Reveal

Osad

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  ICE Took Mom and Dad. Now the Kids Are on Their Own. 25.07.2026 50min

  Last fall, life for the Perez children was turned upside down. Their father, Romeo Sr., was picked up on his way to work and sent to immigration detention. A few months later, their mother, Olga, was detained, too. Her daughter was driving when they were pulled over. Romeo Sr. and Olga were both undocumented and had lived in the United States for decades; their children are US citizens. “I just remember after he had started banging on the window, like, telling me that I have to put the windows down so my mom and my uncle can give their IDs,” says 21-year old Eliza Perez. She told the officer, “You took my dad, and now you're taking my mom.”  With their parents gone, Eliza, Jessica, Romeo Jr., and Cynthia had to fend for themselves in Lake Worth, Florida. Eliza, a college student, took charge of the household and the family’s landscaping business.  The Perezes are not alone. An estimated 205,000 kids have had a parent detained by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the last year and a half. It’s happening all over the country and, in some cases, to the same families who were separated at the border during the first Trump administration. = This week on Reveal, filmmakers Max Maldonado and José Jesús Zaragoza and Mother Jones reporters Samantha Michaels and Isabela Dias look into the lives of two families fighting to stay together as the Trump administration’s deportation agenda rips them apart.
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  Staten Island v. New York City With Revisionist History 22.07.2026 36min

  This week, we’re bringing you a special episode from Revisionist History, Malcolm Gladwell’s podcast about things overlooked and misunderstood. Gladwell’s show recently investigated the story of what was once the biggest secession movement in the US since the Civil War: the movement by disillusioned residents in Staten Island to secede from New York City. The Staten Island Problem, Revisionist History’s newest five-part series, reconstructs the battle for New York during the turbulent early 1990s—the rise of Rudy Giuliani, the peak of the homicide rate, the Wu-Tang Clan, young Donald Trump, and the first Black mayor of New York—all through the prism of the city’s oft-forgotten borough. Why tell this story now? Because the island’s secession movement is an early example of the politics of resentment that dominates America today. The first episode of The Staten Island Problem tells the story of David Dinkins, the first Black mayor of New York, facing off with the borough president of Staten Island all while trying to hold his city together. Revisionist History and The Staten Island Problem are produced by Pushkin Industries. Check out their podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or your favorite podcast app. Listen: The Staten Island Problem (Revisionist History) Donate today at Revealnews.org/more Subscribe to our weekly newsletter at Revealnews.org/weekly Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky
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  The Secret Story of FTX’s Rise and Ruin Part 2 18.07.2026 50min

  When the cryptocurrency exchange FTX imploded, customers around the world lost access to their money. Founder Sam Bankman-Fried was convicted of fraud and sent to prison. But the story didn’t stop there. For the past three and a half years, FTX has been in bankruptcy, a legal process that determines who will be paid back and how much they’ll receive.  From the start, some customers and FTX insiders have criticized the bankruptcy. Legal experts and a bipartisan group of senators objected to the law firm tapped to run it, raising concerns about potential conflicts of interest. But the bankruptcy court and an independent examiner signed off on the firm’s appointment as lead counsel.   Customers are now receiving compensation for their losses, but many say they’re being shortchanged. Instead of being paid in cryptocurrency, they’re receiving cash, with their claims pegged to the value of crypto when the market was at an all-time low.  “Under this plan, my contractual rights and my ownership rights have been trampled; my property rights have been disregarded,” says Lidia Favario, an Italian artist who argued in court that customers should be repaid in crypto, not cash. This week on Reveal, in the second part of our series on FTX, we examine the decisions that shaped what’s become one of the most expensive bankruptcies in US history.  Read the FTX bankruptcy estate’s on-the-record statement to Reveal.  This is an update of a show that originally aired in October 2025. Support Reveal’s journalism at Revealnews.org/donatenow Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to get the scoop on new episodes at Revealnews.org/weekly Connect with us onBluesky, Facebook and Instagram
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  The Race to Stop AI’s Threats to Democracy 15.07.2026 33min

