Embedded

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NPR's original documentary podcast unearths the stories behind the headlines. Police shootings. Towns ravaged by opioids. The roots of our modern immigration crisis. We explore what's been sealed off, undisclosed, or never brought to light. We return with a deeply-reported portrait of why these stories, and the people behind them, matter.

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Hold the Sitar: The Making ...

08.30.2023

In this bonus episode of Love Commandos, Gregory Warner interviews musician John Ellis, who composed Rough Translation's original theme music in 2017, and songwriters Amira Gill and VASU, who jointly created the new theme song for Love Commandos. They discuss ...

Embedded episodes:

08.30.2023 Hold the Sitar: The Making of the Love Commandos Theme Song In this bonus episode of Love Commandos, Gregory Warner interviews musician John Ellis, who composed Rough Translation's original theme music in 2017, and songwriters Amira Gill and VASU, who jointly created the new theme song for Love Commandos. They discuss ...
08.18.2023 Love Commandos: Calling It Quits 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? Sign up for Embedded+ at plus.npr.org/embedded.
08.09.2023 Love Commandos: Forever Yours 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 Commandos a week before everyone else? Sign up for Embedded+ at plus.npr.org/embedded.
08.02.2023 Love Commandos: The Honeymoon 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. Want to hear episodes of Love Commandos a week before everyone else? Sign up for ...
07.26.2023 Love Commandos: After the Wedding 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 hear episodes of Love Commandos a week before everyone else? Sign up for Embedded+ at plus.npr.org/embedded.
07.26.2023 Love Commandos: The Vow 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 Commandos a week before everyone else? Sign up for Embedded+ at plus.npr.org/embedded.
06.29.2023 The 13th Step: Just the Beginning How deep can you dig for the truth before it gets dangerous? In March 2022, reporter Lauren Chooljian published her first story detailing allegations against Eric Spofford, the founder of New Hampshire's largest addiction treatment network. Over the following months, ...
06.28.2023 The 13th Step: The God of Recovery 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 second episode of The 13th Step from New Hampshire Public Radio, ...
06.27.2023 The 13th Step: The Shadow 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 treatment turn out to be dangerous? In the first episode of The 13th Step – ...
06.12.2023 Buffalo Extreme: Winners 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 sentencing hearing, and those feelings come flooding back. When they hit the stage — they're ...
05.26.2023 Buffalo Extreme: Do Good, Get Good 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, coaches and kids of Buffalo All-Star Extreme in the year after the Tops massacre. The mass ...
05.11.2023 Buffalo Extreme: Base Ayanna Williams Gaines is the coach and founder of Buffalo All-Star Extreme, a Black competitive cheerleading and dance team from Buffalo, New York. Williams Gaines started the gym as a space for Black girls to feel safe and to thrive ...
05.08.2023 Introducing Buffalo Extreme 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 man approached the Jefferson Street Tops supermarket and started shooting. He murdered ten and ...
05.04.2023 Taking Cover: The Gulf School 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 the other side of the occupation. Then, finally... back to Camp Pendleton.
04.27.2023 Taking Cover: Cover-Up 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 the search for the interpreter has Tom and Graham planning a trip back to where ...
04.20.2023 Taking Cover: Up the Chain 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 general claims he can't recall the incident. Another talks with the team ...
04.13.2023 Taking Cover: Finding David 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's even still alive. Eventually, with help from Carlos, the team finds David. ...
04.06.2023 Taking Cover: JAGMAN 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 who died in the explosion wants to know why the Marine Corps lied to ...
03.30.2023 Taking Cover: Stand-To 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 Tom and Graham find testimony before an obscure Congressional subcommittee that says otherwise. The ...
03.16.2023 Taking Cover: Danger Close NPR's Pentagon Correspondent, Tom Bowman, receives a shocking tip from a trusted source: A deadly explosion during the Iraq War was an accident—friendly fire, covered up by the Marine Corps—and the son of a powerful politician may have been involved. ...
03.16.2023 White Lies: The Excludables 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 suspicions about the arbitrariness of how the U.S. government created the list. Our ...
03.14.2023 Introducing: Taking Cover 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-on-Marine friendly fire incident in modern history. It's a story of betrayal, brotherhood, and what's owed—to families, ...
03.09.2023 White Lies: The List 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 excludable, including the men on the roof. The government has kept this list ...
03.02.2023 White Lies: The Trial 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 prison in late 1984. A peaceful protest by detainees held in the Atlanta pen ...
02.23.2023 White Lies: The Pen 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 plane to a resettlement camp at an army base. There he ...
02.16.2023 White Lies: The Entry Fiction 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 them as refugees. But technically speaking, they weren't refugees. They were classified as entrants, ...
02.09.2023 White Lies: The Rumors 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 told so often and with such conviction that of course it must be ...
02.02.2023 White Lies: The Boatlift 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 story of the men on the roof didn't start with that prison takeover in ...
02.02.2023 White Lies: The Boatlift The story of the men on the roof didn't start with that prison takeover in 1991. It didn't start when they were detained in federal prisons. And it didn't start when the government made a secret list of their names ...
01.26.2023 White Lies: The Men on the Roof 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 prison holding a bedsheet scrawled with a message: "Pray for us." ...
01.23.2023 White Lies: Season 2 Trailer 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 from Cuba. And none of them were serving time for a sentence; they were ...
12.20.2022 The Last Cup: Postscript 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 Last Cup, Jasmine Garsd reveals the magic of Argentina's first World Cup victory ...
12.08.2022 The Last Cup: Bonus Episode 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 reflect on the scores and stumbles of the qualifying rounds, ...
12.02.2022 The Last Cup: Part 5 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 for yet another chance at redemption. And then it's on to Qatar for the 2022 ...
11.22.2022 The Last Cup: Part 4 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 America, the largest tournament in South America. Messi is prepared to give his all, looking ...
11.17.2022 The Last Cup: Part 3 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 plays. Things get even more complicated when the Argentine soccer legend, Diego Maradona, becomes coach ...
11.10.2022 The Last Cup: Part 2 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 the journey of a gifted kid who would go on to become one of the ...
11.10.2022 The Last Cup: Part 1 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 storied Barça football club in Spain, he dreamed of winning a World Cup for ...
08.11.2022 Changing the Police: The Walk-Out 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 departure means for police reform efforts in the city at a time when tensions between ...
08.04.2022 Changing the Police: To Police or Not To Police 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 are cops the right people to answer those calls? A growing number of cities ...
07.28.2022 Changing the Police: Charlie Walker's Plan Every four years, the Yonkers Police Department starts the process of hiring new officers. This time, the department is specifically recruiting people of color through a program known as "Be The Change." Of course in Yonkers, there are plenty of ...
07.21.2022 Changing the Police: Reckoning with the Past 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 parts of the city. There were lots of stories of "bad apples"-police officers who allegedly ...
07.14.2022 Changing the Police: The John Mueller Show 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 of the department and has been monitoring it for more than a decade. The ...
07.12.2022 Coming Soon: Changing The Police 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, the department has been monitored by the federal government because of its history of misconduct. ...
10.15.2021 Capital Gazette: "All Of A Sudden... It's Different" 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 the unexpected ways that trial can affect you. Plus a big update about the ...
07.09.2021 On Our Watch: Under Color of Law 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, fatal gunshot into Oscar Grant's back as the 22-year-old lay face down on the train ...
07.02.2021 On Our Watch: The Brady Rule Fellow officers long suspected a veteran detective in Antioch, Calif., was leaking operational police secrets to a drug dealer. For years, the department didn't act on their concerns. Even after the detective was finally fired in 2017, his record remained ...
06.25.2021 On Our Watch: Neglect of Duty 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 daughters. In the fifth episode of On Our Watch, we look at what can ...
06.18.2021 On Our Watch: Perceived Threat 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 the clerk over a damaged dollar bill, a white officer in plainclothes ...
06.11.2021 On Our Watch: 20-20 Hindsight 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 files about his son's death are released, they show an accountability system that seems to ...

Older episodes

Embedded

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Embedded episodes:

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

Love Commandos: Calling It Quits

Love Commandos: Forever Yours

Love Commandos: The Honeymoon

Love Commandos: After the Wedding

Love Commandos: The Vow

The 13th Step: Just the Beginning

The 13th Step: The God of Recovery

The 13th Step: The Shadow

Buffalo Extreme: Winners

Buffalo Extreme: Do Good, Get Good

Buffalo Extreme: Base

Introducing Buffalo Extreme

Taking Cover: The Gulf School

Taking Cover: Cover-Up

Taking Cover: Up the Chain

Taking Cover: Finding David

Taking Cover: JAGMAN

Taking Cover: Stand-To

Taking Cover: Danger Close

White Lies: The Excludables

Introducing: Taking Cover

White Lies: The List

White Lies: The Trial

White Lies: The Pen

White Lies: The Entry Fiction

White Lies: The Rumors

White Lies: The Boatlift

White Lies: The Boatlift

White Lies: The Men on the Roof

White Lies: Season 2 Trailer

The Last Cup: Postscript

The Last Cup: Bonus Episode

The Last Cup: Part 5

The Last Cup: Part 4

The Last Cup: Part 3

The Last Cup: Part 2

The Last Cup: Part 1

Changing the Police: The Walk-Out

Changing the Police: To Police or Not To Police

Changing the Police: Charlie Walker's Plan

Changing the Police: Reckoning with the Past

Changing the Police: The John Mueller Show

Coming Soon: Changing The Police

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

On Our Watch: Under Color of Law

On Our Watch: The Brady Rule

On Our Watch: Neglect of Duty

On Our Watch: Perceived Threat

On Our Watch: 20-20 Hindsight

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