Embedded

The Harvard Plan: The Endless Frontier

01 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Universities were not always so vulnerable to the whims of politics. The whole system of taxpayer-funded, university-led scientific research came abou...

The Harvard Plan: Jay & Alan

24 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Harvard president Alan Garber and National Institutes of Health head Jay Bhattacharya are two main characters at the heart of the national fight over ...

The Harvard Plan: And so it begins…

17 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The Harvard Plan, a collaboration between On the Media and The Boston Globe, is about the fight for the soul of America’s oldest and most prestigiou...

Alternate Realities: A Question for Listeners

09 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

After we released Alternate Realities, hundreds of listeners reached out, sharing stories about friends and family members who had also fallen under t...

Congress has voted to eliminate government funding for public media

18 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Act now to ensure public media remains free and accessible to all. Your donation will help this essential American service survive and thrive. Visit d...

The Network: Déjà vu

12 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Part 3: The network and its method took off in countries where women didn't have a legal option for abortion. Since Roe v. Wade was overturned, many A...

The Network: Breaking Bread

12 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Part 2: The network had developed a method that had the potential to get women widespread access to safe abortions. But to make that happen, a whisper...

The Network: Saint-o-tec

05 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Part 1: In the mid-1980s, an OBGYN in Brazil noticed that far fewer pregnant women at his hospital were dying from abortion complications. It wasn't a...

Introducing "The Network" from NPR and Futuro Media

29 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Decades ago, Brazilian women made a discovery that allowed them to have safe abortions without a doctor, regardless of the law. Now, as abortion restr...

Alternate Realities: Facing the Facts

21 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Episode 3: After a year of waiting, the bet is finally over. Reporter Zach Mack takes stock of his father's predictions and confronts him about the fu...

Alternate Realities: Down the Rabbit Hole

21 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Episode 2: After reporter Zach Mack accepts a bet with his father over 10 politically apocalyptic predictions, he sets out on a journey to change his ...

Alternate Realities: A Strange Bet

21 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Episode 1: Reporter Zach Mack thinks his dad has gone all in on conspiracy theories, while his father thinks that Zach is the one being brainwashed. I...

Introducing Alternate Realities from NPR

14 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Zach Mack and his dad are living in separate realities, and it's tearing their family apart. Like so many Americans, Zach's dad has gotten swept up in...

Five Fingers Crush The Land from NPR's Throughline

19 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

As NPR correspondent Emily Feng reported in our three-part series "The Black Gate," hundreds of thousands of Uyghur people have been detained in China...

The Black Gate: Arresting Your Brothers and Sisters

19 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

As NPR correspondent Emily Feng reported on the Kucar family, she encountered a mysterious figure working to keep her sources from speaking out. Later...

The Black Gate: Like a Bullet from a Gun

12 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Abdullatif Kucar returns to China, determined to find his children, who have been sent to state-run "boarding schools," and his wife, who has spent tw...

The Black Gate: Vanished in the Night

05 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In the Xinjiang region of western China, the government has rounded up and detained hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs and other Muslim ethnic groups, i...

Introducing The Black Gate from NPR

02 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

This is the story of a people being erased, one family at a time. For almost a decade, the Chinese government has been detaining hundreds of thousands...

A Good Guy: Under Oath

31 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

There's a promise that all Marines make to defend the Constitution. After Sgt. Joshua Abate participated in the events on January 6, the Corps has to ...

A Good Guy: 279 Hours

24 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

"Have you ever tried to overthrow the U.S. government?" Marine Sgt. Joshua Abate was in the middle of a routine polygraph test to receive top-secret c...

Introducing "A Good Guy" from NPR

21 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Sergeant Joshua Abate says that he's not a rioter or an insurrectionist. Those closest to the active-duty Marine call him "a good guy." But he was par...

Tested: Lumpers and Splitters

01 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Episode 6: Christine and Max are some of the most recent female athletes in this century-long history to face tests, stigma, and restrictions. But the...

Tested: Unfair Advantage?

29 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Episode 5: A battle over science and ethics unfolds. World Athletics releases and then tweaks multiple policies impacting DSD athletes, while critics ...

Tested: Running in Circles

25 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Episode 4: In 2009, South African sprinter Caster Semenya won gold at the World Championships. But instead of a celebration, she endured endless specu...

Tested: Card-Carrying Females

22 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Episode 3: We meet Kenyan sprinter Maximila Imali, who—like Christine Mboma—has been sidelined by DSD policies. She makes a different choice from ...

Tested: Questions of a Physical Nature

18 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Episode 2: We go back almost 100 years, to the beginning of women's inclusion in elite sports. It turns out that men had an odd variety of concerns ab...

Tested: The Choice

15 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Episode 1: Would you alter your body for the chance to compete for a gold medal? That's the question facing a small group of elite athletes right now....

Introducing Tested from NPR and CBC

12 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Who gets to compete? Since the beginning of women's sports, there has been a struggle over who qualifies for the women's category. Tested follows the ...

Supermajority: The Could-Be Candidate

11 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The end of the 113th General Assembly of Tennessee is fast approaching. Melissa Alexander, Mary Joyce and Sarah Shoop Neumann have reached a new stage...

Supermajority: A Common-Sense Caucus

02 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Melissa Alexander came to the Tennessee statehouse to convince members of the Republican party – her party – to adopt gun control measures after a...

Supermajority: The Roll Call

25 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

It's been four months since the Covenant moms – lifelong conservatives Melissa Alexander, Mary Joyce and Sarah Shoop Neumann – pleaded with their ...

Supermajority: The Covenant Moms

18 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In 2023, a mass shooter attacked The Covenant School, a private Christian school in Nashville, Tennessee, and three mothers were compelled to act. The...

Introducing Supermajority from NPR and WPLN

17 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Supermajority is a new 4-part series from NPR's Embedded, in partnership with Nashville Public Radio. As Americans focus on national politics this ele...

Field Notes: On Losing the Gaza They Knew

07 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The second in a two-part special series featuring conversations between Embedded host Kelly McEvers and NPR reporters who have been on the ground duri...

Field Notes: On Reporting, the Israel-Hamas War

29 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The first in a two-part special series featuring conversations between Embedded host Kelly McEvers and NPR reporters who have been on the ground durin...

Taking Cover: Accountability

22 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In this Taking Cover update, a U.S. senator wants answers from the Marines about what went wrong - and we meet an Army soldier still serving on active...

The Kill List: The Pier

21 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Since activist Karima Baloch's mysterious death in 2020, her family has been searching for answers. Journalist Mary Lynk has, too. The documents Mary ...

The Kill List: Living Ghosts

19 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

As her native Balochistan mourns activist Karima Baloch's death, we dive deeper into what Karima was fighting for and why – and learn about the inte...

The Kill List: 'I am not a terrorist'

14 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

We talk to the people closest to Karima Baloch, including some who are opening up for the very first time, to try to understand what could have led to...

The Kill List: The Dissident Club

12 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Critics of the Pakistani government, like Karima Baloch and Sajid Hussain, find themselves in this kind of nightmarish club of exiles who flee to far ...

The Kill List: A Death in Sweden

07 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Before Karima's death, another prominent Baloch dissident was found dead in Sweden. The two deaths bear a striking resemblance. Could they be connecte...

The Kill List: Death of an Icon

05 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Karima Baloch was forced to flee to Canada because of her work fighting for human rights in her home of Balochistan, a province of Pakistan. But when ...

All The Only Ones: No More (Gender) Drama

16 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In the final episode of the series, we meet Christine, an 18 year old from New Mexico, shortly after starting hormone replacement therapy, as she navi...

All The Only Ones: I can't wait

09 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In part 2, we meet Parker, a senior in high school in Columbus, Ohio. Parker is a top field hockey athlete, but as a trans person, he is faced with ma...

All The Only Ones: The missing piece of the puzzle

02 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In our first episode, we meet Zen, a Mexican-American, New Orleans native, coming into their transness, exploring its spectrum, as we learn about an h...

Introducing All The Only Ones

30 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

All The Only Ones is a new 3-part series from NPR's Embedded. Host Laine Kaplan-Levenson unearths the little known and often neglected history of tran...

The Unmarked Graveyard: Angel Garcia

26 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

When Annette Vega was seven years old, she found out the man she called "dad" wasn't her biological father. But all she knew was that her mom had had ...

The Unmarked Graveyard: Neil Harris Jr.

19 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

A few years ago, a young man who called himself Stephen became a fixture in Manhattan's Riverside Park. Locals started noticing him sitting on the sam...

Hold the Sitar: The Making of the Love Commandos Theme Song

30 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In this bonus episode of Love Commandos, Gregory Warner interviews musician John Ellis, who composed Rough Translation's original theme music in 2017,...

Love Commandos: Calling It Quits

18 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In Episode 5 of Love Commandos, couples seeking to shut down the Love Commandos' shelter band together in a risky plan. Want to hear bonus episodes of...

Love Commandos: Forever Yours

09 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

On Episode 4 of Love Commandos, couples in the shelter feel pressured to stay indefinitely. We try to figure out why. Want to hear episodes of Love Co...

Love Commandos: The Honeymoon

02 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

On Episode 3 of Love Commandos, stories of life inside the Love Commandos shelter begin to diverge as co-founder Sanjoy Sachdev shows a different side...

Love Commandos: After the Wedding

26 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Threatened by their families, an inter-caste couple in India hits a breaking point. Their last option to stay together? The Love Commandos. Want to he...

Love Commandos: The Vow

26 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

When falling in love can mean risking your life, the Love Commandos in India will protect you. But at what cost? Want to hear episodes of Love Command...

The 13th Step: Just the Beginning

29 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

How deep can you dig for the truth before it gets dangerous? In March 2022, reporter Lauren Chooljian published her first story detailing allegations ...

The 13th Step: The God of Recovery

28 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

As Eric Spofford tells it, he spent his teen years in the throes of addiction and crime. When he got sober, he became a crusader for recovery. On the ...

The 13th Step: The Shadow

27 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

So many of us have been touched by America's addiction crisis. And we look to treatment for solutions. But what happens when communities dedicated to ...

Buffalo Extreme: Winners

12 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

It's competition season, and the girls say they're over what happened at the Tops supermarket last year. "I'm fine!" But then the shooter has his sent...

Buffalo Extreme: Do Good, Get Good

26 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

How do you make sense of something terrible that's happened—and move forward? From the cheer gym to the therapy office, we follow the parents, coach...

Buffalo Extreme: Base

11 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Ayanna Williams Gaines is the coach and founder of Buffalo All-Star Extreme, a Black competitive cheerleading and dance team from Buffalo, New York. W...

Introducing Buffalo Extreme

08 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

What happens after a racist mass shooting in your neighborhood? On May 14, 2022, the world changed for residents of Buffalo, New York, when a white ma...

Taking Cover: The Gulf School

04 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Tom and Graham meet Shihab's brother in Baghdad — but he's wary. They also visit Fallujah, to find the schoolhouse and talk with people who were on ...

Taking Cover: Cover-Up

27 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The team turns to Pat Tillman's family for help. Duncan Hunter the elder, and the younger, respond to NPR's questions... kind of. A breakthrough in th...

Taking Cover: Up the Chain

20 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Tom and Graham work their way up the chain of command, looking for someone — anyone — who can explain how and why this incident was buried. One ge...

Taking Cover: Finding David

13 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

As Tom and Graham work to track down the men in the courtyard, one of the wounded Marines has long remained elusive. His former comrades wonder if he...

Taking Cover: JAGMAN

06 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Hoping to get their hands on the official investigation, the NPR team flies to Tucson. But problems begin shortly after arrival. The widow of a man wh...

Taking Cover: Stand-To

30 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The wounded are evacuated. The battle subsides. Now the men of Echo 2/1 begin to wonder: What happened? The Marine Corps says "no records exist" but T...

Taking Cover: Danger Close

16 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

NPR's Pentagon Correspondent, Tom Bowman, receives a shocking tip from a trusted source: A deadly explosion during the Iraq War was an accident—frie...

White Lies: The Excludables

16 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In our final episode of the season, we start researching the names on the secret list of 2,746 Cuban excludables. What we find confirms many of our su...

Introducing: Taking Cover

14 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Hosted by NPR's Pentagon correspondent Tom Bowman and Graham Smith of the Investigations unit, Taking Cover isn't just a show about the worst Marine-o...

White Lies: The List

09 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Since we began reporting this story, we've been after a list. A secret list. On it are the names of 2,746 people whom the US government deemed excluda...

White Lies: The Trial

02 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In Episode 6, we sneak into the graveyard of the Atlanta federal penitentiary with a radical peace activist to learn more about what happened in the p...

White Lies: The Pen

23 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

On May 18, 1980, a man named Genaro Soroa-Gonzalez arrived in Key West from the port of Mariel. With no family waiting to sponsor him, he was sent by ...

White Lies: The Entry Fiction

16 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

When President Carter promised to welcome the men and women arriving on the Mariel boatlift with "an open heart and open arms," he had referred to the...

White Lies: The Rumors

09 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

During our reporting, we heard one story over and over again: that Fidel Castro had emptied his prisons to fill the boatlift. It's a story that's been...

White Lies: The Boatlift

02 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Note: Due to a technical error, some listeners did not hear the correct audio for Episode 2. We are re-publishing it with the corrected audio. The sto...

White Lies: The Men on the Roof

26 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

It all started with a photograph. A photograph from 1991 of a prison takeover in rural Alabama. A photograph of a group of men on the roof of that pri...

White Lies: Season 2 Trailer

23 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In 1991, a group of men took over a federal prison in rural Alabama. But these men weren't prisoners, they were immigration detainees, all of them fro...

The Last Cup: Postscript

20 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The 2022 World Cup has ended. With his left foot, Messi wrote a more spectacular finale than we could have imagined. In the final installment of The L...

The Last Cup: Bonus Episode

08 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Argentina has made it to the quarter finals of the 2022 World Cup, but the road has been a winding one. In our bonus episode, we take a moment to refl...

The Last Cup: Part 5

02 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

After a falling-out with the Argentine national team and a shaky reconciliation, Messi eventually finds his way back to play at the 2021 Copa America ...

The Last Cup: Part 4

22 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

With the disappointment of the 2010 World Cup behind them, Argentines are hopeful that Lionel Messi might break their losing streak at the 2011 Copa A...

The Last Cup: Part 3

17 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Lionel Messi finally gets a chance to put on Argentina's national jersey, but something is off. His time abroad has fundamentally changed the way he p...

The Last Cup: Part 2

10 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

From his earliest goals on the soccer fields of his hometown in Argentina to his arrival in Spain's Barça Football Club, host Jasmine Garsd follows t...

The Last Cup: Part 1

10 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

NPR and Futuro Studios present The Last Cup, a podcast series about soccer and the immigrant experience.As Lionel Messi rose up the ranks of the stori...

Changing the Police: The Walk-Out

11 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The series concludes: we check back in with John Mueller after his resignation as head of the Yonkers Police Department. And we consider what his depa...

Changing the Police: To Police or Not To Police

04 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In Yonkers, as in the rest of the country, a substantial number of police calls involve situations where someone is having a mental health crisis. But...

Changing the Police: Charlie Walker's Plan

28 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Every four years, the Yonkers Police Department starts the process of hiring new officers. This time, the department is specifically recruiting people...

Changing the Police: Reckoning with the Past

21 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

For a long time, the police department in Yonkers, New York had a reputation as overly aggressive, especially when it came to policing the poorer part...

Changing the Police: The John Mueller Show

14 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Episode 1 takes listeners to Yonkers, New York, a city with a long and ugly history of bad policing. The Justice Department has demanded an overhaul o...

Coming Soon: Changing The Police

12 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In a new multi-part series, Embedded listeners will get to know the Yonkers Police Department, located just outside New York City. For over a decade, ...

Capital Gazette: "All Of A Sudden... It's Different"

15 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Part 5: There's one important part of the newspaper's story we couldn't bring you until now: what it's like to have their attacker stand trial. And th...

On Our Watch: Under Color of Law

09 Jul 2021

Contributed by Lukas

One of the first police shootings to be captured on cell phone, millions saw Bay Area Rapid Transit police Officer Johannes Mehserle fire a single, fa...

On Our Watch: The Brady Rule

02 Jul 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Fellow officers long suspected a veteran detective in Antioch, Calif., was leaking operational police secrets to a drug dealer. For years, the departm...

On Our Watch: Neglect of Duty

25 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

An officer is repeatedly disciplined for not turning in his police reports on time. A mom goes to the police asking for help with her missing daughter...

On Our Watch: Perceived Threat

18 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

A 16-year-old Black kid walks into a gas station in Stockton, Calif. to buy gummy worms for his little sister. When the teen gets in an argument with ...

On Our Watch: 20-20 Hindsight

11 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

After his son is shot and killed by a Richmond, Calif. police officer, a father looking for answers becomes a police transparency advocate. When the f...

On Our Watch: Conduct Unbecoming

04 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

A police officer in Los Angeles told women he'd let their cars pass inspection if they had sex with him. In the San Francisco, Bay Area, another woman...

On Our Watch: In Good Faith

28 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In the small Northern California town of Rio Vista, a woman named Katheryn Jenks calls 911 for help. But after the police arrive, she ends up injured ...

Capital Gazette: "We Are The Newsroom"

11 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Part 4: In our final episode, the Capital Gazette is swept up in the troubles of the newspaper industry. Its corporate owners are making painful cuts,...