APM Reports Documentaries

The effects of high-stakes testing on students, teachers, and schools.

To mark the second anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, American RadioWorks teams up with Nick Spitzer of American Routes to find out how culture might save New Orleans.

From carbon offsets to biofuels, companies and investors are seeking riches in the fight against global warming. What happens when good deeds grapple with the realities of the free market?

The effects of mental illness are well documented. But until recently, there has been little said about the siblings of the mentally ill. Now researchers are starting to look at the "well-sibling" syndrome.

Explore the trappings of life in Congress, the pressure to raise campaign dollars and Washington's powerful world of lobbying.

A few "at risk" teens in Los Angeles are getting their first jobs, as working artists: studying Shakespeare and writing their own poetry and music, all while earning minimum wage.

A century ago, the first radio broadcasts sent music out into the air. Since then, music has dominated America's airwaves and it's been a cultural battleground.

The early signs of climate change are showing up across vastly differing landscapes: from melting outposts near the Arctic Circle to disappearing glaciers high in the Andes; from the rising water in the deltas of Bangladesh to the "sinking" atolls of the Pacific. Reports from a Warming Planet takes you to parts of the planet where global warming is already making changes to life and landscape, and demonstrates how climate change is no longer restricted to scientific modeling about the future. It's happening now.

To many people, global youth culture means rock and roll and other Western fashions. But for more and more young people across to world, the capital of pop culture is Tokyo. Over the past decade, Japanese video games, animation and comic books have caught fire in much of the world, including the United States.

A unique study of Romania's orphans reveals the profound effects of social deprivation on brain development.

Peabody-award winning documentary that chronicles the sounds and voices of the World Trade Center and its surrounding neighborhood.

Hurricane Katrina devastated the lives of thousands of Mississippi Gulf Coast residents. Rebuilding Biloxi tells the stories of several families in the coastal community of Biloxi, Miss., and their struggle to survive and then recover from the storm.

Four American presidents tried to end the conflict in Vietnam. The lessons they learned echo sharply today.

Public documents show that from 2000 through mid-2005, Capitol Hill staffers accepted nearly 17,000 free trips worth almost $30 million. Many of these trips clearly violate ethics rules designed to limit the abuse of power.

In August 1996, landmark legislation fulfilled the promise to "end welfare as we know it." Congress gave the states money to run their own programs and required them to move many welfare recipients into the workforce. Supporters declared it a new day, the beginning of self-sufficiency for poor families. Others warned the action would push women and children into the streets, perhaps by the millions.

Americans are going broke in record numbers. In 2005 Congress overhauled the bankruptcy system to stem the tide of filings. What's behind the boom in going bust?

Internet poker has taken America by storm. Three-quarters of high school and college kids are gambling on a regular basis. But adolescents are far more vulnerable to getting addicted to gambling than adults. And with Internet companies making millions from online gamblers, there's little incentive or legal controls to restrict youth gambling.

On February 25, 1956, former Kremlin leader Nikita Khrushchev revealed and denounced, for the first time in the history of the Soviet Union, the crimes of his predecessor, Joseph Stalin, dramatically shifting Soviet Russia's course, stirring a human rights movement, and opening the door to the eventual collapse of the USSR.

How a rival concept about the origins of life is defying the cornerstone of biology.

Trace Las Vegas' evolution from a remote railroad town to a mobster metropolis, to its current incarnation as an adult-themed resort town that nearly two million people call home.

More than 20,000 foreign children are adopted by Americans every year. Most come from poor and troubled parts of the world, and a life in America offers new hope. But it also means separation from their birth culture. Finding Home: Fifty Years of International Adoption explores the pull of adoption across lives and borders.

Tax law prohibits members of Congress from taking international trips paid for by private foundations, but Republican Richard Pombo may have done just that.

In the 1970s, women began breaking into male-dominated professions as never before. Women took jobs as police officers, lawyers and steelworkers. Across the country, the first women in male bastions faced a hostile reception. In the iron mines of northern Minnesota, women were harassed, threatened and assaulted. Their fight to keep their jobs broke new legal ground and helped change the workplace forever.

The United States is making huge demands on its military people, the toughest since the Vietnam War. But most soldiers during Vietnam were young, single men. Today, in the all-volunteer military, about half of all service people are married with children, so the burdens of fighting these wars are shared back home.

How has all the recent news about congressional travel changed the travel habits of those in Congress?

Over the past few years, private groups have payed for more than 4,800 trips by members of Congress at a cost of $14 million.

Corruption skims billions from the global economy, locking millions of people in poverty. But a worldwide movement is fighting back.

For many, globalization has meant rich countries getting richer at the expense of the poor. Today, it's not that simple.

