Brian Mann
Brian Mann is NPR's first national addiction correspondent. He also covers breaking news in the U.S. and around the world.
Mann began covering drug policy and the opioid crisis as part of a partnership between NPR and North Country Public Radio in New York. After joining NPR full time in 2020, Mann was one of the first national journalists to track the deadly spread of the synthetic opioid fentanyl, reporting from California and Washington state to West Virginia.
After losing his father and stepbrother to substance abuse, Mann's reporting breaks down the stigma surrounding addiction and creates a factual basis for the ongoing national discussion.
Mann has also served on NPR teams covering the Beijing Winter Olympics and the war in Ukraine.
During a career in public radio that began in the 1980s, Mann has won numerous regional and national Edward R. Murrow awards. He is author of a 2006 book about small town politics called Welcome to the Homeland, described by The Atlantic as "one of the best books to date on the putative-red-blue divide."
Mann grew up in Alaska and is now based in New York's Adirondack Mountains. His audio postcards, broadcast on NPR, describe his backcountry trips into wild places around the world.
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Sarah Beckstrom, one of the two West Virginia National Guard members shot Wednesday in Washington, D.C., died Thursday. The latest on the investigation into the attack.
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Officials are conducting a "coast-to-coast" investigation into the shooting of two National Guard members in Washington, D.C., the FBI head said. The suspect had worked with the CIA in Afghanistan.
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Rahmanullah Lakanwal, the Afghan man who allegedly shot two National Guard members in Washington, D.C., had served in one of Afghanistan's elite counterterrorism units, according to a nonprofit run by people who served in Afghanistan. -
Beckstrom, 20, was an Army specialist from Summersville, W.Va. She entered the service in 2023. President Trump said the second Guard member who was shot, Andrew Wolfe, "is fighting for his life." -
Winter hits early and hard in the high country of New York's Adirondack Mountains. It also brings wild, spectral beauty.
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Zohran Mamdani will be the next mayor of America's biggest city. But voters who elected him say the hopeful tone and big ideas of Mamdani's campaign could resonate beyond New York City.
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The 34-year-old, Ugandan-born democratic socialist defeated former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who ran as an Independent, in Tuesday's election, according to a race call by the Associated Press.
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Mamdani, a democratic socialist and state assemblymember, will make history as the first Muslim and South Asian person — as well as the youngest in over a century — to serve as New York City mayor. -
New York City's mayoral race draws to a close on Tuesday. Frontrunner Zohran Mamdani is urging volunteers to get out the vote. Meanwhile, Andrew Cuomo is hoping for a come-from-behind win.
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Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has a long list of accomplishments, many of them progressive. In the race for New York City mayor, that experience hasn't given him the boost he wanted.
