Entire blocks of Detroit look abandoned because people fell behind on property taxes and lost their homes. But hundreds of millions of dollars of that tax debt never should have been billed in the first place.

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This episode originally was broadcast Oct. 5, 2019.

Genetic genealogy is a powerful crime-solving tool that combines DNA science with family tree research. Where will it take us – a crime-free world or a dark dystopia?

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How two well-respected New York art galleries sold more than $80 million in fake art.

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Delivering donated organs quickly to patients waiting for a transplant is a matter of life and death. Yet transportation errors are leading to delays in surgeries that put patients in danger and make some organs unusable. 

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A new ritual called an honor walk is bringing solace to families who’ve lost a loved one and consented to have organs donated. Hospitals are organizing these walks as a way to honor the gift of life that will be passed on to those who will benefit from transplants.  

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Advisory panels slashed, environmental regulations rolled back – how the Trump administration uses questionable science to justify its policies.

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Unborn babies' hearts are at risk as EPA caves to chemical companies’ 20-year effort to whitewash the science on the risks of an extremely dangerous and prevalent chemical, TCE. 

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Oil rigs may soon be coming to the nation’s largest wildlife refuge. We find out what that could mean to the people who live there.

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Reveal is launching its first serialized investigation: American Rehab. In the midst of the worst opioid crisis in America’s history, Reveal uncovers a type of rehab that is flourishing by turning tens of thousands of people desperate for treatment into an unpaid workforce. The eight-episode series will run in Reveal’s podcast feed from March 28 to May 2, 2020.

Al Letson with a programming note on Reveal's upcoming episodes

While much of America shelters in place, farmworkers, grocery store clerks and airline employees remain on the front lines of the coronavirus crisis. But what’s being done to protect them from catching and spreading the virus? 

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Pollution found in our air and water can lead to serious health issues. A new report from the Children’s Environmental Health Network explored such risks, especially for children. Michigan Environmental Council program director Tina Reynolds discusses the report with WEMU's David Fair in this week's "Issues of the Environment."

The 1,4 dioxane plume emanating from the old Gelman Sciences facility on Wagner Road in Scio Township continues to expand through groundwater in the greater Ann Arbor area. At a recent public forum, the federal Environmental Protection Agency said it would take decades to get the contamination designated as a Superfund site and clean-up could take decades beyond that. In this week's "Issues of the Environment," WEMU's David Fair talks to Washtenaw County Board of Commissioners chair Jason Morgan about what is happening now to better address the environmental threat.

PFAS contamination continues to threaten Michigan's environment, as well as the health of its citizens. Over the past month, action at the state level has been taken to fight this problem. In this week's "Issues of the Environment," Rebecca Esselman, executive director of the Huron River Watershed Council, discusses progress and challenges with WEMU's David Fair.

Sara Ganim is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist with strong ties to Michigan. Her new independent film, “No Defense: The U.S. Government’s War on Water,” looks into the PFAs contamination emanating from the old Wurtsmith Air Force Base in Oscoda and how our government’s conflict of interest has lead to inaction. WEMU’s David Fair and Michigan League of Conservation Voters executive director Lisa Wozniak caught up with Sara in advance of the free screening of her film at the State Theatre in Ann Arbor on February 19 th .

By all accounts, electric vehicles are the future. Right now, EV’s comprise a small percentage of the automotive marketplace. A new study from the Ecology Center in Ann Arbor shows the electric vehicles owners are paying far more in taxes and fees and that can serve as a disincentive to purchase. The center’s Charles Griffith joined WEMU’s David Fair for this week’s "Issues of the Environment" to share the study’s findings and discuss the need to create policy that will create tax parity for EV vehicles.

In an attempt to reduce its carbon footprint, the University of Michigan has pledged to freeze its investments in fossil fuel companies. This move has drawn praise from such activist groups as the U-M's Climate Action Movement (CAM). But it also says the school needs to go much further. CAM member and U-M doctoral student Noah Weaverdyck discusses it all with WEMU's David Fair on this week's "Issues of the Environment."

Since President Donald Trump took office, 58 environmental protection policies have been rolled back or rescinded. 37 more are in the process of being taken off the books. In this week's "Issues of the Environment," WEMU's David Fair checks in with 12th District Michigan Congresswoman Debbie Dingell about efforts to thwart federal policies that threaten environmental health and sustainability.

A series of "energy freedom" bills, which would allow customers to diversify energy generation and usage is before the Michigan Legislature. For this week's "Issues of the Environment," WEMU's David Fair talks with Ed Rivet, executive director of the Michigan Conservative Energy Forum, about a new strategy to move the measures forward.

Many services have felt the sting of the coronavirus outbreak. In this week's "Issues of the Environment," Kathy Sample, founder/owner of Argus Farm Stop, joins WEMU's David Fair for a conversation about the importance of local food during this unprecendented time.

The coronavirus pandemic has lead to major changes for homes and businesses, including more frequent use of chemicals and disinfectants. While they do help, some can be dangerous to human health and the environment. Professor John Meeker , senior associate dean for research at the University of Michigan's School of Public Health, spoke with WEMU's David Fair about how best to safely use these products on "Issues of the Environment."

Maintaining water service and safety remains an essential service during Governor Whitmer's "Stay Home, Stay Safe" executive order. In this week's "Issues of the Environment," WEMU's David Fair talks with the manager of Ann Arbor's water treatment services, Brian Steglitz, about managing the system to filter out virus and chemical contamination.

Many aspects of daily life have been dramatically changed due to COVID-19, and public transportation is certainly no exception. Although services like the Ann Arbor Area Transportion Authority (AAATA) promote a cleaner environment, they still have financial obligations and public health matters to consider. In this week's "Issues of the Environment," AAATA CEO Matt Carpenter explains how his organization and other forms of public transit in Michigan are adapting to the pandemic in a conversation with WEMU's David Fair.

The Centers for Disease Control continues to recommend wearing gloves and masks while in public. More and more people are following recommended guidelines. However, getting rid of those personal protective equipment (PPE) items is often being done improperly. In this week's "Issues of the Environment," WEMU's David Fair talks with Washtenaw County Public Works manager Theo Eggermont about proper disposal to protect public health and the environment.

Today marks the 50th anniversary of Earth Day. A group of environmentally aware and concerned students at the University of Michigan formed the group ENACT during a rather heady time on campus in 1969. Through activity and organization, it led to the first-ever Earth Day in 1970. In Part 1 of a special, Earth Day edition of "Issues of the Environment," WEMU's David Fair caught up with David Allan to look back at the five decades since that event. Allan was a founding member and co-chair of ENACT and an organizer for the first Earth Day.

Today marks the 50th Earth Day in the United States, which traces its origins to Ann Arbor. Normally, there would have been a huge celebration, but the coronavirus pandemic has put a halt to that. For Part 2 of a special, Earth Day edition of "Issues of the Environment," WEMU's David Fair spoke with Jonathan Overpeck, dean of the U-M School for Environment and Sustainability. They discuss an online celebration of Earth Day and look ahead to what the future may hold.

Food production has been seriously disrupted to the coronavirus pandemic. It has forced producers, including dairy farmers, to dispose of more of their supplies, which has led to more food waste. Joe Diglio, president/CEO of the Michigan Milk Producers Association, has a conversation with WEMU's David Fair about how the problems are being addressed in this week's "Issues of the Environment."

About 14% of Michigan's population is African American. Roughly 40% of COVID-19 fatalties are in the African American community. It is an alarming statistic. Lt. Governor Garlin Gilchrist heads the state's Coronavirus Task Force on Racial Disparities. He joined WEMU's David Fair and Michigan League of Conservation Voters executive director Lisa Wozniak to discuss what is being done to address the immediate crisis. He also highlights the longer term issues that will need to be addressed and what the role of the task force will be to that end.

It's been forecast that this spring will be quite wet. That could bring flooding to portions of Washtenaw County. Washtenaw County Water Resources Commissioner Evan Pratt joined WEMU's David Fair to discuss planning for such issues and the proactive nature of work already underway on this week's "Issues of the Environment."

Apple, Amazon, Alphabet (which owns Google), and Facebook—known in the tech world as the Big Four—are among the largest and most profitable companies in the world, and they’ve been accustomed to the laxest of oversight from Washington. But the climate may have shifted in a significant way. The Federal Trade Commission, the Department of Justice, and the House Judiciary Committee are all investigating different aspects of the Big Four; Elizabeth Warren has made breaking up these companies a cornerstone of her Presidential campaign. Sue Halpern, a New Yorker contributor, sounds a cautious note about these developments. Current antitrust law doesn’t well fit the nature of these businesses, and breaking up the companies will not necessarily solve underlying issues, like the lack of privacy law. In a twist, Halpern says, the Big Four and now asking the federal government for more regulation—because, she explains to David Remnick, the companies’ lobbyists can sway Washington more easily than they can influence state governments like California, which just passed a rigorous data-privacy law similar to the European Union’s. “They’re being called to account, they have to do something,” she notes, “but they want to direct the conversation so that, ultimately, they still win.”

As Senator Warren’s presidential candidacy gathers momentum, the Democratic establishment is nervously reckoning with the leftward drift of the party. Warren has a reputation for progressive policy ideas, but she is distancing herself from Bernie Sanders-style democratic socialism. Instead, she is casting herself as a pragmatist who has reasonable plans to reform education, health care, and a financial system that advantages the very rich. Sheelah Kolhatkar joins Dorothy Wickenden to discuss Warren's critique of 21st-century capitalism, and voters' concerns about whether she could beat Donald Trump.

The New Yorker contributor Jenna Krajeski recently met with a woman who calls herself Esperanza. In her home country, Esperanza was coerced and threatened into prostitution, and later was trafficked into the United States, where she was subjected to appalling conditions. Esperanza eventually obtained legal help, and applied for something called a T visa. The T visa contains unusual provisions that recognize the unique circumstances of human-trafficking victims in seeking legal status. It has also been a crucial tool to obtaining victims’ coöperation in prosecuting traffickers. The Trump Administration claims to want to fight the problem of human trafficking, but Krajeski notes that its policies have done the opposite: T-visa applicants can now be deported if their applications are rejected. This dramatic change in policy sharply reduced the number of applications from victims seeking help. “If what [the Administration] cares about is putting traffickers in prison, which is what they say they care about, their prosecutions are going down and will go down further,” Martina Vandenberg, the president of the Human Trafficking Legal Center, says. “Trafficking victims under the circumstances can’t actually coöperate.”

Sarah Stillman joins Dorothy Wickenden to talk about how the deterrence policies of Republican and Democratic Presidents have failed, and what the Democratic candidates should be saying about how to deal with asylum seekers.

For decades, critical praise for a TV show was that it was “not like TV,” but more like a novel or a movie. That ingrained hierarchy always bugged Emily Nussbaum, who went on to win the Pulitzer Prize for her criticism in The New Yorker. She has been compared to Pauline Kael, but Nussbaum—acknowledging the compliment—is quick to point out that she has never written about movies, nor has she wanted to. She was inspired to be a TV critic by “Television Without Pity,” a blog site of passionate, informed fans arguing constantly. In her new book, “I Like to Watch: Arguing My Way through the TV Revolution,” Nussbaum argues that the success of serious antihero dramas like “The Sopranos” and “Breaking Bad” has led many to devalue mainstays of TV, like comedies and even soap operas. It’s time to stop comparing TV to anything else, she tells David Remnick. 

It’s hard to recall a newly elected freshman representative to Congress who has made a bigger impact than Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Her primary victory for New York’s Fourteenth District seat—as a young woman of color beating out a long-established white male incumbent—was big news, and Ocasio-Cortez has been generating headlines almost daily ever since. Practically the day she took her seat in Congress, Ocasio-Cortez became the hero of the left wing of the Democrats and a favored villain of Fox News and the right. She battled Nancy Pelosi to make the Green New Deal a priority, and has been involved with a movement to launch primary challenges against centrist or right-leaning Democrats. Like Bernie Sanders, she embraces the label of democratic socialism and supports free college education for all Americans. She has called for the abolition of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. She joined David Remnick in the New Yorker Radio Hour studio on July 5th, just after her trip to the border to examine migrant-detention facilities. Remnick and Ocasio-Cortez spoke about why she courted controversy by referring to some facilities as “concentration camps”; why she thinks the Department of Homeland Security is irredeemable; and whether Joe Biden is qualified to be President, given his comments about colleagues who supported forms of segregation. “Issues of race and gender are not extra-credit points in being a good Democrat,” she says. “They are a core part of the ... competencies that a President needs. . . . Where are you on understanding the people that live in this country?”

Since 1969, when an estimated six hundred million people around the world watched two astronauts walk on the surface of the moon, a significant number of people have doubted that it ever took place. A major line of conspiracy theory insists that the footage was faked (and directed by Stanley Kubrick, some have said) in an elaborate hoax engineered by NASA. In 1976, a book called “We Never Went to the Moon” was self-published by a man named Bill Kaysing, a former technical writer at Rocketdyne who claimed to have seen secret government documents. It attracted little notice, but Kaysing continued to make media appearances and fuel doubters into this century. Andrew Marantz, who has written on conspiracy theories for The New Yorker, notes that the moon landing always had skeptics, but the Internet and social media gave them platforms to advance even their most far-fetched views. Marantz sees links between the moon hoax and political conspiracy theories like QAnon. While skepticism toward government claims may be justified, conspiracy theories that dispute the most basic accounts of truth erode the functioning of a democracy, Marantz thinks; they lead to a totalitarian state where, in the words of Hannah Arendt, “everything was possible and ... nothing was true.” 

In June, protests erupted in Hong Kong over a proposed bill that could have allowed the Chinese government to prosecute political dissidents living in Hong Kong. This past Sunday, police in the city fired tear gas and rubber bullets at protesters, and a group of masked men attacked protesters and civilians at a Hong Kong train station. The protests are only the latest expression of increasing tension between Hong Kong, which has been a special administrative region since 1997, and the People’s Republic of China. Jiayang Fan joins Dorothy Wickenden to discuss that rancorous relationship, and whether Beijing might order a military crackdown.

Tana French was an actor in her thirties when she sat down to write about a mystery that took the lives of two children, which became the global blockbuster “In the Woods.” With her subsequent books about the Dublin Murder Squad, French became known as “the queen of Irish crime fiction”—despite having been born in the United States. French’s latest book, “The Witch Elm,” departs from her line of police procedurals: the narrator is a civilian, a happy-go-lucky young man named Toby whose life is turned upside down when he is attacked during a burglary. Although the book involves a murder, “The core story arc is not the murder and the solution,” French tells Alexandra Schwartz. “The core story arc is Toby going from this golden boy [with] his happy life to somebody who’s had that shattered. . . . Where will this crisis take him?” Though known as a literary mystery writer, French acknowledges that some of her fans have found the plot frustrating. “If you’re coming to this book expecting a straight-up crime novel . . . you are going to be a hundred pages in [asking], ‘Where’s my murder?’ ” 

In May, the Colorado senator Michael Bennet became the nineteenth Democrat to announce that he was running for the Party’s Presidential nomination. He is among the most experienced and respected candidates: prior to his decade as a Democratic senator from a purple state, he was the chief of staff to the governor, and, before that, the superintendent of Denver Public Schools. He is the kind of moderate many voters say that they’re seeking. Still, Bennet has struggled to make his voice heard when much of the attention is being lavished on the progressives in the race. Senator Bennet joins Dorothy Wickenden to discuss why he is running for President, the trials of being a political underdog, and his ideas about how to restore America in an age of broken politics.

When Mohamedou Salahi arrived at the Guantánamo Bay detention camp, in August of 2002, he was hopeful.  He knew why he had been detained: he had crossed paths with Al Qaeda operatives, and his cousin had once called him from Osama bin Laden’s phone.  But Salahi was no terrorist—he held no extremist views—and had no information of any plots. He trusted the American system of justice and thought the authorities would realize their mistake before long. 

He was wrong. 

Salahi spent fifteen years at Guantánamo, where he was subjected to some of the worst excesses of America’s war on terror; Donald Rumsfeld personally signed off on the orders for his torture.  And, under torture, Salahi confessed to everything—even though he had done nothing. “If they would have wanted him to confess to being on the grassy knoll for the J.F.K. assassination, I’m sure we could have got him to confess to that, too,” Mark Fallon, who led an investigation unit at Guantánamo, said.  

