Podcasts about United States

"Can I drink the water? Can my pregnant patients drink the water?" Someone puts that question to state officials at a public meeting in Introducing: Safe to Drink, an episode the Bear Brook feed posted in February 2026. It follows an hour-long presentation and an admission from the officials: "We don't know." The series concerns PFOA in the town water near a St. Gobain plant in Merrimack. The company has told town officials it believes other sources, such as a local landfill, are responsible. Meanwhile a mother named Wendy tells her kids not to use the taps and ends up more than $5,000 out on bottled water and filters. Someone asks for an answer the official does not have, and these podcasts keep coming back to that sound.

Most of what plays here is reported crime and courts, and much of it turns on doubt: confessions that may be false, cold cases reopened by DNA, police files priced beyond reach. Around that runs a huge body of sports talk and a thinner layer of civic radio. The arguments stay specific, down to a school board majority, or a mayor's race that one Colorado show says came down to a single vote.

The national backdrop is unsettled. In September 2026, state and local governments filed two federal lawsuits in Manhattan against a policy that lets the use of public benefits count against green-card applicants. The plaintiffs allege that unclear rules could make families afraid to claim help. That same month, the administration said immigrants should support themselves. In October 2026, Reuters reported unemployment at 4.2% for September. Nearly every show below is about one state, city or county, so read this page as a map and follow each show to its place page where one is listed.

What United States is

The United States comprises 50 states in North America and covers approximately 9.83 million square kilometres. Its economy includes a diversified, technologically advanced industrial sector, and its familiar cultural reference points include Hollywood and Broadway.

Cases that refuse to close

Bear Brook, reported and hosted by Jason Moon for New Hampshire Public Radio, shows the method at its best. The Middle Child follows genetic genealogists, Matthew of the DNA Doe Project among them, as they identify the middle child in the Bear Brook barrel case. It then moves to a carpeted state conference room where Attorney General John Formella makes the announcement. Moon weighs the charge that a birth certificate could have been found years sooner, and he lets the rebuttal, "Monday morning quarterbacking," stand beside it. In Update: The Reversal, Jason Carroll's lawyer, Cynthia Musso, persuades Judge William Delker to make the state search its storage again, and more material surfaces. The New Hampshire page goes further.

Other feeds ask whom the system believes. In early 2026 the Bone Valley feed, filed under Florida, carried the Alabama case of Tafaris Johnson. Chapter 7 | Messy turns up paperwork showing that Violet Ellison, the star witness against him, received a reward, in documents an email says were misfiled. The episode reports that she said she got none. A juror says that, had they known about $5,000, "we would have, as a jury, talked about that." In The Apology, Letters from Sing Sing sets out what parole still demands of J.J. in New York after a presidential apology: home by 9 every night, and permission to leave the state.

Ear Hustle tells stories from inside San Quentin State Prison. Revisiting “Chicken on the Bone” notes that the prison's public information officer, Lieutenant Sam Robinson, signs off on every episode, which is worth knowing as you listen. Woods describes walking back into prison and calls it a reset he gets "pretty much weekly." Expect accounts of murder and sexual violence throughout this section. The Florida, Alabama and New York pages carry on.

Who answers for it

Sent Away examines Utah's teen treatment industry. In 7: We Failed You, Paris Hilton tells state senators in February 2021, "I was no longer Paris. I was only number 127." The reporters frame their story as running from a girl's death in 2002 to another in 2022.

Southlake's Grapevine episodes follow North Texas school boards. In Grapevine - Ep. 2: The Seven Mountains, Patriot Mobile's PAC goes 11-0 in the spring 2022 school board elections. The reporters say Patriot Mobile did not answer repeated interview requests and that some conservative leaders declined to talk, so they document those views in other ways. That candour earns trust.

Already Gone, Nina Innsted's Michigan true-crime show, runs into a wall of cost. In Don't talk to Strangers V 8 - Finale she asks Birmingham police for first responders' reports and is told to pay a $1,100 deposit, for files that would arrive redacted. The feed posted an episode in July 2026, so treat it as an archive.

Current news lives on the California City feed, which now carries LAist reporting, with Nereida Moreno leading the conversations. Imperfect Paradise: Where is LA a year after the fires? Checking in with survivors, rebuilding and nature finds Altadena neighbours buying land surveys together at around $1,700 a lot, against a $5,000 individual quote. Other episodes visit the Adelanto ICE detention center and follow the federal fight over California's voter data. The Utah, Texas, Michigan and California pages go further.

History as an open argument

The Bowery Boys, Greg Young and Tom Myers on New York City, treat the past as civic infrastructure. Frozen in Time: The Great Blizzard of 1888 describes the city funding an "army of the shovel" that focused on the main drags, while enterprising New Yorkers charged to clear stoops. It also keeps the stranded train car whose passengers lowered a bucket to the bar below. This is an older recording that treats Hurricane Sandy as recent news.

White Lies, from NPR, tests the defense's claims from the 1965 trial over the murder of Jim Reeb in The Counternarrative. It calls one of them, that Reeb's death was hastened by intentionally taking him to an inferior clinic, "simply wrong." Mother Country Radicals has Zayd Dohrn questioning his parents' Weather Underground years, including Chicago's Days of Rage. S-Town, set in Woodstock, Alabama, contains racist language. Its Chapter VII learns that John fire-gilded clocks in his shop without a mask. The New York City, Chicago and Alabama pages continue.

Teams, towns and the national argument

By volume, sports talk rules. Buffalo alone sustains a cluster of Bills and Sabres shows. Query & Schultz Podcast tapes an Indianapolis episode at a taproom on 42nd and Boulevard. Thunder Radio Podcasts calls a CHS Red Raider game against Tullahoma, dropped snaps and all.

Civic radio is smaller and often more revealing. Next with Kyle Clark tracks Nederland, where Mayor Billy Giblin's one-vote lead on election night became a 261 to 260 count for Nicole Sterling, and explains Colorado's eight-day window to cure ballots. The Talk of the Town introduces a guest by naming the problem he works on: a new fire department ladder truck now costs over $2 million, with about a five-year wait.

For the national argument, The Realignment gives Marshall Kosloff long conversations. One, with Steve Teles, turns on whether abundance politics can tap anger at a government that cannot deliver. The Buffalo, Indianapolis, Tennessee, Colorado and West Virginia pages go deeper.

Where to start

• For patient investigation: Bear Brook, The Middle Child, which recaps the barrel case before moving it forward.
• For a city's past: The Bowery Boys, Frozen in Time: The Great Blizzard of 1888.
• For accountability reporting: Sent Away, 1: Second Chances, the beginning of the series.
• For news followers: California City, Imperfect Paradise: Where is LA a year after the fires? Checking in with survivors, rebuilding and nature.
• For voices from inside: Ear Hustle, Revisiting “Chicken on the Bone”. Listen for who has to sign off on what you hear.

The United States feed on this page plays clips from these shows.