Embedded

NPR

NPR's home for audio documentaries brings untold stories to light through deeply reported narrative series. We go to hidden corners of the headlines to explore what's been sealed off, undisclosed, or overlooked – and the people at the heart of those stories.

Support public media by joining NPR+ at plus.npr.org. You’ll get perks for over 25 NPR podcasts, including early access and sponsor-free listening for Embedded (Embedded perks may vary between seasons).

Subscribe Listen in podnod RSS feed Show website

185 episodes
Updated Thursday

Support the show

Support NPR by enrolling in NPR+!

Goes straight to the publisher. podnod takes nothing.

Episodes185

Newest first

Apr 6, 2023 · 43 min
Taking Cover: JAGMAN
Hoping to get their hands on the official investigation, the NPR team flies to Tucson. But problems begin shortly after arrival. The widow of a man who died in the explosion wants to know why the Marine Corps lied to her. Tom and Graham want to know why the recommended punishments were overturned. The team finally confirms a crucial detail from the original tip. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy
Mar 30, 2023 · 48 min
Taking Cover: Stand-To
The wounded are evacuated. The battle subsides. Now the men of Echo 2/1 begin to wonder: What happened? The Marine Corps says "no records exist" but Tom and Graham find testimony before an obscure Congressional subcommittee that says otherwise. The team also finds that promises made — to Congress, to the families of the dead and to wounded Marines — have been broken. And, they hear from one man who knows exactly what happened in the courtyard of that schoolhouse — but they still have to wonder, why was this covered up? See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy
Mar 16, 2023 · 50 min
Taking Cover: Danger Close
NPR's Pentagon Correspondent, Tom Bowman, receives a shocking tip from a trusted source: A deadly explosion during the Iraq War was an accident—friendly fire, covered up by the Marine Corps—and the son of a powerful politician may have been involved. He partners with an old pal, Graham Smith, to investigate, and they discover the truth is even worse than the tipster realized. After dozens of interviews, the team patches together the story of the First Battle of Fallujah — the days and hours before the explosion — from the men who were there. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy
Mar 16, 2023 · 1 hr 4 min
White Lies: The Excludables
In our final episode of the season, we start researching the names on the secret list of 2,746 Cuban excludables. What we find confirms many of our suspicions about the arbitrariness of how the U.S. government created the list. Our reporting takes us — where else? — to Cuba, to finally track down the men on the roof and hear them tell their own stories. What had they hoped to find in this country and what had they found instead? Finally, our journey takes us to one last interview in a high rise in Vancouver, Canada, where we hear from the man who led the uprising at Talladega, and made the decision to take to the prison's roof to display banners made from bedsheets that read, Pray for Us and Please Media: Justice, Freedom, or Death. Want to hear the first episode of Embedded's next series a week before everyone else? Sign up for Embedded+ at plus.npr.org/embedded. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy
Mar 14, 2023 · 3 min
Introducing: Taking Cover
Hosted by NPR's Pentagon correspondent Tom Bowman and Graham Smith of the Investigations unit, Taking Cover isn't just a show about the worst Marine-on-Marine friendly fire incident in modern history. It's a story of betrayal, brotherhood, and what's owed—to families, the wounded, and to the American public—when we send our young to war. Coming soon, after this week's conclusion of White Lies. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy
Mar 9, 2023 · 48 min
White Lies: The List
Since we began reporting this story, we've been after a list. A secret list. On it are the names of 2,746 people whom the US government deemed excludable, including the men on the roof. The government has kept this list so secret that at one point it went so far as to classify it. None of the Mariel detainees knew if their name was on the list or not. In fact, nobody knew what names were on the list. Until now. In Episode 7, the story of a list that sparked uprisings, separated families, and changed the trajectory of U.S. immigration policy. And the story of what we learned when we finally got our hands on it. Want to hear the next episode of White Lies a week before everyone else? Sign up for Embedded+ at plus.npr.org/embedded. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy
Mar 2, 2023 · 41 min
White Lies: The Trial