Ben Taub reported Mohamedou Salahi’s story for The New Yorker and tried to understand what had gone wrong in the fight against Al Qaeda. Salahi met Ben in Mauritania, because, when the U.S. released him, it was under the condition that Mauritania would withhold his passport. He would like to go abroad—he needs medical treatment, and he hopes to live in a democracy. But, for an innocent victim of Guantánamo, being released isn’t the same as being free. 

On Sunday, the Indian government of Narendra Modi revoked the semi-autonomous status of Kashmir, the Muslim-majority region on the border between India and Pakistan, and brought it under control of the Indian government. Imran Khan, Pakistan’s Prime Minister, condemned the move as another policy decision designed to promote Hindu supremacy in India. Outrage among Muslims in the region may also affect the ongoing peace talks between the United States and the Taliban in Afghanistan, where the capital, Kabul, was the target of a terrorist attack on Wednesday. Dexter Filkins joins Dorothy Wickenden to discuss the situation in Kashmir and its ramifications around the world.

Nanfu Wang grew up under China’s one-child policy and never questioned it. “You don’t know that it’s something initiated and implemented by the authority,” she tells The New Yorker’s Jiayang Fan. “It’s a normal part of everything. Just like water exists, or air.” But when Wang became pregnant she started to understand the magnitude of the law—and the suffering that it caused. Wang’s documentary, “One Child Nation,” explores the effects of one of the largest social experiments in history. She uncovers stories of confusion and trauma, in Chinese society at large and within her own family. After Wang’s uncle had a daughter, his family forced him to abandon her at a local market so that he and his wife could try for a son. “He stood there, across the street, watching to see if somebody would come and take the baby,” Wang tells Fan. “He wanted to bring her home, but his mom threatened to commit suicide. . . . He felt so torn. There was no right decision.” 

Earlier this month, a gunman killed nine people and injured nearly thirty more in Dayton, Ohio. The shooting in Dayton, the 251st mass shooting in the United States this year, took place only hours before an even deadlier mass shooting in El Paso, Texas. As the city reeled, its mayor, Nan Whaley, was suddenly rocketed into prominence as both a spokesperson for Dayton and a figure in the national conversation about gun violence. Paige Williams, who met with Nan Whaley after the shooting, joins Eric Lach to discuss the role of local officials in times of national tragedy.

Maggie Gyllenhaal’s first starring role was in the 2002 movie “Secretary,” a distriburbing romantic comedy about a troubled woman in a sadomasochistic relationship with her boss. Since then, Gyllenhaal has continued to push the boundaries of how sex is depicted onscreen as an executive producer and star of “The Deuce,” HBO’s drama about the beginnings of the porn industry. In a conversation with The New Yorker’s Lauren Collins, Gyllenhaal talks about her character, Candy, who leaves street prostitution to perform in porn and eventually makes her way into directing. Since the show premièred, the #MeToo movement has shed light on how women are asked to compromise themselves, not only in sex work but in entertainment and almost every other walk of life. “Many women have been asked to compromise themselves, and have done it,” Gyllenhaal tells Collins, admitting that she has moments of thinking, “Oh, my God. How did I laugh at that joke or stay in that meeting or put that shirt on?” Gyllenhaal also talks about adapting a novel by Elena Ferrante, who gave her the film rights—on condition that Gyllenhaal direct the adaptation herself. 

The third and final season of “The Deuce” begins in September, 2019. 

In 2014, a pair of crimes shocked Israelis and Palestinians. The first was the abduction and murder of three Israeli boys by a Hamas-linked group. Then there was an act of reprisal—the torture, burning, and murder of a Palestinian teen-ager named Mohammed Abu Khdeir—by Israeli right-wing extremists. Even by the standards of this conflict, the killings were shocking. 

“Our Boys,” a co-production of HBO and the Israeli Keshet Studios, examines the forces that led to Abu Khdeir’s killing. It is not for the faint of heart, David Remnick says, but the series is as complex and deep a portrayal of the conflict as he has ever seen. Remnick spoke with two of the creators: Hagai Levi, an Israeli Jew, and Tawfiq Abu Wael, a Palestinian living in Israel. Abu Wael tells Remnick why he resisted pressure from activists not to participate in an Israeli production. 

