When falling in love can mean risking your life, the Love Commandos in India will protect you. But at what cost? Want to hear episodes of Love Commandos a week before everyone else? Sign up for Embedded+ at plus.npr.org/embedded . See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy...
How deep can you dig for the truth before it gets dangerous? In March 2022, reporter Lauren Chooljian published her first story detailing allegations against Eric Spofford, the founder of New Hampshire's largest addiction treatment network. Over the following months, Lauren received a first-hand glimpse into the ways powerful, wealthy people can intimidate sources and try to stop journalism from happening. And then, there was the vandalism... This is episode three of The 13th Step, produced by o...
As Eric Spofford tells it, he spent his teen years in the throes of addiction and crime. When he got sober, he became a crusader for recovery. On the second episode of The 13th Step from New Hampshire Public Radio, host Lauren Chooljian unravels how the founder of New Hampshire's largest addiction treatment network built his company – and the allegations that he abused that power by sexually assaulting members of his own staff. This is episode two of The 13th Step, produced by our friends at New...
So many of us have been touched by America's addiction crisis. And we look to treatment for solutions. But what happens when communities dedicated to treatment turn out to be dangerous? In the first episode of The 13th Step – the new investigative series from our friends at New Hampshire Public Radio (NHPR) – host Lauren Chooljian uncovers the culture of sexual misconduct in America's recovery communities, a phenomenon known as 13th stepping. This is a story that some people tried to stop NHPR f...
It's competition season, and the girls say they're over what happened at the Tops supermarket last year. "I'm fine!" But then the shooter has his sentencing hearing, and those feelings come flooding back. When they hit the stage — they're wobbly. And argumentative. The girls and Coach Yani open up about the hard truth: where they really stand one year later. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship pr...
How do you make sense of something terrible that's happened—and move forward? From the cheer gym to the therapy office, we follow the parents, coaches and kids of Buffalo All-Star Extreme in the year after the Tops massacre. The mass shooting set back the cheerleaders' training schedule by months, and now competition is just weeks away. After everything that happened to her community, Coach Yani wants her team to win more than ever. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and us...
Ayanna Williams Gaines is the coach and founder of Buffalo All-Star Extreme, a Black competitive cheerleading and dance team from Buffalo, New York. Williams Gaines started the gym as a space for Black girls to feel safe and to thrive in the predominantly white world of cheer. But on May 14, 2022, a white supremacist came to a predominantly Black neighborhood on the east side of Buffalo and killed ten Black people at a grocery store just a few blocks away from the gym. In the wake of the massacr...
What happens after a racist mass shooting in your neighborhood? On May 14, 2022, the world changed for residents of Buffalo, New York, when a white man approached the Jefferson Street Tops supermarket and started shooting. He murdered ten and injured three people, almost all Black. That same day, teenagers and children — members of a Black cheer team called BASE — were at their gym around the corner. "Buffalo Extreme" is their story: a 3-part series where NPR hands the mic to the girls, their mo...
Tom and Graham meet Shihab's brother in Baghdad — but he's wary. They also visit Fallujah, to find the schoolhouse and talk with people who were on the other side of the occupation. Then, finally... back to Camp Pendleton. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy...
The team turns to Pat Tillman's family for help. Duncan Hunter the elder, and the younger, respond to NPR's questions... kind of. A breakthrough in the search for the interpreter has Tom and Graham planning a trip back to where it all began. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy...
Tom and Graham work their way up the chain of command, looking for someone — anyone — who can explain how and why this incident was buried. One general claims he can't recall the incident. Another talks with the team at the Pentagon, then changes his story about Duncan Hunter's involvement. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy...
As Tom and Graham work to track down the men in the courtyard, one of the wounded Marines has long remained elusive. His former comrades wonder if he's even still alive. Eventually, with help from Carlos, the team finds David. His chilling story reflects the lingering wounds of war. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy...
Hoping to get their hands on the official investigation, the NPR team flies to Tucson. But problems begin shortly after arrival. The widow of a man who died in the explosion wants to know why the Marine Corps lied to her. Tom and Graham want to know why the recommended punishments were overturned. The team finally confirms a crucial detail from the original tip. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorshi...
The wounded are evacuated. The battle subsides. Now the men of Echo 2/1 begin to wonder: What happened? The Marine Corps says "no records exist" but Tom and Graham find testimony before an obscure Congressional subcommittee that says otherwise. The team also finds that promises made — to Congress, to the families of the dead and to wounded Marines — have been broken. And, they hear from one man who knows exactly what happened in the courtyard of that schoolhouse — but they still have to wonder, ...
NPR's Pentagon Correspondent, Tom Bowman, receives a shocking tip from a trusted source: A deadly explosion during the Iraq War was an accident—friendly fire, covered up by the Marine Corps—and the son of a powerful politician may have been involved. He partners with an old pal, Graham Smith, to investigate, and they discover the truth is even worse than the tipster realized. After dozens of interviews, the team patches together the story of the First Battle of Fallujah — the days and hours befo...
In our final episode of the season, we start researching the names on the secret list of 2,746 Cuban excludables. What we find confirms many of our suspicions about the arbitrariness of how the U.S. government created the list. Our reporting takes us — where else? — to Cuba, to finally track down the men on the roof and hear them tell their own stories. What had they hoped to find in this country and what had they found instead? Finally, our journey takes us to one last interview in a high rise ...
Hosted by NPR's Pentagon correspondent Tom Bowman and Graham Smith of the Investigations unit, Taking Cover isn't just a show about the worst Marine-on-Marine friendly fire incident in modern history. It's a story of betrayal, brotherhood, and what's owed—to families, the wounded, and to the American public—when we send our young to war. Coming soon, after this week's conclusion of White Lies. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and t...
Since we began reporting this story, we've been after a list. A secret list. On it are the names of 2,746 people whom the US government deemed excludable, including the men on the roof. The government has kept this list so secret that at one point it went so far as to classify it. None of the Mariel detainees knew if their name was on the list or not. In fact, nobody knew what names were on the list. Until now. In Episode 7, the story of a list that sparked uprisings, separated families, and cha...
In Episode 6, we sneak into the graveyard of the Atlanta federal penitentiary with a radical peace activist to learn more about what happened in the prison in late 1984. A peaceful protest by detainees held in the Atlanta pen resulted in a violent crackdown, and one of the detainees, a man named Jose Hernandez-Mesa, was charged in federal court with inciting a riot. We tell the story of his trial — and the surprising verdict that began reshaping public opinion about the Mariel Cubans who were be...
On May 18, 1980, a man named Genaro Soroa-Gonzalez arrived in Key West from the port of Mariel. With no family waiting to sponsor him, he was sent by plane to a resettlement camp at an army base. There he was interviewed by the INS and, a few days later, he boarded another plane, this one bound for the federal prison in Atlanta. But wait - he'd committed no crime, so why was the US government detaining him? And how long could they hold him? In Episode 5, the story of Genaro Soroa-Gonzalez and th...
When President Carter promised to welcome the men and women arriving on the Mariel boatlift with "an open heart and open arms," he had referred to them as refugees. But technically speaking, they weren't refugees. They were classified as entrants, an immigration status with a peculiar legal standing in the United States. While entrants are physically allowed to enter the country, legally they're still at the border, asking to come in. Their presence in the country is known as a legal fiction — s...
During our reporting, we heard one story over and over again: that Fidel Castro had emptied his prisons to fill the boatlift. It's a story that's been told so often and with such conviction that of course it must be true, right? But what if this was more theater than history? What was happening in 1980 in Miami and throughout the country that made this story so compelling? Why did it feel so true to so many people? In Episode 3, we go to Miami to find out. Want to hear the next episode of White ...
Note: Due to a technical error, some listeners did not hear the correct audio for Episode 2. We are re-publishing it with the corrected audio. The story of the men on the roof didn't start with that prison takeover in 1991. It didn't start when they were detained in federal prisons. And it didn't start when the government made a secret list of their names in 1984. Instead, it started in the spring of 1980, with one of the largest refugee crises in American history: the Mariel Boatlift. Want to h...
It all started with a photograph. A photograph from 1991 of a prison takeover in rural Alabama. A photograph of a group of men on the roof of that prison holding a bedsheet scrawled with a message: "Pray for us." In the first episode of the new season of White Lies, hosts Chip Brantley and Andrew Beck Grace go searching for answers to the questions raised by this photograph. Who were these men? What on earth had made them want to take over that prison? And what became of them after? As they sear...
In 1991, a group of men took over a federal prison in rural Alabama. But these men weren't prisoners, they were immigration detainees, all of them from Cuba. And none of them were serving time for a sentence; they were being indefinitely detained. Who were these men? What in the world had brought them from Cuba to a prison in rural Alabama, and what became of them afterward? On the new season of White Lies, hosts Chip Brantley and Andrew Beck Grace set out to find the men who took over the priso...
The 2022 World Cup has ended. With his left foot, Messi wrote a more spectacular finale than we could have imagined. In the final installment of The Last Cup, Jasmine Garsd reveals the magic of Argentina's first World Cup victory since 1986. This final episode of our series is mainly in English, with some Spanish. Este último capítulo está disponible en ingles, e incluye comentario en español. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and t...
Argentina has made it to the quarter finals of the 2022 World Cup, but the road has been a winding one. In our bonus episode, we take a moment to reflect on the scores and stumbles of the qualifying rounds, and speculate on what's to come for our hero, Lionel Messi. Host Jasmine Garsd discusses Argentina's anxiety with producer Julieta Martinelli and sports reporter Fidel Martinez. The Latinx Files is a weekly newsletter written by Fidel Martinez about the American Latinx experience. Julieta Mar...
After a falling-out with the Argentine national team and a shaky reconciliation, Messi eventually finds his way back to play at the 2021 Copa America for yet another chance at redemption. And then it's on to Qatar for the 2022 World Cup, his last shot at the most coveted trophy. In the final chapter of Lionel Messi's journey, we catch up to the present. Our host Jasmine Garsd reflects on what a win would mean for Messi and for Argentina - and what it really takes to come home. The Last Cup is a ...
With the disappointment of the 2010 World Cup behind them, Argentines are hopeful that Lionel Messi might break their losing streak at the 2011 Copa America, the largest tournament in South America. Messi is prepared to give his all, looking for a way to deliver a victory for his home country. Meanwhile, host Jasmine Garsd makes the long journey back to Argentina after many years away and faces an unexpected tragedy. The Last Cup is a dual language limited series from NPR and Futuro Studios. All...
Lionel Messi finally gets a chance to put on Argentina's national jersey, but something is off. His time abroad has fundamentally changed the way he plays. Things get even more complicated when the Argentine soccer legend, Diego Maradona, becomes coach of Messi's 2010 World Cup team. With Messi under increasing scrutiny, the hometown crowd begins to question if he can ever get out from under Maradona's shadow. The Last Cup is a dual language limited series from NPR and Futuro Studios. All episod...
