The most played episodes among Podcast App listeners.

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   Number 1: The man who taught Trump everything he knows

   The legacy of the notorious lawyer Roy Cohn reverberates in politics today. Kai Bird is a Pulitzer-Prize winning biographer and journalist and executive director of the Leon Levy Center for Biography at the CUNY Graduate Center in New York City. He joins host Krys Boyd to discuss the life of the man who first prosecuted Julius and Ethel Rosenberg for espionage – which catapulted his career into the spotlight – his mentorship of a young Donald Trump and his eventual disbarment for unethical conduct. Bird’s book is “American Scoundrel: Roy Cohn’s Dark Journey from Joe McCarthy to Donald Trump.” Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

   September 14, 2026·45min
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   Number 2: Europe isn’t built for the heat

   Paris used to be a cool 70 degrees in summer. Now it’s often 95 and climbing —with no A/C to help. Eric Klinenberg is Helen Gould Shepard Professor in the Social Sciences and director of the Institute for Public Knowledge at New York University. He joins host Krys Boyd to discuss how Europe is warming at twice the rate of other continents due to global warming, what this means for people suffering – even dying – in these heat waves, and why air conditioning can’t be the ultimate answer. His article “The End of the European Summer” was published in The New Yorker. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

   September 10, 2026·47min
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   Number 3: Why we haven't fixed the racial wealth gap

   Much of America’s racial wealth gap can be traced to economic policies dating back decades and even centuries. Mehrsa Baradaran is professor of law at the University of California, Irvine. She joins host Krys Boyd to discuss the history of the wealth gap, why she believes politics keeps that gap alive for Black Americans and solutions that could alleviate the disparity. Her book is “The Racial Wealth Gap: A Brief History.” Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

   September 07, 2026·47min
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   Number 4: We’re one lab leak away from a pandemic

   Even after a global pandemic, researchers are fairly free to study and enhance deadly viruses in labs that have fairly low biosafety standards. Alina Chan is a molecular biologist, and she joins host Krys Boyd to talk about precautions that can be put in place that allow for important research to be conducted while protecting the public. Her recent New York Times essay is “How to Stop a Lab Leak from Starting the Next Pandemic” and her book is “Viral: The Search for the Origin of Covid-19.” Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

   August 31, 2026·45min
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   Number 5: Some dementia patients ‘come back’ at the very end

   Days or even hours before death, some dementia patients become lucid again – and scientists want to know why. Journalist Billy Brennan joins host Krys Boyd to discuss “paradoxical lucidity,” where dementia patients seem to “wake up” and interact right before they decline again, what this “rally” means about our consciousness and brain activity before death, and why this happens more often than scientists realized. His article “Why Do Some Dementia Patients ‘Return’ Just Before They Die?” was published in The New York Times Magazine. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

   September 09, 2026·47min
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