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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Nine figure skaters from the U.S. were denied their 2022 Olympic team gold medal in Beijing because of a Russian doping scandal linked to Kamila Valieva. Now the squad will get their medals in Paris. -
The U.S. wants changes to the World Anti-Doping Agency after a Chinese drug scandal. Olympic officials threatened to block Salt Lake City's bid to host the 2034 Games if the U.S. criticism persists. -
IOC President Thomas Bach says Paris is ready to go for the 2024 Summer Olympics. But in speeches this week ahead of the Games, he warned that rising global tensions threaten the Olympic movement. -
The Paris Olympics kick off this week. NPR's Becky Sullivan and Brian Mann preview the U.S. athletes and sports to watch, and share why this year's opening ceremony will be different than ever before.
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In 2021, Russia sent 335 athletes to the Tokyo Summer Olympics. This year? The number of competitors is just 15. Doping scandals and the Ukraine war have taken a toll on the Olympic powerhouse. -
A tech meltdown left workers at airlines, banks and hospitals staring at the dreaded “blue screen of death” as their computers went inert in what is being described as a historic outage. -
One focus of the probe appears to be on the World Anti-Doping Agency, which reviewed repeated positive drug tests by elite Chinese swimmers. -
Hawaii Gov. Josh Green, a Democrat and a close ally of President Biden, says it's still unclear whether Biden will maintain his bid for a second term. "The president has to make this decision," Green told NPR. -
Over the weekend, the gymnastics and track and field athletes who will represent the United States at this month's Paris Olympics were finalized. They include a few surprises.
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We look at the Supreme Court decision to throw out a multi-billion dollar bankruptcy deal involving the makers of Oxycontin, that would've shielded the owners of Purdue Pharma from civil lawsuits.