  More To The Story: OpenAI and its revolutionary chatbot ChatGPT have single-handedly accelerated AI’s boom and threatened to upend much of how we work, create, learn, and communicate in the process. But when OpenAI was founded a decade ago, the company’s approach to artificial intelligence wasn’t taken seriously in Silicon Valley. Tech journalist Karen Hao has been covering OpenAI’s astounding rise for years and is the author of Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI. She says that while many in Silicon Valley warn of AI’s sci-fi-like threats, the real risks are already here. (The Center for Investigative Reporting, which produces Mother Jones, Reveal, and More To The Story, is currently suing OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement.) On this week’s More To The Story, Hao sounds the alarm about the risks to the planet from AI’s growth, examines the Trump administration’s efforts to deregulate the industry, and explains why the version of AI being developed by Silicon Valley could destabilize democracy. This episode first aired in October 2025.  Producer: Josh Sanburn | Editor: Kara McGuirk-Allison | Theme music: Fernando Arruda and Jim Briggs | Copy editor: Nikki Frick | Intern: Joni Binder | Deputy executive producer: Taki Telonidis | Executive producer: Brett Myers | Executive editor: James West | Host: Al Letson Read: America’s Worst Polluters See a Lifeline in Power-Gobbling AI—and Donald Trump (Wired) Listen: Is AI Pushing Us Closer to Nuclear Disaster? (More To The Story) Read: Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI (Penguin Press) Read: The Center for Investigative Reporting Sues OpenAI, Microsoft for Copyright Violations (Mother Jones) Donate today at Revealnews.org/more Subscribe to our weekly newsletter at Revealnews.org/weekly Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky
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  The Secret Story of FTX’s Rise and Ruin Part 1 11.07.2026 50min

  Sam Bankman-Fried was once called the “crypto king.” But in November 2022, his company, FTX, imploded within a matter of days. All around the world, customers of the cryptocurrency exchange were suddenly cut off from their money.  “I tried to withdraw an amount, you know, and it would spin and say, your, your withdrawal is pending,” says Tareq Morad, an investor from Canada. “I remember myself doing that around 7, 8 o’clock at night, checking back, going to look: Okay, did it go through? Did it go through? No. No. No.” Meanwhile, inside the company, employees were panicking. “All that we were told was there's been a run on the bank and, somehow, money is missing and we don't know who to trust,” remembers Caroline Papadopoulos, part of FTX’s accounting leadership at the time.  This week on Reveal, through prison interviews with Bankman-Fried, his parents, FTX insiders, and customers, we take you through the frantic week of FTX’s collapse and the controversial and less well-known bankruptcy that followed. At a cost of nearly $1 billion, it has become one of the most expensive in history.  Read the FTX bankruptcy estate’s on-the-record statement to Reveal.  This is an update of a show that originally aired in September 2025.  Support Reveal’s journalism at Revealnews.org/donatenow Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to get the scoop on new episodes at Revealnews.org/weekly Connect with us onBluesky, Facebook and Instagram
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  The Secret Origins of the Supreme Court’s Shadow Docket 08.07.2026 30min

  More To The Story: Last month, the Supreme Court issued a number of landmark opinions involving transgender rights, campaign finance, executive power, and immigration. Those decisions were issued in the traditional way many of us recognize: pages and pages of arguments and citations, with each justice on the record voting yea or nay. But over the last decade, the court—led by Chief Justice John Roberts—has increasingly relied on a fast-track way of making decisions that was once rarely used. It’s known as the shadow docket. Few reporters have done more to shine light on the shadow docket than New York Times investigative journalist Jodi Kantor. Along with her colleague Adam Liptak, Kantor recently published a number of previously undisclosed memos detailing the shadow docket’s unprecedented expansion under the Roberts court. On this week’s More To The Story, Kantor talks to host Al Letson about what’s driving the Roberts court to bypass the traditional ways of issuing decisions and how that’s affecting public trust in the court. Plus, Kantor looks back at her Pulitzer Prize–winning reporting on sexual abuse allegations against Harvey Weinstein that helped set off the #metoo movement and argues that obituaries for the movement almost 10 years later are dead wrong. Producer: Josh Sanburn | Editor: Kara McGuirk-Allison | Theme music: Fernando Arruda and Jim Briggs | Copy editor: Nikki Frick | Digital producer: Artis Curiskis | Intern: Joni Binder | Deputy executive producer: Taki Telonidis | Executive producer: Brett Myers | Executive editor: James West | Host: Al Letson Read: This Is All John Roberts’ Fault (Mother Jones) Listen: Why Conservatives Are Trying to Kill the Voting Rights Act (More To The Story) Read: The Inside Story of Five Days That Remade the Supreme Court (The New York Times) Read: She Said: Breaking the Sexual Harassment Story That Helped Ignite a Movement (Penguin Books) Read: How to Start: Discovering Your Life’s Work (Little Brown and Company) Donate today at Revealnews.org/more Subscribe to our weekly newsletter at Revealnews.org/weekly Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky
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  Why America at 250 Still Cannot Face Slavery 04.07.2026 50min

