Reveal

In 2023, Marlena Arjo adopted a one-eyed kitten with a penchant for destruction. She named him Otto, and over the next eight months, Otto grew into his own little chaotic personality.“ He’s laying on houseplants, he’s tearing books out of the bookshelves, ripping the calendar off the wall…I wasn’t prepared for having a criminal in my home,” Arjo joked.Within months, Otto got sick and stopped eating. Arjo rushed him to a vet and learned he had feline infectious peritonitis, better known as FIP, a disease that kills nearly all cats that contract it. The vet said there was nothing the clinic could do. But there was something Arjo could do.“I shouldn’t tell you this,” Arjo recalled the vet telling her. “But by the way, you can get drugs for this if you go to this Facebook group.”This week on Reveal, in partnership with the Hyperfixed podcast, we tell the story of the cat drug black market, why it was even necessary, and how cat lovers fought for big changes to make the black market obsolete. 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 Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

More To The Story: Bill McKibben isn’t known for his rosy outlook on climate change. Back in 1989, the environmentalist wrote The End of Nature, which is considered the first mainstream book warning of global warming’s potential effects on the planet. His writing on climate change has been described as “dark realism.” But McKibben has recently let a little light shine through thanks to the dramatic growth of renewable energy, particularly solar power. In his latest book, Here Comes the Sun: A Last Chance for the Climate and a Fresh Chance for Civilization, McKibben argues that the planet is experiencing the fastest energy transition in history from fossil fuels to solar and wind—and that transition could be the start of something big. On this week’s More To The Story, McKibben sits down with host Al Letson to examine the rise of solar power, how China is leapfrogging the United States in renewable energy use, and the real reason the Trump administration is trying to kill solar and wind projects around the country.Producer: Josh Sanburn | Editor: Kara McGuirk-Allison | Theme music: Fernando Arruda and Jim Briggs | Copy editor: Nikki Frick with help from Digital producer: Artis Curiskis | Deputy executive producer: Taki Telonidis | Executive producer: Brett Myers | Executive editor: James West | Host: Al LetsonListen: Will the National Parks Survive Trump? (Reveal)Read: Rooftop Solar Is a Miracle. Why Are We Killing It With Red Tape? (Mother Jones)Read: Here Comes the Sun: A Last Chance for the Climate and a Fresh Chance for Civilization (W.W. Norton & Company) 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 choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

This week on Reveal, we celebrate our 10-year anniversary with a look back at some of our favorite stories, from investigations into water shortages in drought-prone California to labor abuses in the Dominican Republic. And we interview the journalists behind the reporting to explain what happened after the stories aired. This is a rebroadcast of an episode that originally aired in March 2025. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

More To The Story: Dan McClellan has spent much of his life learning—and relearning—what the Bible and its authors were trying to tell us. But his years in graduate school also taught him that the way scholars talk about the Bible is much different from how churchgoers discuss it. Several years ago, McClellan began pushing back against what he saw as misguided biblical interpretations online and soon gained a following. Today, he has almost 1 million followers on TikTok who look for his thoughts on topics like the “sin of empathy,” what the Bible says about slavery, or maybe just to see what graphic T-shirt he has decided to wear that day. On this week’s More To The Story, McClellan sits down with host Al Letson to talk about the ways people throughout history have used the Bible to serve their own interests, and a time when his own perspective of the Bible was challenged.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 LetsonListen: In God We Vote (Reveal)Read: Christian “TheoBros” Are Building a Tech Utopia in Appalachia (Mother Jones)Listen: A Christian Nationalist Has Second Thoughts (More To The Story)Read: The Bible Says So: What We Get Right (and Wrong) About Scripture’s Most Controversial Issues (St. Martin’s Essentials) 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 choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

In the mid-’90s, two high-end New York art galleries began selling one fake painting after another – works in the style of Jackson Pollock, Andy Warhol, Mark Rothko and others. It was the largest art fraud in modern U.S. history, totaling more than $80 million. Our first story looks at how it happened and why almost no one ever was punished by authorities. Our second story revisits an investigation into a painting looted by the Nazis during World War II. More than half a century later, a journalist helped track it down through the Panama Papers. This is an update of an episode that originally aired in January 2020.  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 Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

For many Americans, proper sanitation and clean water seem like issues for developing countries. But much of rural America—and even parts of US cities—still struggles to provide the basics we all need to survive. And as infrastructure ages and strains under the threat of climate change, the problems will likely get worse. Environmental justice activist Catherine Coleman Flowers has been on the forefront of these issues for decades. And she says that while a lack of sanitation is often found in poor, Black regions, especially in the Deep South, these basic environmental issues cut across racial lines. On this week’s More To The Story, Flowers sits down with host Al Letson to talk about her years working to achieve “sanitation justice” in the South, how biblical lessons apply to climate offenders, and her book of personal essays, Holy Ground: On Activism, Environmental Justice, and Finding Hope.Producer: Josh Sanburn | Editor: Kara McGuirk-Allison | Theme music: Fernando Arruda and Jim Briggs | Copy editor: Nikki Frick | Deputy executive producer: Taki Telonidis | Executive producer: Brett Myers | Executive editor: James West | Host: Al Letson Donate today at Revealnews.org/more Subscribe to our weekly newsletter at Revealnews.org/weekly Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky Read: Holy Ground: On Activism, Environmental Justice, and Finding Hope (Spiegel & Grau)Listen: The Great Arizona Water Grab (Reveal)Read: Some Alabamians Can’t Even Flush Their Toilets. The EPA Is Here to Help. (Inside Climate News via Mother Jones)Note: If you buy a book using our Bookshop link, a small share of the proceeds supports our journalism. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Chicago has been one of the latest stops on the Trump administration’s deportation tour. “Operation Midway Blitz” started in September and, for months, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol agents have been roaming the streets and detaining hundreds of people. This week on Reveal, host Al Letson and producer Ashley Cleek visit Chicago to see “Operation Midway Blitz” in action, and find out what it’s been like for those targeted by it. Letson and Cleek found citizens detained, Chicago police officers pepper-sprayed, and communities terrified. Most Chicagoans arrested by federal agents in the operation had no criminal record, not even a traffic ticket.Letson and Cleek also see how communities are mobilizing to protect each other, and how some of the tensions over immigration raids stretch back to decisions made by the city back in 2022. They also learn from 404 Media’s Joseph Cox about face-scanning apps used by federal agents in Chicago—and how the use of this kind of surveillance points to a broader shift in how the US government deploys its technologies against people inside the country.  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 Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

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 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.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 | Deputy executive producer: Taki Telonidis | Executive producer: Brett Myers | Executive editor: James West | Host: Al Letson Donate today at Revealnews.org/more Subscribe to our weekly newsletter at Revealnews.org/weekly Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky 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. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Earlier this 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 arrested by the Israeli navy. “We were at gunpoint; like, you could see the laser on our chest,” says flotilla participant Louna Sbou.  They were then sent to a high-security prison in the middle of the Negev desert.“You have no control, you have no information, and you have no rights,” says Carsie Blanton, another participant. “They could do whatever they want to you.”This week on Reveal, we go aboard the Global Sumud Flotilla for a firsthand look at what activists faced on their journey and whether their efforts made any difference.  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 Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

More To The Story: Detroit pastor Lorenzo Sewell is one of the most prominent Black conservatives in President Donald Trump’s orbit. It all started last summer when the president visited Sewell’s 180 Church while campaigning in Detroit. A month later, Sewell spoke at the Republican National Convention. And in January, he prayed for the new president during his inauguration inside the US Capitol. As Sewell’s voice echoed around the domed rotunda, the prayer sounded familiar to many. That’s because Sewell adapted Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech. As Trump dismantles DEI policies around the country and pushes efforts to erase Black history from schools and museums, Sewell remains one of the president’s most prominent Black defenders and argues that the Trump presidency is actually improving Black Americans’ lives. On this week’s More To The Story, Sewell sits down with host Al Letson to talk about his upbringing as a drug dealer in Detroit, his conversion to Christianity, and his inauguration prayer. Letson challenges Sewell’s ideas about racism, his support of Charlie Kirk, and his defense of the Trump administration’s rollback of DEI policies.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 Donate today at Revealnews.org/more Subscribe to our weekly newsletter at Revealnews.org/weekly Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky Watch: I Spent a Week With Black Republicans (Mother Jones)Listen: Red, Black, and Blue (Reveal)Read: Trump Shuts Down Diversity Programs Across Government (Mother Jones)Listen: The Bible Says So…or Does It? (More To The Story)Watch: Rev. Lorenzo Sewell Delivers Benediction (PBS NewsHour via YouTube) Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

