The Intercept Briefing

When people shifted to working from home in 2020, many renovated their homes to add offices. Influencers showed viewers how to easily install vinyl flooring from stores around the U.S., and sales of such flooring surged. But what these influencers didn’t know is that much of the vinyl flooring sold in the U.S. is made with PVC or plastic produced with forced Uyghur labor. This week on Intercepted,...

Today we bring you a special episode in response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade. First, The Intercept’s Washington Editor, Nausicaa Renner takes us to the protests in front of SCOTUS that formed after the radical decision to end the right to abortion. Then we turn to a livestream conversation The Intercept hosted on Friday discussing what can be done to minimize the i...

Last week, the House committee investigating the January 6, 2021, siege of the Capitol began public hearings to disclose its findings. During the hearings, the committee alleged that former President Donald Trump led and encouraged the attack on the Capitol in an effort to overturn the 2020 election results. This week on Intercepted, investigative reporter Trevor Aaronson is joined by Margot Willi...

Back in 2014, the FBI worked with an attorney-turned-informant to try to stop a meeting between journalist James Risen and a source. This week on Intercepted: Risen, national security correspondent for The Intercept, reveals how the FBI used his reporting to try to catch a person they secretly called "the second Snowden." Recordings of conversations between an FBI agent and the attorney expose the...

Two weeks ago, Politico obtained a leaked draft of the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, the nearly 50-year-old ruling that acknowledged the constitutional right to abortion. Although this is the most egregious attack on reproductive rights, it only follows the anti-abortion momentum that has been building for years around the country. This week on Intercepted, Intercept investigativ...

Smartphone apps constantly harvest your location data. That information is shared with advertisers, typically without your knowledge or informed consent. There are no laws in the U.S. prohibiting the sale or resale of that private data. And companies like phone-tracking firm Anomaly Six exploit that. So do government agencies. This week on Intercepted, Intercept reporter Sam Biddle and Tech Inquir...

Murderville, Texas just ended its nine-episode season, casting significant doubt on whether a man on death row for the 1992 murder of a Houston grandmother is actually guilty. This week on Intercepted: Intercept Senior Editor Andrea Jones speaks with Jordan Smith and Liliana Segura, the reporters behind the investigative podcast, about what happened after the murder of 72-year-old Edna Franklin. R...

Talks with Iran to revive the nuclear deal appear to be progressing, but in recent weeks, the United States’s designation of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC, as a terror group has emerged as a major obstacle. The listing isn’t just about nuclear diplomacy: Countless Iranians who served in the IRGC are now labeled as terrorists — including hundreds of thousands who were conscripte...

This week, President Joe Biden is visiting European nations — including Poland — as the war in Ukraine rages on. This follows on the heels of Biden pledging to send $800 million worth of weapons to Ukraine, on top of an additional $13.8 billion approved by Congress. This week on Intercepted: associate editor Maia Hibbett discusses the details behind the U.S. support for Ukraine with investigative...

U.S.-trained officers have led seven coups and coup attempts in Africa over the last year and a half. This week on Intercepted: Investigative reporter Nick Turse details the U.S. involvement on the African continent. U.S.-trained officers have attempted coups in five West African countries alone: three times in Burkina Faso, three times in Mali, and once each in Guinea, Mauritania, and Gambia. Tur...

Smoke-filled cells. Triple-digit temperatures. Chest-deep water. People trapped behind bars when climate disasters strike. This week on Intercepted: Ali Gharib, a senior editor, speaks to his colleagues, reporter Alleen Brown and senior research engineer Akil Harris, about the intersection of climate risks and mass incarceration. For more than a year, Brown and Harris analyzed climate risks to mor...

The number of people experiencing homelessness decreased by 8 percent between 2020 and 2021, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. HUD suggests that the decrease could be attributed to Covid-19 pandemic relief efforts. However, many relief efforts have expired or will soon, from eviction moratoriums to expanded unemployment benefits. Meanwhile, the U.S. housing market...

Murderville, an investigative podcast hosted by senior Intercept reporters Liliana Segura and Jordan Smith, examines the systemic failures that lead to wrongful convictions. Season Two takes Segura and Smith to the death penalty capital of the country, Harris County, Texas, where they investigate a disturbing crime, a startling confession, and a story that doesn’t add up. To follow the series, sub...

