Dave Davies

Journalist Jon Fasman says local police are frequently able to access very powerful surveillance tools — including publicly accessible CCTV cameras, automatic license plate readers and cell phone tracking devices — with little oversight. Fasman embedded with different police departments across the country to see how officers integrate technology into their day-to-day job.

The Human Factor gives a behind-the-scenes view of the peace effort between Israel and Palestine. We talk with filmmaker Dror Moreh and Dennis Ross, President Clinton's point man in the effort.

New Yorker writer John Colapinto says the development of vocal structures may have been the key to humans' becoming the dominant species on the planet. His new book is This is the Voice.

Biographer Janice Nimura tells the Blackwell sisters' story in the new book, The Doctors Blackwell. Nimura says Elizabeth was "greeted with everything from rejection to hilarity" during her years at Geneva Medical College in upstate New York.

Trotter was a Black newspaper editor in the early 20th century who advocated for civil rights by organizing mass protests. Historian Kerri Greenidge tells his story in her new book.

Kai Strittmatter's new book, We Have Been Harmonized: Life in China's Surveillance State, examines the role of surveillance in China's authoritarian state. He warns that Chinese President Xi Jinping, who came to power in 2012, has embraced an ideological rigidity unknown since the days of Mao Zedong.

A liberal voice in the U.S. Senate for decades, Kennedy led a life marked by tragedy and scandal. Historian Neal Gabler talks about the first volume of his two-part biography, Catching the Wind.

Trump lost the election, but remains popular among Republican voters. New Yorker writer Nicholas Lemann talks about how the GOP might deal with the changes Trump made to the party's ideology.

Eleven years ago, when she was 24, Katherine Standefer was working as a ski instructor and a climbing teacher in Jackson, Wyo., when she suddenly passed out in a parking lot. She later learned that she has long QT syndrome, a genetic heart condition in which the heart can suddenly quiver instead of rhythmically pumping blood. Standefer chronicles the ways her condition and the implanted defibrillator changed her life in the book Lightning Flowers. Looking back, she feels particularly grateful for her present health.

Apollo's Arrow author Nicholas Christakis says we're likely to be living with pandemic-related social restrictions into 2022 — even if an effective vaccine is developed.