Umpires will have a little help behind home plate in some minor league games this season – from a “robot ump.” Major League Baseball announced Thursday that select games in the Low-A Southeast will use a robot to help call balls and strikes. The use of the technology, called the Automatic Ball-Strike System, will also “ensure a consistent […]

Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. said Friday that he will not seek reelection for a fourth term that would begin next January. He has been investigating former President Donald Trump’s finances, and the Supreme Court last month cleared the way for the prosecutor’s office to receive Trump’s tax returns and other financial records. “Representing […]

Jennifer Bates often finds peace by drinking tea on her patio. But these days, to use her words — the butterflies have filled up her stomach and won’t go away. “Butterflies normally come to calm me,” Bates says. “But this is … nerve-racking to think I don’t know how it’s gonna go.” What’s unsettling Bates […]

On a brief track called “I Stand Accused,” a woman in a remote part of Ghana intones and repeats the title phrase with the intensity of a global town crier. She’s accompanied only by the sound of pieces of firewood being struck together. But in her solitude she’s speaking for a community called Witch Camp […]

The United States will offer temporary protected status to people from Myanmar who fear returning home, the Biden administration said Friday, as it tries to ratchet up pressure on military coup leaders in the Southeast Asian country, and provide protection to some of those criticizing it. “Due to the military coup and security forces’ brutal […]

Each week, we answer “frequently asked questions” about life during the coronavirus crisis. If you have a question you’d like us to consider for a future post, email us at goatsandsoda@npr.org with the subject line: “Weekly Coronavirus Questions.” I have started hearing that vaccine recipients should abstain from alcohol between the first and second doses of the […]

One of the newest Martians, a NASA robot named Perseverance, has touched down, powered up, and gotten to work. Over the course of its mission, Perseverance will prowl around a small crater — the site of a possible ancient lake — and meander through what might be an old river delta, searching for biosignatures, or evidence of life. But […]