Short Run

Steven Spielberg faced serious challenges making “Jaws” — from unpredictable weather to mechanical shark troubles — but ultimately created the original summer blockbuster. The final episode of this three-part series explores the groundbreaking techniques behind the classic. Production designer Joe Alves reflects on the challenges of filming on the Atlantic Ocean (“Just finishing the movie was very...

See Edgartown through the eyes of the man who chose Martha’s Vineyard for the set of “Jaws” back in 1973. Production designer Joe Alves walks us through the iconic town and explains how it was transformed into Amity. Along the way, we meet the locals who brought the movie to life — from extras to carpenters, fishermen to cast members. Hear about the challenges and charms of filming in a tight-knit...

Embark on a journey to Martha’s Vineyard, the real-life “Amity Island,” for the 50th anniversary celebration of the blockbuster film “Jaws.” Through conversations with longtime fans, collectors, and cast members, we discover how Steven Spielberg’s monster movie became a cultural phenomenon that continues to inspire devotion and nostalgia across generations. In the first episode of a three-part ser...

When Jaws premiered in June 1975 on movie screens nationwide, it wasn’t just a movie release — it was a cultural event. Audiences were captivated by the story of a quaint island town terrorized by a colossal, bloodthirsty shark. Though originally marketed as a horror film, Jaws has become much more than that. It’s a film that continues to resonate deeply with fans around the world. On the 50th ann...

People are taking steps big and small to move the dial on climate change. This week, in Here & Now 's Reverse Course series, senior editor Peter O’Dowd and producer Chris Bentley take listeners across the country for a closer look at projects designed to make an impact. This episode looks at water conservation in the Navajo Nation. Up to 30% of the homes on the Navajo Nation still go without runni...

People are taking steps big and small to move the dial on climate change. This week, in Here & Now 's Reverse Course series, senior editor Peter O’Dowd and producer Chris Bentley take listeners across the country for a closer look at projects designed to make an impact. This episode looks at wireless electric vehicle charging. Detroit is testing a new way to charge electric vehicles that doesn’t r...

People are taking steps big and small to move the dial on climate change. This week, in Here & Now's Reverse Course series , senior editor Peter O’Dowd and producer Chris Bentley take listeners across the country for a closer look at projects designed to make an impact. This episode looks at shipping goods by sea on large container ships, which creates about 3% of the world's greenhouse gas emissi...

People are taking steps big and small to move the dial on climate change. This week, in Here & Now's Reverse Course series , senior editor Peter O’Dowd and producer Chris Bentley take listeners across the country for a closer look at projects designed to make an impact. This episode looks at big commercial airliners, some of the fastest-growing sources of climate-warming pollution on the planet. S...

Short Run presents Here & Now 's climate series "Reverse Course". Today's episode is about how the trucking industry is responsible for almost a quarter of all American greenhouse gas emissions in the transportation sector. But roadblocks remain to going green. Take a deep dive on this story here . Find out more about the Reverse Course series and listen to the previous eight episodes here .

Introducing Beyond All Repair, a new WBUR podcast from producer emeritus of Dear Sugars, Amory Sivertson. This series tells the story of a murder, but also the woman who was accused of that murder, Sophia. Sophia was newly married and 6 months pregnant when she was charged with murdering her mother-in-law in 2002. She gave birth to a son in jail that she hasn’t seen since, and for the last three y...

On Point 's special series 'Elements of energy: Mining for a green future,' explores the environmental and human cost of mining, and asks what it would take for the U.S. to meet the Biden administration's green energy goals. Listen to this series by following On Point on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

Growing up, host Alain Stephens bonded with his dad over guns — an interest Alain still holds today. But more than a decade ago, his family experienced a terrible loss. In this episode, Alain examines how that loss has shaped his career — and what it means for the gun industry to be inextricable from the American government, and for many, American identity. With more than 100 Americans dying from...

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is supposed to regulate the gun industry and protect the American public from gun crime. But the ATF often falls short of that mandate. This is no accident. This episode of The Gun Machine draws on host Alain Stephens’ seven years of reporting on the ATF to chronicle how the gun lobby and its Congressional allies worked to limit the agency’s...

In 1999, at the end of a decade in which Gary, Indiana, had endured being labeled as the “murder capital of the nation,” then-Mayor Scott King filed a suit against gun manufacturers he believed were knowingly flooding his city with illegal guns. But soon, the NRA would help ensure that such lawsuits were nearly impossible.

When criminals have access to some of the most powerful weapons in the world, how will police match or outgun them? What role does the gun industry play?

The byproduct of producing the world's most lethal guns is that criminals have them, too. We go back to the birthplace of the industry, Springfield, Mass., where nearly every young person we speak with has a story about big guns and the terror they cause in their community.

The Gun Machine host Alain Stephens and producer Grace Tatter dig into the scandal-ridden biography of the man who cracked the mass civilian market for guns, and who helped create an iconic genre defined by falsehoods that are misremembered as facts today.

In episode two of The Gun Machine, host Alain Stephens travels down to Florida to attend the Pew Party, where he talks to Black gun owners about why they carry and examines the link between our nation’s fraught history and why it’s so easy to sell us guns today.

Our country would look very different without the gun industry. And without the federal government? The gun industry might not exist at all. The premier episode of The Gun Machine introduces the story of how the U.S. has shaped, and been shaped by, the gun industry — and how we all play a role.

Every time there is a mass shooting in America, the first question is why. When we look for answers, we tend to focus on the incident itself - who the shooter was, why they did it, and who parachutes in to debate the state of regulation — or lack thereof — that allowed it to happen. What we forget is the centuries of history that got us to this long emergency of gun violence in America. Produced b...

This September, we're bringing you a story that most Americans never learned in history class — a new podcast about the gun industry’s grip on our country. And their biggest partner, since the Revolutionary War: The government.  Introducing The Gun Machine: How America was forged by the gun industry. Coming soon to Short Run.

Some experts say that while populism can metastasize into authoritarianism, it doesn't have to. They argue that the roots of American populism made this country's democracy better. And that it's time to resurrect progressive populism. But other observers strongly disagree. The fifth and final episode of On Point's special series 'The power of populism' explores whether populism can make better dem...

America’s urban-rural divide. It’s easy to think of American populism as disempowered rural residents versus the urban elite. But when it comes to influencing national policy, who has the real power? Episode four of On Point's special series 'The power of populism' is all about flipping the script on the urban-rural divide.

It felt for a while like Wisconsin was ground zero in American politics. How has populism flourished in the Badger state? In the third episode of On Point's special series 'The power of populism', hear all about Wisconsin and the politics of resentment.

Populism is on the rise across the globe, from Turkey to Hungary to Brazil. And in the world's largest democracy, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has ushered in a sweeping, economic modernization plan for all Indians. But he's also cracked down on the nation's civil society. India takes center stage in episode two of On Point's special series 'The power of populism'.