How a Cleveland woman who slammed the door on police changed the Fourth Amendment

The Fourth Amendment protects against unreasonable searches and seizures of your home

It requires officials to establish probable cause before obtaining a warrant. It was a direct response to British general warrants that authorized open-ended searches of Colonial homes and businesses.

The Golden State killer case spotlights how genetic testing can affect your—and your relatives'—privacy

Police managed to use consumer DNA test results to close a case 32 years after a killer was believed to have committed at least 12 murders and 50 rapes. Their "smoking gun": They compared a DNA sample from the crime scene to genetic data relatives had shared on an open-source genealogy database. The suspect was caught after investigators explored family trees on this database and connected the dots from over 100 distant relatives who had some percentage of DNA that matched the killer. (Some users may encounter a paywall.)

Roe v. Wade recognized a constitutional right to abortion until Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization overturned it

For decades, the Supreme Court shaped abortion access through constitutional rulings, from Roe's recognition of a right to abortion to Dobbs' returning regulatory power to the states. This explainer tracks key cases, impacts, and current justices' views.

Uncovering corruption in rural Mississippi

In 1997, Curtis Flowers was convicted of murdering four furniture store employees. The Black Mississippi native was tried in the 1996 crime six times over 21 years, during which he maintained his innocence and continued to appeal his case. This is the first episode in a 2018 investigative podcast series that heavily contributed to Flowers' conviction being overturned and all charges dropped.

How the government caught Billie Holiday

Louis McKay—who was Holiday's manager and abusive husband—worked with the Federal Bureau of Narcotics to ensure Holiday was caught with drugs. She was eventually put on trial and sentenced to a year in prison, where she briefly got sober.

The unsolved murder case of Martha Moxley and the overturned conviction of a Kennedy cousin

Moxley was murdered in 1975, and the case went cold for a quarter of a century until Michael Skakel—a young relative of the Kennedy clan—was convicted of the murder. Eleven years into his sentence, Skakel's conviction was overturned, prompting a new set of questions.

This American Life explored Ohio's gerrymandering battle

In 2022, Ohio lawmakers repeatedly drew congressional districts that the state Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional. This defiance violated a voter-approved reform intended to prohibit partisan gerrymandering.

The 13th Amendment's criminal exception enabled new forms of forced labor

Southern states exploited the amendment's clause allowing slavery "as punishment for crime" to arrest thousands of Black Americans on minor charges, leasing them to private employers through convict labor systems that persisted for decades.

A 1986 Supreme Court ruling prohibited race-based jury strikes, but racial imbalance in jury selection persists

Batson v. Kentucky banned prosecutors from excluding jurors on the basis of race, but critics say it backfired. Prosecutors often use race-neutral pretexts to remove potential jurors that judges rarely reject, and some courts have never found a violation of the ruling.

Carlin's 'Seven Words' led to a landmark Supreme Court ruling

The original recording of Carlin's bit aired on a New York radio station in 1973, leading to an FCC complaint. The case went up to the Supreme Court, which ruled that the FCC had the right to penalize broadcasters that aired obscene content during the daytime.

The Civil Rights Act expanded the Department of Justice's enforcement powers

The 1964 bill empowered the DOJ's Civil Rights Division to challenge segregation, protect voting rights, and prosecute discrimination, thereby expanding its role in defending civil rights.

Watergate led to the prosecution of nearly 50 individuals

Watergate ushered in sweeping changes. Agencies were required to release information openly; officials had to disclose finances transparently; and new laws limited conflicts of interest, established independent ethics oversight, and safeguarded presidential records—curbing abuse and boosting accountability.

In 1978, lower courts ruled that neo-Nazis had the right to march through Skokie, Illinois

Skokie was home to a large community of Holocaust survivors, making the planned march an extreme test of First Amendment principles. The courts ultimately ruled that even deeply offensive speech remains protected by the Constitution.

Mahmoud v. Taylor (2025) broadened parents' rights regarding what their children learn in public schools

The case, brought by parents in Maryland, focused on religious objections to books with same-sex and transgender characters in elementary classrooms. The court ruled that the district's denial of parents' opt-out requests violated the free exercise clause of the First Amendment.

Memes can turn regular people into unwitting celebrities

When Charles Ramsey heard loud banging from his neighbor's house, he peeked outside and saw a woman trying to escape. After helping the abducted woman get free, he gave an interview that became a viral autotuned meme. This podcast explores the unintended consequences of that relationship and its racial overtones.

Why did four Black servicewomen go on strike during WWII?

On March 9, 1945, dozens of Black women stationed at Fort Devens went on strike to protest against their treatment and working conditions. Under pressure, many abandoned the strike, though four women pushed through despite the possibility of their strike being considered mutiny, a crime whose punishment could mean death. Read this article to learn why Privates Mary Green, Anna Morrison, Johnnie Murphy, and Alice Young pushed back.

Tim Cook refused to give the FBI a backdoor into iPhones during a terrorism case

The Apple CEO's refusal to comply with the government's request was viewed as controversial, despite support from privacy advocates. The FBI would later back down, claiming to have gained access to the device without disclosing additional details.

Why ‘Shoeless Joe’ Jackson was banned from Major League Baseball

Few baseball stars are more infamous than "Shoeless Joe" Jackson, one of the game's greatest hitters. Jackson was part of the Chicago White Sox team (notoriously dubbed the "Black Sox") accused of fixing the 1919 World Series. This resource breaks down the criminal trial that investigated those allegations. Curiously, Jackson and his teammates were acquitted, but Major League Baseball commissioner Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis still banned them from the league for life.

Truth is best known for her 1851 speech in Akron linking abolition and women's rights

At the 1851 Women's Rights Convention, Truth gave a speech that cemented her legacy, weaving together abolition and women's rights in remarks that became among the most quoted of the 19th century.

Hear the story of the police crackdown on a Stonehenge festival in 1985

This documentary revisits the 1985 police crackdown on a massive free festival at Stonehenge, when the UK government under Margaret Thatcher blocked access and deployed 1,300 riot police—an event that reshaped public access to the site.

Dorothea Lange's photos of US concentration camps were censored

Lange, who took some of the most iconic photos of the 20th century, was hired by the United States government in 1942 to document the "relocation" of Japanese-Americans into concentration camps. When military commanders saw her work, however, they censored it, even suggesting some of the images should be "Impounded."

'The Chinatown Sting': Unraveling an international drug smuggling ring

In the late 1980s, a group of women connected through the mahjong parlors in Manhattan’s Chinatown were caught in a massive undercover drug bust. But this bust was just the beginning of an even bigger case.

Jackie "Moms" Mabley was the first woman to headline solo at the Apollo Theater

The comic's act was based on a classic archetype: the fed-up mother who was going to tell it to you straight. She perfected her craft on the Chitlin Circuit, where she became a cultural icon in the Black community, and then had significant mainstream success starting in the 1960s.

American medical organizations rescind recognition of diagnosis cited in police custody deaths

American medical organizations have rescinded their recognition of a syndrome whose theory stemmed from discredited research. This article explores the history and implications of "excited delirium syndrome," a medical condition that can reportedly...

See 33 images that became central to huge scandals, including a young Charles and Camilla, Michael Jackson's baby on a hotel balcony, and Hugh Grant's mugshot.

A 1987 garbage barge that no state would accept accidentally sparked the US recycling movement

In the 1980s, an Alabama businessman loaded 3,168 tons of mafia-controlled New York trash onto a barge. It was rejected by six states and three countries, sparking a media frenzy. This event helped convince Americans that they were running out of landfill space, giving rise to curbside recycling.

After her fellow cult members tried to kill her with an LSD-infused hamburger, one member of the Manson Family, the murderous cult led by Charles Manson, decided to testify against the group's leader.

Exploring the Larry Bird punch that almost changed March Madness

Trace how the Bill of Rights, inspired by centuries of political theory, took shape between 1774 and 1789.

Long before Major League Baseball began allowing instant replay for balls and strikes, an umpire reluctantly used the technology to determine whether a hit was a home run, a move that inadvertently ushered in a new era for the sport.

Gerrymandering works through two techniques: cracking opposing voters across districts to dilute their power, and packing them into a few to waste their votes in lopsided majorities.

The first line of 'immortal' human cells, which can divide indefinitely and are used in scientific research, was nonconsensually taken from a Black woman.

See this overview of the firework rules across all 50 states, ranging from a complete ban on non-professional fireworks in Massachusetts to states with more lax rules like Indiana.

Georgia O'Keeffe's flower paintings are often assumed to be sexual, though the artist claimed she was simply interested in highlighting the beauty of flowers that most people neglect

Dorothy's famous entrance into Oz in 'The Wizard of Oz' relied on analog tricks, including a body double and sepia-toned paint, as much as it did on technology

70 years ago today, city officials in Santa Cruz, California, banned rock 'n' roll to protect its youth from corruption after witnessing a 'provocative' concert the night before.

In 1984, Operation Smash Hit intentionally crashed a 239-ton train into a nuclear waste canister at 100 miles per hour to prove the canister's safety, which remained completely intact and lost just 0.29 of its 100 pounds of pressure.

Jimmy Carter signed a 1978 bill that legalized home brewing, a move credited with kick-starting the craft beer industry.

A 2019 Facebook event called on attendees to "Storm Area 51, They Can't Stop All of Us," resulting in countless memes, the creation of a music festival, and eventually the arrests of those who did try to approach the area.

Explore fun facts from the USPS, including unique post office buildings, a stamp that traveled past Pluto, and more.

The history of many kitchen appliances involves unexpected discoveries and applications, including wartime radar turned hamster defroster and replacing an 'ice king' with heat-stealing boxes.

In 2009, the nation was gripped by the story of a missing young boy who was believed to be floating over Colorado in a homemade balloon, until it was revealed that he was at home the whole time.

When a Paris department store hesitated to sell Estée Lauder's perfume, she 'accidentally' broke a bottle, causing the smell to spread throughout the store and shoppers to start asking to buy the scent.

Listen to an in-depth conversation on the links between Parkinson's disease and herbicide exposure and the challenging pace of scientific investigation.

20,000 letters to the advice columnist 'Dear Abby' provide insight into prevailing sex, religion, and LGBTQ fears, anxieties, and concerns from the 1950s onward.

Domino's Pizza's 30-minute delivery guarantee was responsible for the chain's 1980s surge, but it was discontinued after the company was found liable for delivery driver accidents.

Graffiti dates back to at least ancient Pompeii, where citizens scrawled messages to one another on public walls

The United States has had a tumultuous relationship with Cuba since its 1959 revolution, highlighted by a nuclear crisis and a decades-long trade embargo.

A small portion of The Winstons' 'Amen, Brother,' an obscure '60s gospel record, is the basis for thousands of hip-hop tracks, making it one of the most sampled records ever that's informally known as 'the Amen break.'

When you complete a CAPTCHA on a website to prove you are human, you may be unknowingly training algorithms for self-driving cars, whose systems require training data to help identify crosswalks, bicycles, and other outdoor objects.