Just when we think we have wrapped for the season … we're back, baby! We bring you this mini-episode to analyze Friday's decision by the Supreme Court, which allows Texas abortion providers to sue some defendants over the near-total abortion ban and leaves the Texas law in place.

Kelsey Reichmann, our Supreme Court reporter, joins Sidebar producer and Austin-based reporter Kirk McDaniel to discuss what the ruling means, how we got here and where we go from here.

This episode was produced by Kirk McDaniel. Intro music by The Dead Pens.

Editorial staff is Ryan Abbott, Sean Duffy and Jamie Ross.

Welcome to the season finale! We culminate 11 episodes with a look into UFOs with the experts who study them and seek to know more about if there is really life out there. What does science say, and what can we expect our government to tell us about these unidentified objects?

Then, we break down the oddest, wildest cases and news events that the podcast team has covered. From monkey selfies and Lil Nas X's Satan shoes to Utah's near-ban on porn and a Halal chicken story that just doesn't quit, some stories are enough to make us scratch our heads and stifle a laugh.

Special guests:

• Peter Davenport, director of the National UFO Reporting Center
• Kate Dorsch, historian of science and a postdoctoral teaching fellow at the University of Pennsylvania
• Larry Klayman, Judicial Watch founder
• Seth Shostak, senior astronomer at the SETI Institute

This episode was produced by Kirk McDaniel. Intro music by The Dead Pens.

Editorial staff is Ryan Abbott, Sean Duffy and Jamie Ross.

We kick off the penultimate episode of our first season of Sidebar in the American West, where a dispute has been brewing for decades between ranchers, the government and environmentalists over wolves. This long-standing debate over the extent to which these carnivorous mammals should be protected or hunted down and killed isn't going anywhere soon.

Then we take a deep dive into a border emergency not often discussed: human waste flowing in the Tijuana River Basin. What will it take for the U.S. and Mexico to tackle the sewage crisis, expected to worsen as Tijuana's population increases?

Last, we hear from our own Matthew Renda on the Elizabeth Holmes trial. Holmes and her company, Theranos, promoted a portable blood testing device that promised to revolutionize the medical testing industry. The federal government says it was all a lie to bilk investors of millions.

Special guests:

• Jeremy Heft, biologist at the Wolf Education & Research Center
• Bonnie Brown, executive director of the Colorado Wool Growers Association
• Brian Wakeling, game management bureau chief for Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks
• Karin Vardaman, founder-director of Working Circle
• Bethany Case, co-chair of Surfrider San Diego’s Clean Border Water Now campaign
• Joseph Palmer, supervising environmental health specialist for San Diego County’s Department of Environmental Health and Quality

This episode was produced by Kirk McDaniel. Intro music by The Dead Pens.

Editorial staff is Ryan Abbott, Sean Duffy and Jamie Ross.

In our ninth episode of Sidebar, we chronicle the pivotal cases the Supreme Court will hear over the next few months on divisive issues like abortion, gun control and the separation of church and state. Will the court's conservative majority pen rulings that could change the country's landscape?

Then, we dive into the conspiracy theory QAnon, the Jan. 6 insurrection, the events that followed the 2020 presidential election and the effects all of this has had on the American psyche. How did disinformation and conspiracy theories grow in the United States, and what sort of lasting effects may they have on the body politic?

Special guests:

• Ahilan Arulanantham, law professor and co-director of the Center for Immigration Law and Policy at UCLA School of Law
• Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of UC Berkeley School of Law
• Kimberly Mutcherson, co-dean of Rutgers Law School
• Ilan Wurman, law professor at Arizona State University
• Matthew Hannah, assistant professor of digital humanities at Purdue University
• Ethan Zuckerman, professor of public policy communication and information at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst
• Zack Smith, legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation
• Marilyn Marks, executive director of Coalition for Good Governance
• Brooke Binkowski
• Jitarth Jadeja

This episode was produced by Kirk McDaniel. Intro music by The Dead Pens.

Editorial staff is Ryan Abbott, Sean Duffy and Jamie Ross.

We are coming at you in our eighth episode with three stories of power, corruption and accountability. 

To kick things off, we take a look with political science professor Cynthia McClintock at Peru's bid to extradite its former president, Alejandro Toledo Manrique, on charges of bribery and money laundering. Peru claims Toledo helped a Brazilian company win a lucrative contract for a major highway project in exchange for $35 million in bribes.

Then we break down R&B singer R. Kelly's trial and conviction for running a career-spanning sex ring that included the late singer Aaliyah among scores of underage girls.

And last, we take you outside the courtroom to the latest in pop star Britney Spears' effort to be free of the California conservatorship controlled by her father and bring you a conversation with the ACLU's Zoe Brennan-Krohn on how conservatorships work. #freebritney

This episode was produced by Kirk McDaniel. Intro music by The Dead Pens.

Editorial staff is Ryan Abbott, Sean Duffy and Jamie Ross.

In our seventh episode, we discuss how 9/11 changed the legal landscape — and our lives, as a result — the election to recall (or not) California Gov. Gavin Newsom and, just in time for college football, the long, long fight to compensate student-athletes. 

Firstly, we take an in-depth look at how the 9/11 terror attack has reshaped the laws of the United States and led to an enduring debate over government surveillance powers.

We also break down the Republican-led effort to recall California Governor Gavin Newsom and dig into who stands to benefit from the recall race, even if they don't win at the ballot box.

Lastly, we hear about the long-fought legal and political battles over student-athlete pay, which spurred changes in the world of college sports this year after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against the NCAA's restrictions on education-related compensation to athletes.

Special guests:

• Former Senator Russ Feingold, D-Wisconsin
• Gabe Feldman, director of the sports law program at Tulane University
• Cindy Cohn, executive director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation
• Chris Finan, executive director of the National Coalition Against Censorship
• Alex Joel, adjunct professor at American University’s Washington College of Law
• Wesley Hussey, political science professor at Sacramento State
• Rakesh Kilaru, attorney for NCAA

This episode was produced by Kirk McDaniel. Intro music by The Dead Pens.

Editorial staff is Ryan Abbott, Sean Duffy and Jamie Ross.

We are taking a detailed look at the drought in the American West, spanning from water wars in Arizona, wildfires in California and why drought seems to be becoming the way of life across the West.

First, we dive into Arizona's relationship with the Colorado River and hear about the shrinking lifeline that provides water to 40 million people in the American West. Farmers there have been the first to feel the impacts of the dehydrated planet.

Then we face California's wildfires – a fact of life in the Golden State that is no longer limited to a season or the forested areas.

Last, we break down why the drought is here to stay and how it's playing out in real time on the West Coast.

Special guests:

• Amir AghaKouchak, professor of civil and environmental engineering at UC Irvine
• Sharon Megdal, director of the Water Resources Research Center at the University of Arizona
• Fraser Shilling, environmental science professor at UC Davis
• Doug Parker, director of the California Institute for Water Resources

This episode was produced by Kirk McDaniel. Intro music by The Dead Pens.

Editorial staff is Ryan Abbott, Sean Duffy and Jamie Ross.

In episode 5, we take a look at political and medical efforts by groups and people to go their own way, from anti-vaxxers in California and the politically defiant in Texas and D.C.
 
We start the episode with a dive into the FBI’s ongoing efforts to track down people who took part in the Jan. 6 insurrection and talk to former prosecutor Glenn Kirschner about how the courts are sentencing those convicted for taking part. 

Then we hear from several experts on the First Amendment battle between anti-vaccine activists and Facebook and how it affects vaccine misinformation spread across social media. 

In our last segment we bring you an update on the ongoing Texas legislative session, which both political aisles have dubbed as the most conservative yet. 

Special guests:

• Amesh Adalja, infectious disease expert and professor at Johns Hopkins University
• Phil Napoli, public policy professor at Duke University
• Sharona Hoffman, professor and co-director of The Law-Medicine Center at Case Western Reserve University
• Joshua Blank, research director for the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin

This episode was produced by Kirk McDaniel. Intro music by The Dead Pens.

Editorial staff is Ryan Abbott, Sean Duffy and Jamie Ross.

We dig into efforts to decriminalize psychedelic drugs and take you behind the scenes of two trials dealing with sex crimes. 

To start, we break down efforts by California lawmakers to light a fire on legalizing a host of psychedelics. 

Then, we hear from investigative journalist Sarah Berman about NXIVM, a sex cult with some high-profile members that preyed on vulnerable women. 

We wrap it up by detailing all you need to know about the upcoming criminal trial against R&B singer R. Kelly, who faces kidnapping, coercion and child pornography charges. 

Special guests:

• Leigh Bienen, senior lecturer at Northwestern University School of Law
• Candice Norcott, assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Chicago
• Michael Leonard, attorney

This episode was produced by Kirk McDaniel. Intro music by The Dead Pens.

Editorial staff is Ryan Abbott, Sean Duffy and Jamie Ross.

In our third episode, we take a look into the digital fallout of two California cases.

First, we dive into the sisterhood formed by young women coerced into filming pornography by GirlsDoPorn, a company that promised not to post the videos online. Then we take you to an Oakland courtroom, where Fortnite creator Epic Games is battling Apple over its tight grip on its app store.

Lastly, we see how efforts are going in Colorado to revitalize the population of a small bird with impressive features: the Gunnison sage grouse.

Special guests:

• Florian Ederer, economics professor at Yale University
• David Olson, law professor at Boston College
• Herb Hovenkamp, antitrust law professor at University of Pennsylvania

This episode was produced by Kirk McDaniel. Intro music by The Dead Pens.

Editorial staff is Ryan Abbott, Sean Duffy and Jamie Ross.