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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 in-depth storytelling that matters by subscribing to Embedded+ and unlock early access to new episodes and sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org/embedded

Most Recent Episodes

The Girls: “This is my story to tell”

The Girls: “This is my story to tell”

Alleged victims of the Stoners find each other online and band together to demand justice. But they run up against police and prosecutors who have different ideas than they do about the best path to accountability.

The Girls: “This is my story to tell”

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The Girls: “If it was your daughter”

The Girls: “If it was your daughter”

17-year-old Aryalle Stoner runs away from home and tells the police that her father, Ronnie Stoner, has been sexually abusing her for years. The cursory investigation that follows is representative of a larger issue with child sex abuse investigations in Louisville.

The Girls: “If it was your daughter”

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The Girls: “This isn’t ringing alarms to y’all?”

The Girls: “This isn’t ringing alarms to y’all?”

Allegations pile up, but Child Protective Services declines to investigate and the school district continues to promote Ronnie Stoner. 

The Girls: “This isn’t ringing alarms to y’all?”

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The Girls: “I need to tell you something”

The Girls: “I need to tell you something”

In 2023, 17-year-old Abbie Jones and her family accuse her high school football coach, Donnie Stoner, of child sex abuse. Another Louisville woman, Alexis Crook, says she was abused by Donnie too, and his twin brother Ronnie, when they were coaches at her private Christian school almost 20 years earlier. Reporter Jess Clark looks at how the school system and local government responded to these accusations so many years apart. 

The Girls: “I need to tell you something”

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The Network: Pivoting as mifepristone access shifts

The Network: Pivoting as mifepristone access shifts

After next Monday, doctors may not be able to mail people the abortion pill Mifepristone. That would increase barriers, but experts say it won't stop people's ability to get the pills in the mail. Getting abortion pills without a doctor’s oversight isn’t new—in fact its history begins nearly 50 years ago, in Brazil. Listen to "The Network," Season 24 of NPR's Embedded, about how a loosely connected movement has been helping people access the pills this way for decades:

The Network: Pivoting as mifepristone access shifts

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Alternate Realities: Double or Nothing
Luke Medina/NPR

Alternate Realities: Double or Nothing

As soon as Alternate Realities publishes, Zach Mack calls his dad to hear his reactions to the series. The conversation takes an unexpected turn, launching them into another year-long experiment.

Alternate Realities: Double or Nothing

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The Harvard Plan: The Endless Frontier
Courtesy of On the Media.

The Harvard Plan: The Endless Frontier

Universities were not always so vulnerable to the whims of politics. The whole system of taxpayer-funded, university-led scientific research came about at the end of World War II, and was the brainchild of a man named Vannevar Bush. He felt the partnership of government and academics had to be equal in order to yield breakthroughs. Today, the Trump administration is proposing a new “compact” that would make the President the dominant partner. We speak with one of the authors of the Trump compact, May Mailman. Find On the Media every week, here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/on-the-media/id73330715

The Harvard Plan: The Endless Frontier

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The Harvard Plan: Jay & Alan
Courtesy of On the Media.

The Harvard Plan: Jay & Alan

Harvard president Alan Garber and National Institutes of Health head Jay Bhattacharya are two main characters at the heart of the national fight over the future of academia. Alan Garber has been cast as the defender of academic freedom and democracy; Jay Bhattacharya is Donald Trump’s pick to lead the NIH, the agency withholding billions of dollars in research grants from Harvard. Oddly enough, the two men go way back: Garber was Bhattacharya’s undergraduate thesis advisor and mentor in the late 1980s. This episode tells the story of how the two men found themselves adversaries — and what it means for the future of science. Find more On the Media every week, here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/on-the-media/id73330715

The Harvard Plan: Jay & Alan

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The Harvard Plan: And so it begins…
Courtesy of On the Media.

The Harvard Plan: And so it begins…

The Harvard Plan, a collaboration between On the Media and The Boston Globe, is about the fight for the soul of America’s oldest and most prestigious university. In the new season, they explore what has unfolded at Harvard since Donald Trump’s inauguration in 2025. Three main characters, inside Harvard, tell the story from their perspective: politics professor Ryan Enos, genetics professor and cancer researcher Kamila Naxerova and campus conservative Kit Parker, lieutenant colonel in the United States Army Reserve and Professor of Bioengineering and Applied Physics. Find more On the Media every week, here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/on-the-media/id73330715.

The Harvard Plan: And so it begins…

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Alternate Realities: A Question for Listeners

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Luke Medina/NPR

Alternate Realities: A Question for Listeners

After we released Alternate Realities, hundreds of listeners reached out, sharing stories about friends and family members who had also fallen under the spell of conspiracy theories. Many of them had tried everything they could think of to get that person back... and failed.

Alternate Realities: A Question for Listeners

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