Earlier this fall, hundreds of activists from all over the world crowded onto several dozen boats and set sail for Gaza. Their goal: Break through Israel’s blockade of the territory and end one of the worst humanitarian crises on the planet. They thought that by sharing their journey through social media, they could capture the world’s attention. 

At first, it was easy to dismiss the Global Sumud Flotilla—until it wasn’t. Before reaching Gaza, the flotilla was attacked by drones, and activists were arrested by the Israeli navy. 

“We were at gunpoint; like, you could see the laser on our chest,” says flotilla participant Louna Sbou.  

They were then sent to a high-security prison in the middle of the Negev desert.

“You have no control, you have no information, and you have no rights,” says Carsie Blanton, another participant. “They could do whatever they want to you.”

This week on Reveal, we go aboard the Global Sumud Flotilla for a firsthand look at what activists faced on their journey and whether their efforts made any difference. 

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More To The Story: Detroit pastor Lorenzo Sewell is one of the most prominent Black conservatives in President Donald Trump’s orbit. It all started last summer when the president visited Sewell’s 180 Church while campaigning in Detroit. A month later, Sewell spoke at the Republican National Convention. And in January, he prayed for the new president during his inauguration inside the US Capitol. As Sewell’s voice echoed around the domed rotunda, the prayer sounded familiar to many. That’s because Sewell adapted Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech. As Trump dismantles DEI policies around the country and pushes efforts to erase Black history from schools and museums, Sewell remains one of the president’s most prominent Black defenders and argues that the Trump presidency is actually improving Black Americans’ lives. On this week’s More To The Story, Sewell sits down with host Al Letson to talk about his upbringing as a drug dealer in Detroit, his conversion to Christianity, and his inauguration prayer. Letson challenges Sewell’s ideas about racism, his support of Charlie Kirk, and his defense of the Trump administration’s rollback of DEI policies.

Producer: Josh Sanburn | Editor: Kara McGuirk-Allison | Theme music: Fernando Arruda and Jim Briggs | Copy editor: Nikki Frick | Digital producer: Artis Curiskis | Deputy executive producer: Taki Telonidis | Executive producer: Brett Myers | Executive editor: James West | Host: Al Letson

Watch: I Spent a Week With Black Republicans (Mother Jones)

Listen: Red, Black, and Blue (Reveal)

Read: Trump Shuts Down Diversity Programs Across Government (Mother Jones)

Listen: The Bible Says So…or Does It? (More To The Story)

Watch: Rev. Lorenzo Sewell Delivers Benediction (PBS NewsHour via YouTube)

In August 2022, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall made a guest appearance on a local conservative talk radio show. It was two months after the US Supreme Court had overturned Roe v. Wade, and abortion was now illegal in Alabama. And Marshall addressed rumors that he planned to prosecute anyone helping people get abortions out of state.  

“If someone was promoting themselves out as a funder of abortion out of state,” Marshall explained to the host, “then that is potentially criminally actionable for us.” 

This particular threat launched an epic legal battle with implications for some of the most basic American rights: the right to travel, the right to free speech, the right to give and receive help. 

This week on Reveal, reporter Nina Martin spends time with abortion rights groups in Alabama, following how they’ve adapted to one of the nation’s strictest anti-abortion policies—and evolved their definition of help.

This is an update of an episode that originally aired in May 2025.

This week, we’re bringing you something a bit different. Our reporter Madison Pauly recently teamed up with journalist and podcaster Pablo Torre for a special episode of his investigative show, Pablo Torre Finds Out. The episode is a deep dive into right-wing superstar Riley Gaines, a swimmer who tied a transgender woman for fifth place and became a viral figure with outsized influence within the MAGA movement. Pauly spent six months digging into the money behind Gaines’ anti-trans empire and interviewing Gaines’ former teammates and competitors. She uncovers how the swimmer is profiting from her newfound fame as a generational conservative activist and explores how a lawsuit Gaines filed against the NCAA, which will be decided by the Supreme Court next year, could change everything for trans athletes.

Pablo Torre Finds Out is produced by Meadowlark Media and distributed by The Athletic. Check out their other investigations on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or your favorite podcast app.

When a typhoon hit Alaska, public radio station KYUK was on the air, broadcasting critical information about conditions, evacuations and search and rescue operations. An estimated 1600 people were displaced and many were saved  in the biggest airlift operation in state history

“The work that we do in terms of public safety communication literally does save lives”, said Sage Smiley, KYUK’s news director. 

KYUK is small, scrappy and bilingual. It broadcasts in English and Yugtun, the native language of an indigenous population that lives in villages along two massive rivers. The station airs NPR but also high school basketball games, local call-in talk shows, even a show hosted by the volunteer search and rescue team answering listeners’ questions about ice conditions and safety. The station is a lifeline for this unique region.

KYUK news covers an area the size of the state of Oregon, and after Congress passed the Rescission Act, it lost 70 percent of its operating budget. Republicans have targeted public media since its inception in the late 60’s. But this is the first time it has successfully ended the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, wiping out more than a billion dollars in funding for public media. 

This week on Reveal we take listeners inside KYUK as it grapples with this new reality. Host Al Letson sits down with Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski about how the cuts are affecting her state. And, we take a trip to WQED in Pittsburgh for a look back at how Fred Rogers, the host of Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, defended public television throughout its decades-long struggle to survive Washington politics.

More To The Story: John J. Lennon thinks true crime is exploitative—and he has a unique perspective. In 2001, he killed a man on a street in New York City. He was convicted of murder several years later and given the maximum sentence—25 years to life in prison—on top of three additional years for two other convictions. From behind bars, he began reckoning with his crime through in-prison writing workshops and soon fell in love with journalism. He’s since made a name for himself as an incarcerated journalist and has been published in The Atlantic, Esquire, and the New York Times Magazine, often writing about the criminal justice system and conditions in correctional facilities, all from the inside. In the decades Lennon’s been behind bars, America has become increasingly fixated on stories like his—true crime—through endless podcasts, documentary series, and streaming shows. But Lennon argues that tragedy is too often being turned into entertainment. True crime “creates this thirst for punishment,” he says. On this week’s More To The Story, Lennon joins with host Al Letson to discuss how his first book, The Tragedy of True Crime: Four Guilty Men and the Stories That Define Us, inverts the basic structure of the true crime genre. They also discuss how his portrayal on a cable news show hosted by Chris Cuomo inspired him to write the book and how Lennon now views the murder he committed almost a quarter-century ago.

Producer: Josh Sanburn | Editor: Kara McGuirk-Allison | Theme music: Fernando Arruda and Jim Briggs | Copy editor: Nikki Frick | Digital producer: Artis Curiskis | Deputy executive producer: Taki Telonidis | Executive producer: Brett Myers | Executive editor: James West | Host: Al Letson

Listen: In a Mississippi Jail, Inmates Became Weapons (Reveal)

Read: There Are Many Programs Trying to Reduce Recidivism. This One Works. (Mother Jones)

Read: The Tragedy of True Crime: Four Guilty Men and the Stories That Define Us (Celadon Books)

Read: A Convicted Murderer’s Case for Gun Control (The Atlantic)

Chris Mack has been locked up in Mississippi’s Rankin County Jail on and off since he was a teenager. In a lawsuit, he detailed a jailhouse assault that left him with broken ribs, a broken nose, and two black eyes. But it wasn’t just guards who attacked him. Mack said a group of inmates joined in—men in the jail’s Trusty Inmate Program, who had special privileges and wore blue jumpsuits. 

“They were called the blue wave,” Mack said.

Through more than 70 interviews with former inmates and officers, reporters from Mississippi Today and the New York Times discovered a system in which guards ordered beatings, inmates who participated were rewarded, and those trying to raise an alarm about the system for more than a decade were ignored.

This week on Reveal, on the heels of our reporting on abuses in the Rankin County Sheriff’s Department run by Sheriff Bryan Bailey, we expose a wave of violence in his county jail.

More To The Story: About 2,100 people are on death row in America. Some have been there for decades, in part because executions have been on the decline in the US. But that’s changing. So far this year, 41 people have been executed, up from 25 last year, and six more executions are scheduled. Early in his second term, President Donald Trump signed an executive order reinstating federal executions while encouraging states to expand the use of capital punishment. One man has seen many of these executions up close. The Reverend Jeff Hood is an Old Catholic Church priest, an ordained Baptist minister, a racial justice activist, and something of a go-to spiritual adviser for many currently on death row. On the day of the execution, he goes inside the chamber for the final moments of people’s lives. On this week’s More To The Story, Hood sits down with host Al Letson to describe his work as an advocate for death row inmates, what it’s like being a white Southern reverend vocally advocating for racial justice, and how capital punishment in the US today illustrates American society’s increasing movement in a more violent direction.

Producer: Josh Sanburn | Editor: Kara McGuirk-Allison | Theme music: Fernando Arruda and Jim Briggs | Copy editor: Nikki Frick | Digital producer: Artis Curiskis | Deputy executive producer: Taki Telonidis | Executive producer: Brett Myers | Executive editor: James West | Host: Al Letson

Listen: In Bondage to the Law (Reveal)

Read: Louisiana Is Executing Prisoners Again. His Case Shows the Costs. (Mother Jones) 

Read: The Last Face Death Row Inmates See (Rolling Stone)

Learn more: Death Penalty Information Center

When Andrea Dettore-Murphy first moved to Rankin County, Mississippi, she didn’t believe the stories she heard about how brutal the sheriff’s department could be when pursuing suspected drug crimes. 

But in 2018, she learned the hard way that the rumors were true when a group of sheriff’s deputies raided the home of her friend Rick Loveday and beat him relentlessly while she watched. 

 A few years later, Dettore-Murphy says deputies put her through another haunting incident with her friend Robert Grozier. Dettore-Murphy was just the latest in a long line of people who said they witnessed or experienced torture by a small group of deputies, some of whom called themselves the “Goon Squad.” 

For nearly two decades, the deputies roamed Rankin County at night, beating, tasing, and choking suspects in drug crimes until they admitted to buying or selling illegal substances. Their reign of terror continued unabated until 2023, when the deputies were finally exposed.

“Rankin County has always been notorious,” says Garry Curro, one the Goon Squad’s many alleged victims. “They don't follow the laws of the land. They make their own laws.”

This week on Reveal, reporters Brian Howey and Nate Rosenfield with Mississippi Today and the New York Times investigate the Goon Squad, whose members have allegedly tortured at least 22 people since the early 2000s. 

More To The Story: Jason Stanley isn’t afraid to use the F-word when talking about President Donald Trump. The author of How Fascism Works and Erasing History: How Fascists Rewrite the Past to Control the Future is clear: He believes the United States is currently under an authoritarian regime led by a fascist leader. At a time when the Trump administration is putting increasing pressure on private and public universities to conform or lose funding, Stanley recently left his position at Yale University and moved his family to Canada, where he’s now the Bissell-Heyd chair in American studies at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy at the University of Toronto. The move, he says, has allowed him to talk about the US in a way that wouldn’t have been possible if he remained in the country. On this week’s More To The Story, Stanley traces the recent rise of fascist regimes around the globe, and explains why he describes what’s happening in the US today as a “coup” and why he thinks the speed and scope of the Trump administration’s hardline policies could ultimately lead to significant pushback from those opposed to the president.

Producer: Josh Sanburn | Editor: Kara McGuirk-Allison | Theme music: Fernando Arruda and Jim Briggs | Copy editor: Nikki Frick |  Digital producer: Artis Curiskis | Deputy executive producer: Taki Telonidis | Executive producer: Brett Myers | Executive editor: James West | Host: Al Letson

Read: He Studies Fascism: Is He Now Living Through It? (Mother Jones)

Listen:Trump’s New World (Dis)Order (Reveal)

Watch: We Study Fascism, and We’re Leaving the US (The New York Times)

Read: How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them (Random House)

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