1986: The Mystery of Al Capone’s Vaults

Black residents of Indianola, Mississippi, were fed up with decades of separate-and-unequal classrooms. When a white outsider got hired as school superintendent, they decided to take a stand. This week, Joel Anderson tells the story of how their boycott of white businesses transf ...  Show more

In Seattle, a pack of voracious sea lions decimates the local fish population. When fireworks and an underwater air horn don’t scare away the whisker-y mammals, bureaucrats and scientists are faced with a thorny question: Who decides which creatures get to live, and which have to ...  Show more

In 1977, John Briggs was a small-time state senator with big dreams. But Briggs’ plan to ban gay and lesbian teachers from California schools changed the arc of his life and career. Suddenly, he was a right-wing hero, and a villain of the gay rights movement. And his message seem ...  Show more

In the 1970s, San Francisco became a welcoming home for tens of thousands of new gay residents—and a modern-day Sodom for the American right. With a moral panic sweeping across the United States, a Florida orange juice spokeswoman inspired an ambitious California politician to la ...  Show more

This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp.

Sometimes predators hide in plain sight. Like on the set of your kids’ favorite TV shows. The docuseries "Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV" (Investigation Discovery) expo ...

“It’s so insidious, people don’t realize it,” Barbara Kingsolver told me, describing the prejudice against “country people.” Kingsolver is one of those “country people,” as well as a literary legend in her own time, who set out to write the “great Appalachian novel.” And I thi ...