In August 2022, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall made a guest appearance on a local conservative talk radio show. It was two months after the US Supreme Court had overturned Roe v. Wade, and abortion was now illegal in Alabama. And Marshall addressed rumors that he planned to prosecute anyone helping people get abortions out of state.  “If someone was promoting themselves out as a funder of abortion out of state,” Marshall explained to the host, “then that is potentially criminally actionable for us.” This particular threat launched an epic legal battle with implications for some of the most basic American rights: the right to travel, the right to free speech, the right to give and receive help. This week on Reveal, reporter Nina Martin spends time with abortion rights groups in Alabama, following how they’ve adapted to one of the nation’s strictest anti-abortion policies—and evolved their definition of help.This is an update of an episode that originally aired in May 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 Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

This week, we’re bringing you something a bit different. Our reporter Madison Pauly recently teamed up with journalist and podcaster Pablo Torre for a special episode of his investigative show, Pablo Torre Finds Out. The episode is a deep dive into right-wing superstar Riley Gaines, a swimmer who tied a transgender woman for fifth place and became a viral figure with outsized influence within the MAGA movement. Pauly spent six months digging into the money behind Gaines’ anti-trans empire and interviewing Gaines’ former teammates and competitors. She uncovers how the swimmer is profiting from her newfound fame as a generational conservative activist and explores how a lawsuit Gaines filed against the NCAA, which will be decided by the Supreme Court next year, could change everything for trans athletes.Pablo Torre Finds Out is produced by Meadowlark Media and distributed by The Athletic. Check out their other investigations on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or your favorite podcast app. 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 choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

When a typhoon hit Alaska, public radio station KYUK was on the air, broadcasting critical information about conditions, evacuations and search and rescue operations. An estimated 1600 people were displaced and many were saved  in the biggest airlift operation in state history“The work that we do in terms of public safety communication literally does save lives”, said Sage Smiley, KYUK’s news director. KYUK is small, scrappy and bilingual. It broadcasts in English and Yugtun, the native language of an indigenous population that lives in villages along two massive rivers. The station airs NPR but also high school basketball games, local call-in talk shows, even a show hosted by the volunteer search and rescue team answering listeners’ questions about ice conditions and safety. The station is a lifeline for this unique region.KYUK news covers an area the size of the state of Oregon, and after Congress passed the Rescission Act, it lost 70 percent of its operating budget. Republicans have targeted public media since its inception in the late 60’s. But this is the first time it has successfully ended the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, wiping out more than a billion dollars in funding for public media. This week on Reveal we take listeners inside KYUK as it grapples with this new reality. Host Al Letson sits down with Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski about how the cuts are affecting her state. And, we take a trip to WQED in Pittsburgh for a look back at how Fred Rogers, the host of Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, defended public television throughout its decades-long struggle to survive Washington politics. 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 Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

More To The Story: John J. Lennon thinks true crime is exploitative—and he has a unique perspective. In 2001, he killed a man on a street in New York City. He was convicted of murder several years later and given the maximum sentence—25 years to life in prison—on top of three additional years for two other convictions. From behind bars, he began reckoning with his crime through in-prison writing workshops and soon fell in love with journalism. He’s since made a name for himself as an incarcerated journalist and has been published in The Atlantic, Esquire, and the New York Times Magazine, often writing about the criminal justice system and conditions in correctional facilities, all from the inside. In the decades Lennon’s been behind bars, America has become increasingly fixated on stories like his—true crime—through endless podcasts, documentary series, and streaming shows. But Lennon argues that tragedy is too often being turned into entertainment. True crime “creates this thirst for punishment,” he says. On this week’s More To The Story, Lennon joins with host Al Letson to discuss how his first book, The Tragedy of True Crime: Four Guilty Men and the Stories That Define Us, inverts the basic structure of the true crime genre. They also discuss how his portrayal on a cable news show hosted by Chris Cuomo inspired him to write the book and how Lennon now views the murder he committed almost a quarter-century ago.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 Donate today at Revealnews.org/more Subscribe to our weekly newsletter at Revealnews.org/weekly Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky Listen: In a Mississippi Jail, Inmates Became Weapons (Reveal)Read: There Are Many Programs Trying to Reduce Recidivism. This One Works. (Mother Jones)Read: The Tragedy of True Crime: Four Guilty Men and the Stories That Define Us (Celadon Books)Read: A Convicted Murderer’s Case for Gun Control (The Atlantic) Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Chris Mack has been locked up in Mississippi’s Rankin County Jail on and off since he was a teenager. In a lawsuit, he detailed a jailhouse assault that left him with broken ribs, a broken nose, and two black eyes. But it wasn’t just guards who attacked him. Mack said a group of inmates joined in—men in the jail’s Trusty Inmate Program, who had special privileges and wore blue jumpsuits. “They were called the blue wave,” Mack said.Through more than 70 interviews with former inmates and officers, reporters from Mississippi Today and the New York Times discovered a system in which guards ordered beatings, inmates who participated were rewarded, and those trying to raise an alarm about the system for more than a decade were ignored.This week on Reveal, on the heels of our reporting on abuses in the Rankin County Sheriff’s Department run by Sheriff Bryan Bailey, we expose a wave of violence in his county jail. 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 Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

More To The Story: About 2,100 people are on death row in America. Some have been there for decades, in part because executions have been on the decline in the US. But that’s changing. So far this year, 41 people have been executed, up from 25 last year, and six more executions are scheduled. Early in his second term, President Donald Trump signed an executive order reinstating federal executions while encouraging states to expand the use of capital punishment. One man has seen many of these executions up close. The Reverend Jeff Hood is an Old Catholic Church priest, an ordained Baptist minister, a racial justice activist, and something of a go-to spiritual adviser for many currently on death row. On the day of the execution, he goes inside the chamber for the final moments of people’s lives. On this week’s More To The Story, Hood sits down with host Al Letson to describe his work as an advocate for death row inmates, what it’s like being a white Southern reverend vocally advocating for racial justice, and how capital punishment in the US today illustrates American society’s increasing movement in a more violent direction.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 Donate today at Revealnews.org/more Subscribe to our weekly newsletter at Revealnews.org/weekly Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky Listen: In Bondage to the Law (Reveal)Read: Louisiana Is Executing Prisoners Again. His Case Shows the Costs. (Mother Jones) Read: The Last Face Death Row Inmates See (Rolling Stone)Learn more: Death Penalty Information Center Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

When Andrea Dettore-Murphy first moved to Rankin County, Mississippi, she didn’t believe the stories she heard about how brutal the sheriff’s department could be when pursuing suspected drug crimes. But in 2018, she learned the hard way that the rumors were true when a group of sheriff’s deputies raided the home of her friend Rick Loveday and beat him relentlessly while she watched.  A few years later, Dettore-Murphy says deputies put her through another haunting incident with her friend Robert Grozier. Dettore-Murphy was just the latest in a long line of people who said they witnessed or experienced torture by a small group of deputies, some of whom called themselves the “Goon Squad.” For nearly two decades, the deputies roamed Rankin County at night, beating, tasing, and choking suspects in drug crimes until they admitted to buying or selling illegal substances. Their reign of terror continued unabated until 2023, when the deputies were finally exposed.“Rankin County has always been notorious,” says Garry Curro, one the Goon Squad’s many alleged victims. “They don't follow the laws of the land. They make their own laws.”This week on Reveal, reporters Brian Howey and Nate Rosenfield with Mississippi Today and the New York Times investigate the Goon Squad, whose members have allegedly tortured at least 22 people since the early 2000s.  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 onBluesky, Facebook and Instagram Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

More To The Story: Jason Stanley isn’t afraid to use the F-word when talking about President Donald Trump. The author of How Fascism Works and Erasing History: How Fascists Rewrite the Past to Control the Future is clear: He believes the United States is currently under an authoritarian regime led by a fascist leader. At a time when the Trump administration is putting increasing pressure on private and public universities to conform or lose funding, Stanley recently left his position at Yale University and moved his family to Canada, where he’s now the Bissell-Heyd chair in American studies at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy at the University of Toronto. The move, he says, has allowed him to talk about the US in a way that wouldn’t have been possible if he remained in the country. On this week’s More To The Story, Stanley traces the recent rise of fascist regimes around the globe, and explains why he describes what’s happening in the US today as a “coup” and why he thinks the speed and scope of the Trump administration’s hardline policies could ultimately lead to significant pushback from those opposed to the president.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 Donate today at Revealnews.org/more Subscribe to our weekly newsletter at Revealnews.org/weekly Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky Read: He Studies Fascism: Is He Now Living Through It? (Mother Jones)Listen:Trump’s New World (Dis)Order (Reveal)Watch: We Study Fascism, and We’re Leaving the US (The New York Times)Read: How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them (Random House)Note: If you buy a book using our Bookshop link, a small share of the proceeds supports our journalism. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

In November 2005, a group of US Marines killed 24 civilians in Haditha, Iraq. The case against them became one of the most high-profile war crimes prosecutions in US history—but then it fell apart. Only one Marine went to trial for the killings, and all he received was a slap on the wrist. Even his own defense attorney found the outcome shocking. “It's meaningless," said attorney Haytham Faraj. “The government decided not to hold anybody accountable. I mean, I don't know, I don't know how else to put it.”The Haditha massacre, as it came to be known, is the subject of the current season of The New Yorker’s In the Dark podcast and this week’s episode of Reveal. Reporter Madeleine Baran and her team spent four years looking into what happened at Haditha and why no one was held accountable. They also uncovered a previously unreported killing that happened that same day, a 25th victim whose story had never before been told. Photos from this story, as well as a searchable database of military war crimes, can be found at newyorker.com/season-3. 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 onBluesky, Facebook and Instagram Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

More To The Story: America in these last 10 years has experienced generational political upheaval, clashes over race and identity, and a battle over the very direction of the country itself. Few writers have charted these wild swings better than staff writer for The New Yorker and Columbia Journalism School Dean Jelani Cobb. And for Cobb, it all started when he was asked to write about an incident that was just beginning to make national news: the death of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed Black 17-year-old in Florida. Cobb recently released Three or More Is a Riot: Notes on How We Got Here: 2012–2025, a collection of essays from more than a decade at The New Yorker, that all begin with that moment of national reckoning over Martin’s death. On this week’s More To The Story, Cobb looks back at how the Trayvon Martin incident shaped the coming decade, reexamines the Black Lives Matter movement and President Obama’s legacy in the age of Donald Trump, and shares what he tells his journalism students at a time when the media is under attack.Producer: Josh Sanburn | Editor: Kara McGuirk-Allison | Theme music: Fernando Arruda and Jim Briggs | Copy editor: Daniel King | Digital producer: Artis Curiskis | Deputy executive producer: Taki Telonidis | Executive producer: Brett Myers | Executive editor: James West | Host: Al Letson Donate today at Revealnews.org/more Subscribe to our weekly newsletter at Revealnews.org/weekly Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky Read: Trump Shuts Down Diversity Programs Across Government (Mother Jones)Listen: Being Black in America Almost Killed Me Part 1 (More To The Story)Watch: Where’s Black MAGA While Trump Wipes Black History? (Mother Jones) Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices