In a new Black History Month series, MSNBC’s Trymaine Lee discovers a surprising story on reparations that could shift the way this key debate is understood across the country.

2020 was undoubtedly one of the most consequential years in history. The ongoing impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, along with other cascading crises, can still be felt in almost every facet of our lives. Our guest this week points out that in order to heal, we must take time to reckon with what we lived through. Eric Klinenberg is a sociologist, the Helen Gould Shepard Professor of Social Science at NYU and the author of “2020: One City, Seven People, and the Year Everything Changed.” Klinenberg is also the director at NYU's Institute for Public Knowledge. He joins WITHpod to discuss stories of people he profiled in the book, the importance of grappling with what we experienced, the increasing pressures of daily life and more.

What if Black Americans had been compensated for slavery? Into America follows the untold story of one of the only Black men who ever was.

Just a few weeks ago, Chris and his family visited the Big Island of Hawaii. While there, he was completely enthralled with learning more about how the first inhabitants got to such a remote place and surrounding areas. For more than a thousand years, Polynesians have called some of the most distant islands in the Pacific Ocean home. Where did they come from, how did they get there and how did a group of people conquer the largest ocean in the world a thousand years ago? It’s one of the greatest mysteries ever. Our guest this week, who has familial roots to the area, set out to understand more. Christina Thompson is editor of Harvard Review and author of “Sea People: The Puzzle of Polynesia.” She joins WITHpod to discuss what drew her to this story, what makes this mystery so complex, the impact of the arrival of European explorers, the limits of our understanding and more.

From unlocking our phones, to scanning our faces to board flights, facial recognition technology has become a ubiquitous part of modern life. And while its implementation can make life easier, what are the ramifications of companies capturing and selling our biometric data? And do we really own our faces? Our guest this week points that unregulated, this technological superpower can lead to dystopian, sci-fi novel-like applications. Kashmir Hill is a tech reporter at the New York Times and author of “Your Face Belongs to Us: A Secretive Startup's Quest to End Privacy as We Know It,” in which she chronicles the rise of Clearview AI. She joins WITHpod to discuss the growth of this technology, privacy concerns, ways in which our online “dossiers” are linked to our faces and more.

Armed conflict, increases in public debt and the climate crisis are just a few factors that will accelerate humanitarian crises globally in 2024, according to the International Rescue Committee. Meanwhile, there’s a number of practical issues that have been raised by the high pace of migrants presenting at borders and applying for asylum around the world. Our guest this week points out the importance of creating “legal routes to hope” amid increased global migration. David Miliband is President & CEO of the International Rescue Committee (IRC), where he oversees the agency’s humanitarian relief operations in more than 40 war-affected countries and its refugee resettlement and assistance programs in the U.S. Before that, he served as a Foreign Secretary of the U.K. He joins to discuss the IRC’s 2024 Emergency Watchlist, myths about the global humanitarian crisis that have become a part of media discourse, actionable solutions and more.

We just experienced the hottest year on record in 2023. But amid so much doom and gloom, last year was also one of the best years ever for clean energy technology development and deployment. And while we’ve seen incredible strides towards a net zero emissions future, further innovation and policy action is still needed in order to bring to market more low-emissions technologies. Robinson Meyer is the founding executive editor of Heatmap, a new media company focused on climate change and decarbonization. Meyer is also a contributing opinion writer at The New York Times. He joins WITHpod to discuss the impact of rising fossil fuel emissions, recent inflection points, driving down the costs of clean tech and more.

Happy New Year! As our team returns from break, we're re-sharing another part of our "Future of" miniseries that originally aired in March 2022. From the original description: Time is running out to reverse the damage done by climate change, according to a report released by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in February 2022. Preventing further destruction will be the biggest undertaking in the history of human civilization. Can it be done? Jonah Goldman joined Gates Ventures, Bill Gates’s private office, in September 2014, where he is responsible for the organization’s relationships with policymakers around the world. In 2020, he helped Bill establish Breakthrough Energy (BE). BE is a network of entities and initiatives, including investment funds, nonprofit and philanthropic programs, and policy efforts linked by a common commitment to scale the technologies we need to achieve a path to net zero emissions by 2050. Goldman joins to provide a gut check on where we stand on the timeline for change as it relates to the future of energy.

Happy holidays! As our team takes some time away for a break, we're re-sharing another part of our "Future of" miniseries that originally aired in March 2022. From the original description: BFF connections have transformed rapidly during the COVID-19 pandemic. FaceTime calls, Zoom happy hours, voice memos, group chats and virtual game nights, in many cases, have reworked our in-person interactions of the past. What does the future of friendship look like? Ann Friedman and Aminatou Sow have been friends for over a decade, twelve years to be exact. Living on opposite coasts for years now, they had a head start on managing a long-distance friendship. Ann, a journalist, essayist and media entrepreneur and Aminatou, a writer, interviewer and cultural commentator, co-wrote “Big Friendship,” a book all about maintaining their close bond. They join for an inspiring conversation about the future of friendship and what it takes to stay connected for the long haul.