Christopher Werth

Today’s viral videos of police abuse have a long political lineage. But what if one of the oldest tools of copwatching is now taken away?

2021 began with an insurrection, and it’s remained quietly intense ever since. We open the phones for a six-month check in on the political culture of the Biden era.

Birth, August 1965. Death, July 2021. So now what for multiracial democracy?

Eddie Glaude and Imani Perry consider the question through the work of James Baldwin and Richard Wright. Plus: How our country could enter a period of “post-traumatic growth.”

More than 100 anti-Trans bills have been introduced across 30 states since January. We find out what’s happening — both in the courts and in society — and what still needs to be done. 

New York City faces a consequential election. We look at the history of our local election laws. Plus, the mastermind behind new voting restrictions nationally.

How NYC’s first Black mayor tried to balance concerns about public safety with demands for a more accountable police force -- and the violent resistance he faced from the police union.

Composer Jason Moran takes Kai on a musical journey back to 1918, when a group of Black soldiers reinvented American music.

New Yorkers reacted to George Floyd’s murder with mass protests demanding police accountability. NYPD met them with targeted violence and abuse.

A retired NYPD detective says the force’s stubborn, insular culture was built to last. And Elie Mystal explains a 1989 Supreme Court ruling that made killing “reasonable.”

How did Americans come to think so poorly of government? And how did Joe Biden come to be the first modern president who’s even tried to change our minds?

We’re looking back at a year with Covid-19 to reflect on our tremendous losses and the remarkable ways communities have come together to take care of themselves.

A first draft of history for 2020, told through three very personal efforts to find -- and keep -- human connection amid a pandemic.

WNYC’s politics reporter Brigid Bergin and New Jersey Public Radio’s Nancy Solomon join us to take your calls and answer how recent elections are impacting our communities.

From poll taxes to the canard of “voter fraud,” it’s always been a struggle to cast a ballot in America. We review the record, and investigate the anti-democracy enablers of 2020. 

Conservatives who’ve shunned the GOP say it’s given up on democracy. Which begs the question: How long ago did that happen?

What can we learn from our short, grim history with Covid-19? Former New York City health commissioner Dr. Oxiris Barbot reflects on the opening weeks of the nation’s largest outbreak.

The president has made clear he will dispute the results if he loses in November. But actually, the fight over the count has already begun.