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 , 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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Attorneys, forensic analysts and other financial experts working for Purdue Pharma spent nearly two years looking for evidence of wrongdoing by the Sacklers. Critics want the findings made public. -
The CDC says hospitals saw a lot more emergency cases involving drug overdoses, as well as mental health crises and suicide attempts. Many emergency departments weren't ready. -
Black Americans with addiction face "pervasive and continuing systemic racism" and often struggle to gain access to treatments that prevent fatal overdoses. -
President Biden hasn't named a permanent drug czar but White House officials say they will work to curb overdose deaths in the first 100 days. -
Thursday's hearing was the first time members of the Sackler family faced a public accounting for their alleged role in the nation's deadly opioid epidemic. -
President Trump promised to end America's opioid crisis. On his watch overdose deaths flattened in 2018 then surged again to record levels. -
As Black Lives Matter protests spread across the country, a lot of white people joined in to help the cause. In many cities Black leaders are being deliberate about the roles "white allies" play. -
Americans are drinking far more during the COVID-19 pandemic. A beer in the evening can feel like a taste of normal life, but health experts worry about alcohol's deadly side effects. -
Two-thirds of Americans believe the U.S. is handling the pandemic worse than other nations, an NPR/Ipsos poll finds. Majorities support more aggressive measures to stop the spread of the coronavirus.
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Governors and mayors in some regions with rising COVID-19 counts have made masks mandatory in public places. But sometimes their own police refuse to enforce the mask rules.
