On this episode of Reveal, we look at #Pizzagate. This story takes us into the world of right-wing Twitter trolls, pro-Trump political operatives and fake-news profiteers from St. Louis to Macedonia. Reveal unravels how this conspiracy theory spread and tries to answer one big question: How did America become a post-truth country?

—

To explore more reporting, visit revealnews.org or find us on fb.com/ThisIsReveal, Twitter @reveal or Instagram @revealnews.

In Texas, women with limited access to abortions are traveling across the border to find a drug that will induce miscarriages. In Mississippi, anti-abortion groups are opening crisis pregnancy centers across from abortion clinics to persuade women to keep their babies. And one company offers permanent birth control through the insertion of a simple device – that’s ended up causing health complications for thousands of women.

This week, we look into pregnancy and the ways people try to prevent it, end it and save it.

—

To explore more reporting, visit revealnews.org or find us at fb.com/ThisIsReveal, on Twitter @reveal or Instagram @revealnews.

This short film was produced by the Glassbreaker Films team at The Center for Investigative Reporting. Glassbreaker Films is an all-female group of filmmakers working to promote gender parity in investigative journalism and documentary filmmaking.

In the early hours of 2009, 22-year-old Oscar Grant was fatally shot by a Bay Area Rapid Transit police officer at the Fruitvale station in Oakland, California. The shooting was captured on cellphone video and made headlines nationwide, leading to a national conversation about police brutality. The officer who shot Grant was convicted of involuntary manslaughter and served 11 months in prison out of a two-year sentence.

In the following years, as more police killings made the news, Grant’s mother, Wanda Johnson, decided to turn her pain and grief into a purpose. With Grant’s uncle, Cephus Johnson, she established The Oscar Grant Foundation, which led to a movement made up of mothers like her, whose sons were killed by police. She gathers with these women to help them find justice and ensure that their children are not forgotten. The number of members continues to grow steadily every year.

Watch the rest of The Aftermath series at: revealnews.org/theaftermath

Across the country, criminals are arming themselves in unexpected ways. In Florida, they’re stealing guns from unlocked cars and gun stores. In other places, they’re getting them from the police themselves, as cash-strapped departments sell their used weapons to buy new ones. On this episode of Reveal, we learn where criminals get their guns and what cars can teach us about gun safety.

—

To explore more reporting, visit revealnews.org or find us on fb.com/ThisIsReveal, Twitter @reveal or Instagram @revealnews.

This short film was produced by the Glassbreaker Films team at The Center for Investigative Reporting. Glassbreaker Films is an all-female group of filmmakers working to promote gender parity in investigative journalism and documentary filmmaking. The initiative is funded by The Helen Gurley Brown Foundation.

The 2000 film “Erin Brockovich” seemed like a successful David versus Goliath story. A single mom of three took on PG&E for contaminating drinking water in Hinkley, California, and came out victorious, suing and winning $333 million from the giant utility company. But whatever became of the tiny town?

For the roughly 600 residents who received part of that payout, the ending wasn’t all happy. Residents who lived there in the ‘90s, such as Roberta Walker, say they suffer from residual health problems. And while they can’t disclose how much money they received from the lawsuit, they say it wasn’t enough to keep them afloat for long. Now, 21 years after the lawsuit, it seems the same public health hazard continues to affect the welfare of Hinkley residents.

From natural disasters to national tragedies, the media swarms around major stories, hurling those affected into the spotlight. But what happens after the cameras are gone and the country moves on to the next headline? The Aftermath revisits stories that once dominated the news, investigating where people are now and what has happened since, to tell the story after the story.

For more on The Aftermath series: revealnews.org/theaftermath

Across the country, universities are being criticized over issues of money: from how they spend their endowments, to how they raise tuition, to how they award financial aid. Many students are feeling the pinch. They’re going into debt to pay for their education, or abandoning their dreams of a college degree altogether. This week on Reveal, we take a look at the bottom line for universities and students.

—

To explore more reporting, visit revealnews.org or find us on fb.com/ThisIsReveal, Twitter @reveal or Instagram @revealnews.

Special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling in the U.S. elections seems to yield a new bombshell every week. Amid such high-profile revelations, we revisit a decades-old story that echoes to this day among the powerful in the nation’s capital.

This episode of Reveal tells the story of Daniel Ellsberg, a former government strategist responsible for leaking the Pentagon Papers – thousands of classified documents that called into question America’s war in Vietnam. Our story juxtaposes Ellsberg’s story with that of Robert Rosenthal, our former executive director, whose first journalism job exposed him to the top-secret documents.  

Those papers are the subject of a new movie in theaters this holiday season. Steven Spielberg’s “The Post” depicts the Washington, D.C. paper’s decision to publish the Pentagon Papers after the Nixon administration sued the first news organization to expose them, The New York Times.

—

Follow us on Facebook at fb.com/ThisIsReveal and on Twitter @reveal.

And to see some of what you’re hearing, we’re also on Instagram @revealnews.

In 1988, two powerful explosions shook Kansas City, Missouri, killing six firefighters. Nine years later, five people were convicted of arson and sent to prison for life – but were they innocent?

Reveal investigates problems in the case and whether federal agents pressured witnesses to lie. We also follow the life of one of the defendants and his bid for freedom.

—

Head over to revealnews.org for more of our reporting.

Follow us on Facebook at fb.com/ThisIsReveal and on Twitter @reveal.

And to see some of what you’re hearing, we’re also on Instagram @revealnews.

Reveal has had a busy year – our team has chased stories from Oklahoma to Bermuda. We exposed a rehab program that provides labor at a chicken processing plant that’s been called a slave camp and followed the money trail of the Paradise Papers, leaked documents that revealed international tax shelters for some of America’s biggest companies. We reported on the rise of hate crimes and investigated hate groups.

In this episode, we look at some of our best reporting from 2017 and how Reveal has made an impact in our world.

Head over to revealnews.org for more of our reporting.

Follow us on Facebook at fb.com/ThisIsReveal and on Twitter @reveal.

And to see some of what you’re hearing, we’re also on Instagram @revealnews.

The damage inflicted on the United States by hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria will likely make the 2017 hurricane season the costliest in our history. But what is the government doing to prepare for the storms yet to come.

In this hour, Reveal goes to Texas, Louisiana and Puerto Rico to investigate the government policies that let people build in harm’s way, make it difficult to move them to safety and fail to accurately tally the dead.

Head over to revealnews.org for more of our reporting.

Follow us on Facebook at fb.com/ThisIsReveal and on Twitter @reveal.

And to see some of what you’re hearing, we’re also on Instagram @revealnews.

This short film was produced by the Glassbreaker Films team at The Center for Investigative Reporting. Glassbreaker Films is an all-female group of filmmakers working to promote gender parity in investigative journalism and documentary filmmaking.

Competing threats to the bayous of Louisiana are leaving some Donald Trump supporters torn between the president’s various policies. The shrimping industry, which accounts for 15,000 jobs in the state, has seen a drastic decline in sales due to international imports. And while Trump’s “America first” promises have given shrimpers hope, he has also made devastating cuts in environmental funding that would drastically damage the fragile bayous. Between 1932 and 2010, southern Louisiana has lost, on average, a football field of land to coastal erosion every hour. And it’s estimated that by 2100, rising sea levels across the country will force 13 million people to move away from their homes on American coasts.

Watch more of The Divided series here: revealnews.org/thedivided

Investigators dig up an unidentified murder victim, 45 years after she was buried, in an attempt to give her back her name. The exhumation leads to a series of unexpected revelations about who she was and why she may have been killed. Her case speaks to the complexity – and importance – of opening up cold cases. This Reveal story is one of thousands from the crisis of America’s unidentified dead.

Head over to revealnews.org for more of our reporting.

Follow us on Facebook at fb.com/ThisIsReveal and on Twitter @reveal.

And to see some of what you’re hearing, we’re also on Instagram @revealnews.

The #MeToo movement has swept from Hollywood to Capitol Hill. The careers of powerful men ended as women spoke out against workplace harassment and assault.

On this episode of Reveal, we look at what happens when the people involved aren’t celebrities or powerful. We team up with KQED, the UC Berkeley Investigative Reporting Program, FRONTLINE and Univision to investigate sexual violence against female janitors.

They usually work alone at night and that isolation can leave them vulnerable. A lot of them are immigrants, some living in the country illegally.

Plus, we talk with an investigative editor for The New York Times who helped steer the coverage that toppled Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein.

—

Head over to revealnews.org for more of our reporting.

Follow us on Facebook at fb.com/ThisIsReveal and on Twitter @reveal.

And to see some of what you’re hearing, we’re also on Instagram @revealnews.

On Reveal, we share how the government failed to stop the opioid epidemic. A Washington Post/60 Minutes partnership with Reveal tells the story of how a DEA insider and his team of lawyers and investigators tried to stop drug distribution companies from flooding America with truckloads of pain pills. His effort was met with backlash from his own agency, the drug industry and Congress. We also hear the intimate chronicle of one wife’s discovery of her husband’s video diaries after his death from a fentanyl overdose.  Finally, Reveal host Al Letson talks with Jan Rader, the fire chief in Huntington, West Virginia, about her fight to preserve life in the face of a crushing epidemic. Rader was profiled in the Oscar-nominated documentary “Heroin(e).”

To explore more reporting, visit revealnews.org or find us at fb.com/ThisIsReveal, on Twitter @reveal or Instagram @revealnews.

Bernard Madoff may be a fading memory from the past, but for reporter Steve Fishman, the fallen financier’s story holds lessons for today. Madoff masterminded one of the biggest Ponzi schemes in history, duping thousands of investors out of tens of billions of dollars. His scam rocked Wall Street for years.

In this episode, we trace the rise and fall of Madoff through Fishman, who spent years interviewing investors, regulators and even Madoff himself from inside federal prison. We learn how Madoff pulled off his scam, and why nobody caught on for decades. We also hear from experts who say that investors still are vulnerable to financial fraud, especially in the era of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

—

Head over to revealnews.org for more of our reporting.

Follow us on Facebook at fb.com/ThisIsReveal and on Twitter @reveal.

And to see some of what you’re hearing, we’re also on Instagram @revealnews.

The scandal around USA Gymnastics and former Olympic team doctor Larry Nassar is shining a spotlight on the sexual abuse of young athletes. This week, Reveal revisits the story of a woman who decides to confront the coach she says abused her decades earlier.

Reporter Tennessee Watson was abused by her gymnastics coach when she was a kid in the 1980s. Over 25 years later, when she learned he still was coaching children, she called the police. Her inside account of the arduous process of seeking justice in her own case exposes discrepancies in prosecutors’ responses to reports of child sexual abuse and highlights a lack of accountability.

—

Head over to revealnews.org for more of our reporting.

Follow us on Facebook at fb.com/ThisIsReveal and on Twitter @reveal.

And to see some of what you’re hearing, we’re also on Instagram @revealnews.

It’s been 10 years since the great housing bust and lending is back. Not everyone is getting a fair shot at getting a loan. In dozens of cities across the country, lenders are more likely to deny loans to applicants of color than white ones – even when you take into account how much money they make and how much they want to borrow.

This type of housing discrimination was outlawed 50 years ago but it’s making a comeback. On this episode of Reveal, we dig into the new redlining.

This episode features an interactive text-messaging tool that allows you to learn more about who gets conventional home loans where you live. To get started, text HOME to 202-873-8325.

—

Head over to revealnews.org for more of our reporting.

Follow us on Facebook at fb.com/ThisIsReveal and on Twitter @reveal.

And to see some of what you’re hearing, we’re also on Instagram @revealnews.

Chicago is experiencing a reversal of the great migration that propelled African Americans northward in search of opportunity in the first half of the 20th century. Since 2000, a quarter-million black Chicagoans have left. The reasons include decades of bad policy and broken promises on affordable housing, education and public safety.

On this episode of Reveal, we team up with the Data Reporting Lab in Chicago to examine how trauma care teams have done more than law enforcement to reduce the gun homicide rate and with The Chicago Reporter to describe how activists are pushing back against the shutdown of 50 public schools at once.

—

Head over to revealnews.org for more of our reporting.

Follow us on Facebook at fb.com/ThisIsReveal and on Twitter @reveal.

And to see some of what you’re hearing, we’re also on Instagram @revealnews.

Hundreds of thousands of U.S. veterans took part in nuclear tests after World War II, and into the Cold War. Many of these vets suffer long-term health issues including lung problems and cancer, and many haven’t received compensation for their injuries and feel abused, neglected and forgotten by the government and a country that exposed them to unforeseen risks. This story of the veterans who witnessed secret atomic testing is a co-production with our friends at the RetroReport.

Wildfires raged across Northern California in October, burning through the state’s famed Napa and Sonoma wine regions. In all, more than 170 blazes ripped across an area the size of Maryland and Delaware combined. Scores awoke to flames at their doors, and 44 people were killed in the deadliest fire event in state history.

On this episode of Reveal, we team up with KQED to examine what led to delays in evacuations and why so many fire victims received no warnings at all. As wildfires grow more intense, are first responders keeping up?

—

Head over to revealnews.org for more of our reporting.

Follow us on Facebook at fb.com/ThisIsReveal and on Twitter @reveal.

And to see some of what you’re hearing, we’re also on Instagram @revealnews.

Last year, California had its deadliest and most destructive wildfire season in recorded history. No fire killed more people or burned down more buildings than the Tubbs Fire. Reveal investigates what made the Tubbs Fire so devastating by delving into the history of one of the hardest-hit neighborhoods.

—

Head over to revealnews.org for more of our reporting.

Follow us on Facebook at fb.com/ThisIsReveal and on Twitter @reveal.

And to see some of what you’re hearing, we’re also on Instagram @revealnews.

Federal law requires colleges and universities to track and disclose sexual assaults on campus. It’s different for kindergarten through 12th grade, where there are no similar requirements for cases involving assaults between students. In elementary, middle and high schools across the U.S., the Associated Press found a shocking level of sexual violence among students. The AP also uncovered a new dimension to the problem – on U.S. military bases.  

On this episode of Reveal, we delve into results from the AP’s continuing investigation.

—

Head over to revealnews.org for more of our reporting.

Follow us on Facebook at fb.com/ThisIsReveal and on Twitter @reveal.

And to see some of what you’re hearing, we’re also on Instagram @revealnews.

Across the country, criminals are arming themselves in unexpected ways. In Florida, they’re stealing guns from unlocked cars and gun stores. In other places, they’re getting them from the police themselves, as cash-strapped departments sell their used weapons to buy new ones. On this episode of Reveal, we learn where criminals get their guns and what cars can teach us about gun safety.

—

To explore more reporting, visit revealnews.org or find us on fb.com/ThisIsReveal, Twitter @reveal or Instagram @revealnews.

The toxic water of Flint, Michigan, reminded us that lead is a very persistent poison. This week, Reveal investigates the lurking threat of lead from the dust of urban demolitions to the wilds of Wyoming.

Hear how contractors help one another cut corners on demolitions, putting kids at risk, while city officials study the problem. Meet a public health nurse who explains why she advises families to choose a homeless shelter over a lead-tainted apartment, and learn how childhood lead poisoning still affects one man decades later. Progress has been made cleaning up lead. But much remains to be done.

—

Head over to revealnews.org for more of our reporting.

Follow us on Facebook at fb.com/ThisIsReveal and on Twitter @reveal.

And to see some of what you’re hearing, we’re also on Instagram @revealnews.

Lead – the toxic metal used for years in paint, plumbing, mining and more – still poisons people in all kinds of ways. Lead also kills wildlife when animals scavenge carcasses shot with lead bullets and left behind by hunters. Eagles and condors are not the hunters’ intended targets, but they’re dying from bullet dust.

The Obama administration tried to phase out all lead ammunition on certain federal lands right before leaving office. But President Donald Trump’s interior secretary, Ryan Zinke, overturned that order his first day on the job.

Reveal follows a bullet’s journey in the wilds of Wyoming.

—

Head over to revealnews.org for more of our reporting.

Follow us on Facebook at fb.com/ThisIsReveal and on Twitter @reveal.

And to see some of what you’re hearing, we’re also on Instagram @revealnews.

In 2016, the Justice Department alleged that Malaysian officials stole billions of dollars from their people and funneled some of it through the United States.

Reveal teamed up with Washington D.C.’s public radio station, WAMU, to dig into one of the largest investigations ever by the Justice Department’s Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative.

It’s a tale that features cameos from Leonardo DiCaprio, Donald Trump, the world’s largest yacht, a Malaysian playboy known for his lavish spending in New York nightclubs, and – as you might imagine – lots of Champagne.

—

Don’t miss out on the next big story. Get the Weekly Reveal newsletter today.

In 2008, a small-time scam artist transferred a Beverly Hills mansion to Donald Trump for $0. Reveal reporters Lance Williams and Matt Smith tried to figure out why. The people involved in the deal say it was all a mistake. Real estate experts have never seen anything like it. Join us for a stranger-than-fiction tale on this special Reveal podcast.

—

Don’t miss out on the next big story. Get the Weekly Reveal newsletter today.

Tech companies in Silicon Valley are under the microscope for not living up to their idealistic pledges to save the world. On this week’s episode of Reveal, we investigate companies on the cutting edge that are struggling to solve some old-fashioned problems: Worker safety at Tesla, and diversity at Google and beyond.

—

Don’t miss out on the next big story. Get the Weekly Reveal newsletter today.

There’s been a lot of conversation about whether Donald Trump has inspired a new wave of hate in America.

Reveal reporter Will Carless set out to understand the president’s role in hundreds of hate incidents across the country, with help from the Documenting Hate project led by ProPublica. He found a striking pattern that extended across races, religions and sexual orientation. We also examine what’s going on inside the government agency that’s supposed to be fighting discrimination, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. And we ask what it takes for bystanders in hate speech incidents to become allies.

Don’t miss the next big story. Get the Weekly Reveal newsletter today.

Across the country, universities are being criticized over issues of money: from how they spend their endowments, to how they raise tuition, to how they award financial aid. Many students are feeling the pinch. They’re going into debt to pay for their education, or abandoning their dreams of a college degree altogether. This week on Reveal, we take a look at the bottom line for universities and students. This episode was originally broadcast on Dec. 9, 2017.

Don’t miss out on the next big story. Get the Weekly Reveal newsletter today.

Reveal digs deep – and gets results. By mining data from 31 million records, we discovered a pattern of routine mortgage loan denials to applicants of color in more than 60 U.S. metropolitan areas. Our story led to attorneys generals’ investigations and lawmakers’ demands for accountability at the federal, state and city levels. It also led to thousands of questions from you, our listeners. Our reporters answered a handful of them.

Don’t miss the next big story. Get the Weekly Reveal newsletter today.

Reveal revisits our investigation into California’s deadliest wildfires. Last October, more than 170 fires ripped across Northern California, burning more than 9,000 buildings, causing millions of dollars in damage and killing 44 people. Along with our partners at KQED we’ll examine what’s being done to ensure that emergency response failures are not repeated as the next wildfire season approaches.

Don’t miss the next big story. Get the Weekly Reveal newsletter today.

In 2014, WBEZ Chicago reporter Linda Lutton followed a class of fourth-graders at William Penn Elementary School on Chicago’s West Side. She wanted to explore a big idea that’s at the heart of the American dream: Can public schools be the great equalizer in society, giving everyone a chance to succeed, no matter where they come from or how much money their families have?

Lutton told the story in a Peabody Award-nominated show, “The View from Room 205.” This week, Reveal presents a condensed version of that documentary.

Don’t miss the next big story. Get the Weekly Reveal newsletter today.

Some police departments are embracing a set of tactics designed to reduce the use of force – and prevent police shootings. Rather than rushing in aggressively, officers back off, wait out people in crisis and use words instead of weapons.

But this training isn't required in most states. Reveal teams up with APM Reports and finds that most cops spend a lot more time training to shoot their guns than learning how to avoid firing them.

This episode was originally broadcast on May 6, 2017.

Don’t miss out on the next big story. Get the Weekly Reveal newsletter today.

The collision of the opioid epidemic with criminal justice reform has created a boom for the rehab industry. Those with wealth and insurance often are able to pay thousands of dollars for private long-term programs. But the less fortunate have become easy prey for rehabs with a tantalizing promise: freedom from addiction for free.

Reveal reporters Amy Julia Harris and Shoshana Walter have been uncovering the ways that some of these rehabs exploit their desperate clients. In this episode, they describe to host Al Letson the shocking things they found at one rehab in the mountains of North Carolina.

Don’t miss out on the next big story. Get the Weekly Reveal newsletter today.

Baltimore’s police department was already notorious.

But this year, eight former police officers were convicted on federal racketeering charges stemming from an FBI investigation. They belonged to an elite task force charged with getting guns off the city’s streets. Instead, the plainclothes cops roamed Baltimore neighborhoods at will, robbing people on the street, breaking into homes to steal money, drugs or guns and planting evidence on their victims.

The targets of the Gun Trace Task Force included drug dealers and ordinary citizens. One of its favorite tactics was to speed toward a group of men on a street corner, chase whoever ran and shake them down. On top of all this, the officers falsified their timesheets to almost double their salaries.

This episode of Reveal asks if the task force was simply a rogue operation or if the officers were aided and abetted by fellow cops and even supervisors within the department.

Don’t miss out on the next big story. Get the Weekly Reveal newsletter today.

Last fall, we threw out a simple question after a show about U.S. immigration policies: What do you wish you knew about immigration?

Across the country, listeners responded with hundreds of text messages – from small towns in Iowa, Colorado and Massachusetts to big cities such as Los Angeles, Atlanta and Chicago.

We chose four questions and took our team of reporters and producers to task to answer them.

To figure out the answers, we go deep into immigration court, help one listener uncover her grandfather’s secret past about entering the country and break down the path to legal citizenship. On the way, we meet scam artists, attorneys, asylum seekers and do-gooders learning immigration law for kicks.

This episode was originally broadcast July 1, 2017.

Picture an American farmer. Chances are, the farmer you’re imagining is white – more than 9 out of 10 American farmers today are. But historically, African Americans played a huge role in agriculture. The nation’s economy was built largely on black farm labor: in bondage for hundreds of years, followed by a century of sharecropping and tenant farming.

In the early 1900s, African American families owned one-seventh of the nation’s farmland, 15 million acres. A hundred years later, black farmers own only one-quarter of the land they once held and now make up less than 1 percent of American farm families.

The federal government has admitted it was part of the problem. In 1997, a report by the U.S. Department of Agriculture said discrimination by the agency was a factor in the decline of black farms. A landmark class-action lawsuit on behalf of black farmers, Pigford v. Glickman, was settled in 1999, and the government paid out more than $2 billion as a result. But advocates for black farmers say problems persist.

On this episode of Reveal, reporter John Biewen of “Scene on Radio” tells the story of a black farmer who says the USDA treated him unfairly because of his race.

Don’t miss out on the next big story. Get the Weekly Reveal newsletter today.

President Donald Trump said he was ending family separation at the border this week. But we’ve stayed on the story, investigating the issues that remain: children being drugged at migrant shelters, asylum-seekers being denied at ports of entry and the problems with Trump’s new detention plan.

Don’t miss out on the next big story. Get the Weekly Reveal newsletter today.

Far from the World Cup stadium cheers, a prisoner held in Russia is six weeks into a hunger strike.

Reveal host Al Letson talks with Masha Alyokhina, a founding member of the Russian feminist punk rock collective Pussy Riot, about the efforts to free Oleg Sentsov, a Ukrainian filmmaker convicted of an armed plot during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. He denies any involvement. His supporters fear U.S. President Donald Trump has undermined their cause. Alyokhina knows the topic well: She spent time in prison for challenging Russian President Vladimir Putin, too.

Don’t miss out on the next big story. Get the Weekly Reveal newsletter today.

This week’s episode of Reveal investigates shark fishing in Central America and a U.S.-based seafood company that claims to be a model of sustainability.

We start in the jungles of El Salvador, where reporter Sarah Blaskey and photojournalist Ben Feibleman investigate one of the largest shark-fishing operations in the region. The men who crew these boats are migrants from Vietnam who work under grueling conditions.

Next, we follow reporters from The Associated Press as they continue their award-winning investigation into the seafood industry. Robin McDowell, Margie Mason and Martha Mendoza look into one of the country’s leading sustainable seafood companies, Sea to Table.

The company provides seafood to restaurants, universities and private homes across the country, claiming all its fish are wild caught and directly traceable to a U.S. dock. The reporters examine whether those claims hold up.

Don’t miss out on the next big story. Get the Weekly Reveal newsletter today.

This week, we continue our ongoing investigation into what happens to immigrant children after they’re detained by the U.S. government. Our latest story investigates a vacant office building being used by a defense contractor to house children.

Then, we travel to the Gulf Coast to learn why last year was the costliest hurricane season on record. In Houston, we discover that homes flooded by Hurricane Harvey were actually built inside a reservoir.

We end on the Louisiana coast, where officials say they can no longer provide protection to homes most vulnerable to flooding, and that residents will have to abandon them.

Don’t miss out on the next big story. Get the Weekly Reveal newsletter today.

President Donald Trump has pledged allegiance to what he calls America’s “energy dominance.” This is good news for the oil and gas industry. We examine what this means for Alaskan villagers coping with climate change, Native American artifacts in Utah and birds flying over the U.S.  

*
*To find out, we talk with a former Interior Department official who became a whistleblower after helping relocate Alaskan Native villages threatened by rising temperatures. We also examine the energy industry’s influence on the Trump administration and visit public lands in southeastern Utah, where parcels leased for oil and gas exploration contain sensitive Native American archeological sites.

Don’t miss out on the next big story. Get the Weekly Reveal newsletter today.

Old paint, old pipes and demolition dust often are sources of toxic lead. It’s a poison known to cause neurological damage in children. For adults, new science shows lead exposure increases the risk of heart disease. Reveal investigates the lurking threat from the dust of urban demolitions to the wilds of Wyoming. This episode was originally broadcast March 31, 2018.

In Detroit, dust is a particular concern. Because of the population drop, the city is tearing down tens of thousands of empty homes. Contractors are supposed to follow strict protocols on  demolitions, but when those rules are not enforced, lead dust can drift around the neighborhood, poisoning children in unsuspecting families. Reporter Eilís O'Neill explores the impact.

Next, we go to the Fruitvale neighborhood in Oakland, California, where the rate of kids with high lead levels in their blood was greater than in Flint, Michigan, during the height of the water crisis there. Reporters Angela Johnston and Marissa Ortega-Welch of KALW in San Francisco explain how high housing costs and lead exposure are connected and introduce us to public health nurse Diep Tran, who says lead poisoning puts enormous stress on families.

“I've seen parents go into shock,” Tran says. “Most of them are anxious. Some feel guilty and go into denial, which is not good for the child, because parents in denial don't want to work with us. How can the child recover if we don't help the family?”

She says her only option sometimes is to advise families to move to a homeless shelter to escape exposure to lead.

Paul Flory could not escape. He grew up in Idaho’s Silver Valley, a longtime mining area that’s now a lead-laced Superfund site. Host Al Letson talks with him about going to school next door to a smelter and the struggles he’s had after his childhood lead poisoning was recorded – and then largely ignored.

Finally, we discover how tiny fragments of lead bullets hurt hunters’ unintended targets: eagles, condors and other scavenging wildlife. We trace lead dust from game guts to eagle brains in Wyoming.

Don’t miss out on the next big story. Get the Weekly Reveal newsletter today.

In December 1944, Adolf Hitler surprised the Allies with a secret counterattack through the Ardennes forest, known today as the Battle of the Bulge. In the carnage that followed, there was one incident that top military commanders hoped would be concealed. It’s the story of an American war crime nearly forgotten to history.

After desperate house-to-house fighting between German and American forces, American soldiers wrested control of the Belgian town of Chenogne. Americans rounded up the remaining German prisoners of war, took them to a field and machine-gunned them.

Reporter Chris Harland-Dunaway found an entry in General George S. Patton’s handwritten diary referring to the incident in Chenogne. Patton called it murder. So why then was there no official investigation?

Through vivid interviews with a 93-year-old veteran who witnessed the event, conversations with historians and the last surviving prosecutor from the Nuremberg Trials, and analysis of formerly confidential military records, we investigate why justice never came for the American soldiers responsible for the massacre at Chenogne.

Don’t miss out on the next big story. Get the Weekly Reveal newsletter today.

Deep in the backroads of central Florida, hidden between trees dripping with Spanish moss, sits the campus of an infamous center for the developmentally disabled. Its story shows what can happen when families have nowhere else to find care for their loved ones.

After years of complaints, Carlton Palms is finally being shut down. But its parent company, Bellwether Behavioral Health, is still running group homes across the country, where new allegations have arisen.

WNYC reporter Audrey Quinn investigates the company and speaks to a family whose son was abused at two of Bellwether’s New Jersey facilities. She discovers that, with national spending on autism services expected to increase 70 percent by 2025, the company is owned by a private equity firm.

Then, reporter Elly Yu investigates the death of a DACA recipient while at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in rural Georgia.

Don’t miss out on the next big story. Get the Weekly Reveal newsletter today.

*This show was originally broadcast February 3, 2018. *It’s been ten years since former NASDAQ chairman Bernie Madoff was arrested for committing one of the largest financial crimes in U.S. history. For decades he ran a Ponzi scheme from a secret office in New York, duping thousands of investors out of billions of dollars. Many of them lost everything when the house of cards fell.

How did Madoff pull it off? And what steps have regulators taken in the past decade to ensure that it doesn’t happen again? For this week’s episode, we teamed up with Steve Fishman, a reporter based in New York City who’s followed the story for years. He produced and hosted a seven-part podcast for Audible called “Ponzi Supernova.”

Through interviews with financial experts, federal agents, Madoff’s cellmates and Madoff himself, Fishman explains how the $60 billion con worked, and why Madoff was able to elude regulators for decades. Fishman says that while Madoff was the mastermind of the scheme, it was banks and other financial institutions who “weaponized” him, turning him from a “local swindler” into an unstoppable force.

Madoff will spend the rest of his life in prison, but no one from these institutions faced similar consequences. And even though some precautions have been put in place since Madoff’s arrest, financial experts warn that for the most part, investors are still on their own.

Don’t miss out on the next big story. Get the Weekly Reveal newsletter today.

Some people who live along the Mississippi River are willing to do anything to keep their homes and farms safe from flooding – even if it means inundating their own neighbors. This week, we team up with ProPublica to investigate how rising waters have set off a race to build the highest levee.

Don’t miss out on the next big story. Get the Weekly Reveal newsletter today.

Victim compensation funds are supposed to help victims of crime cover lost wages or funeral expenses. But Reveal teamed up with The Marshall Project and discovered that in some states, African Americans are disproportionately hurt by rules on how that money is handed out.

Then, Reveal reporters Amy Julia Harris and Shoshana Walter uncover a scheme at a drug rehabilitation facility in the mountains of North Carolina, where clients are being used as a source of free labor.

Don’t miss out on the next big story. Get the Weekly Reveal newsletter today.

Desperate to have a child, a couple puts its trust in a fertility clinic that promises more than it can deliver. They enter a world where some clinics take unnecessary risks to make them look far more successful than they are in reality.

From reporter Jonathan Jones and Reveal’s Bernice Yeung and Emily Harris.

Don’t miss out on the next big story. Get the Weekly Reveal newsletter today.