  When Bryan Stevenson moved to Montgomery, Alabama, in the 1980s, the city—one of America’s most prominent slave trading spaces before the Civil War—had dozens of Confederate monuments and memorials, but nothing commemorating slavery.  Today, thanks to Stevenson’s efforts, the city looks much different. Over the last decade, the executive director of the non-profit Equal Justice Initiative has transformed parts of Montgomery through markers acknowledging the legacy of slavery while building the Legacy Sites, a museum and memorials that commemorate the nation’s history of lynching, enslavement, and racial terror across the South.  “We have to now fight to correct the historic record, to have an honest accounting of what happened to our parents and grandparents and their parents,” Stevenson says. “Because without an honest accounting, we will not make it to the next step.” This week on Reveal, host Al Letson travels to Montgomery to interview Stevenson as America marks its 250th anniversary. He talks about the importance of memorializing the nation’s darkest chapters as the Trump administration attempts to erase slavery from America’s museums and explains why he sees today’s narrative struggle for racial justice as a generational battle. Support Reveal’s journalism at Revealnews.org/donatenow Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to get the scoop on new episodes at Revealnews.org/weekly Connect with us on Bluesky, Facebook and Instagram
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  Space, “Star Trek,” and Social Justice 01.07.2026 31min

  More To The Story: Growing up in Los Angeles in the 1980s and ’90s, a daughter and granddaughter of social justice activists, Chanda Prescod-Weinstein fell in love with math and the physical sciences and developed a profound curiosity about the cosmos (though the smoggy night sky of her childhood blocked her view of the stars). She soon developed a detailed plan for her life that led to a career writing and teaching about physics and gender studies at the University of New Hampshire. Today, Prescod-Weinstein’s work stands out for the ways she weaves her identity as queer, Black, and Jewish into her work. In her latest book, The Edge of Space-Time: Particles, Poetry, and the Cosmic Dream Boogie, Prescod-Weinstein brings a Black feminist lens to cosmology, quantum physics, poetry, and popular culture to help unlock the mysteries of the physical universe. On this week’s More To The Story, Prescod-Weinstein talks about the need for diversity and inclusivity in the sciences and puts science fiction’s various hypotheses for space travel to the test with host Al Letson. Read: The Edge of Space-Time: Particles, Poetry, and the Cosmic Dream Boogie (Pantheon) Read: Has America Lived Up to Its Founding Promise? (Reveal) Watch: How We Could Solve the Dark Matter Mystery (TED Talks) Read: The Disordered Cosmos: A Journey Into Dark Matter, Spacetime, and Dreams Deferred (Bold Type Books) Learn more: Chanda Prescod-Weinstein’s personal website Donate today at Revealnews.org/more Subscribe to our weekly newsletter at Revealnews.org/weekly Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky
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  Has America Lived Up to Its Founding Promise? 27.06.2026 36min

  Elizabeth Freeman was an enslaved person living in Massachusetts when the Declaration of Independence was signed 250 years ago. The document’s famous words “all men are created equal” did not apply to her, but she thought they should.  “She is somebody who heard the words of the declaration, knew that they were real in her life, and argued for that to be true,” says Errin Haines, editor-at-large at The 19th. Eventually, Freeman fought to abolish slavery in Massachusetts. This week on Reveal, as America marks 250 years since its founding, we share stories of people who were denied equality and the battles they fought to attain it. In addition to Freeman’s story, we hear about one of the first Native American communities to encounter white settlers more than 400 years ago and learn why the fight for the Equal Rights Amendment for women continues to this day. Support Reveal’s journalism at Revealnews.org/donatenow Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to get the scoop on new episodes at Revealnews.org/weekly Connect with us on Bluesky, Facebook and Instagram
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  Trump’s Gilded White House Makeover Is All About Power 24.06.2026 30min

  The second Trump administration has made tearing down parts of the federal government a priority. And some of those efforts have been literal. In October, President Donald Trump ordered the demolition of the White House’s East Wing to make way for the construction of a massive 90,000-square-foot ballroom. He’s also overseen a now-problematic overhaul of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, given the White House a gilded makeover, bulldozed the famed Rose Garden, and even has plans for a so-called “Arc de Trump” that mirrors France’s Arc de Triomphe. So what’s behind all of this? Art historian Erin Thompson—author of Smashing Statues: The Rise and Fall of America’s Public Monuments—says that whether it’s Romans repurposing idols of leaders who had fallen out of favor or the glorification of Civil War officers in the American South, monuments and public aesthetics aren’t just about the past. They’re about symbolizing power today.  On this week’s More To The Story, Thompson sits down with host Al Letson to discuss why Trump has decked out the White House in gold (so much gold), the rise and recent fall of Confederate monuments, and whether she thinks the Arc de Trump will ever get built. This is an update of an episode that first aired in December 2025. Producers: Josh Sanburn and Artis Curiskis | Editor: Kara McGuirk-Allison | Theme music: Fernando Arruda and Jim Briggs | Copy editor: Nikki Frick | Digital producer: Artis Curiskis | Intern: Joni Binder | Deputy executive producer: Taki Telonidis | Executive producer: Brett Myers | Executive editor: James West | Host: Al Letson Listen: Fancy Galleries, Fake Art (Reveal) Listen: Will the National Parks Survive Trump? (Reveal) Read: Smashing Statues: The Rise and Fall of America’s Public Monuments (W. W. Norton & Company) Read: America’s Tech Right Is Obsessed With Building Giant Statues (Bloomberg) Read: Nearly 100 Confederate Monuments Were Toppled in 2020. What Happened to Them? (Mother Jones) Note: If you buy a book using our Bookshop link, a small share of the proceeds supports our journalism. Donate today at Revealnews.org/more Subscribe to our weekly newsletter at Revealnews.org/weekly Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky
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  The Beautiful Game Is More Unaffordable Than Ever 20.06.2026 50min

  The World Cup is here.  For the first time, the tournament is happening in three countries at once: the United States, Mexico, and Canada. It’s bigger than ever, with more teams, more games, more viewers, and more money on the line. This special World Cup episode of Reveal looks beyond the spectacle of the beautiful game to the organization behind it: FIFA. The global soccer body stands to take in billions from the tournament, while fans face soaring ticket prices and host cities pay massive sums for transportation, security, and infrastructure.   “Sport is this incredible glue that brings people together,” human rights advocate Mustafa Qadri tells Reveal. But he says that also makes it “highly vulnerable to cynical people coming in and exploiting it for their own gain.”   This week, reporters Alex Shephard, Tim Murphy of Mother Jones, and Reveal producer Artis Curiskis follow the money, power, and politics behind the World Cup—and ask who gets to be part of the world’s biggest game. Support Reveal’s journalism at Revealnews.org/donatenow Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to get the scoop on new episodes at Revealnews.org/newsletter Connect with us on Bluesky, Facebook and Instagram
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  Bryan Stevenson on Confronting America’s Legacy of Slavery 17.06.2026 30min

  More To The Story: When Bryan Stevenson moved to Montgomery, Alabama, in the 1980s, the city—one of America’s most prominent slave trading spaces before the Civil War—had dozens of Confederate monuments and memorials, but nothing commemorating slavery. Today, thanks to Stevenson’s efforts, the city looks much different. Over the last decade, the executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative has transformed parts of Montgomery through markers acknowledging the legacy of slavery while also building the Legacy Sites, a series of museums and memorials that commemorate America’s dark history of lynching, slaveholding, and racial terror across the South.  On this week’s More To The Story, Stevenson talks about the importance of memorializing America’s full history as the Trump administration attempts to erase slavery and lynching from the nation’s museums and why he sees today’s narrative struggle for racial justice as a generational battle. Producer: Josh Sanburn | Editor: Kara McGuirk-Allison | Theme music: Fernando Arruda and Jim Briggs | Copy editor: Nikki Frick | Digital producer: Artis Curiskis | Intern: Joni Binder | Deputy executive producer: Taki Telonidis | Executive producer: Brett Myers | Executive editor: James West | Host: Al Letson Read: Trump’s War on History (Mother Jones) Listen: Mississippi Goddam: The Ballad of Billey Joe (Reveal) Read: Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption (One World) Learn more: Equal Justice Initiative Learn more: The Legacy Sites Donate today at Revealnews.org/more Subscribe to our weekly newsletter at Revealnews.org/weekly Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky
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  The Plague in the Shadows 13.06.2026 50min

  Decades before Covid-19, the AIDS epidemic tore through communities in the US and around the world. It has killed some 40 million people and continues to take lives today. But early on, research and public policy focused on AIDS as a gay men’s disease, overlooking other vulnerable groups—including communities of color and women.  This month marks 45 years since the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published its first report about a mysterious illness that would eventually be called AIDS. So we’re bringing back Blindspot: The Plague in the Shadows, from reporters Kai Wright and Lizzy Ratner, which chronicles the first years of the HIV epidemic in New York City.  One of the most influential activists for women with AIDS was Katrina Haslip, a prisoner at a maximum-security prison in upstate New York. In the 1980s, Haslip and other incarcerated women started a support group to educate each other about HIV and AIDS. Haslip took her activism beyond prison walls after her release in 1990, even meeting with CDC leaders. One of the main goals was to change the definition of AIDS, which at the time excluded many symptoms that appeared in HIV-positive women. This meant that women with AIDS often did not qualify for government benefits such as Medicaid and disability insurance.  The podcast series Blindspot: The Plague in the Shadows is a co-production of The History Channel and WNYC Studios.  This is an update of an episode that originally aired in February 2024. Support Reveal’s journalism at Revealnews.org/donatenow Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to get the scoop on new episodes at Revealnews.org/newsletter Connect with us on Bluesky, Facebook and Instagram
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  Heather Cox Richardson on the Real Genius of America 10.06.2026 34min

  More To The Story: Heather Cox Richardson is one of today’s unlikeliest social media stars. The Boston College historian has been teaching and writing about 19th-century America, Reconstruction, and the Civil War for decades. But it was only in 2019 that her work took off when she began writing her daily newsletter, Letters from an American, a no-nonsense analysis of the news through the lens of US history. The newsletter became one of the most popular on Substack. And today, Richardson has millions of loyal fans who rely on her to make sense of American politics and provide a little sanity and democratic reassurance even as she herself is concerned about the direction of the country today. On this week’s More To The Story, Richardson talks about the decades-long failure to hold corrupt American leaders accountable, the still-resonant death of Reconstruction, and what she sees as the tragic hypocrisy of Thomas Jefferson. Producer: Josh Sanburn | Editor: Kara McGuirk-Allison | Theme music: Fernando Arruda and Jim Briggs | Copy editor: Daniel King | Digital producer: Artis Curiskis | Intern: Joni Binder | Deputy executive producer: Taki Telonidis | Executive producer: Brett Myers | Executive editor: James West | Host: Al Letson Read: Trump’s War on History (Mother Jones) Listen: As the Trump Administration Erases History, These Writers Are Keeping It Alive (Reveal) Read: Letters from an American (Substack) Read: Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America (Penguin Books) Donate today at Revealnews.org/more Subscribe to our weekly newsletter at Revealnews.org/weekly Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky
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  We Get It. You Don’t Trust Us. 06.06.2026 50min

