just five weeks to more than 26 million people. That's more than all the jobs added in the past 10 years since the Great Recession. Still, the pace of job losses is slowing. About 5.2 million filed during the week that ended April 11 and last week was the third consecutive week of declines. Don't see the graphic above? Click here. The coronavirus crisis has suddenly ended a decade of remarkable job growth. The unemployment rate, which sank to nearly 50-year lows, is expected to soar into double digits. The pace of job losses has the broader population worried. A Gallup poll found that a quarter of working Americans believe they will lose their jobs in the next 12 months. That's a record high. The

"You can't really have a concert if you can't have an audience," David Roode muses. His career as a concert trombonist in Cincinnati went abruptly on hold when stay-at-home orders took effect in March. "I had months of gigs that were just canceled." Roode and his wife, a concert pianist, have done some recording while on lockdown in Cincinnati. And they've tapped into savings they typically rely on during the slower summer months. "If I kind of burn through my summer money now, then when the summer comes and there's no work, there might be more of a problem," Roode says. He's done some soul-searching about the role of a musician during a pandemic. "The medical professionals are the ones who are on the front lines who are really making a difference," Roode says. But he thinks artists and performers will eventually be in demand again. "I really think when this is all over, people are going to want to go hear concerts and they're going to want to have that experience." Read more stories

Maxwell Kirsner used to build sets for a company that staged big events in New York City. Those events dried up suddenly in mid-March. "I was laid off on Friday the 13th," he recalls. The timing actually turned out to be fortunate, as Kirsner was able to apply for and start receiving jobless benefits before the huge wave of layoffs that soon followed, overwhelming unemployment offices. His fiancée, Natalie Borowicz, and others who worked for the same company got pink slips a few weeks later. When we spoke, some were still waiting for their benefits to begin. "They're struggling to pay rent and buy food and all that," Kirsner said. "We're all in the same boat, but we're all on different seats on that boat." He's grateful that his bosses and coworkers continue to check in on one another regularly, and he hopes to return to work someday. "The light at the end of the tunnel is that it's New York City, and eventually, events have to come back," he said. "So, part of me has faith, but part

Editor's note: This is an excerpt of Planet Money 's newsletter. You can sign up here . The Planet Money team on GoToMeeting with a goat (Listen to our recent episode, " Making It Work ") Planet Money Like a decent chunk of the American workforce, Planet Money is now working remotely. Every morning, we have an all-staff video conference on GoToMeeting. We use Slack for conversations. We record in closets and use Dropbox to transfer the files. We're making the best of it — we're happy to have the work — but no one really loves it. Since the birth of the personal computer, futurists have been predicting the death of the office. If we can chat over video and instantly exchange messages and files, they figured, why would we endure stressful commutes in fossil-fuel-burning vehicles just to sit side by side in brick-and-mortar buildings? I mean, we're mostly staring at screens there anyway. But the office has proven more stubbornly useful than we had imagined. Between 2005 and 2015, despite

There's a call Laura Jean Truman is dreading, and she's convinced it's just a matter of time before it comes. Truman, who's a server at Manuel's Tavern in Atlanta, says the source of her angst is the fear that sometime in the next few weeks her boss is going to call and say it's time to go back to work, putting her in the position of having to make a choice between her safety and being able to pay the bills that continue to arrive despite the coronavirus. "Right now, everyone who is not working at restaurants is able to be on unemployment," she told NPR. "But once restaurants decide to open, and if we decide that we don't feel safe going back into those restaurants, we then are no longer eligible for unemployment because then we have a job opportunity that we're turning down," Truman explained. "It's a tremendously scary thing to have to think about," she said. The predicament is one in which millions of people receiving state unemployment benefits along with federal dollars from the

Updated at 8:43 a.m. ET Another 3.2 million people filed for unemployment for the first time last week, bringing the total number of jobs lost during the coronavirus crisis in the last seven weeks to at least 33.5 million. Last week's number was down from the nearly 3.9 million initial claims filed the week ending April 25, and filings have fallen for five weeks in a row. The claims numbers come one day before the release of the April jobs report, which is expected to show a staggering jump in unemployment to around 16%. The Congressional Budget Office has projected that unemployment, which hit 4.4% in March, will average nearly 14% during April, May and June. Moody's Investors Service predicts it will rise to 15% during the quarter. The real unemployment rate is probably higher, says Elise Gould, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute. "I think we are not near the peak yet," she says. "I think we are still going to see additional job losses show up in the data for May,

The Labor Department is expected to deliver a historically bad employment report Friday, showing millions of jobs lost last month as the jobless rate soared to around 16% — the highest level since the Great Depression. Unemployment inched up to 4.4% in March as the coronavirus began to take hold in the United States. It approached 25% during the Great Depression and remained elevated until World War II. As painful as the report for April will be, it won't tell the full story of the economic wreckage left by the coronavirus and the government's drastic efforts to control it. The report is based on surveys conducted in the middle of April, and claims for jobless benefits suggest that millions of additional jobs have been lost since then. What's more, the headline unemployment figure includes only people who are actively looking for work and those on temporary furlough, ignoring millions more who have been involuntarily idled by the pandemic. Even with those limitations, the April

