Reveal

This episode originally was broadcast Oct. 5, 2019.

Genetic genealogy is a powerful crime-solving tool that combines DNA science with family tree research. Where will it take us – a crime-free world or a dark dystopia?

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Entire blocks of Detroit look abandoned because people fell behind on property taxes and lost their homes. But hundreds of millions of dollars of that tax debt never should have been billed in the first place.

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This episode was originally broadcast in May 2016. Back in 1971, a 22-year-old journalist named Robert Rosenthal got a call from his boss at The New York Times. He told him to go to Room 1111 of the Hilton Hotel, bring enough clothes for at least a month and not tell anyone. 

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This episode was originally broadcast July 28, 2018.

In December 1944, Adolf Hitler surprised the Allies with a secret counterattack through the Ardennes forest, known today as the Battle of the Bulge. In the carnage that followed, there was one incident that top military commanders hoped would be concealed. It’s the story of an American war crime nearly forgotten to history.

Don’t miss out on the next big story. Get the Weekly Reveal newsletter today.

An audio drama inspired by Reveal’s investigation into a deadly explosion at a Mississippi shipyard, produced by our partners at StoryWorks, a documentary theater company.

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A high number of high school sports concussions. A low number of arrests for sexual assault. Reveal’s Reporting Network digs in.

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A Taser is supposed to help police resolve a situation without using their guns. But in police departments across America, Tasers aren’t always living up to their promise, sometimes with lethal results. 

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Who qualifies for a visa? How much does it cost to become a U.S. citizen? Stories about the invisible barriers immigrants come up against when trying to apply for legal status.

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Shop. Click. And the next day, your purchase is on your doorstep. Amazon has changed the face of shopping, but at a surprisingly high cost to its workers. With Black Friday and Cyber Monday coming soon, we look at what’s behind those smiling packages to reveal the dangers of working at Amazon.

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Black girls are being pushed out of school and into jails at alarming rates, but this issue often is overlooked because youth incarceration reform focuses so much on boys. Reporter Ko Bragg explains how the cycle begins and what researchers hope will break it.

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**How does a seventh grader end up in solitary confinement in an adult jail? Reporter Ko Bragg takes us to Mississippi to learn about a set of laws that automatically send kids into the adult legal system for certain crimes. 
**

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A reporter is threatened with prosecution, an officer outruns his past, and our host sits down with the president of the largest U.S. association of police officers to ask the question: When police officers misbehave, why does it stay secret?

**
*Don’t miss out on the next big story. Get the Weekly Reveal newsletter today.*

As the House of Representatives continues its impeachment inquiry of President Donald Trump, we go back in time to the Nixon administration, when the threat of impeachment and a presidential pardon changed the course of history. We then examine the pardons system and learn why it has stopped functioning as originally intended.

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In 1936, an unarmed black man was killed by an Atlanta police officer who later became leader of the Ku Klux Klan. We explore why the city doesn’t recognize the case as a lynching.


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After the housing bust, a group of men profited by destroying the American dream of homeownership for hundreds of thousands of families. On Reveal, we learn how these Homewreckers -- many of whom are close to President Donald Trump -- did it and meet a woman who fought back. 

This episode is based on Aaron Glantz’s new book, “Homewreckers: How a Gang of Wall Street Kingpins, Hedge Fund Magnates, Crooked Banks, and Vulture Capitalists Suckered Millions Out of Their Homes and Demolished the American Dream.”

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In 1996, Eddie Wise, the son of a sharecropper, purchased a farm with a loan from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Twenty years later, the USDA foreclosed on the property and evicted him. Reveal investigates his claim that he was discriminated against because of his race.

*
*Don’t miss out on the next big story. Get the Weekly Reveal newsletter today.

Genetic genealogy is a powerful crime-solving tool that combines DNA science with family tree research. Where will it take us – a crime-free world or a dark dystopia?

**
*Don’t miss out on the next big story. Get the Weekly Reveal newsletter today.*

These days, a presidential tweet can dictate the news cycle for days on end. But is it driving us to distraction? 

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How a baggie of crack cocaine packed with fear, distortion and misconceptions, and one presidential address in the 1980s, helped shape the war on drugs.

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Advisory panels slashed, environmental regulations rolled back – how the Trump administration uses questionable science to justify its policies.

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“It is wrong to boycott Israel” is a bipartisan message. But is banning the boycott a violation of First Amendment rights? Also, the story of a man who is trying to boycott Israel while living under Israeli occupation. And the story of Captain Boycott, who gave his name to a new kind of protest.

Don’t miss out on the next big story. Get the Weekly Reveal newsletter today.

The herbicide dicamba is causing a civil war in farm country. Plus, honeybee rustling in California’s almond groves. Lastly, sulfur and its link to asthma in children.

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Four hundred years ago, English pirates brought enslaved Africans to America’s shores. We reflect on how the legacy of slavery has reverberated through the generations to the present.

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Dominique Martin was thrilled to get a state-funded voucher to send her daughter to private school. We go to Louisiana to investigate the cost of school choice. 

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**A bombing in rural Nevada you’ve probably never heard of. A plot to blow up a government building.  Reveal teams up with the podcast series, Bundyville, produced by Oregon Public Broadcasting and Longreads, to see what happened to rancher Cliven Bundy’s supporters since his original armed standoff with the government.

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As smart devices become a bigger and bigger part of our lives, we look at how Facebook and other companies gather information about their users and turn it into profits. 

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In Oregon, the concussion protocols that were supposed to keep high school athletes safe end up falling short for a star quarterback. 

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The federal government is quietly expanding its use of “tender age” shelters for migrant kids. We’ll tell you what we know. Then, we revisit a story from Alaska and the Pacific Northwest, looking at how Jesuit priests got away with sexually abusing children.

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President Donald Trump says he doubts humans have much of a role in climate change. His administration has downplayed the science of climate change and sought to silence scientists working for the federal government.*
*
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Presidential pardons grab the headlines each time Donald Trump grants clemency to a controversial person. We tell the untold story of a pardons system that is completely broken, leaving a backlog of 13,000 applications, and a pardon attorney’s office that’s being ignored by the White House.  

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How did one helicopter become the deadliest aircraft in the US military? To find out, Reveal partners with Investigative Studios, the production arm of the Investigative Reporting Program at the University of California Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism.

Don’t miss out on the next big story. Get the Weekly Reveal newsletter today.

They belonged to an elite police task force charged with getting guns off Baltimore’s streets. Instead, the plainclothes cops roamed the city, robbing people on the street, breaking into homes to steal money and drugs, and planting evidence on their victims.

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In the second part of Reveal’s series about hate, we look at how racism and white supremacy are institutionalized in America.

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This episode surveys the state of the hate movement in America, focusing on how hate groups are spreading their message and winning converts.

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We travel the globe, from bottom to top, to confront the growing threats from climate change.****

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A giant, mysterious illegal dump in Chicago was part of a federal investigation that brought down a dozen corrupt politicians, but it left neighborhood residents angry and feeling used.

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Residential care homes seem like the perfect place for Mom or Grandpa to live out their golden years, but their home-like facades are hiding rampant wage theft and exploitation of caregivers. Reveal’s Jen Gollan takes us into her investigation of the care-home industry.

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A Taser is supposed to help police resolve a situation without using their guns. But in police departments across America, Tasers aren’t always living up to their promise, sometimes with lethal results.

Don’t miss out on the next big story. Get the Weekly Reveal newsletter today.

Myths of the Civil War and slavery are being kept alive at Confederate monuments, where visitors hear stories of “benevolent slave owners” and enslaved people “contented with their lot.”  Plus, an artist finds herself in the middle of the creation of New Mexico’s most controversial historical monument.

*
*Don’t miss out on the next big story. Get the Weekly Reveal newsletter today.

How a baggie of crack cocaine packed with fear, distortion and misconceptions, and one presidential address in the 1980s, helped shape the war on drugs.

*
*Don’t miss out on the next big story. Get the Weekly Reveal newsletter today.

The herbicide dicamba is causing a civil war in farm country. Plus, honeybee rustling in California’s almond groves. Lastly, sulfur and its link to asthma in children.

Don’t miss out on the next big story. Get the Weekly Reveal newsletter today.

Some people who live along the Mississippi River are willing to do anything to keep their homes and farms safe from flooding – even if it means inundating their own neighbors. This week, we team up with ProPublica to investigate how rising waters have set off a race to build the highest levee.

Don’t miss out on the next big story. Get the Weekly Reveal newsletter today.

We meet an immigration judge who rejected nearly every asylum case that came before her, then follow a transgender woman as she tries to claim asylum. Finally, we go to Turkey, where young Afghan women are trying to leave their past behind.

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Before there were boycotts, there was Captain Boycott. Meet the man who gave name to a new kind of protest.

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“It is wrong to boycott Israel” is a bipartisan message. But is banning the boycott a violation of First Amendment rights? Also, the story of a man who is trying to boycott Israel while living under Israeli occupation.

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Reveal received a secret recording of oil industry executives rejoicing over the “unprecedented access” they have to David Bernhardt, the No. 2 official at the Interior Department. President Donald Trump has nominated Bernhardt to the top slot at the department, following the resignation of Ryan Zinke, and Bernhardt’s confirmation hearings are this week.

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A journey into the world of right-wing Twitter trolls, pro-Trump political operatives and fake-news profiteers from St. Louis to Macedonia, to answer one big question: How did America become a post-truth country?

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A controversial theory about child abuse is swaying family court judges to award custody to parents accused of harming kids. We trace the origins of “parental alienation.”

**
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Parents are forced to give up custody to get their children medical and psychological treatments. Also, a Trump administration practice forces parents to risk deportation in order to claim their kids from government shelters.

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It’s been 10 years since the great housing bust and lending is back for some Americans, but not for others. In dozens of cities across the country, lenders are more likely to deny loans to applicants of color than white ones.

On this episode of Reveal, we dig into the new redlining.

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Children refusing to eat, talk, or even drink water. A surreal mental illness sweeps across families stuck in an Australian immigrant detention camp on a tiny island nation in the South Pacific.

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In Oregon, the concussion protocols that were supposed to keep high school athletes safe end up falling short for a star quarterback.

**
*Don’t miss out on the next big story. Get the Weekly Reveal newsletter today.*

We examine the stories of two families separated in 2018 at the U.S.-Mexico border and how what happened to them matches up with what the government said was supposed to happen.

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Investigators dig up an unidentified murder victim, 45 years after she was buried, in an attempt to give her back her name. The exhumation leads to a series of unexpected revelations about who she was and why she may have been killed. Her case speaks to the complexity – and importance – of opening up cold cases.

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How did one helicopter become the deadliest aircraft in the US military? To find out, Reveal partners with Investigative Studios, the production arm of the Investigative Reporting Program at the University of California Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism.

Don’t miss out on the next big story. Get the Weekly Reveal newsletter today.

In 1971, a 22-year-old journalist named Robert Rosenthal got a call from his boss at The New York Times. He told him to go to room 1111 of the Hilton Hotel, bring enough clothes for at least a month and not tell anyone.

Don’t miss out on the next big story. Get the Weekly Reveal newsletter today.

President Donald Trump says he doubts humans have much of a role in climate change. His administration has downplayed the science of climate change and sought to silence scientists working for the federal government.

Don’t miss out on the next big story. Get the Weekly Reveal newsletter today.

In the carnage that followed the Battle of the Bulge in 1944, there was one incident that top military commanders hoped would be concealed. It’s the story of an American war crime nearly forgotten to history.

**Don’t miss out on the next big story. Get the Weekly Reveal newsletter today.

A giant mysterious illegal dump in Chicago was part of a federal investigation that brought down a dozen corrupt politicians, but it left neighborhood residents angry and feeling used.

Don’t miss out on the next big story. Get the Weekly Reveal newsletter today.

In Alaska and the Pacific Northwest, the Catholic church had a problem with Jesuit priests sexually abusing children. The church’s first solution was to send the priests to remote Native villages, but there they continued to abuse. So the church tried something else: hiding them in plain sight.

*Listeners should know that this episode includes descriptions of abuse and predatory behavior, and is not a story for all listeners.

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Myths of the Civil War and slavery are being kept alive at Confederate monuments, where visitors hear stories of “benevolent slave owners” and enslaved people “contented with their lot.”  We team up with The Investigative Fund and discover how public money is supporting this false version of history.

Plus, an artist finds herself in the middle of the creation of New Mexico’s most controversial historical monument.

Don’t miss out on the next big story. Get the Weekly Reveal newsletter today.

Don’t miss out on the next big story. Get the Weekly Reveal newsletter today.

The recent killing of 11 worshippers at a Pittsburgh synagogue refocused the nation’s attention on right-wing extremist terrorists. Meanwhile, the Trump administration points to radical Islam as the bigger threat to security. On this episode of Reveal, we investigate which terror threats get tracked and which are ignored.

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Half of California’s 10 worst wildfires have struck in the last two years. We look at the recent Camp Fire, which is the deadliest and most destructive in state history. And we revisit an investigation from earlier this year looking at how extreme wildfires are breaking our emergency response systems. Produced in partnership with KQED.

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He seemed to confess to the crime, twice to his ex-girlfriend, once to police. But prosecutors never charged him. The reasons why show how rape myths continue to influence how justice is meted out in America. Reported in partnership with Newsy and ProPublica.

When police closed the rape case against Bryan Kind, they made it look like it had been solved. But he never was arrested – or even charged. We team up with Newsy and ProPublica to investigate how police across the country make it seem like they’re solving more rape cases than they actually are.

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After being called out for hiding worker injuries at its factory, Tesla decides to double down. Plus, a report card on diversity in Silicon Valley.

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After being called out for hiding worker injuries at its factory, Tesla doubles down. Hear a sneak preview of our latest investigation.

Doctors in Puerto Rico are outraged at the government’s unexpected decision to declare the Zika crisis over in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria. Plus, communities in Houston and North Carolina struggle to put their homes and lives back together.

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2017 was the worst hurricane season on record. A year later, we look at how Hurricane Harvey has made it almost impossible for people to find affordable housing in Houston. Listen to a sneak preview of this Saturday’s episode.

Approaching 2018’s midterms, the country has its eyes locked on Georgia’s governor’s race. It’s a close contest between Stacey Abrams, a former state congresswoman who could become the first-ever black female governor in America and Brian Kemp, a tough-talking Trump loyalist with a penchant for the Second Amendment. The race has become a battleground for many of America’s most pressing concerns about democracy – from voter suppression to election security.

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Get a sneak preview of Saturday’s show where we investigate voter suppression ahead of the midterm elections.

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We hike through the jungles of El Salvador to find an elusive fleet of shark-fishing boats implicated in overfishing and possible human trafficking. Then we join a UN mission to intercept a crewmember from one of those boats who might be a victim of human trafficking. Finally, we investigate a U.S.-based seafood company that purports to be a model of sustainability.

From reporters Sarah Blaskey, Ben Feibleman, Robin McDowell, Margie Mason and Martha Mendoza, producer Michael Montgomery, and editor Brett Myers. This show was originally broadcast June 30th, 2018.

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An accused man faces an impossible choice in New Orleans. Plus, a new district attorney in Philadelphia sets out to undo the work of those who came before him.

From reporters Eve Abrams and Laura Starecheski, and editor Catherine Winter.

A 6-year-old child sleeps in a vacant office building, surrounded by strangers. An infant is taken from his breastfeeding mother. We examine the stories of two families separated at the U.S.-Mexico border and how what happened to them matches up with what the government said was supposed to happen.

From Reveal’s Aura Bogado, and Neena Satija (who also works with our partners at The Texas Tribune), Anayansi Diaz-Cortes, along with Casey Miner.

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At 7 years old, Wilson was taken from his mother as part of the Trump administration’s policy of family separation this summer. Our next show tells you what happened to him.

There’s a new battlefield in the culture wars: comic books. The alt-right now has gotten in the business, led by a buxom, Confederate flag-waving superhero named Rebel and a white vigilante who turns immigrants over to ICE.

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Desperate to have a child, a couple puts its trust in a fertility clinic that promises more than it can deliver. They enter a world where some clinics take unnecessary risks to make them look far more successful than they are in reality.

From reporter Jonathan Jones and Reveal’s Bernice Yeung and Emily Harris.

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Victim compensation funds are supposed to help victims of crime cover lost wages or funeral expenses. But Reveal teamed up with The Marshall Project and discovered that in some states, African Americans are disproportionately hurt by rules on how that money is handed out.

Then, Reveal reporters Amy Julia Harris and Shoshana Walter uncover a scheme at a drug rehabilitation facility in the mountains of North Carolina, where clients are being used as a source of free labor.

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Some people who live along the Mississippi River are willing to do anything to keep their homes and farms safe from flooding – even if it means inundating their own neighbors. This week, we team up with ProPublica to investigate how rising waters have set off a race to build the highest levee.

Don’t miss out on the next big story. Get the Weekly Reveal newsletter today.

*This show was originally broadcast February 3, 2018. *It’s been ten years since former NASDAQ chairman Bernie Madoff was arrested for committing one of the largest financial crimes in U.S. history. For decades he ran a Ponzi scheme from a secret office in New York, duping thousands of investors out of billions of dollars. Many of them lost everything when the house of cards fell.

How did Madoff pull it off? And what steps have regulators taken in the past decade to ensure that it doesn’t happen again? For this week’s episode, we teamed up with Steve Fishman, a reporter based in New York City who’s followed the story for years. He produced and hosted a seven-part podcast for Audible called “Ponzi Supernova.”

Through interviews with financial experts, federal agents, Madoff’s cellmates and Madoff himself, Fishman explains how the $60 billion con worked, and why Madoff was able to elude regulators for decades. Fishman says that while Madoff was the mastermind of the scheme, it was banks and other financial institutions who “weaponized” him, turning him from a “local swindler” into an unstoppable force.

Madoff will spend the rest of his life in prison, but no one from these institutions faced similar consequences. And even though some precautions have been put in place since Madoff’s arrest, financial experts warn that for the most part, investors are still on their own.

Don’t miss out on the next big story. Get the Weekly Reveal newsletter today.

African migrants fleeing persecution or seeking opportunity often end up in Libya, where they are tortured and trafficked. Many try to escape to Europe, only to be intercepted at sea and returned to Libya. On this episode of Reveal, we trace their journey and explore how Europe’s immigration policy is helping Libyan warlords and putting migrants at risk. This episode was originally broadcast on May 19, 2018.

