PODCAST · news
Things That Go Boom
by PRX
Stories about the ins, outs, and whathaveyous of what keeps us safe. Hosted by Laicie Heeley.
Episodes
-
When the Emergency Never Ends
Germany's internal border checks were supposed to be temporary. Introduced in 2015 as an emergency response, they've now become a familiar part of daily life across much of Europe. Reporter Sam Baker travels to Germany's borders with France and the Netherlands, where commuters sit in traffic,...
-
When Every Country Is an Emergency
Ah Long spent years building a life in Shanghai. Then the pandemic arrived. China's Zero-COVID policy cost him his job, his relationship, and eventually his faith that he could build a future there. So he did something almost unimaginable: he set out alone for the United States, crossing the…
more -
The Soldiers Who Became Clowns
A few hours outside Bogotá, a giant yellow circus tent rises above the countryside. Inside, families laugh at clowns, gasp at acrobats, and cheer for trapeze artists soaring overhead. The performers are all members of the Colombian military. For more than three decades, Circo Colombia has sent...
-
Safe Enough
After a Norfolk Southern train carrying toxic chemicals derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, residents were told the air was safe and the situation was under control. But for many people living there, the emergency never really ended. In this episode, East Palestine resident and Rail Watch founder...
-
Coming Soon: Living in the Emergency
Wars. Raids. Climate disasters. Political violence. Economic shocks. Surveillance. States of emergency that never seem to end. We live through them all while still trying to get dinner on the table, make rent, raise kids, and imagine a future. This season, Living in the Emergency follows people...
-
Converting the War Economy
A quick note: Independent journalism like Things That Go Boom only exists because of listener support. And right now, Newsmatch is doubling all donations — making it a powerful moment to give. If you love our show (and we hope you do!) consider making a tax-deductible contribution today. 👉...
-
Inside the Campaign to Block Israel’s War Ships
As violence continues in Gaza, a new strategy inside the Palestine solidarity movement is taking shape — one aimed not at city streets or college campuses, but at the arteries of the global economy. Around the world, dockworkers have refused to unload ships tied to Israel’s military supply chain....
-
Fighterland, USA
For a century, the weapons industry has helped shape St. Louis — from the McDonnell Douglas fighters that once symbolized American air power to Boeing’s sprawling factories today. But when thousands of machinists walked off the job this year, something cracked in “Fighterland, USA.” In this...
-
Under the Bridge, Over the Line
San Diego’s Barrio Logan is a place defined by both proximity and resistance — pressed against naval shipyards, fenced in by freeways, and crowned by the Coronado Bridge. For decades, the community has lived with the noise, the pollution, and the promises that never quite came true. When the USS...
-
Gabriel Sanchez on Georgia, Tex-Mex, and Representing a District Built on Defense Jobs
When 27-year-old Gabriel Sanchez won his Democratic primary in Smyrna, Georgia — home to a massive Lockheed Martin plant — few expected an outspoken anti-war socialist to carry a district built on defense jobs. But Sanchez has managed to do just that, working to push for better benefits, wages…
more -
Taser Town
When a 77-year-old Vietnam vet and former city councilman takes on a luxury apartment development in Scottsdale, Arizona, it sounds like classic NIMBY politics. But this fight isn’t just about height limits or desert views — it’s about who gets to decide the future of a community. The developer,...
-
Big Promises, Small Print
Why do local governments keep handing out tax breaks to defense contractors… even when the promised jobs don’t materialize? In the first episode of our new season, reporter Taylor Barnes takes us deep into the Utah desert, where Northrop Grumman is building the next generation of intercontinental...
-
Trailer: MIC Drop
Across the country — from DC to Los Angeles to Chicago — the military is more visible in daily life than it’s been in years. But behind the boots on the ground lies a much bigger system. One that puts grenade launchers in the hands of police, surveils our every step, and ships weapons overseas.…
more -
MAGA, Mahmoud Khalil, and the War for Free Speech on Campus
Mahmoud Khalil became the face of Palestinian rights at Columbia University when the Syrian-born refugee refused to wear a mask and negotiated on behalf of the encampment with the University administration. Now the US wants to deport him using a deep-cut statute in the immigration act that gives...
-
Hit Print for War
If you live in the US, buying a gun can be as easy as going to Walmart. In countries with strict gun laws, such as most of Europe or Australia, you need a little more ingenuity. Although not that much more: since March of 2020, anyone with access to a cheap second-hand 3D printer and experience...
-
It’s All an Illusion
Nearly everyone has played dress up at some point in their lives, whether putting on mom or dad’s clothes as kids, for Halloween, as their favorite Marvel character at ComicCon… or even, maybe, as a Civil War soldier. Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, where historians say Civil War casualties were…
more -
A Walkman and a Wire
Initially assigned to $100 million bank failure investigations, Mike German’s FBI career took a pivotal turn in 1992, when he went undercover to infiltrate neo-Nazi groups in LA. The years that followed gave him a front-row seat to the Justice System’s handling of domestic terrorism from the…
more -
Pardon Me? Pardon You
True to his promise, on the first day of Donald Trump’s second term as president, he pardoned more than 1,500 people charged in connection with the attack at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 — an event many observers accuse him of instigating. He also commuted the sentences of the six organizers of…
more -
The Militias Next Door
Amy Cooter has been studying US militias since 2008 when, as a graduate student in Michigan, she attended a public meeting of a group that was thought to be a cover for an underground neo-Nazi movement. As it turned out, that assumption was wrong. It was then that Amy realized this militia…
more -
What a Tipping Point Looks Like
In 1970, Canada’s streets were full of troops and the country was on edge. Quebec cabinet minister Pierre Laporte had been captured by a militant French separatist group, the FLQ, and the Canadian government worried thousands of FLQ sympathizers could be ready to unleash chaos in Quebec. As it...
-
Season 10: Coming Soon!
When Members of Congress are sworn into office, they say an oath. To protect the country from all enemies… foreign and domestic. But what does a domestic enemy look like? And how can they be stopped? Four years after January 6th, we're turning our eyes on the US to ask, “in our divided times, how...
-
Monologues (The War Horse Sessions): The Reason Why Soldiers’ Christmas Care Packages Wind Up in the Trash
When former US Navy Intelligence Officer Andrew McCormick spent the holiday season in Kandahar in 2013, attempts at holiday cheer were everywhere. But few were more out-of-touch than the generic care packages sent from civilians who knew nothing about him — or the war he was fighting. