John McCain

On Today’s Show: Senator John McCain, a perennial voice for interventionist foreign policy in the Senate and two-time presidential candidate, has died after a yearlong struggle with brain cancer. He was 81. Worldview’s Jerome McDonnell spoke with Jacob Weisberg, the editor-in-chief of The Slate Group, who has written about John McCain for decades. Post Hurricane Maria, eighty percent of Puerto Rico’s agricultural crops had been destroyed according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Brookfield Zoo recently kicked off in Chicago an international effort to save from extinction an animal you might not have heard of.

The two-time presidential candidate served for 30 years in the U.S. Senate and was a Washington institution known as a political maverick. He had an aggressive form of brain cancer.

Senator John McCain, a perennial voice for interventionist foreign policy in the Senate and two-time presidential candidate, has died after a yearlong struggle with brain cancer. He was 81. McCain was elected to the Senate in 1986, succeeding Barry Goldwater in representing Arizona. The Vietnam War Veteran and POW was known for his role on several Senate committees that set the tone for American foreign policy. McCain often led groups of lawmakers to other countries and was outspoken against the U.S. use of torture.

The realization that Donald Trump is the likely GOP nominee is dividing lawmakers on Capitol Hill into different camps: Republicans who think he will ruin the party; Republicans who think he can actually win; and Democrats who think he will put more races into play than originally forecast.

South Carolina has a reputation for being a state where presidential primary politics gets dirty. NPR’s Politics Podcast explores what that’s about.

South Carolina has a strong track record for picking the eventual GOP winner. But the state also has a history of dirty politics.

With the New Hampshire primary doing little to settle the GOP race, presidential candidates headed straight to South Carolina on Wednesday to start campaigning ahead of the state’s primary in 10 days.

The GOP presidential hopefuls are trading attacks on the use of water boarding and other such harsh interrogation techniques. Donald Trump vows he would revive those techniques as president and has attacked Sen. Ted Cruz for opposing that idea. Many critics and studies, however, conclude that harsh techniques do not work.

Political makeup artist Kriss Blevins is using her unique position to tell the presidential candidates about the heroin crisis and her stepdaughter who died of an overdose.

The war in Afghanistan is getting a new commander even as events there are not going well. The Taliban control the most territory since the U.S. invasion, and Afghan government casualties continue to mount. NPR takes a look at how American forces might respond.