Around the world, the number of measles cases is on the rise. Public health officials in the United States have put some of the blame on "anti-vaxxers," who believe that vaccines have destructive side effects and choose not to vaccinate their children. In some communities, school systems have made vaccinations mandatory, touching off political battles over personal and religious liberty. Nick Paumgarten joins Dorothy Wickenden to discuss the political lessons of the movement for the wider "war on science."

Marianne Williamson, the self-help author associated with the New Age movement, has never held political office. But the race for the Presidency, she thinks, is less a battle of politics than a battle of souls. In her appearance in the July Democratic debates, she said that President Donald Trump is bringing up a “dark psychic force.” “The worst aspects of human character have been harnessed for political purposes,” she tells David Remnick. Williamson sees herself as a kind of spiritual counter to Trump, reshaping our moral trajectory. And she does have policies, which include repealing the 2017 tax cut and an ambitious plan for slavery reparations, and also tapping some surprising people for her Cabinet. Campaigning on her credentials hasn’t been easy: she’s had to debunk some myths and clarify some statements. She is not an anti-vaxxer, she insists—she apologizes for her earlier remarks on the subject—or a medical skeptic. “I’m Jewish,” she says, “I go to the doctor.” She does not, she says, even have a crystal in her home. “I know this sounds naïve,” she complains, but “I didn’t think the left was so mean. I didn’t think the left lied like this.” 

After more than two years of debates and one deadline extension, the United Kingdom is set to leave the European Union on October 31st. Last week, with no Brexit deal in sight, Prime Minister Boris Johnson moved to suspend Parliament for five weeks leading up to that deadline. The move outraged members of Parliament and spurred a revolt in Johnson’s own party, resulting in legislation that may prohibit him from executing a no-deal Brexit. Johnson has called for a general election, though he no longer has the legislative majority he needs to force a vote. Sam Knight joins Dorothy Wickenden to discuss the week in Parliament and what it might mean for the future of British democracy.

The New Yorker’s fiction editor, Deborah Treisman, talks with Salman Rushdie about “Quichotte,” his apocalyptic quest novel. A few years ago, when the four hundredth anniversary of “Don Quixote” was being celebrated, Rushdie reread Cervantes’s book and found himself newly engaged by a much-improved translation. He immediately began thinking of writing his own story about a “silly old fool,” like Quixote, who becomes obsessed with an unattainable woman and undertakes a quest to win her love. This character became Quichotte (named for the French opera loosely based on “Don Quixote”), who is seeking the love of—or, as she sees it, stalking—a popular talk-show host. As Quichotte journeys to find her, he encounters the truths of contemporary America: the opioid epidemic, white supremacy, the fallout from the War on Terror, and more. “I’ve always really liked the risky thing of writing very close up against the present moment,” Rushdie tells Treisman. “If you do it wrong, it’s a catastrophe. If you do it right, with luck, you somehow capture a moment.” At the same time, the novel gives full rein to Rushdie’s fantastical streak—at one point, for instance, Quichotte comes across a New Jersey town where people turn into mastodons. Treisman talks with the author about the influence of science fiction on his imagination, and about his personal connection to the tragedy of opioids. Rushdie’s much younger sister died from the consequences of addiction, and the book is centrally concerned with siblings trying to reconnect after separation.

An exodus is under way in the House of Representatives: not even halfway into the congressional term, fifteen Republicans have announced that they will not run in 2020. One of the exiting members is Will Hurd, a former C.I.A. officer who was elected in 2014. His district in Texas includes nearly a third of the state’s border with Mexico. Although he is reluctant to criticize the G.O.P. directly, Hurd tells the Washington correspondent Susan B. Glasser that he thinks the President’s border policy is ineffective: a wall isn’t the answer, Border Patrol is underfunded relative to the area it covers, and the technology in use for border security is both out of date and overly complicated, “requiring a Ph.D. in computer science to operate,” he says. “I wish I could pass a piece of legislation,” Hurd tells Glasser, “that says you can’t talk about the border unless you’ve been down to the border a few times.” Hurd’s departure is particularly significant because he is—for the sixteen months he has left to serve—the only African-American in the House Republican caucus, and he worries that the President’s negative rhetoric toward people of color is contributing to a demographic shift that’s turning Texas from deep red to purple. “When you have statements the equivalent of, ‘go back to Africa,’ ” Hurd notes, “that is not helpful.”