  Every week, a group of men in their late 60s meets at the Corner Cafe in Elizabethtown, North Carolina. One important reason for these meetups is to discuss what’s going on in their community.  Local news has virtually dried up in their rural county, as well as neighboring counties, and some residents say they’re being left in the dark and don’t feel equipped to make informed decisions. “I’m not gonna vote if I can’t get the information,” says Penny Abernathy. Like in much of the country, roughly two-thirds of North Carolina’s counties are considered news deserts. And the lack of local journalism isn’t just making it harder for people to stay informed; it’s exacerbating a crisis of trust in the news media.  This week on Reveal, we partner with the podcast Scene on Radio and its hosts John Biewen and Chenjerai Kumanyika to understand how American journalism got here and what can be done to repair the cracked foundation of the Fourth Estate.  Support Reveal’s journalism at Revealnews.org/donatenow Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to get the scoop on new episodes at Revealnews.org/weekly Connect with us on Bluesky, Facebook and Instagram
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  The Revolutionary Roots That Inspired Tupac Shakur 03.06.2026 38min

  More To The Story: It’s impossible to overstate rapper Tupac Shakur’s influence on music and culture in the 1990s. One of the era’s bestselling musical artists, Tupac helped define West Coast hip-hop through vulnerable, introspective lyrics and Black power politics. By his own admission, sports writer Jeff Pearlman is not the rapper’s likeliest biographer. But as he waited for what he called “the big, fat biography” of Tupac, his impatience and long-standing fascination with the rapper got the best of him. So he set out to write it himself. On this week’s episode, Pearlman talks about his book Only God Can Judge Me: The Many Lives of Tupac Shakur; discusses how Tupac’s Black Panther mother, Afeni Shakur, shaped her son; and examines the nuance and mystery surrounding Tupac’s life and death almost 30 years later. Producer: Josh Sanburn | Editor: Kara McGuirk-Allison | Theme music: Fernando Arruda and Jim Briggs | Copy editor: Nikki Frick | Digital producer: Artis Curiskis | Intern: Joni Binder | Deputy executive producer: Taki Telonidis | Executive producer: Brett Myers | Executive editor: James West | Host: Al Letson Read: The 24 Best Books We Read in 2025 (Mother Jones) Listen: Baltimore Mayor to Trump: Don’t Send Your Troops (More To The Story) Read: Only God Can Judge Me: The Many Lives of Tupac Shakur (Mariner Books) Note: If you buy a book using our Bookshop link, a small share of the proceeds supports our journalism. Donate today at Revealnews.org/more Subscribe to our weekly newsletter at Revealnews.org/weekly Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky
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  Fortress Europe: The Fight for Refugees in Greece 30.05.2026 50min

  In 2015, hundreds of thousands of people fleeing war and repression were trying to reach safe havens in Europe. From his home in Norway, Tommy Olsen decided to travel to Greece, a major gateway for migrants and refugees. He joined hundreds of volunteers  helping the new arrivals and later created an NGO, the Aegean Boat Report, which monitors the plight of asylum seekers in Europe. Today, Olsen is a wanted man in Greece, caught up in a crackdown on refugees and people trying to defend their right to asylum. “I didn’t know what I walked into,” Olsen says. Mary Lawlor, the UN special rapporteur on human rights defenders, has condemned Greece’s harsh migration policies and the way its government is targeting activists like Olsen. But she says Europe as a whole is also to blame. “The whole notion of migration is a dirty word now,” she says. “The whole notion of refugees is a dirty word now.” This week on Reveal, reporters Dinah Rothenberg and Viola Funk from the Berlin podcast studio Slowly Media take us to Greece, where refugees and human rights defenders face legal and sometimes physical attacks from authorities trying to seal the country’s borders. This is an update of an episode that originally aired in January 2025. Support Reveal’s journalism at Revealnews.org/donatenow Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to get the scoop on new episodes at Revealnews.org/weekly Instagram
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  Why Conservatives Are Trying to Kill the Voting Rights Act 27.05.2026 27min

