No Special Duty

The greatest mysteries have a shadowy figure at the center—someone who sets things in motion and holds the key to how the story unfolds. In epidemiology, this central character is known as Patient Zero—the case at the heart of an outbreak. This hour, Radiolab digs up an episode w ...  Show more

In 2016, Chris Bell, a ranger with New Zealand’s Department of Conservation, was the sole human inhabitant of a small island off the west coast of the country, called Mana Island. He was there to take care of the island’s fragile and recovering ecosystem, including a colony of Au ...  Show more

Civil unrest in the wake of the murder of George Floyd, by an officer of the Minneapolis Police Department, has forced to the surface a centuries old struggle. How can we protect and make our Black communities whole? How can we move towards a future where the police truly do "Pro ...  Show more

As protests against police brutality continue across the country, there are calls to reform, defund, and even abolish the police. So, what does it all mean? Don talks to Newark Mayor Ras Baraka about the reforms he’s implementing in a city with a long history of tension between t ...  Show more

When former Buffalo police officer Cariol Horne saw a colleague put a handcuffed Black man in a chokehold, she said she knew she had to do something. Her intervention cost her job and her pension. On today’s podcast, Don Lemon hears from Horne and her lawyer, Harvard Law Professo ...  Show more

Host Madeleine Brand and law professor Jessica Levinson discuss how much force police officers are allowed to use, what recourse people have when they want to bring forth excessive force claims, and when the U.S. president can send the military to states. They also cover the deba ...  Show more