In the first segment, reporter Raphaël Krafft takes us to the open waters off the coast of Libya, where a small boat carrying migrants is trying to flee the country. The boat is filled beyond capacity and starts to take on water and sink. A rescue ship run by nongovernmental organizations from Europe is poised to help, but a coast guard boat from Libya intervenes, creating a standoff at sea.

Next, we learn why so many migrants – mostly from Africa – end up trapped in Libya and about the conditions they face when they’re there. Krafft meets a young Nigerian man named Osaze Sunday, who was held for ransom and trafficked in Libya before attempting to escape by boat to Italy.

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In Texas, the foster care system is failing the vulnerable children it’s meant to protect, leaving many without a safe place to live. Foster children often end up on the streets or in jail, which is one of the few places where they can receive treatment services. This week we look into the crisis in foster care, and efforts to fix it.

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Deep in the backroads of central Florida, hidden between trees dripping with Spanish moss, sits the campus of an infamous center for the developmentally disabled. Its story shows what can happen when families have nowhere else to find care for their loved ones.

After years of complaints, Carlton Palms is finally being shut down. But its parent company, Bellwether Behavioral Health, is still running group homes across the country, where new allegations have arisen.

WNYC reporter Audrey Quinn investigates the company and speaks to a family whose son was abused at two of Bellwether’s New Jersey facilities. She discovers that, with national spending on autism services expected to increase 70 percent by 2025, the company is owned by a private equity firm.

Then, reporter Elly Yu investigates the death of a DACA recipient while at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in rural Georgia.

Don’t miss out on the next big story. Get the Weekly Reveal newsletter today.

In December 1944, Adolf Hitler surprised the Allies with a secret counterattack through the Ardennes forest, known today as the Battle of the Bulge. In the carnage that followed, there was one incident that top military commanders hoped would be concealed. It’s the story of an American war crime nearly forgotten to history.

After desperate house-to-house fighting between German and American forces, American soldiers wrested control of the Belgian town of Chenogne. Americans rounded up the remaining German prisoners of war, took them to a field and machine-gunned them.

Reporter Chris Harland-Dunaway found an entry in General George S. Patton’s handwritten diary referring to the incident in Chenogne. Patton called it murder. So why then was there no official investigation?

Through vivid interviews with a 93-year-old veteran who witnessed the event, conversations with historians and the last surviving prosecutor from the Nuremberg Trials, and analysis of formerly confidential military records, we investigate why justice never came for the American soldiers responsible for the massacre at Chenogne.

Don’t miss out on the next big story. Get the Weekly Reveal newsletter today.

Old paint, old pipes and demolition dust often are sources of toxic lead. It’s a poison known to cause neurological damage in children. For adults, new science shows lead exposure increases the risk of heart disease. Reveal investigates the lurking threat from the dust of urban demolitions to the wilds of Wyoming. This episode was originally broadcast March 31, 2018.

In Detroit, dust is a particular concern. Because of the population drop, the city is tearing down tens of thousands of empty homes. Contractors are supposed to follow strict protocols on  demolitions, but when those rules are not enforced, lead dust can drift around the neighborhood, poisoning children in unsuspecting families. Reporter Eilís O'Neill explores the impact.

Next, we go to the Fruitvale neighborhood in Oakland, California, where the rate of kids with high lead levels in their blood was greater than in Flint, Michigan, during the height of the water crisis there. Reporters Angela Johnston and Marissa Ortega-Welch of KALW in San Francisco explain how high housing costs and lead exposure are connected and introduce us to public health nurse Diep Tran, who says lead poisoning puts enormous stress on families.

“I've seen parents go into shock,” Tran says. “Most of them are anxious. Some feel guilty and go into denial, which is not good for the child, because parents in denial don't want to work with us. How can the child recover if we don't help the family?”

She says her only option sometimes is to advise families to move to a homeless shelter to escape exposure to lead.

Paul Flory could not escape. He grew up in Idaho’s Silver Valley, a longtime mining area that’s now a lead-laced Superfund site. Host Al Letson talks with him about going to school next door to a smelter and the struggles he’s had after his childhood lead poisoning was recorded – and then largely ignored.

Finally, we discover how tiny fragments of lead bullets hurt hunters’ unintended targets: eagles, condors and other scavenging wildlife. We trace lead dust from game guts to eagle brains in Wyoming.

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President Donald Trump has pledged allegiance to what he calls America’s “energy dominance.” This is good news for the oil and gas industry. We examine what this means for Alaskan villagers coping with climate change, Native American artifacts in Utah and birds flying over the U.S.  

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*To find out, we talk with a former Interior Department official who became a whistleblower after helping relocate Alaskan Native villages threatened by rising temperatures. We also examine the energy industry’s influence on the Trump administration and visit public lands in southeastern Utah, where parcels leased for oil and gas exploration contain sensitive Native American archeological sites.

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This week, we continue our ongoing investigation into what happens to immigrant children after they’re detained by the U.S. government. Our latest story investigates a vacant office building being used by a defense contractor to house children.

Then, we travel to the Gulf Coast to learn why last year was the costliest hurricane season on record. In Houston, we discover that homes flooded by Hurricane Harvey were actually built inside a reservoir.

We end on the Louisiana coast, where officials say they can no longer provide protection to homes most vulnerable to flooding, and that residents will have to abandon them.

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This week’s episode of Reveal investigates shark fishing in Central America and a U.S.-based seafood company that claims to be a model of sustainability.

We start in the jungles of El Salvador, where reporter Sarah Blaskey and photojournalist Ben Feibleman investigate one of the largest shark-fishing operations in the region. The men who crew these boats are migrants from Vietnam who work under grueling conditions.

Next, we follow reporters from The Associated Press as they continue their award-winning investigation into the seafood industry. Robin McDowell, Margie Mason and Martha Mendoza look into one of the country’s leading sustainable seafood companies, Sea to Table.

The company provides seafood to restaurants, universities and private homes across the country, claiming all its fish are wild caught and directly traceable to a U.S. dock. The reporters examine whether those claims hold up.

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Far from the World Cup stadium cheers, a prisoner held in Russia is six weeks into a hunger strike.

Reveal host Al Letson talks with Masha Alyokhina, a founding member of the Russian feminist punk rock collective Pussy Riot, about the efforts to free Oleg Sentsov, a Ukrainian filmmaker convicted of an armed plot during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. He denies any involvement. His supporters fear U.S. President Donald Trump has undermined their cause. Alyokhina knows the topic well: She spent time in prison for challenging Russian President Vladimir Putin, too.

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President Donald Trump said he was ending family separation at the border this week. But we’ve stayed on the story, investigating the issues that remain: children being drugged at migrant shelters, asylum-seekers being denied at ports of entry and the problems with Trump’s new detention plan.

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This episode was originally broadcast July 1, 2017.

Picture an American farmer. Chances are, the farmer you’re imagining is white – more than 9 out of 10 American farmers today are. But historically, African Americans played a huge role in agriculture. The nation’s economy was built largely on black farm labor: in bondage for hundreds of years, followed by a century of sharecropping and tenant farming.

In the early 1900s, African American families owned one-seventh of the nation’s farmland, 15 million acres. A hundred years later, black farmers own only one-quarter of the land they once held and now make up less than 1 percent of American farm families.

The federal government has admitted it was part of the problem. In 1997, a report by the U.S. Department of Agriculture said discrimination by the agency was a factor in the decline of black farms. A landmark class-action lawsuit on behalf of black farmers, Pigford v. Glickman, was settled in 1999, and the government paid out more than $2 billion as a result. But advocates for black farmers say problems persist.

On this episode of Reveal, reporter John Biewen of “Scene on Radio” tells the story of a black farmer who says the USDA treated him unfairly because of his race.

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Last fall, we threw out a simple question after a show about U.S. immigration policies: What do you wish you knew about immigration?

Across the country, listeners responded with hundreds of text messages – from small towns in Iowa, Colorado and Massachusetts to big cities such as Los Angeles, Atlanta and Chicago.

We chose four questions and took our team of reporters and producers to task to answer them.

To figure out the answers, we go deep into immigration court, help one listener uncover her grandfather’s secret past about entering the country and break down the path to legal citizenship. On the way, we meet scam artists, attorneys, asylum seekers and do-gooders learning immigration law for kicks.

Baltimore’s police department was already notorious.

But this year, eight former police officers were convicted on federal racketeering charges stemming from an FBI investigation. They belonged to an elite task force charged with getting guns off the city’s streets. Instead, the plainclothes cops roamed Baltimore neighborhoods at will, robbing people on the street, breaking into homes to steal money, drugs or guns and planting evidence on their victims.

The targets of the Gun Trace Task Force included drug dealers and ordinary citizens. One of its favorite tactics was to speed toward a group of men on a street corner, chase whoever ran and shake them down. On top of all this, the officers falsified their timesheets to almost double their salaries.

This episode of Reveal asks if the task force was simply a rogue operation or if the officers were aided and abetted by fellow cops and even supervisors within the department.

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The collision of the opioid epidemic with criminal justice reform has created a boom for the rehab industry. Those with wealth and insurance often are able to pay thousands of dollars for private long-term programs. But the less fortunate have become easy prey for rehabs with a tantalizing promise: freedom from addiction for free.

Reveal reporters Amy Julia Harris and Shoshana Walter have been uncovering the ways that some of these rehabs exploit their desperate clients. In this episode, they describe to host Al Letson the shocking things they found at one rehab in the mountains of North Carolina.

