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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As a landmark federal opioid trial nears completion, West Virginia communities are demanding $2.5 billion in compensation. Drug firms say they acted responsibly in shipping millions of pills. -
As overdose deaths climb, four of the nation's largest health corporations have agreed to a landmark $26 billion payout that state officials say will help ease America's deadly opioid epidemic.
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Payouts will be spread over the next 18 years, with much of the funding going to help communities struggling with high rates of opioid addiction and overdose deaths. -
Four big drug companies would pay out $26 billion to dozens of states over the next 17 years. -
Two divisions of the DOJ argue the deal improperly shelters members of the Sackler family and their associates from liability. States are finalizing a separate deal with other opioid companies.
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In 2020, the engineering firm Morabito Consultants found "severely deteriorated" concrete in the Champlain Towers South condo building. Town officials say they weren't alerted. -
Officials have officially ended the search for survivors following last month's condo building collapse. It was a heart-wrenching decision for dozens of families whose loved ones remain missing.
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Massachusetts and New York are among the states agreeing to end the fight to halt a controversial Purdue Pharma bankruptcy plan. The deal shelters members of the Sackler family from opioid lawsuits. -
As recently as last month, Surfside, Fla., officials were ordering changes at Champlain Towers South. But the demands never focused on the building's fundamental soundness. -
There are 152 people still missing from a Florida residential building that collapsed last week. Residents are demanding answers to why the section fell, and are coping with the loss of loved ones.
