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 p...
May 20, 2026•38 min
Virginia might be for lovers, but more recently, it’s for data centers. The state has more data centers than anywhere in the world, and companies are pushing to build more of them, including around some of the most hallowed ground in the country: the Manassas National Battlefield Park. “The amount of surface land that is being displaced by data centers and everything that goes with that, I don’t think people understand what’s really happening,” says Elena Schlossberg, a leading activist against ...
May 16, 2026•50 min
More To The Story: Voters are heading to the polls for this year’s midterms, but the electoral maps are shifting under their feet in real time. Last month, the Supreme Court narrowed a provision in the Voting Rights Act that allowed states to consider race when redrawing maps. That decision set off a mad scramble by GOP state legislatures to alter their maps ahead of November’s elections, a move that could disenfranchise Black voters. Meanwhile, Democrats were dealt a major blow last week when t...
May 13, 2026•28 min
When the FBI showed up at a warehouse in Fulton County, Georgia, to seize hundreds of boxes of 2020 election records this past January, County Commissioner Dana Barrett thought it looked less like a criminal investigation and more like political theater. It’s been more than five years since the election, the results already had been investigated multiple times, and the ballots had been counted, recounted, and recounted again. The lie that the 2020 election was stolen has persisted. And the “Stop...
May 09, 2026•51 min
More To The Story: In 2002, journalist Vicky Ward—then a writer for Vanity Fair magazine—was assigned to investigate a mysterious New York City financier named Jeffrey Epstein. During her reporting, she stumbled upon sexual abuse allegations against Epstein by Maria and Annie Farmer whose account was ultimately cut from Ward’s piece, titled “The Talented Mr. Epstein.” That decision sparked recriminations between Ward and then- Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter that have continued for more than a...
May 06, 2026•32 min
Last fall, hundreds of activists from all over the world crowded onto several dozen boats and set sail for Gaza. Their goal: Break through Israel’s blockade of the territory and end one of the worst humanitarian crises on the planet. They thought that by sharing their journey through social media, they could capture the world’s attention. At first, it was easy to dismiss the Global Sumud Flotilla—until it wasn’t. Before reaching Gaza, the flotilla was attacked by drones, and activists were arres...
May 02, 2026•51 min
More To The Story : When President Donald Trump returned to office last year, he promised to largely steer America clear of foreign entanglements. But over the last year, his administration has captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, threatened to take over Greenland, openly talked about making Canada the 51st state, and most recently attacked Iran. In some ways, it might appear that Trump is trying to revive the American empire. Not so, says Daniel Immerwahr, a Northwestern University his...
Apr 29, 2026•32 min
The forest floor was nothing but patches of brown. No ferns, no brush, no flowers, and definitely no wildlife. Everything was dead except for rows of hand-planted baby trees. This is what reporter Nate Halverson found while mushroom foraging in the California wilderness near Lassen Peak. He would learn the area had been sprayed with the controversial weed killer glyphosate, more commonly known by its brand name, Roundup. This week on Reveal , Halverson’s yearlong investigation reveals that the U...
Apr 25, 2026•50 min
More To The Story : As NASA’s Artemis II journeyed into space earlier this month, one of the astronauts took a photo of Earth lit by the moon known as “Hello, World.” It’s the first published photograph of our planet taken by a human since 1972. The Artemis mission has reinvigorated mankind’s awe of our planet. But for Earth to remain a habitable place for humans to flourish, it requires us to take care of it. On this special Earth Day episode of More To The Story , we’re featuring interviews wi...
Apr 22, 2026•42 min
In June, a sharp-suited Austrian executive from a global surveillance company told a prospective client that he could “go to prison” for organizing the deal they were discussing. But the conversation did not end there. The executive, Guenther Rudolph, was seated at a booth at ISS World in Prague, a secretive trade fair for police and intelligence agencies and advanced surveillance technology companies. Rudolph went on to explain how his firm, First Wap, could provide sophisticated phone-tracking...
Apr 18, 2026•50 min
Earlier this year, Daniel Holz from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists announced that its experts were moving the hands of the Doomsday Clock to 85 seconds before midnight. The hands have been moved only 27 times since the clock’s creation in 1947, and they’re now the closest they’ve pointed to imminent global destruction. On this week’s More To The Story , in an update of an episode that first aired in July 2025, Holz sits down with host Al Letson to talk about the history of the Doomsday Cl...
Apr 15, 2026•30 min
Alessandro Chesser is a 40-year-old Silicon Valley entrepreneur. He’s married with two kids and was the first in his family to attend college. His grandfather immigrated from Sicily and worked as a school janitor so his family could have a better life. Skip forward a few generations, and Chesser is noticing the way wealthy investors hide their money to avoid paying taxes. He’s outraged and wants to upend the tax system, which he thinks is unfair to the everyday American worker. In Chesser’s mind...
Apr 11, 2026•50 min
More To The Story : Earlier this year, parts of Minneapolis resembled a war zone. The Minnesota city had become the violent epicenter of President Donald Trump’s immigration raids as thousands of masked agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol roamed the streets in what was known as Operation Metro Surge. Thousands of immigrants, many of whom had no criminal record, were detained. Children were arrested. High schoolers were pepper-sprayed. And two US citizens—Renée ...
Apr 08, 2026•30 min
Here at the Center for Investigative Reporting, we excel at finding things: government documents, paper trails, the misdeeds people have tried to hide. It’s serious work. But that gave us an idea: What would happen if we used these skills for things that are less about accountability and more about joy? If we turned our energy toward personally meaningful questions? That was the spark for our first-ever Inconsequential Investigations hour. We turned our journalistic strategies on our own biggest...
Apr 04, 2026•51 min
More To The Story : Few political figures occupy the sort of space in American history that Al Gore does. A longtime member of Congress before becoming vice president, Gore lost the presidency in 2000 to George W. Bush after a highly controversial decision by the Supreme Court. But in the years that followed, Gore didn’t slink into history. Instead, he worked to sound the growing alarm on climate change, most notably with his documentary, An Inconvenient Truth , which came out 20 years ago. A ye...
Apr 01, 2026•34 min
Last year, arts organizations and cultural institutions across the US received an alarming message: Their federal grants had been canceled. The letters said their projects no longer aligned with new federal priorities and that money was being redirected toward the Trump administration’s agenda. The grants had funded museum exhibits, public art programs, historical research, and community arts initiatives. Angela Sutton and a team of archaeologists were in the middle of excavating a long-forgotte...
Mar 28, 2026•50 min
More To The Story : Back in November, two National Guard members were shot just blocks from the White House. One was killed. The suspect, Rahmanullah Lakanwal, is an Afghan national who came to the US through a Biden-era humanitarian parole program and had applied for a special immigrant visa, which allows Afghans who worked with the US military to obtain a green card. In the shooting’s aftermath, President Donald Trump halted the visa program and called for a review of all Afghans who have come...
Mar 25, 2026•31 min
As news broke that Iran’s supreme leader had been killed, prominent critic Arash Azizi found himself trying to make sense of a moment he had long imagined. For years, Azizi studied Iran’s political system and hoped for change from within. Now, with the man who defined that system gone, Azizi was left with questions: What comes next for Iran? And who gets to decide? This week on Reveal , reporters Najib Aminy, Kiera Butler, and Nadia Hamdan follow the ripple effects of the war in Iran. Expats lik...
Mar 21, 2026•51 min
Take a trip to Mr. Rogers’ real life neighborhood in this special episode that celebrates the life and work of public media’s most famous defender. Reveal goes to WQED in Pittsburgh for a look at how Fred Rogers, the host of Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood , championed public television throughout its decadeslong struggle to survive Washington politics. Donate today at Revealnews.org/more Subscribe to our weekly newsletter at Revealnews.org/weekly Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky Learn about your ad ...
Mar 19, 2026•17 min
More To The Story : Over the last half-century, Mother Jones magazine has broken some of the era’s defining stories, including some of the earliest reporting about the dangers of Big Tobacco, its investigation into the exploding Ford Pinto, and Mitt Romney’s now-infamous line about 47 percent of Americans viewing themselves as “victims” who are “dependent on government.” Monika Bauerlein has been part of Mother Jones ’ story for half of its existence, first as an editor and now as the CEO of the...
Mar 18, 2026•27 min
Note: This episode contains descriptions of violence and suicide and may not be appropriate for all listeners. In 1989, Chuck Stuart called 911 on his car phone to report a shooting. He said he and his wife were leaving a birthing class at a Boston hospital when a man forced him to drive into the mixed-race Mission Hill neighborhood and shot them both. Stuart’s wife, Carol, was seven months pregnant. She would die that night, hours after her son was delivered by cesarean section, and days later,...
Mar 14, 2026•51 min
More To The Story : In January, the federal government released updated dietary guidelines for Americans that reimagine the nation’s longtime food pyramid by literally turning it upside down. The guidelines, which once prioritized foods like grains while minimizing fats, now recommend red meat, whole milk, proteins, and healthy fats. It’s one of the most unmistakable ways that US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has brought the Make America Healthy Again movement into th...
Mar 11, 2026•28 min
Two veteran journalists set out to document Israel’s destruction of Gaza’s health care system: hospitals attacked, medical workers killed, doctors detained and held for long periods without criminal charges. The BBC had commissioned the film. But their Palestinian sources in Gaza and the West Bank were skeptical. “We really had to try and persuade them…to talk to us because they didn’t—and don’t—trust the BBC,” says reporter Ramita Navai. One source doubted the BBC would air the film. “And I was...
Mar 07, 2026•50 min
More To The Story: US and Israeli military strikes against Iran that killed several of the country’s top officials, including longtime supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, have ushered in a new and unpredictable era in the Middle East. Within hours, Iran retaliated, striking US allies across the Persian Gulf, including US embassies and a military operations center in Kuwait. At least six US service members had been killed. In Iran, days of military strikes have reportedly killed hundreds of pe...
Mar 03, 2026•25 min
The schools in Steubenville, Ohio, are doing something unusual—in fact, it’s almost unheard of. In a country where nearly 40 percent of fourth graders struggle to read at even a basic level, Steubenville has succeeded in teaching virtually all of its students to read well. According to data from the Educational Opportunity Project at Stanford University, Steubenville has routinely scored in the top 10 percent or better of schools nationwide for third-grade reading, sometimes scoring as high as t...
Feb 28, 2026•50 min
More To The Story: Just a few years ago, historian and activist Ibram X. Kendi seemed to be everywhere. At the height of the Black Lives Matter movement, he became one of the leading voices on racism in America—and particularly what he described as antiracism. But over the last few years, as a backlash grew against the BLM movement, Kendi also came under attack. His ideas urging people to be actively antiracist were often the target of conservative critics fighting against DEI policies and the t...
Feb 25, 2026•26 min
One of the unmistakable throughlines of the second Trump administration is how it’s overhauling policies that directly affect African Americans, most notably by targeting programs and initiatives that promote diversity, equity, and inclusion, or DEI. For journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones, it’s an attempt to take the country back to an era before the civil rights movement. “A lot of folks are saying, you know, that this administration is rolling back the ’60s, but I’m like, he—this administration’s ...
Feb 21, 2026•50 min
More To The Story: Sixteen years ago this month, the radio show State of the Re:Union , created by Al Letson, produced an award-winning episode looking at civil rights activist Bayard Rustin. The episode was called “Who Is This Man?” because while Rustin was not well known, his work supported the likes of Martin Luther King Jr. Rustin was a man with a number of seemingly incompatible labels: Black, gay, Quaker—identifications that served to earn him as many detractors as admirers. Although he ha...
Feb 18, 2026•50 min
Cecelia Lizotte owns Suya Joint, a celebrated Nigerian restaurant in Boston. She’s a rising star in the city who was nominated for a James Beard Award in 2024 and operates two restaurants and a food truck. But last year, a key employee—who happens to be her brother—was detained by ICE. “I'm not able to operate the establishment, basically,” Lizotte said. “It's just, it's crazy.” Lizotte’s experience got us wondering what it's like to run a restaurant, or any business, when a key employee suddenl...
Feb 14, 2026•50 min
More To The Story: During the 2024 presidential campaign, a conservative playbook emerged. Created by the Heritage Foundation, this 900-plus-page document was a roadmap written for a future conservative president. And while some Republicans tried to distance themselves from Project 2025, the authors and the concepts they wrote about have been embraced by President Donald Trump. Our guest on More To The Story this week is journalist David A. Graham, who did a deep dive into the concepts of Projec...
Feb 11, 2026•30 min
