When we talk about LGBTQ issues, it’s the T that we often leave out of the discussion. That’s at least in part because the Ts are a minority even inside the community. But are they small in number because they’re small in number – or because it’s a much harder road to take? On this third edition of Queer in the Cape Fear, we’re seeking to do a better job of understanding the T.

If you’re a long-time All Things Considered listener, you will remember Melissa Block as the anchor paired with Robert Siegel for more than a decade -- from 2003 to 2015. Then, Melissa Block stepped away from the anchor desk to immerse herself in feature reporting. Over the course of her 32-year career at NPR, she has covered domestic and international news – including the 9/11 terrorist attacks on U.S. soil and the massive 2008 earthquake in China. In this conversation recorded in 2017, we hear about what it's like to cover tragic events and why she never imagined a career like this.

Hari Kondabolu does make people laugh. But he also makes people think. He’s caught the attention of NPR and done interviews on Morning Edition and All Things Considered. He’s a panelist on Wait Wait... Don’t Tell Me!, and in 2014, The New York Times described him as “one of the most exciting political comics in stand-up today.”

Employers are having such a hard time finding warm bodies to show up for work they’re more eager than ever to make jobs appealing and train workers for positions they might not have previously even considered them for.

It's 1934, the middle of the Great Depression in America. The federal government sends hundreds of jobless World War I veterans to the Florida Keys for a work program. On its face, it's a great idea – pay these men to build a highway between Miami and Key West as part of a New Deal construction project. The men have jobs live in a mild climate and are out of public view, but the plan doesn't take into account a major hurricane.

A bill moving through the North Carolina state legislature doesn’t name “Critical Race Theory”, but House Bill 324 states, in part, that public schools shall not promote the concept that an individual, solely by virtue of his or her race or sex, is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously or that a person bears responsibility for actions committed in the past by other members of the same race or sex.

It’s hard enough to keep a small family farm going. But add to that the challenges of systemic and environmental racism -- and the Keatons’ accomplishment becomes even less likely. But it’s their commitment to keeping their land, farming it, and teaching the next generation that has protected their family legacy.

Duke University Professor Thomas DeFrantz asserts that our lives are about shifting direction, pivoting, or being stopped. And creativity, he says, lives in finding the way to keep going, keep moving. The electromagnetic pulse of the body is the goingness.

We meet a man who leads a local church and who volunteers on two foundations that support LGBTQ+ people and educational efforts. Rev. John McLaughlin talks about his work in the community, but he also shares his own story, which includes deep personal trauma. It’s that trauma that led him back to church and launched his search for a spiritual sanctuary where he could be gay and Christian.

Election fraud allegations arise with varying degrees of credibility each election season. A five-part series called, “The Improvement Association, a true story of election fraud”, looks at accusations of illegal interference in Bladen County’s elections and the power of rumors – whether those rumors can be substantiated or not.