Most children can be volatile at some point in their development, with no particular cause for worry. But at what point do irritability, mood swings, and tantrums constitute a mental illness? Up to half a million children are believed to have bipolar illness. This is the story of three of those children, their families, and the professionals who work with them.

The supermax prison was designed to incapacitate dangerous criminals by locking them down in stark isolation. But do they live up to their promise?

President Bush has admitted ordering intelligence agencies to electronically spy on American citizens without court oversight since 9/11. Such monitoring of suspected terrorists affects thousands of people. But unknown to most people, the government has also turned to the nation's burgeoning data industry to track millions of people in the name of homeland security. So for most Americans, there is no place to hide.

Five years after the hoopla and warnings about Y2K, many still dismiss it as a hoax, scam, or non-event. But in reality, Y2K was not only a real threat narrowly averted, it also led to changes in how we look at technology and economic shifts that are still being felt today. For the fifth anniversary of Y2K, we look at the history and the legacy of the millennium bug.

Thirty-eight states have elections for state courts around the country. These days, those races are getting more expensive, and can even run into the millions of dollars. Much of that money comes from special interests trying to elect candidates to the courts. That raises alarms bells about the independence of the judiciary, and calls for reform.

One hugely influential issue in the last election got little attention: gerrymandering. Politicians have been tinkering with the boundaries of their electoral districts for decades, but in the last five years, the practice has exploded, and it led to the least competitive race for the U.S. House of Representatives in memory.

They were the kings of corporate America, but over the past 25 years, American manufacturers have lost that position of power. Today, America's largest private sector employer is Wal-Mart, a retailer so large, it virtually dictates many decisions manufacturers make, and is pushing American production overseas.

Two candidates for President, offering two directions for America. They are men of the same generation, Yale graduates from privileged New England families. But they took starkly different paths as they formed their values and politics. In this report, a dual biography of George W. Bush and John Kerry, and how their distinctive histories and personalities would shape their approach to the presidency.

Two candidates for President, offering two directions for America. They are men of the same generation, Yale graduates from privileged New England families. But they took starkly different paths as they formed their values and politics. In this report, a dual biography of George W. Bush and John Kerry, and how their distinctive histories and personalities would shape their approach to the presidency.

Five years after the start of World War II, the people of Warsaw rose up against the German occupation of their city. The uprising was meant to last just 48 hours. Instead, it went on for two months. A quarter of a million people were killed and the Polish capital was razed to the ground. It was one of the great tragedies of World War II, and yet it is rarely talked about outside Poland.

During an 18-month investigation, the 9/11 Commission heard extraordinary testimony about the terrorist attacks on America. Witnesses told stories of lucky breaks and deadly errors. The commission pieced together new evidence and new details to tell the most complete story to date of the al Qaeda plot.

More women than ever are taking antidepressant medication, including more pregnant women. For those trying to weigh the danger of fetal exposure to medication against the risk of a mother's relapse into depression, scientists offer mixed or even conflicting advice.

Scientists have discovered that the Earth's climate is capable of changing abruptly. Could global warming bring the Earth to another such rapid change?

A decade ago, Nelson Mandela became president in South Africa's first multi-racial democratic election. Mandela's journey, from freedom fighter to president, capped a dramatic half-century long struggle against white rule and the institution of apartheid.

The '60s were a time of social movements and big changes, but a quieter revolution was underway too -- one led by a few middle-aged women who wanted to change our way of death. They were the founders of the hospice movement.

In 1967, Thurgood Marshall became the first African American appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court. But Marshall had already earned a place in history, as the leader of an extraordinary legal campaign against racial segregation in America.

In April 1994, the central African nation of Rwanda exploded into 100 days of violence, killing 800,000 people. Most turned their backs to the bloodshed. Here is the story of those who stayed.

The end of major combat in Iraq did not bring an end to the fighting. American troops trying to rebuild the country found themselves surrounded by unknown dangers and escalating hostility from Iraqis whom they once viewed with sympathy. American RadioWorks asked medics with the Army's 101st airborne division stationed in Mosul, Iraq to record their impressions of the situation unfolding around them. The recording was made in December 2003 shortly before they returned to their base in Fort Cambell, Kentucky. Their story, along with a follow-up interview, aired on The World in April 2004.

In 1927, Iran developed a legal code doing away with gruesome Islamic punishments such as stoning and lashing. That all changed during the Islamic revolution of 1979. NPR Producer Davar Ardalan and co-producer Rasool Nafisi look at Iran's long search for a lawful society.

The newest voting machine technology may do little to lessen voter disenfranchisement or fraud, and it will do nothing for those that have lost the right to vote.

Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon left hundreds of hours of secretly taped telephone conversations. What can these tapes tell us about the presidency and the individuals that hold the office?

Even after the fall of Baghdad, the U.S. is still fighting.