Crime

Filmmaker Ramita Navai Navai chronicles the Taliban's treatment of women in the new PBS Frontline documentary, Afghanistan Undercover, which she started researching in early 2020.

Stockholm-born actor Alexander Skarsgård says he had to work against his natural tendencies for his latest movie, The Northman, a violent epic set about 1,000 years ago.

White Lies author A.J. Baime tells the story of Walter White, a light-skinned Black man whose ancestors had been enslaved. For years White risked his life investigating racial violence in the South.

Comic W. Kamau Bell takes Bill Cosby's fall from "America's dad" to sexual predator personally. In the four-part Showtime documentary series, We Need to Talk About Cosby, Bell grapples with Cosby's tainted legacy and his larger betrayal of the Black community.

Russell Shorto's grandfather was a mob leader in the industrial town of Johnstown, Pa. He spoke to Fresh Air in 2021 about the havoc that resulted from his grandfather's business dealings.

Activist Tarana Burke is the founder of the #MeToo Movement and has worked with Black and brown girls who are survivors of sexual violence. She originated the phrase and concept Me Too in 2006, as a way for victims to share their stories and connect with others. The Me Too hashtag went viral in 2017, in response to the Harvey Weinstein allegations of sexual assault.

Journalist Julie K. Brown's 2018 series for the Miami Herald generated national attention and spurred an investigation that put wealthy financier Jeffrey Epstein behind bars on federal charges. He died there, from an apparent suicide. She has a new book.

Seven years into his 60-year sentence, Yutico Briley wrote a letter to Emily Bazelon, who writes about the criminal justice system. They both reflect on Briley's long path to exoneration.

The new novel Falling is a thriller and the debut of writer T.J. Newman who is a former flight attendant. It's about an airline pilot who faces a terrible choice.

Ford's new memoir, Somebody's Daughter, details her childhood growing up poor in Indiana and her complicated relationships with her mother, her grandmother and her own body.

New York Times investigative reporter Michael Schwirtz gained access to the dashboard of DarkSide, a Russian ransomware operation that's pulled in more than $90 million since it began last August.

Promising Young Woman marks the directing debut of Emerald Fennell. The movie has been nominated for five Academy Awards, including best director and best original screenplay. Fennell describes the film as "a kind of fantasy — with wish fulfillment" but also as something "much darker and, I hope, more honest than that."

Sociologist Reuben Jonathan Miller writes about the aftereffects of mass incarceration in his new book, Halfway Home. The book is based on 15 years of research in which he followed the lives of about 250 incarcerated and formerly incarcerated men and women, and spoke with their family and friends.

Eliot Higgins is the founder of an online collective that picks apart conspiracy theories and investigates war crimes and hate crimes using clues from the Internet. His new book is We Are Bellingcat.

Law professor and human rights activist Rosa Brooks wanted to better understand police violence and the racial disparities in America's criminal justice system, so she decided to join the police force as a volunteer.

Deidre Fishel's new PBS documentary Women in Blue, on the Independent Lens series, focuses on four women who worked for the Minneapolis Police Department. It begins 3 years ago and ends with the death of George Floyd at the hands of police.

Historian Russell Shorto, delved into his own family and his grandfather who was a mob boss in the industrial town of Johnstown, Pa. Shorto says his grandfather's involvement with the Johnstown mob initially began as an offshoot of Prohibition, which opened doors for Italian Americans facing employment discrimination.

Journalist Jon Fasman says local police are frequently able to access very powerful surveillance tools — including publicly accessible CCTV cameras, automatic license plate readers and cell phone tracking devices — with little oversight. Fasman embedded with different police departments across the country to see how officers integrate technology into their day-to-day job.

Film critic Justin Chang shares reviews of two new movies to watch at home. The thriller "Promising Young Woman," starring Carey Mulligan, can be found on various on-demand platforms. And the drama "Pieces Of A Woman," starring Vanessa Kirby, is on Netflix.

Richard Nixon's first vice president resigned amid charges of bribery and tax evasion. Maddow and Mike Yarvitz revisit Agnew's story in the podcast (and now book) Bag Man. Originally broadcast in '19.