On Assignment

Pope Leo embarks on a tour of South America next week. The trip will be a chance to connect with one of the strongest Catholic populations in the world and a personal voyage for a man who spent decades in Peru as a priest and bishop. On this episode of On Assignment, Vatican reporter Joshua McElwee and Latin America correspondent Cassandra Garrison talk about the Pope's recent health concerns, the Catholic Church's recent struggles in Latin America and what to expect from the trip.

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Reuters reporters set out to define a heat wave and uncovered something far bigger: "heat storms" that now blanket vast stretches of the planet. On this episode of On Assignment, the journalists behind the investigation, Maurice Tamman and Ben Welsh, explain how extreme heat became a constant feature of modern life, and why they needed new language to describe it.

As President Trump seeks greater influence over how elections are run, election officials across the country are bracing for disputes over voting, ballot counting and the certification of results. Reuters reporters Peter Eisler and Mike Spector join On Assignment to discuss the scenarios officials and legal experts fear could test the boundaries of federal authority before and after the 2026 midterms.

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Reporter Jeff Horwitz is having a surreal week. His investigation into Facebook has been turned into a major Hollywood film starring Jeremy Allen White. On this episode of On Assignment, the Pulitzer prize-winning journalist reflects on the Facebook Files investigation, his relationship with whistleblower Fances Haugen, and the impact the revelations had on the debate over social media's harms. He also shares what it's like to see his own story transformed for the big screen in Aaron Sorkin's The Social Reckoning.

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As the US and China race to dominate artificial intelligence, Reuters correspondents Eduardo Baptista and Laurie Chen say the two countries aren't even playing the same game. On this episode of On Assignment, they take us inside China's AI industry - from Beijing's push to weave AI into every corner of society, to the murky world of chip access, distillation and export controls. Hear what it takes to report on one of the most fast-moving industries on Earth, and why the answer to "who's winning" may depend entirely on how you define the race.

As wars rage across the Middle East, another conflict is unfolding the occupied West Bank. On this episode of On Assignment, Reuters correspondent Pesha Magid travels to the Palestinian village of Qusra, which has become the focal point of a growing struggle over land, security, and political power.

This week On Assignment goes to eastern Congo to witness the unseen work of containing an Ebola outbreak. Reuters correspondent Clément Bonnerot follows a surveillance officer through Bunia as he searches for missed cases, investigates deaths and navigates the practical challenges of outbreak response. His reporting reveals how limited resources, public mistrust and misinformation can hinder efforts to stop the virus, while highlighting the dedication of the health workers trying to stay ahead of it.

Reuters investigative reporters Steve Secklow and Gavin Finch recently sat down with exiled Iranian opposition figure Reza Pahlavi, the son of Iran's last shah, for a rare and wide-ranging interview. Listen to that interview in this episode of On Assignment and go behind the scenes of how the story and the interview came about.

Read their special report here: Regime change? Inside Reza Pahlavi's faltering bid to lead Iran

Wildfires are blazing across the world. Veteran Reuters photojournalist Michael Blake shares his experience documenting wildfires over the last 40 years. Hear what it is like to travel into the flames when everyone is leaving and how covering the Palisades fires in his own community changed his perspective on capturing these natural disasters.

As AI transforms our lives, companies are racing to build data centers, the physical infrastructure needed to power such a technological revolution. On this week's episode of On Assignment, energy reporter Valerie Volcovici and video journalist Eric Cox travel to Middleton Township, Ohio. There, a new Meta data center and power station have sparked a debate about whether jobs and promises of investment are worth the cost of building this infrastructure. Hear how this small town's fight is being replicated around America and the world.

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As U.S. and Israeli strikes hit targets across Iran, some of the country's most treasured cultural sites found themselves in the blast zone. Reuters reporters gained rare access to historic palaces and the UNESCO-listed heart of Isfahan, documenting shattered windows, damaged mosaics and centuries-old architecture scarred by war. On this episode of On Assignment, Pulitzer-winning investigative journalist Michael Pell explains how Reuters combined eyewitness reporting, satellite imagery and forensic analysis to uncover what happened—and why the loss of cultural heritage matters, even amid a conflict measured in human lives.

Further reading

Shattered tiles, trembling domes: An inside look at how the war has damaged Iran’s historic sites

What's it really like to cover the most powerful office in the world when the news never stops, the facts are constantly in dispute, and access can be cut off without warning? On this episode of On Assignment, Reuters White House correspondents Nandita Bose, Steve Holland, Trevor Hunnicutt, and Humeyra Pamuk pull back the curtain on life inside the press corps.

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As a record-breaking heatwave scorches Europe, the scenes—children hosed down in London, shoppers scrambling for fans in Paris—offer a glimpse of a continent struggling to cope. On this episode of On Assignment, host Jonah Green speaks with data journalist Ben Welsh, who built Reuters’ new Climate Monitor to measure just how unusual this moment really is. By comparing today’s temperatures to historical norms, the tool illustrates how today’s hot weather truly is a sharp departure from the past, and a glimpse of the future.

Check out the Climate Monitor for yourselfhere.

Felix Light is the first Reuters journalist to travel to Turkmenistan in more than 10 years. The former Soviet state, bordered by Iran, Afghanistan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, has strong economic ties to China, but has isolated itself from Russian and western influences. Now Turkmenistan is starting to show signs of cautiously opening up.

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In this episode of On Assignment, set against the backdrop of Sudan’s civil war, Reuters journalists Nafisa Eltahir, Suzanne Vanhooymissen and Reade Levinson investigate what happened during the assault on al‑Fashir, a besieged city in Darfur. They reveal how they verified videos filmed by fighters and matched them with survivor testimony to reconstruct events in their documentary Death in Darfur: 3 days of horror caught on camera.

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The red carpet. The stars. The parties. But behind the glamour and extravagance, it’s blood, sweat and tears. This week, Reuters showbiz reporter and Cannes veteran Rollo Ross takes us behind the scenes of the world’s most famous film festival.

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Reuters journalists received Pulitzer prizes for investigations into Meta and Trump's campaign of retribution, and were finalists for Illustrated Reporting and Breaking News Photography. We talk to the journalists and editors about the obstacles they overcame on their assignments in order to bring these stories to light.

Beat Reporting - Jeff Horwitz and Engen Tham of Reuters

National Reporting - Staff of Reuters, notably Ned Parker, Linda So, Peter Eisler and Mike Spector

Illustrated Reporting (Finalists) - Adolfo Arranz, Poppy McPherson, Devjyot Ghoshal and Han Huang of Reuters

Breaking News Photography (Finalists) - Photography Staff of Reuters

On Assignment - Meta’s flirty chatbot and the man who never made it home

On Assignment - Tracking Trump’s retribution targets

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Forty years after the world’s worst nuclear disaster, Chornobyl remains a place suspended in time — and newly exposed to danger. In this episode of On Assignment, Reuters correspondent Dan Peleschuk takes us inside the abandoned towns, sealed control rooms and vast confinement arc built to contain the radioactive remains of reactor four.

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Joshua McElwee, who covers the Vatican for Reuters, has just returned from the pope's 10‑day journey across Africa. Joshua walks us through what it's like to cover America's first pope (Joshua is also a Chicago native) as he comes under increasing fire from the president. Plus, what it’s really like inside the Vatican and on the papal plane.

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In this episode, Reuters Beirut Bureau Chief Maya Gebeily helps make sense of a country in crisis. Lebanon has endured civil war, foreign occupation, economic collapse and political paralysis. Then came war with Israel. Hear how Maya and her team cover the complexities of this nation in conflict settings and daily life.

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