In Episode 6, we sneak into the graveyard of the Atlanta federal penitentiary with a radical peace activist to learn more about what happened in the prison in late 1984. A peaceful protest by detainees held in the Atlanta pen resulted in a violent crackdown, and one of the detainees, a man named Jose Hernandez-Mesa, was charged in federal court with inciting a riot. We tell the story of his trial — and the surprising verdict that began reshaping public opinion about the Mariel Cubans who were being detained. Want to hear the next episode of White Lies a week before everyone else? Sign up for Embedded+ at plus.npr.org/embedded. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy
Feb 23, 2023 · 43 min
White Lies: The Pen
On May 18, 1980, a man named Genaro Soroa-Gonzalez arrived in Key West from the port of Mariel. With no family waiting to sponsor him, he was sent by plane to a resettlement camp at an army base. There he was interviewed by the INS and, a few days later, he boarded another plane, this one bound for the federal prison in Atlanta. But wait - he'd committed no crime, so why was the US government detaining him? And how long could they hold him? In Episode 5, the story of Genaro Soroa-Gonzalez and the beginning of the indefinite detention of Mariel Cubans. Want to hear the next episode of White Lies a week before everyone else? Sign up for Embedded+ at plus.npr.org/embedded. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy
Feb 16, 2023 · 54 min
White Lies: The Entry Fiction
When President Carter promised to welcome the men and women arriving on the Mariel boatlift with "an open heart and open arms," he had referred to them as refugees. But technically speaking, they weren't refugees. They were classified as entrants, an immigration status with a peculiar legal standing in the United States. While entrants are physically allowed to enter the country, legally they're still at the border, asking to come in. Their presence in the country is known as a legal fiction — specifically, the "entry fiction." So even as Cubans were disembarking boats in droves through the summer of 1980, they were officially still floating off the coast of Key West. And this immigration status followed them to where they went next: an army base in rural Arkansas. In episode 4, the curious case of the militarized border in the middle of the Ozark Mountains. Want to hear the next episode of White Lies a week before everyone else? Sign up for Embedded+ at plus.npr.org/embedded. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy
Feb 9, 2023 · 51 min
White Lies: The Rumors
During our reporting, we heard one story over and over again: that Fidel Castro had emptied his prisons to fill the boatlift. It's a story that's been told so often and with such conviction that of course it must be true, right? But what if this was more theater than history? What was happening in 1980 in Miami and throughout the country that made this story so compelling? Why did it feel so true to so many people? In Episode 3, we go to Miami to find out. Want to hear the next episode of White Lies a week before everyone else? Sign up for Embedded+ at plus.npr.org/embedded. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy
Feb 2, 2023 · 49 min
White Lies: The Boatlift
Note: Due to a technical error, some listeners did not hear the correct audio for Episode 2. We are re-publishing it with the corrected audio. The story of the men on the roof didn't start with that prison takeover in 1991. It didn't start when they were detained in federal prisons. And it didn't start when the government made a secret list of their names in 1984. Instead, it started in the spring of 1980, with one of the largest refugee crises in American history: the Mariel Boatlift. Want to hear the next episode of White Lies a week before everyone else? Sign up for Embedded+ at plus.npr.org/embedded. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy
Jan 26, 2023 · 46 min
White Lies: The Men on the Roof
It all started with a photograph. A photograph from 1991 of a prison takeover in rural Alabama. A photograph of a group of men on the roof of that prison holding a bedsheet scrawled with a message: "Pray for us." In the first episode of the new season of White Lies, hosts Chip Brantley and Andrew Beck Grace go searching for answers to the questions raised by this photograph. Who were these men? What on earth had made them want to take over that prison? And what became of them after? As they search, they uncover a sprawling story: a mass exodus across the sea, a secret list, and the betrayal at the heart of this country's ideals. Want to hear the next episode of White Lies a week before everyone else? Sign up for Embedded+ at plus.npr.org/embedded. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy
Jan 23, 2023 · 3 min
White Lies: Season 2 Trailer
In 1991, a group of men took over a federal prison in rural Alabama. But these men weren't prisoners, they were immigration detainees, all of them from Cuba. And none of them were serving time for a sentence; they were being indefinitely detained. Who were these men? What in the world had brought them from Cuba to a prison in rural Alabama, and what became of them afterward? On the new season of White Lies, hosts Chip Brantley and Andrew Beck Grace set out to find the men who took over the prison and, in the process, unspool a sprawling story of a mass exodus across the sea, back-channel cold war communiques, family separation, and a secret list. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy
Dec 20, 2022 · 13 min
The Last Cup: Postscript
The 2022 World Cup has ended. With his left foot, Messi wrote a more spectacular finale than we could have imagined. In the final installment of The Last Cup, Jasmine Garsd reveals the magic of Argentina's first World Cup victory since 1986. This final episode of our series is mainly in English, with some Spanish. Este último capítulo está disponible en ingles, e incluye comentario en español. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy
Dec 8, 2022 · 25 min
The Last Cup: Bonus Episode
Argentina has made it to the quarter finals of the 2022 World Cup, but the road has been a winding one. In our bonus episode, we take a moment to reflect on the scores and stumbles of the qualifying rounds, and speculate on what's to come for our hero, Lionel Messi. Host Jasmine Garsd discusses Argentina's anxiety with producer Julieta Martinelli and sports reporter Fidel Martinez. The Latinx Files is a weekly newsletter written by Fidel Martinez about the American Latinx experience. Julieta Martinelli is a Senior Producer at Futuro Media, where she also produced the Pultizer Prize-winning podcast Suave. The Last Cup is a dual language limited series from NPR and Futuro Studios. Listen to the Spanish versions here. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy
Dec 2, 2022 · 39 min
The Last Cup: Part 5
After a falling-out with the Argentine national team and a shaky reconciliation, Messi eventually finds his way back to play at the 2021 Copa America for yet another chance at redemption. And then it's on to Qatar for the 2022 World Cup, his last shot at the most coveted trophy. In the final chapter of Lionel Messi's journey, we catch up to the present. Our host Jasmine Garsd reflects on what a win would mean for Messi and for Argentina - and what it really takes to come home. The Last Cup is a dual language limited series from NPR and Futuro Studios. Listen to the Spanish versions here. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy
Nov 22, 2022 · 34 min
The Last Cup: Part 4
With the disappointment of the 2010 World Cup behind them, Argentines are hopeful that Lionel Messi might break their losing streak at the 2011 Copa America, the largest tournament in South America. Messi is prepared to give his all, looking for a way to deliver a victory for his home country. Meanwhile, host Jasmine Garsd makes the long journey back to Argentina after many years away and faces an unexpected tragedy. The Last Cup is a dual language limited series from NPR and Futuro Studios. All episodes will be released in English and Spanish. Listen to the Spanish versions here. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy
Nov 17, 2022 · 31 min
The Last Cup: Part 3
Lionel Messi finally gets a chance to put on Argentina's national jersey, but something is off. His time abroad has fundamentally changed the way he plays. Things get even more complicated when the Argentine soccer legend, Diego Maradona, becomes coach of Messi's 2010 World Cup team. With Messi under increasing scrutiny, the hometown crowd begins to question if he can ever get out from under Maradona's shadow. The Last Cup is a dual language limited series from NPR and Futuro Studios. All episodes will be released in English and Spanish. Listen to the Spanish versions here. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy
Nov 10, 2022 · 40 min
The Last Cup: Part 2
From his earliest goals on the soccer fields of his hometown in Argentina to his arrival in Spain's Barça Football Club, host Jasmine Garsd follows the journey of a gifted kid who would go on to become one of the best. In Argentina, where the national sport is a fierce obsession, Lionel Messi was the one that got away. As Garsd retraces Messi's early career, she examines the consequences of Argentina's devastating economic crisis of 2001, how it shaped Messi's path, and what it meant for her own life. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy
Nov 10, 2022 · 9 min
The Last Cup: Part 1
NPR and Futuro Studios present The Last Cup, a podcast series about soccer and the immigrant experience. As Lionel Messi rose up the ranks of the storied Barça football club in Spain, he dreamed of winning a World Cup for his home country. But playing with Argentina's national team has proven to be this soccer superman's kryptonite. For most of his career, Messi has wrestled with the disappointment of the home crowd after each devastating World Cup loss. Over time, his connection to his own country has been questioned after spending time abroad. What can Messi's story tell us about the cost of leaving home, and the struggle to return? The Last Cup is a dual language limited series. All episodes will be released in English and Spanish. Listen to the Spanish versions here. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy