This story definitely has a yuck factor.

It's about hookworms.

When hookworm eggs land on moist, warm ground, via human feces, they develop into larvae, raise their tiny selves upward, and wave back and forth, looking for bare feet to latch onto. The parasites penetrate the skin, enter the bloodstream, and eventually migrate to the small intestine — where they settle in, mature and start sucking blood and laying eggs. When the worms and their eggs are passed in a host's stool, the cycle begins anew.

Japanese officials are swatting away rumors and reports that the government has concluded that, with the Tokyo Olympics 151 days away, and much of the country in a COVID-19 state of emergency, the games cannot be held.

After years of delay, a decision by the Pentagon could mean three men accused of being behind terrorist attacks in Indonesia nearly 20 years ago could soon get a military trial.

Drugs to treat COVID-19 are being fast-tracked for development, but the pace can't match the astonishing speed that gave birth to the vaccines.

But one year into the pandemic, there has been strong progress toward effective drug treatments, and the groundwork has been laid for drugs to kill the virus and arrest disease.

"I just remember being very scared."

That's how Lydia, a 39-year-old mother of three in Canada, describes feeling when she was pregnant back in 2008 with her daughter and had questions about vaccinating. She worried it might cause more harm than good.

"I remember feeling some trepidation and saying to my husband, 'We can't undo this once we do it,' " she says. NPR is not using Lydia's full name because she's worried about backlash from a community she once believed in — people opposed to vaccines.

President Biden plans to sign an executive order on Friday that would increase food stamp benefits to help people going hungry amid the financial downturn caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, his top economic adviser, Brian Deese, told reporters.

Biden has already proposed a $1.9 trillion relief package to Congress that includes direct payments and other types of aid for people who have lost their jobs because of the pandemic. In the meantime, he is directing his administration to take steps to tweak programs to try to provide some assistance.

President Biden plans to sign an order on Friday that will toss a plan that would have made it easier to fire top career civil servants, and hire political appointees into high-ranking positions — a practice known as "burrowing."

President Biden is calling for unity to address each of the nation's concurrent crises, including the COVID-19 pandemic, the economy, race relations and climate change.

It won't be easy because as he settles into office, Biden also inherits a country that is deeply divided. Democrats and Republicans live in very different worlds and get their news and information from very different places, cordoned off by ideology and worldview.

When Ezra Levin and his wife, Leah Greenberg, founded the progressive group Indivisible in 2016, they widely circulated a handbook on "resisting the Trump agenda." It took tactical lessons in grassroots politics from the Tea Party, which had prominently resisted President Barack Obama's agenda.

There's another lesson Levin now thinks progressives can take from the conservative Tea Party: It's easier to oppose a policy than to advance one.