The Trojan Horse Affair

#761 - 4 February 2022

A while back, one of our producers Brian Reed was in England giving a speech about the podcast he'd hosted, S-Town. A journalism student approached him, asking for advice about a story he wanted to look into – something that’d been big news in Britain, something he’d thought about for years. Brian and the student, Hamza Syed, decided to team up to try and solve the mystery at the heart of that story. The original idea was to put this on our show, but it got too big. Too many twists and turns! This week, it rolls out as a spectacularly great podcast called The Trojan Horse Affair. We’re excited to bring you their first episode today.

A City Walks Into an Investigation

#760 - 28 January 2022

Last week's story continues, about a Michigan couple who walked into a police officer's house and made a disturbing discovery. This week: the police officer suffers the consequences and so does the couple.

A Couple Walks Into a House

#759 - 21 January 2022

Rob and Reyna Mathis make an unsettling discovery in the home of a local police officer. Soon, their whole city is asking questions about who the officer really is and what he's been doing.

Talking While Black

#758 - 7 January 2022

Think back to two summers ago, the summer of 2020, when a series of violent, highly-publicized killings of Black Americans sparked outrage and a national movement to eradicate racism and its evils. That movement gave way to a newer, reactionary one, a backlash that is playing out in schools and school board meetings across America. Host Emanuele Berry shares stories about Black people who got tangled up in this current backlash in both extreme and very personal ways. This episode won a 2023 duPont-Columbia Award.

The Ghost in the Machine

#757 - 31 December 2021

People use machines to find people they lost.

But I Did Everything Right

#756 - 10 December 2021

People earnestly doing what they're told, and absolutely not getting what they were promised.

The Convert

#755 - 3 December 2021

In 2006, a new convert showed up at a mosque in Orange County, California. Known as Farouk al-Aziz, the convert was actually an FBI informant named Craig Monteilh. That informant’s infiltration of the mosque is at the heart of FBI v Fazaga, a case heard at the Supreme Court last month. We return to our episode from 2012, which tells the story behind it.

Spark Bird

#754 - 26 November 2021

Stories about birds and the hearts they sway, the havoc they wreak, the lives they change.

What We’ve Got Here is Failure to Communicate

#753 - 12 November 2021

Getting the point across — or trying to, anyway.

An Invitation to Tea

#752 - 29 October 2021

A man who was imprisoned for 14 years in Guantanamo Bay, without charges, gets out and issues an invitation to all the people who kept him there. Amazingly, three of them agree to talk.