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Some police departments are embracing a set of tactics designed to reduce the use of force – and prevent police shootings. Rather than rushing in aggressively, officers back off, wait out people in crisis and use words instead of weapons.

But this training isn't required in most states. Reveal teams up with APM Reports and finds that most cops spend a lot more time training to shoot their guns than learning how to avoid firing them.

This episode was originally broadcast on May 6, 2017.

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African migrants fleeing persecution or seeking opportunity often end up in Libya, where they are tortured and trafficked. Many try to escape to Europe, only to be intercepted at sea and returned to Libya. On this episode of Reveal, we bring you one reporter’s dispatch from a treacherous migrant rescue operation and explore how Europe’s immigration policy is helping Libyan warlords.

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In 2014, WBEZ Chicago reporter Linda Lutton followed a class of fourth-graders at William Penn Elementary School on Chicago’s West Side. She wanted to explore a big idea that’s at the heart of the American dream: Can public schools be the great equalizer in society, giving everyone a chance to succeed, no matter where they come from or how much money their families have?

Lutton told the story in a Peabody Award-nominated show, “The View from Room 205.” This week, Reveal presents a condensed version of that documentary.

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Reveal revisits our investigation into California’s deadliest wildfires. Last October, more than 170 fires ripped across Northern California, burning more than 9,000 buildings, causing millions of dollars in damage and killing 44 people. Along with our partners at KQED we’ll examine what’s being done to ensure that emergency response failures are not repeated as the next wildfire season approaches.

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Reveal digs deep – and gets results. By mining data from 31 million records, we discovered a pattern of routine mortgage loan denials to applicants of color in more than 60 U.S. metropolitan areas. Our story led to attorneys generals’ investigations and lawmakers’ demands for accountability at the federal, state and city levels. It also led to thousands of questions from you, our listeners. Our reporters answered a handful of them.

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Across the country, universities are being criticized over issues of money: from how they spend their endowments, to how they raise tuition, to how they award financial aid. Many students are feeling the pinch. They’re going into debt to pay for their education, or abandoning their dreams of a college degree altogether. This week on Reveal, we take a look at the bottom line for universities and students. This episode was originally broadcast on Dec. 9, 2017.

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There’s been a lot of conversation about whether Donald Trump has inspired a new wave of hate in America.

Reveal reporter Will Carless set out to understand the president’s role in hundreds of hate incidents across the country, with help from the Documenting Hate project led by ProPublica. He found a striking pattern that extended across races, religions and sexual orientation. We also examine what’s going on inside the government agency that’s supposed to be fighting discrimination, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. And we ask what it takes for bystanders in hate speech incidents to become allies.

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Tech companies in Silicon Valley are under the microscope for not living up to their idealistic pledges to save the world. On this week’s episode of Reveal, we investigate companies on the cutting edge that are struggling to solve some old-fashioned problems: Worker safety at Tesla, and diversity at Google and beyond.

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In 2008, a small-time scam artist transferred a Beverly Hills mansion to Donald Trump for $0. Reveal reporters Lance Williams and Matt Smith tried to figure out why. The people involved in the deal say it was all a mistake. Real estate experts have never seen anything like it. Join us for a stranger-than-fiction tale on this special Reveal podcast.

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In 2016, the Justice Department alleged that Malaysian officials stole billions of dollars from their people and funneled some of it through the United States.

Reveal teamed up with Washington D.C.’s public radio station, WAMU, to dig into one of the largest investigations ever by the Justice Department’s Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative.

It’s a tale that features cameos from Leonardo DiCaprio, Donald Trump, the world’s largest yacht, a Malaysian playboy known for his lavish spending in New York nightclubs, and – as you might imagine – lots of Champagne.

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Lead – the toxic metal used for years in paint, plumbing, mining and more – still poisons people in all kinds of ways. Lead also kills wildlife when animals scavenge carcasses shot with lead bullets and left behind by hunters. Eagles and condors are not the hunters’ intended targets, but they’re dying from bullet dust.

The Obama administration tried to phase out all lead ammunition on certain federal lands right before leaving office. But President Donald Trump’s interior secretary, Ryan Zinke, overturned that order his first day on the job.

Reveal follows a bullet’s journey in the wilds of Wyoming.

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The toxic water of Flint, Michigan, reminded us that lead is a very persistent poison. This week, Reveal investigates the lurking threat of lead from the dust of urban demolitions to the wilds of Wyoming.

Hear how contractors help one another cut corners on demolitions, putting kids at risk, while city officials study the problem. Meet a public health nurse who explains why she advises families to choose a homeless shelter over a lead-tainted apartment, and learn how childhood lead poisoning still affects one man decades later. Progress has been made cleaning up lead. But much remains to be done.

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Across the country, criminals are arming themselves in unexpected ways. In Florida, they’re stealing guns from unlocked cars and gun stores. In other places, they’re getting them from the police themselves, as cash-strapped departments sell their used weapons to buy new ones. On this episode of Reveal, we learn where criminals get their guns and what cars can teach us about gun safety.

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To explore more reporting, visit revealnews.org or find us on fb.com/ThisIsReveal, Twitter @reveal or Instagram @revealnews.

Federal law requires colleges and universities to track and disclose sexual assaults on campus. It’s different for kindergarten through 12th grade, where there are no similar requirements for cases involving assaults between students. In elementary, middle and high schools across the U.S., the Associated Press found a shocking level of sexual violence among students. The AP also uncovered a new dimension to the problem – on U.S. military bases.  

On this episode of Reveal, we delve into results from the AP’s continuing investigation.

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Last year, California had its deadliest and most destructive wildfire season in recorded history. No fire killed more people or burned down more buildings than the Tubbs Fire. Reveal investigates what made the Tubbs Fire so devastating by delving into the history of one of the hardest-hit neighborhoods.

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Wildfires raged across Northern California in October, burning through the state’s famed Napa and Sonoma wine regions. In all, more than 170 blazes ripped across an area the size of Maryland and Delaware combined. Scores awoke to flames at their doors, and 44 people were killed in the deadliest fire event in state history.

On this episode of Reveal, we team up with KQED to examine what led to delays in evacuations and why so many fire victims received no warnings at all. As wildfires grow more intense, are first responders keeping up?

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Hundreds of thousands of U.S. veterans took part in nuclear tests after World War II, and into the Cold War. Many of these vets suffer long-term health issues including lung problems and cancer, and many haven’t received compensation for their injuries and feel abused, neglected and forgotten by the government and a country that exposed them to unforeseen risks. This story of the veterans who witnessed secret atomic testing is a co-production with our friends at the RetroReport.

With the threat of nuclear war once again a part of the national conversation, Reveal looks at nuclear threats both foreign and domestic. This episode takes listeners to Iran and finds out what life is actually like inside North Korea.

As the Trump administration pushes for the biggest increase in spending on nuclear weapons since the Cold War, Reveal explores how they’ve changed. Instead of annihilation, think “flexible” nuclear weapons that can threaten “limited” nuclear war. That’s the idea anyway.

Head over to revealnews.org for more of our reporting.

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Chicago is experiencing a reversal of the great migration that propelled African Americans northward in search of opportunity in the first half of the 20th century. Since 2000, a quarter-million black Chicagoans have left. The reasons include decades of bad policy and broken promises on affordable housing, education and public safety.

On this episode of Reveal, we team up with the Data Reporting Lab in Chicago to examine how trauma care teams have done more than law enforcement to reduce the gun homicide rate and with The Chicago Reporter to describe how activists are pushing back against the shutdown of 50 public schools at once.

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It’s been 10 years since the great housing bust and lending is back. Not everyone is getting a fair shot at getting a loan. In dozens of cities across the country, lenders are more likely to deny loans to applicants of color than white ones – even when you take into account how much money they make and how much they want to borrow.

This type of housing discrimination was outlawed 50 years ago but it’s making a comeback. On this episode of Reveal, we dig into the new redlining.

This episode features an interactive text-messaging tool that allows you to learn more about who gets conventional home loans where you live. To get started, text HOME to 202-873-8325.

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The scandal around USA Gymnastics and former Olympic team doctor Larry Nassar is shining a spotlight on the sexual abuse of young athletes. This week, Reveal revisits the story of a woman who decides to confront the coach she says abused her decades earlier.

Reporter Tennessee Watson was abused by her gymnastics coach when she was a kid in the 1980s. Over 25 years later, when she learned he still was coaching children, she called the police. Her inside account of the arduous process of seeking justice in her own case exposes discrepancies in prosecutors’ responses to reports of child sexual abuse and highlights a lack of accountability.

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Bernard Madoff may be a fading memory from the past, but for reporter Steve Fishman, the fallen financier’s story holds lessons for today. Madoff masterminded one of the biggest Ponzi schemes in history, duping thousands of investors out of tens of billions of dollars. His scam rocked Wall Street for years.

In this episode, we trace the rise and fall of Madoff through Fishman, who spent years interviewing investors, regulators and even Madoff himself from inside federal prison. We learn how Madoff pulled off his scam, and why nobody caught on for decades. We also hear from experts who say that investors still are vulnerable to financial fraud, especially in the era of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

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On Reveal, we share how the government failed to stop the opioid epidemic. A Washington Post/60 Minutes partnership with Reveal tells the story of how a DEA insider and his team of lawyers and investigators tried to stop drug distribution companies from flooding America with truckloads of pain pills. His effort was met with backlash from his own agency, the drug industry and Congress. We also hear the intimate chronicle of one wife’s discovery of her husband’s video diaries after his death from a fentanyl overdose.  Finally, Reveal host Al Letson talks with Jan Rader, the fire chief in Huntington, West Virginia, about her fight to preserve life in the face of a crushing epidemic. Rader was profiled in the Oscar-nominated documentary “Heroin(e).”

To explore more reporting, visit revealnews.org or find us at fb.com/ThisIsReveal, on Twitter @reveal or Instagram @revealnews.

The #MeToo movement has swept from Hollywood to Capitol Hill. The careers of powerful men ended as women spoke out against workplace harassment and assault.

On this episode of Reveal, we look at what happens when the people involved aren’t celebrities or powerful. We team up with KQED, the UC Berkeley Investigative Reporting Program, FRONTLINE and Univision to investigate sexual violence against female janitors.

They usually work alone at night and that isolation can leave them vulnerable. A lot of them are immigrants, some living in the country illegally.

Plus, we talk with an investigative editor for The New York Times who helped steer the coverage that toppled Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein.

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Investigators dig up an unidentified murder victim, 45 years after she was buried, in an attempt to give her back her name. The exhumation leads to a series of unexpected revelations about who she was and why she may have been killed. Her case speaks to the complexity – and importance – of opening up cold cases. This Reveal story is one of thousands from the crisis of America’s unidentified dead.

Head over to revealnews.org for more of our reporting.

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This short film was produced by the Glassbreaker Films team at The Center for Investigative Reporting. Glassbreaker Films is an all-female group of filmmakers working to promote gender parity in investigative journalism and documentary filmmaking.

Competing threats to the bayous of Louisiana are leaving some Donald Trump supporters torn between the president’s various policies. The shrimping industry, which accounts for 15,000 jobs in the state, has seen a drastic decline in sales due to international imports. And while Trump’s “America first” promises have given shrimpers hope, he has also made devastating cuts in environmental funding that would drastically damage the fragile bayous. Between 1932 and 2010, southern Louisiana has lost, on average, a football field of land to coastal erosion every hour. And it’s estimated that by 2100, rising sea levels across the country will force 13 million people to move away from their homes on American coasts.

Watch more of The Divided series here: revealnews.org/thedivided

The damage inflicted on the United States by hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria will likely make the 2017 hurricane season the costliest in our history. But what is the government doing to prepare for the storms yet to come.

In this hour, Reveal goes to Texas, Louisiana and Puerto Rico to investigate the government policies that let people build in harm’s way, make it difficult to move them to safety and fail to accurately tally the dead.

Head over to revealnews.org for more of our reporting.

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Reveal has had a busy year – our team has chased stories from Oklahoma to Bermuda. We exposed a rehab program that provides labor at a chicken processing plant that’s been called a slave camp and followed the money trail of the Paradise Papers, leaked documents that revealed international tax shelters for some of America’s biggest companies. We reported on the rise of hate crimes and investigated hate groups.

In this episode, we look at some of our best reporting from 2017 and how Reveal has made an impact in our world.

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In 1988, two powerful explosions shook Kansas City, Missouri, killing six firefighters. Nine years later, five people were convicted of arson and sent to prison for life – but were they innocent?

Reveal investigates problems in the case and whether federal agents pressured witnesses to lie. We also follow the life of one of the defendants and his bid for freedom.

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Special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling in the U.S. elections seems to yield a new bombshell every week. Amid such high-profile revelations, we revisit a decades-old story that echoes to this day among the powerful in the nation’s capital.

This episode of Reveal tells the story of Daniel Ellsberg, a former government strategist responsible for leaking the Pentagon Papers – thousands of classified documents that called into question America’s war in Vietnam. Our story juxtaposes Ellsberg’s story with that of Robert Rosenthal, our former executive director, whose first journalism job exposed him to the top-secret documents.  

Those papers are the subject of a new movie in theaters this holiday season. Steven Spielberg’s “The Post” depicts the Washington, D.C. paper’s decision to publish the Pentagon Papers after the Nixon administration sued the first news organization to expose them, The New York Times.

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Across the country, universities are being criticized over issues of money: from how they spend their endowments, to how they raise tuition, to how they award financial aid. Many students are feeling the pinch. They’re going into debt to pay for their education, or abandoning their dreams of a college degree altogether. This week on Reveal, we take a look at the bottom line for universities and students.

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To explore more reporting, visit revealnews.org or find us on fb.com/ThisIsReveal, Twitter @reveal or Instagram @revealnews.

This short film was produced by the Glassbreaker Films team at The Center for Investigative Reporting. Glassbreaker Films is an all-female group of filmmakers working to promote gender parity in investigative journalism and documentary filmmaking. The initiative is funded by The Helen Gurley Brown Foundation.

The 2000 film “Erin Brockovich” seemed like a successful David versus Goliath story. A single mom of three took on PG&E for contaminating drinking water in Hinkley, California, and came out victorious, suing and winning $333 million from the giant utility company. But whatever became of the tiny town?

For the roughly 600 residents who received part of that payout, the ending wasn’t all happy. Residents who lived there in the ‘90s, such as Roberta Walker, say they suffer from residual health problems. And while they can’t disclose how much money they received from the lawsuit, they say it wasn’t enough to keep them afloat for long. Now, 21 years after the lawsuit, it seems the same public health hazard continues to affect the welfare of Hinkley residents.

From natural disasters to national tragedies, the media swarms around major stories, hurling those affected into the spotlight. But what happens after the cameras are gone and the country moves on to the next headline? The Aftermath revisits stories that once dominated the news, investigating where people are now and what has happened since, to tell the story after the story.

For more on The Aftermath series: revealnews.org/theaftermath

Across the country, criminals are arming themselves in unexpected ways. In Florida, they’re stealing guns from unlocked cars and gun stores. In other places, they’re getting them from the police themselves, as cash-strapped departments sell their used weapons to buy new ones. On this episode of Reveal, we learn where criminals get their guns and what cars can teach us about gun safety.

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To explore more reporting, visit revealnews.org or find us on fb.com/ThisIsReveal, Twitter @reveal or Instagram @revealnews.

This short film was produced by the Glassbreaker Films team at The Center for Investigative Reporting. Glassbreaker Films is an all-female group of filmmakers working to promote gender parity in investigative journalism and documentary filmmaking.

In the early hours of 2009, 22-year-old Oscar Grant was fatally shot by a Bay Area Rapid Transit police officer at the Fruitvale station in Oakland, California. The shooting was captured on cellphone video and made headlines nationwide, leading to a national conversation about police brutality. The officer who shot Grant was convicted of involuntary manslaughter and served 11 months in prison out of a two-year sentence.

In the following years, as more police killings made the news, Grant’s mother, Wanda Johnson, decided to turn her pain and grief into a purpose. With Grant’s uncle, Cephus Johnson, she established The Oscar Grant Foundation, which led to a movement made up of mothers like her, whose sons were killed by police. She gathers with these women to help them find justice and ensure that their children are not forgotten. The number of members continues to grow steadily every year.

Watch the rest of The Aftermath series at: revealnews.org/theaftermath

In Texas, women with limited access to abortions are traveling across the border to find a drug that will induce miscarriages. In Mississippi, anti-abortion groups are opening crisis pregnancy centers across from abortion clinics to persuade women to keep their babies. And one company offers permanent birth control through the insertion of a simple device – that’s ended up causing health complications for thousands of women.

This week, we look into pregnancy and the ways people try to prevent it, end it and save it.

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To explore more reporting, visit revealnews.org or find us at fb.com/ThisIsReveal, on Twitter @reveal or Instagram @revealnews.

On this episode of Reveal, we look at #Pizzagate. This story takes us into the world of right-wing Twitter trolls, pro-Trump political operatives and fake-news profiteers from St. Louis to Macedonia. Reveal unravels how this conspiracy theory spread and tries to answer one big question: How did America become a post-truth country?

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To explore more reporting, visit revealnews.org or find us on fb.com/ThisIsReveal, Twitter @reveal or Instagram @revealnews.

This short film was produced by the Glassbreaker Films team at The Center for Investigative Reporting. Glassbreaker Films is an all-female group of filmmakers working to promote gender parity in investigative journalism and documentary filmmaking.

After a mass shooting, the media descends on the victims. They’re asked time and again what they saw, what they felt and why they think it happened. After the dead are counted and the shooter’s motives are scrutinized, the survivors try to cope and move on.

Heather Martin was a senior at Columbine High School in Colorado when two teenagers shot and killed 12 students and one teacher. More than a decade later, 12 people were killed and dozens more injured in a shooting at an Aurora movie theater, just miles from where Martin lived.

To create a space for survivors to talk about their grief and traumatic new realities, Martin co-founded The Rebels Project, a nationwide support network that connects survivors of mass tragedy to help them process their experiences.

Martin says she desperately wants the group to stop growing, but every year, more members are joined by tragic circumstances.

In 1996, Eddie Wise, the son of a sharecropper, purchased a farm with a loan from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Twenty years later, the USDA foreclosed on the property and evicted him. Reveal investigates his claim that he was discriminated against because of his race.

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Remember the Panama Papers? It was a massive 2015 document leak that exposed a system in which offshore companies enable crime and corruption. The Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation that followed, led by The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), was a collaboration among more than 100 newsrooms across the world. It led to a flurry of resignations and indictments and took down leaders in Iceland and Pakistan.

This week, Reveal journalists teamed up with ICIJ for a new bombshell: The Paradise Papers.

This time around, the action is centered on more than 13 million confidential files leaked to Suddeutsche Zeitung and shared with the ICIJ’s global team of more than 300 journalists. Many of the confidential documents, emails and voicemails come from Appleby, a Bermuda-based law firm. The leaks shed light on how corporate giants move their cash from one offshore tax haven to another.

The Paradise Papers also open questions about Trump’s Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross’ financial ties to Russian companies.

And they disclose how Facebook and Twitter received backing from Kremlin-controlled Russian banks. This comes at a time when the two tech giants are facing scrutiny by the U.S. Justice Department and Congress.

This global collaboration involves a team of journalists from 67 countries. Reveal is the first U.S. public radio show and podcast to tell the story through audio. Don’t miss this episode, and stay tuned for a series of partners’ text stories on our site in the coming days.

Shortly after President Donald Trump’s election, two friends, Lauren and Martina, decided to provide free legal aid to people living in the country without permission. They left their home in New York and traveled across the country by van to meet people in need of help. Lauren is an immigration lawyer and Martina is an immigrant from Mexico. In just a few months, they traveled to 12 states and estimated they advised nearly 200 immigrants on a shoestring budget.

Beyond the planned border wall and limits on new refugees, the federal government wants tighter restrictions on immigration to this country. On this episode of Reveal, we examine efforts throughout the U.S. to deport migrants faster, detain them longer and prevent them from obtaining visas that might offer a path to legal residency.

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To explore more reporting, visit revealnews.org or find us at fb.com/ThisIsReveal, on Twitter @reveal or Instagram @revealnews.

On this special episode of Reveal, reporter Jack Rodolico in partnership with New Hampshire Public Radio brings us an intimate look at the people affected by the opioid epidemic.

On May 22, 2015, Daniel Couzins died of a fentanyl overdose at 31. Couzins, an assistant manager at a New Hampshire bank, had started using heroin to quell his severe depression and anxiety – a feeling he likened to “a conference room of people yelling at each other” inside his head. Becoming addicted was never his plan. Things just ended up that way.

When Couzins died, he left behind a series of video diaries that his wife, Jennifer, discovered. The tapes offer a harrowing look at how opioid addiction can slowly take over – and end – a life.

“I need to watch them,” Jennifer says, “because I need to know.”

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On Reveal, we share how the government failed to stop the flow of millions and millions of pills that fuelled the national painkiller epidemic. A Washington Post/60 Minutes partnership with Reveal tells the story of a DEA insider who tried to stop drug distribution companies from flooding America with truckloads of pain pills. His effort was met with backlash from his own agency, the pharmaceutical industry and Congress.

To explore more reporting, visit revealnews.org or find us at fb.com/ThisIsReveal, on Twitter @reveal or Instagram @revealnews.

In 2010, Brad McGahey was sentenced to a year in prison for buying a stolen horse trailer. But when he went before a judge, he was told he was going to carry out his sentence by working instead, through a program called CAAIR, or Christian Alcoholics & Addicts in Recovery.

McGahey wasn’t addicted to anything at the time of his sentencing. Hundreds of men are sent to CAAIR in lieu of a prison sentence each year. The program promises recovery from addiction for participants, but most of their time is spent working at a chicken processing plant, where they pull guts and feathers from slaughtered chickens and prepare them for distribution to companies such as Walmart, KFC and PetSmart.

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos wants parents to have the ultimate choice of where their children go to school – public or private – and taxpayers to make it possible. This week, Reveal examines how DeVos might funnel federal education dollars toward private school tuition, yet leave school choice rules up to the states. Plus, we’ll look at how hundreds of thousands of students in Texas were denied the special education they are guaranteed under federal civil rights law.

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To explore more reporting, visit revealnews.org or find us at fb.com/ThisIsReveal, on Twitter @reveal or Instagram @revealnews.

President Trump’s Department of Justice is investigating claims that Harvard is discriminating against Asian American students in its admissions program. Harvard has been accused of capping the number of Asian American students to make room for other ethnicities.

Al talks to Edward Blum about the case. Blum has made a career out of challenging race-based college admissions. And he and his group, Students for Fair Admissions, filed a lawsuit against Harvard three years ago that makes some of the same claims the Justice Department is now investigating.

Desperate to reduce crowding in jails and prisons, court systems all over the country are trying diversion – alternatives to putting offenders behind bars. On today’s Reveal, we peek behind the good intentions and uneven results.

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To explore more reporting, visit revealnews.org or find us at fb.com/ThisIsReveal, on Twitter @reveal or Instagram @revealnews.

In 2013, Robyn Allen received a 20-year sentence for trafficking in illegal drugs. She says she sold methamphetamine to support her family after a back injury left her without work. But the reasons Allen started using the drug run much deeper. In spite of taking measures to reduce its long-standing record as the No. 1 incarcerator of women in the country, Oklahoma keeps locking up women at more than twice the national average. Oklahoma incarcerates 151 out of every 100,000 women, often given harsh sentences for nonviolent drug crimes. This has taken its toll on several generations of women in the state.

The number of women in U.S. prisons and jails has increased more than 700 percent since 1980. And for 25 years, Oklahoma has led the nation in locking up women. This week on Reveal, we look at the causes behind this spike.

To explore more reporting, visit revealnews.org or find us at fb.com/ThisIsReveal, on Twitter @reveal or Instagram @revealnews.

A few weeks ago, Reveal host Al Letson jumped in to protect someone who was being attacked by counter-protesters in Berkeley, California. We found the man behind the attack. He says he’s a member of antifa and is taking the fight to white nationalists. We also interviewed rally organizers who are connected to right-wing extremists.  

In the aftermath of the violence at a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, militants from the left and the right are taking their battles to the streets. This week on Reveal, we examine who they are and whether they’re hurtling the country toward more civil strife.

To explore more reporting, visit revealnews.org or find us at fb.com/ThisIsReveal, on Twitter @reveal or Instagram @revealnews.

In just a few days, Germans will go to the polls to vote for a new government in an election that feels strangely familiar. For decades, Germany’s elections have been subdued and predictable, but this campaign cycle has seen a rise of fake news, hate groups and right-wing politicians with a nationalist agenda. There also are allegations of Russian meddling.

This week on Reveal, we team up with Coda Story to look at the rise of right-wing populism in Germany’s election.

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Head over to revealnews.org for more of our reporting.

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In cities across America, black men are on the run. On April 4, 2015, in South Carolina, Walter Scott was killed while running away from a police officer. Eight days later, Freddie Gray ran from police in Baltimore. He was caught and later died in custody.

On this episode of Reveal, we explore the consequences of fleeing from the police through two stories, both set in Baltimore.

Head over to revealnews.org for more of our reporting.

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And to see some of what you’re hearing, we’re also on Instagram @revealnews.

Hurricane Harvey brought unprecedented rain and destruction to Houston, and it likely will take years for the city to recover. In the aftermath of the storm, we get an eyewitness account of what residents are experiencing from Reveal’s Neena Satija.

Then we revisit her earlier reporting about Houston’s vulnerability to hurricanes and rain.

In 2008, Hurricane Ike swept through Texas and resulted in billions of dollars in damage. But it could have been much worse. Just like Harvey, that storm turned at the last minute and didn’t hit Houston head on. So imagine if Ike happened again, but with slightly higher winds, and this time, the storm didn’t turn but headed straight toward Houston.

In this hour of Reveal, we work with The Texas Tribune and ProPublica to take a look at a computer model of a worst-case hurricane called “Mighty Ike,” and what that would mean for Houston and the nation.

While covering Sunday’s “Rally Against Hate” in Berkeley, California, today, Reveal host Al Letson witnessed a man being attacked by a group of protesters. The man was balled up on the ground, fending off blows from several people. Al jumped in front of the batterers, protecting the man from further injury. On this special episode of Reveal, Al talks about what happened and how the battles between right- and left-wing protesters are playing out.

How much is President Donald Trump worth? And is he or anyone in his administration profiting from their positions? Reveal is teaming up with the Center for Public Integrity to investigate those questions.

We’ve created a database listing all the assets that members of his administration have disclosed. Now we’re digging through those documents to see whether there are any conflicts of interest – and we’re asking the public to take part in our investigation. Citizen sleuths already have uncovered some leads. By crowdsourcing this project, we can monitor whether any policy changes end up benefiting members of the president’s team.

To explore more reporting, visit revealnews.org or find us at fb.com/ThisIsReveal, on Twitter @reveal or Instagram @revealnews.

In the wake of the protests by neo-Nazis and white supremacists that turned deadly in Charlottesville, Virginia, President Donald Trump has come under fire for not immediately and clearly condemning American racists. It’s not the first time. Trump and those close to him have often played down the threat of violence committed by white supremacists across the country.

This week, through interviews with key Trump supporters and advisers, we explore if we should have seen Charlottesville coming and if we should expect more race-based clashes on the way.

To explore more reporting, visit revealnews.org or find us at fb.com/ThisIsReveal, on Twitter @reveal or Instagram @revealnews.

Investigators dig up an unidentified murder victim, 45 years after she was buried, in an attempt to give her back her name. The exhumation leads to a series of unexpected revelations about who she was and why she may have been killed. Her case speaks to the complexity – and importance – of opening up cold cases. This Reveal story is one of thousands from the crisis of America’s unidentified dead.

To explore more reporting, visit revealnews.org or find us at fb.com/ThisIsReveal, on Twitter @reveal or Instagram @revealnews.

President Donald Trump has promised to withdraw federal money from jurisdictions that do not help immigration agents find and deport people living illegally in this country. This week, we look into places that offer sanctuary to those immigrants – and what the conflict between federal and local policies means for them.

To explore more reporting, visit revealnews.org or find us at fb.com/ThisIsReveal, on Twitter @reveal or Instagram @revealnews.

In Texas, women with limited access to abortions are traveling across the border to find a drug that will induce miscarriages. In Mississippi, anti-abortion groups are opening crisis pregnancy centers across from abortion clinics to persuade women to keep their babies. And one company offers permanent birth control through the insertion of a simple device – that’s ended up causing health complications for thousands of women.

This week, we look into pregnancy and the ways people try to prevent it, end it and save it.

To explore more reporting, visit revealnews.org or find us at fb.com/ThisIsReveal, on Twitter @reveal or Instagram @revealnews.

The U.S. Navy spends tens of billions of dollars each year building and repairing ships. But how safe are the shipyards where that work is done? Reveal investigates how lax safety has been allowed to persist at shipyards that thrive on military contracts.

This hour also will explore one of the newest warships in the Navy’s fleet and whether it’s living up to expectations. And we’ll tell the story of one man’s unexplained disappearance on the high seas.

To explore more reporting, visit revealnews.org or find us at fb.com/ThisIsReveal, on Twitter @reveal, or Instagram @revealnews.

In Texas, the foster care system is failing the vulnerable children it’s meant to protect, leaving them without a safe place to live. Many end up on the streets or in jail, which is one of the few places where they can receive treatment services. This week we look into the crisis in foster care, and efforts to fix it.

To explore more reporting, visit revealnews.org or find us at fb.com/ThisIsReveal, on Twitter @reveal, or Instagram @revealnews.

President Donald Trump has been in office for six months. On this week’s podcast special, Reveal host Al Letson speaks with someone who helped get him there – Roger Stone.

Stone is a former campaign adviser to Trump and helped set the tone of the 2016 election. For decades, he’s played hardball politics as a Republican strategist and now is the subject of a documentary. He and Letson discuss political dirty tricks, white supremacy and Russian meddling in the November election.

To explore more reporting, visit revealnews.org or find us at fb.com/ThisIsReveal, on Twitter @reveal, or on Instagram @revealnews.

In 2015 French radio reporter Raphael Krafft was covering the refugee crisis. Then one day, one refugee asked for his help. Raphael followed his moral compass… which led him on the journey of a lifetime.

To explore more reporting, visit revealnews.org or find us at fb.com/ThisIsReveal, on Twitter @reveal, or Instagram @revealnews.

In 1996, Eddie Wise, the son of a sharecropper, purchased a farm with a loan from the USDA. Twenty years later, the USDA foreclosed on the property and evicted him. Reveal investigates his claim that he was discriminated against because of his race.

To explore more reporting, visit revealnews.org or find us on fb.com/ThisIsReveal, Twitter @reveal or Instagram @revealnews.

President Donald Trump has used the threat of foreign-born terrorists to justify his travel ban – but since 9/11, nearly every terrorist attack in the United States has come from within. On this episode of Reveal, we investigate which domestic terror episodes get tracked and why.

To explore more reporting, visit revealnews.org or find us on fb.com/ThisIsReveal, Twitter @reveal or Instagram @revealnews.

Last fall, Reveal reporters predicted that wildfires would spread to new parts of the country, and  to more densely populated areas. Now, we revisit that hour with a new story about Kansas, a state that’s battling not only wildfires, but also significant underfunding of its forest firefighter team.

Head over to revealnews.org for more of our reporting.

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America’s housing bust created both winners and losers – and homeowners have been the biggest losers. Last year, the rate of homeownership in the U.S. hit its lowest point since the 1960s.

So who are the winners? This episode of Reveal takes you into the world of people who are still profiting, from rent-to-own investors in Detroit to President Donald Trump’s best friend, a real estate mogul.

Head over to revealnews.org for more of our reporting.

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Dr. Jennifer Schneider lost her 31-year-old daughter, Jessica Wing, to colon cancer in 2003. To this day, Schneider wonders whether there was a link between her daughter being a three-time egg donor and  her diagnosis  the tumors that were eventually found on her ovaries and abdomen. But because there are no studies of the long-term risks of egg donation, Schneider may never know if the procedure had something to do with why her daughter was diagnosed with colon cancer at such a young age. She has become a strong advocate for egg donor studies and an egg donor registry.

This week, we’re trying an experiment that will give you a little something extra while you’re listening. To get started text “Hey Al” to 202-873-8325.

The world’s first “test tube baby” turns 40 next year. As she’s grown up, so has the medical specialty that produced her: in vitro fertilization. It’s a big business addressing a big demand.

On this episode of Reveal, we examine the stakes – and high costs – of IVF.

Federal law requires colleges and universities to track and disclose sexual assaults on campus. It’s different for kindergarten through 12th grade, where there are no similar requirements for cases involving assaults between students. In elementary, middle and high schools across the U.S., the Associated Press found a shocking level of sexual violence among students.

On this episode of Reveal, we delve into the results of AP’s yearlong investigation.

 Head over to revealnews.org for more of our reporting.

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And to see some of what you’re hearing, we’re also on Instagram @revealnews.

The government’s back in business with private prisons. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has reversed the Obama-era decision to phase out federal use of corporate-run prisons.

On this episode, Reveal revisits an hour with Mother Jones reporter Shane Bauer who takes you inside a private prison on lockdown.

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Jasilyn Charger was one of the first people to set up camp at the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in April 2016. Along with youth from neighboring tribes, the then-19-year-old helped raise awareness about construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline by staging a 2,000-mile run from North Dakota to Washington. By the time the group returned to Standing Rock, the camp population had swelled into the thousands. One year later, she reflects on the protests and how the movement has changed the course of her life.

The oil protests at the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation drew national attention. On Reveal, we team up with Inside Energy to go behind the scenes and meet the young people who started the fight. This upcoming hour looks at how those protests put at-risk teens on a healthier path and how other Native tribes are grappling with energy projects on their sovereign land.

Head over to revealnews.org for more of our reporting.

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Some police departments are embracing a set of tactics designed to reduce the use of force – and prevent police shootings. Rather than rushing in aggressively, officers back off, wait out people in crisis and use words instead of weapons.

But this training isn’t required in most states. Reveal teams up with APM Reports and finds that most cops spend a lot more time training to shoot their guns than learning how to avoid firing them.

Head over to revealnews.org for more of our reporting.

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In cities across America, black men are on the run. On April 4, 2015, in South Carolina, Walter Scott was killed while running away from a police officer. Eight days later, Freddie Gray ran from police in Baltimore. He was caught and later died in custody.

On this episode of Reveal, we explore the consequences of fleeing from the police through two stories, both set in Baltimore.

In light of recent reports about Chechnya’s anti-gay kidnappings, torture and killings, Reveal revisits stories that expose what it’s like to be gay in Russia. Right now, hateful rhetoric against the LGBT community appears on a daily basis on Russian TV and in speeches by Russian politicians. Reveal traces the roots of the anti-gay movement and shows how President Vladimir Putin uses this agenda to quash political dissent, exert influence on neighboring nations and bash the West.

Head over to revealnews.org for more of our reporting.

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And to see some of what you’re hearing, we’re also on Instagram @revealnews.

At a time when environmental protections are under more threats than ever, Reveal visits minority communities facing toxic burdens.

Head over to revealnews.org for more of our reporting.

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And to see some of what you’re hearing, we’re also on Instagram @revealnews.

From women’s 19th-century fight for the right to vote to the Women’s March this year, racism has affected feminist movements.

In this podcast special, Al Letson recalls the #BlackWomenAtWork stories that went viral recently and talks with Kimberly Foster, the founder of For Harriet and a very frank video commentator, about her dream to “bring down the system.”

Head over to revealnews.org for more of our reporting.

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If you can’t afford a lawyer, one will be appointed to you – that’s how it’s supposed to work. But in New Orleans, the lawyer in charge of representing poor people accused of crimes is saying no. His office doesn’t have enough money or time to do a good job, he says, so he’s refusing some serious cases, which is jamming up the courts and leaving hundreds of people stuck in jail with no lawyer. His goal? To break the system in order to fix it.

Reveal follows up on this story that we first brought you last fall.

Head over to revealnews.org for more of our reporting.

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And to see some of what you’re hearing, we’re also on Instagram @revealnews.

Investigators dig up an unidentified murder victim, 45 years after she was buried, in an attempt to give her back her name. The exhumation leads to a series of unexpected revelations about who she was and why she may have been killed. Her case speaks to the complexity – and importance – of opening up cold cases. This Reveal story is one of thousands from the crisis of America’s unidentified dead.

Head over to revealnews.org for more of our reporting.

Follow us on Facebook at fb.com/ThisIsReveal and on Twitter @reveal.

And to see some of what you’re hearing, we’re also on Instagram @revealnews.

Powered by the internet, the sex trade is reaching into all corners of the country. Reveal follows up on what’s happened since we first took you inside the hidden places – real and virtual – where people are exploited for sex.

Produced in collaboration with APM Reports, we’ll hear stories from the pot fields of Northern California to the streets of Chicago and suburban Seattle.

Head over to revealnews.org for more of our reporting.

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And to see some of what you’re hearing, we’re also on Instagram @revealnews.

Since President Donald Trump took office, we’ve heard plenty about Russia. Some have said tensions with the country could lead to conflict – even another world war.

In this podcast special, Al Letson talks to former top NATO commander Richard Shirreff, who spells out these fears – which are very real for him – in his new novel.

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On this episode of Reveal, three stories of men are at the center of controversy.  

He’s been punched on the streets of Washington, D.C., and kicked out of a major conservative political gathering, and yet white nationalist Richard Spencer has left Montana to set up shop in the nation’s capital. What does he have to show for it?

A Marine veteran breaks the news of hundreds – possibly thousands – of naked photographs of female service members being shared online. We hear his story.

Nearly 30 years ago, six firefighters in Kansas City, Missouri, died in an arson explosion that shook the city. Reveal follows a man in the case who was sent to prison for life as he’s released and reunited with his family.

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In 2015, French radio reporter Raphael Krafft was covering the refugee crisis. On the border with Italy, he met desperate families turned away by his country.  

Then one family asked Krafft for his help crossing the border. As a journalist, he was supposed to be objective, but that was getting harder to do. So he followed his moral compass, which led him on the journey of a lifetime.

Head over to revealnews.org for more of our reporting.

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And to see some of what you’re hearing, we’re also on Instagram @revealnews.

This week, Reveal host Al Letson speaks to Sebastian Gorka, deputy assistant to President Donald Trump. Usually, Gorka is sent out by the White House to discuss threats outside the U.S. In this special podcast, he and Al discuss domestic issues.

Gorka talks a lot about the backbone of America, “real Americans” and the people he calls “the chattering classes.” But who are the “chattering classes”? And what is “the real America”? The outspoken Trump adviser lays bare his views on the country.

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President Donald Trump wants to build a wall between America and Mexico. Hundreds of miles of border fence are already in place, but most of the nearly 2,000-mile stretch is uncovered. This episode of Reveal explores the political, logistical and geographic barriers that may get in the way of the president’s plans.

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Many people have strong feelings about President Donald Trump’s plan to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. Former Mexican President Vicente Fox is among the most outspoken.

In this podcast special, host Al Letson digs into whether Fox doesn’t like the wall – or the new U.S. president.

Watch for F-bombs.

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America was built on the idea of protecting religious liberty. But what happens when religious groups take advantage of these special freedoms to make money, skirt rules or hurt children?

We revisit an hour of Reveal that explores the tricky territory of religious freedom and how different groups have exploited this loophole.

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Across the country, thousands of public schools are within 500 feet of pollution-choked roads like highways and truck routes. Next time on Reveal, we investigate the high levels of exhaust surrounding U.S. schools and how the bad air is affecting the millions of children who are breathing it in.

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John Williams Jr.’s life changed irrevocably in 2014 when he was in a horrific crane accident while working at a   VT Halter shipyard in Pascagoula, Mississippi.

Williams, an experienced crane operator, lost part of his skull, his vision and his independence. He suffered severe brain damage that left him with the mental capacity of a child.

Wanda, his wife of almost 20 years, now takes care of him. Their love remains strong, but they have lost the life and relationship they once knew.

Head over to revealnews.org for more of our reporting.

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The U.S. Navy spends tens of billions of dollars each year building and repairing ships. But how safe are the shipyards where that work is done? Reveal investigates how lax safety has been allowed to persist at shipyards that thrive on military contracts.

The hour also will explore one of the newest warships in the Navy’s fleet and whether it’s living up to expectations. And we’ll tell the story of one man’s unexplained disappearance on the high seas.

Head over to revealnews.org for more of our reporting.

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And to see some of what you’re hearing, we’re also on Instagram @revealnews.

In 1988, two powerful explosions shook Kansas City, Missouri, killing six firefighters. Nine years later, five people were convicted of arson and sent to prison for life – but were they innocent?

Reveal investigates problems in the case and whether federal agents pressured witnesses to lie. This month, one of the defendants will make his case for freedom before a federal judge.

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At a time when Donald Trump is assuming leadership of a divided nation, Reveal heads to Jacksonville, Florida, one of the most divided cities in America.

We look at policing, immigration, education and other issues through the eyes of people with very different perspectives and find out that residents here are not on the same page.

Head over to revealnews.org for more of our reporting.

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This week, Reveal revisits the story of a woman who decides to confront the man she says abused her decades earlier.

Reporter Tennessee Watson was sexually abused by her gymnastics coach when she was a kid. Over 25 years later, when she learned he still was coaching children, she called the police. Her inside account of the arduous process of seeking justice in her own case exposes discrepancies in prosecutors’ responses to reports of child sexual abuse and spotlights a lack of accountability.

Help us hold the powerful accountable and speak for the most vulnerable. Please go to www.revealnews.org/donate to support our work today.

Head over to revealnews.org for more of our reporting.

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And to see some of what you’re hearing, we’re also on Instagram @revealnews.

Next to the air we breathe, it’s the planet’s most precious resource: fresh water. And it’s disappearing. The world’s largest food company describes the lack of water as a looming catastrophe that is expected to play out in the coming decades. In this episode of Reveal, we look at what’s happening in places that already are running out of water.

Help us hold the powerful accountable and speak for the most vulnerable. Please go to www.revealnews.org/donate to support our work today.

Head over to revealnews.org for more of our reporting.

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You got that new computer or phone you wanted for the holidays – but what happens to your old gadgets? They might not end up where you expect. Next time on Reveal, environmentalists follow the global trail of America’s electronic castoffs.

Help us hold the powerful accountable and speak for the most vulnerable. Please go to www.revealnews.org/donate to support our work today.

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This year on Reveal, we’ve dug into issues that affect people’s lives across the country. We told stories about worker abuse, toxic schools, women’s sports and private prisons. So we decided to round out this season with something different: This hour, we look back at stories you, our listeners, told us were the most memorable.

Help us hold the powerful accountable and speak for the most vulnerable. Please go to www.revealnews.org/donate to support our work today.

Head over to revealnews.org for more of our reporting.

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Our holiday gift to you is a story we first brought you back in May. It touches on corrupt politicians and keeping the public in the dark. Don’t worry, it has nothing to do with this year’s election. In fact, this story takes us back more than 40 years.

Consider this show a trip with the ghost of investigations past, where we take a look back at the Pentagon Papers – how they became public and why they’re so important.

Help us hold the powerful accountable and speak for the most vulnerable. Please go to www.revealnews.org/donate to support our work today.

Head over to revealnews.org for more of our reporting.

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And to see some of what you’re hearing, we’re also on Instagram @revealnews.

On this episode of Reveal, we explore the backstory of Donald Trump’s chief strategist, Steve Bannon. Plus, just in time for the holidays, we take a look at some real travel nightmares and the airlines that cause them.

For the past two years, Reveal reporter Trey Bundy has been uncovering how the Jehovah’s Witnesses hide sexual abuse in their congregations – in fact, it’s official policy. The religion’s leaders have been going to extreme lengths to keep the details from public view.

On the next Reveal, we track down people who know the religion’s dark secrets.

If you can’t afford a lawyer, one will be appointed to you – that’s how it’s supposed to work. But in New Orleans, the lawyer in charge of representing poor people accused of crimes is saying no. His office doesn’t have enough money or time to do a good job, he says, so he’s refusing some serious cases, which is jamming up the courts and leaving hundreds of people stuck in jail with no lawyer. His goal? To break the system in order to fix it.

This week, Reveal’s bringing you an episode we first aired this summer. With Republicans in full control of the Federal government, there’s a good chance Welfare Reform will be an issue they may take on. So in anticipation of that, it is worth taking another look at what’s worked and what hasn’t.

Today, only a quarter of welfare dollars actually goes toward basic assistance – housing, transportation or essential household items. So we’ll revisit a road trip we took with Marketplace’s new podcast “The Uncertain Hour” and find out the surprising ways different states use welfare dollars.

In this hour of Reveal, we’re going to revisit an Oscar-winning movie about The Boston Globe’s investigative team that exposed the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal: “Spotlight.” We’ll take you behind the scenes of that investigation, look at the legacy of the groundbreaking story and see how other journalists went on to expose more crimes by Catholic priests around the world.

How did everyone miss the Donald Trump supporters who were hiding in plain sight? On Reveal, we’ll learn why they kept a low profile – until Election Day that is – and hear what they have to say now that their candidate is headed for the White House. We’ll also meet an emerging leader of the alt-right movement who is packing his bags and leaving rural Montana for Washington D.C., where he’ll advocate for a white supremacist agenda.

This week, Reveal’s been working on a show about – what else – the election.

But first you need to hear this: Our host Al Letson spoke with Richard Spencer the day after the election. Like many people, Spencer was both thrilled and surprised that Donald Trump won – and he has a specific agenda. Spencer’s a white nationalist. He sees Trump’s election as the first solid steps toward a new, post-America, whites-only nation.

Listen in as Al has a frank conversation with Spencer that reveals starkly different views of the same world.