Rob Schmitz is NPR's international correspondent based in Berlin, where he covers the human stories of a vast region reckoning with its past while it tries to guide the world toward a brighter future. From his base in the heart of Europe, Schmitz has covered Germany's levelheaded management of the COVID-19 pandemic, the rise of right-wing nationalist politics in Poland and creeping Chinese government influence inside the Czech Republic.
The new books publishing this week may get quite heavy, laden as they are with family tragedy, psychopathy and heartbreak — but at least they are fiction.
Here are some of the best summer TV shows — from Marvel reviving its fortunes with a new armored hero to TV's most compelling serial killer returning for a bite of the Big Apple.
A former chess coach says a member of the Taliban vice squad told him: "Playing chess is forbidden. Buying a chess set is forbidden. Even watching it — is forbidden." Why was the game banned?
A new book raises the specter that corporate offshoring of manufacturing may have undermined America's lead in technological innovation and even its national security.
The attacks was one of the largest on Ukraine's capital in months. It came as President Volodymyr Zelenskyy prepared for the G7 summit in Canada, where he is pushing for stronger sanctions on Russia.