Just how strong are the forces arrayed against police reform — and how far are they willing to go? In April 2019, Keith Humphrey was appointed police chief in Little Rock, Arkansas, a Southern city with a fraught history of racial division. Among the growing number of Black police chiefs, Humphrey came in with a mandate from the new mayor to implement reforms and curtail abuses. Almost as quickly...

As 2022 begins, the world continues to see the effects of the climate crisis — from the severe drought in East Africa to the odd snowfall in British Columbia. But since December 5, a new film has been sounding the alarm. In Adam McKay’s “Don’t Look Up,” an allegory about the impending climate disaster, scientists discover an approaching comet that will destroy Earth. But the media, politicians, an...

On Tuesday, with 39 men remaining at Guantánamo Bay, the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on closing the infamous military prison. This week on Intercepted: Intercept photo editor Elise Swain breaks down the horrifying story of one Yemeni man after being released from Guantánamo. After 20 years in arbitrary detention, former Guantánamo detainee Abdulqadir al Madhfari was released from a U...

Over the past year, Intercepted has been bringing you more stories from the people behind The Intercept’s reporting. For Giving Tuesday, we’re asking you to contribute to The Intercept so that we can continue to provide hard-hitting investigative journalism. Your help allows us to report on abuses of power and serve as an independent source of news. Please visit theintercept.com/join. Thank you fo...

Jurors in the trial of three men accused of killing Ahmaud Arbery began deliberations Tuesday. Last week, a jury acquitted Kyle Rittenhouse of all charges, including two counts of homicide. This week on Intercepted: We discuss the details of these two cases, how they differ, and the questions they raise about the normalization of violence in the U.S. On Friday, Rittenhouse, the teenager who killed...

Since January, there have been nearly 300 strikes throughout the U.S. This week on Intercepted: a look at the labor movement in 2021. Last week, tens of thousands of Kaiser Permanente health care workers announced that they will go on strike on November 15 if a collective bargaining agreement is not reached. If they take to the picket line, they will join hundreds of thousands of other workers nat...

Last month, the Democratic-controlled House voted in favor of appropriating $768 billion for the 2022 defense budget. This week on Intercepted: Senior writer for The Intercept Jon Schwarz talks with Andrew Cockburn, Washington editor of Harper’s Magazine, longtime national security journalist, and author of “The Spoils of War: Power, Profit and the American War Machine.” Cockburn and Schwarz discu...

As the national push to vaccinate people against Covid-19 continues, hundreds of thousands of hacked documents show how a group of doctors is explicitly pushing unproven and potentially dangerous alternatives on people hesitant to follow public health authorities’ recommendations to get vaccinated, wear a mask, and socially distance. This week on Intercepted: Nausicaa Renner, The Intercept’s Washi...

In late September, the World Health Organization announced that it had assembled a new team of scientists to revive its investigation into the origins of the virus that causes Covid-19. The new group will be tasked with examining whether the virus could have originated in a lab, months after its predecessor deemed the possibility too unlikely for serious consideration. This week on Intercepted: In...

More than 4,600 Haitian migrants were expelled by the U.S. government in little over a week. This week on Intercepted: Recent images of Border Patrol agents on horseback pushing back Haitians along the U.S.-Mexico border led to renewed anger at the United States’ immigration enforcement methods. Investigative reporter Ryan Devereaux explains how the U.S. immigration enforcement apparatus grew to t...

The war on terror has killed nearly 1 million people and cost more than $8 trillion, according to a report by Brown University’s Costs of War Project. This week on Intercepted: Journalists Murtaza Hussain and Rozina Ali break down how the 9/11 attacks reshaped U.S. foreign and domestic policies. In the last two decades, the U.S. launched two wars, leading to millions dead and wounded. There was al...

The United States flew its last military flight out of Afghanistan, ending the 20-year war in the country — the longest in U.S. history. This week on Intercepted: Journalist Spencer Ackerman discusses his new book, "Reign of Terror: How the 9/11 Era Destabilized America and Produced Trump." In 2001, the George W. Bush administration used the 9/11 attacks to launch the war on terror — an era that l...