Updated at 11:43 a.m. ET The Labor Department delivered a historically bad employment report Friday, showing 20.5 million jobs lost last month as the nation locked down against the coronavirus. The jobless rate soared to 14.7% — the highest level since the Great Depression. The highest monthly job loss before this was 2 million in 1945, as the nation began to demobilize after World War II. The worst monthly job loss during the Great Recession was 800,000 in March 2009. Loading... Don't see the graphic above? Click here. Unemployment was 4.4% in March as the coronavirus began to take hold in the U.S. It approached 25% during the Great Depression and remained elevated until World War II. Loading... Don't see the graphic above? Click here. The carnage was felt across industries in April. With most travel shut down, leisure and hospitality jobs fell by 7.6 million. The retail and health care sectors each dropped by 2.1 million. Manufacturing lost 1.3 million and government jobs fell by 980

Very briefly, at the end of 2019 and the start of 2020, there were slightly more women on American nonfarm payrolls than men. That's no longer true. The historically disastrous April jobs report shows that the brunt of job losses fell on women. Women now account for around just under half — 49% — of American workers, and they accounted for 55% of the increase in job losses last month. One way of looking at why that matters that is to look at the gap that opened up between women's and men's unemployment last month. The below chart shows women's unemployment rate minus men's unemployment rate since 2007. Usually, the line bumps around near or just below zero — meaning men's unemployment is usually near or slightly higher than women's. But that spike on the far right shows how women's unemployment leapt to be 2.7 points higher than men's in April. Women had an unemployment rate of 16.2% to men's 13.5% last month. That's uncommon for a recession. The below chart is a longer view, and the

Hier ein Gläschen, dort ein Fläschchen: Alkohol kann bald zur Sucht werden. Doch wie spricht man einen Partner, einen Freund oder Verwandten auf seinen übermäßigen Konsum an?

Nicht nur Lunge, Herz und Geruchssinn werden bei Covid-19 geschädigt, sondern auch die Nieren. Das zeigen neue Untersuchungen. Ein Nierenexperte erklärt, wieso Risikogruppen wie Dialysepatienten besonders gefährdet sind.

Viele Singles hoffen dank Online-Dating momentan auf Liebe. Doch was nützt weltweite Suche? Darf man Sex haben? Eine Psychologin erklärt, was auf Dating-Apps als attraktiv gilt und wieso Flirten derzeit gut tut.

Freunde und Psychologen sehen es kritisch, wenn Menschen auf eine gescheiterte Beziehung gleich eine neue folgen lassen. Doch wer schnell einen neuen Partner findet, gewinnt in jeder Hinsicht.

Ihr Liebhaber zeigt ein angeschlagenes Selbstwertgefühl oder Angst vor Nähe? Überlegen Sie sich gut, ob er der richtige ist – denn er könnte irgendwann auch Sie betrügen.

Dies sind harte Zeiten für alle Menschen. Wer aber ohnehin psychisch angeschlagen ist, für den sind sie noch schwerer. Psychiater Mazda Adli erklärt, was psychisch kranken Menschen jetzt hilft – und allen anderen auch.

„Nicht länger als eine Woche benutzen“, warnt jeder Apotheker beim Verkauf von Nasenspray. Doch viele Betroffene bleiben jahrelang abhängig. Ein HNO-Arzt erklärt, wie das Spray unwiederbringlich die Schleimhäute zerstört.

Selbsterkenntnis, das klingt gut – nur sind wir schlecht darin. Wir halten uns ständig für besser, klüger und lustiger als wir sind. Schlimm? Nein, sagt Psychologe Steve Ayan. Er glaubt: Unser falsches Selbstbild tut uns gut.

Wer gegen seinen Willen in die Psychiatrie kommt, könnte ein Trauma davon tragen: Unter bestimmten Umständen dürfen Patienten fixiert oder in videoüberwachte Räume gesperrt werden. Doch wann sind Zwangsbehandlungen nötig – und wann Freiheitsentziehung?

In vielen Ländern wird darüber diskutiert, Immunitätsausweise auszustellen. Sie sollen Menschen, die eine Infektion hinter sich haben, endlich wieder Urlaub und damit eine Rückkehr in den Alltag ermöglichen. Was sagen Immunologen und die WHO dazu?

Vorerkrankungen können zu einem schweren Verlauf von Covid-19 führen. Jetzt liegen eindeutige Belege vor, dass vor allem Übergewicht sich problematisch bei einer Infektion auswirkt. Besonders Männer haben eine Schwachstelle.

Was findet die Super-Frau mit Modelmaßen nur an dem Dicken mit Glatze? Manche Paare sehen so unterschiedlich aus, dass sie in der Öffentlichkeit häufig anecken. Wie können sie damit umgehen?

Sie werden auf den Finger geklemmt und messen Puls sowie den Sauerstoffgehalt im Blut. In häuslicher Quarantäne kann das wichtig sein – zumindest für bestimmte Infizierte. Doch wie genau messen Pulsoximeter?