  More To The Story: The Voting Rights Act is widely considered one of the most effective laws in prohibiting racial discrimination in voting. One of its key provisions has long allowed states to take race into account when drawing voting maps to ensure that nonwhite voters have electoral power. But earlier this year, the Supreme Court narrowed that provision. In her dissent, Justice Elena Kagan described the court’s decision as the “now-completed demolition of the Voting Rights Act.” “The notion that everyone deserves equal access to the ballot, that everyone deserves equal access to elections, that one person ought to mean one vote, and that there ought to be some measure of political equality has never really sat well with the political right in this country,” says Jamelle Bouie, a political columnist for the New York Times. On this week’s More To The Story, Bouie and host Al Letson talk about how the Voting Rights Act has been defanged by the Supreme Court, why the Democratic Party is made up of “a bunch of weenies,” and why he believes the country is experiencing a constitutional emergency. This is an update of an episode that originally aired in August 2025. Producer: Josh Sanburn | Editor: Kara McGuirk-Allison | Theme music: Fernando Arruda and Jim Briggs | Copy editor: Nikki Frick | Digital producer: Artis Curiskis | Deputy executive producer: Taki Telonidis | Executive producer: Brett Myers | Executive editor: James West | Host: Al Letson Listen: How Trump Exploits Working-Class Pain (More To The Story) Read: Republican Gerrymandering Schemes Target Minority Voters and Their Representatives (Mother Jones) Listen: Not All Votes Are Created Equal (Reveal) Read: The Nation’s Landmark Voting Rights Law Just Turned 60. It May Not Survive Trump. (Mother Jones) Watch: Blame John Roberts for Destroying the Voting Rights Act (Mother Jones) Donate today at Revealnews.org/more Subscribe to our weekly newsletter at Revealnews.org/weekly Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky
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  911, Please Hold 23.05.2026 50min

  The 911 system functions as a sort of promise: Call for help and someone will be there to respond quickly. But in many American cities, it’s a broken promise. Thanks in part to a widespread understaffing crisis across 911 dispatch centers, hundreds of thousands of callers are left waiting on hold during their most harrowing moments every year. Reporter Byard Duncan has spent more than a year reporting on America’s flailing 911 system and what it might take to fix it. This week on Reveal, in partnership with Type Investigations, he traces the issue from California to Wisconsin and a final stop on Capitol Hill. Support Reveal’s journalism at Revealnews.org/donatenow Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to get the scoop on new episodes at Revealnews.org/weekly Connect with us onBluesky, Facebook and Instagram
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  Trump Destroyed USAID. Now People Are Dying. 20.05.2026 37min

  More To The Story: When Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, went looking for government agencies to axe last year, one of its first targets was the US Agency for International Development. Established during the Cold War to counter Soviet influence, USAID spent billions of dollars on food aid, public health, and emergency relief for some of the world’s most vulnerable populations. In return, the US hoped to gain allies and goodwill. Call it a decades-long exercise in soft power. But since President Donald Trump returned to office, soft power is out. And so is USAID, which has been slashed and reorganized. The Trump administration is trying to close the agency altogether by September. This has led to some horrific consequences for the people who relied on USAID to survive. On this week’s More To The Story, ProPublica’s Anna Maria Barry-Jester and Brett Murphy join host Al Letson to talk about their on-the-ground reporting from Africa and how the Trump administration’s aid cuts are leading to devastating, even deadly, consequences. Producer: Josh Sanburn | Editor: Kara McGuirk-Allison | Theme music: Fernando Arruda and Jim Briggs | Copy editor: Nikki Frick | Digital producer: Artis Curiskis | Deputy executive producer: Taki Telonidis | Executive producer: Brett Myers | Executive editor: James West | Host: Al Letson Read: Russell Vought Raided USAID Budgets He Helped Gut to Pay for His Own Security (Mother Jones) Listen: How Project 2025 Is Reshaping Our Country (More To The Story) Read: Trump Officials Celebrated With Cake After Slashing Aid. Then People Died of Cholera. (ProPublica) Listen: Paper Trail (ProPublica) Donate today at Revealnews.org/more Subscribe to our weekly newsletter at Revealnews.org/weekly Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky