Government & Politics

There's clearly a limit to what the former president will say —even on his own platform. Obama's conversation with the Boss is at its most fluid and introspective when the two discuss masculinity.

Saidu Tejan-Thomas Jr.'s "Resistance" podcast explores different aspects of the Black Lives Matter movement. The podcast has been mostly devoted to the protests that started last summer after the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, but it also chronicles Tejan-Thomas Jr.'s personal history.

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."

Reem assis says that many foods that are considered Middle Eastern or Israeli actually originated as Palestinian dishes. Her first cookbook, The Palestinian Table, chronicled the history of Palestinian food — along with some of her personal history. In her new book, The Arabesque Table, Kassis expands the focus to the cross-cultural culinary history of the Arab world.

John Powers reviews 'The Man Who Sold His Skin,' a funny, touching and pointed film that's been nominated for the Oscar for Best International Feature.

New York Times reporter Jason DeParle says a provision in the new COVID relief package has the makings of a policy revolution — and would "roughly cut child poverty in half."

Elizabeth Neumann resigned from the Department of Homeland Security in 2020. She says the Trump administration ignored the threat — and fanned the flames — of violent domestic extremism.

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.

The first lady is often remembered as a genteel Southerner who promoted highway beautification, but author Julia Sweig says archival records show Lady Bird was also a savvy political strategist.

New Yorker writer Jane Mayer talks about the criminal investigation into whether Donald Trump engaged in tax, banking and/or insurance fraud. If convicted, he could be sentenced to prison.

Zbanic's new film, Quo Vadis, Aida?, is her most direct reckoning yet with the legacy of the Bosnian war. It dramatizes the events of July 1995 in the town of Srebrenica, where more than 8,000 Bosniak Muslims, most of them men and boys, were murdered by the Bosnian Serb Army.

The Trump White House agreed to a May 1 troop withdrawal. New Yorker writer Dexter Filkins says Biden must now decide whether to honor a deal that included the Taliban but not the Afghan government.

Director Lee Isaac Chung's inspiration for Minari, his semi-autobiographical film about a Korean American father who moves his family to a farm in rural Arkansas, began with a list.

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.

The film One Night in Miami imagines a night in 1964 where Cooke, Clay, Malcolm X and Jim Brown meet. We listen back to interviews with biographers Peter Guralnick, Jonathan Eig and Alex Haley.

New Yorker writer Luke Mogelson says many of the insurrectionists he filmed at the Capitol "had no inkling that what they were doing was wrong or suspicion that it could result in any consequences."

In his new book, The Ten Year War, Jonathan Cohn looks at the intense debate surrounding the Affordable Care Act, the compromises of the law itself, and the ongoing fight for universal health care.

The travails of immigrant life take a quietly beguiling form in Minari, a semi-autobiographical film by Lee Isaac Chung that brims with humor, humanity and hope.

Trotter was a Black newspaper editor in the early 20th century who advocated for civil rights by organizing mass protests. Historian Kerri Greenidge tells his story. Originally broadcast January 2021.

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.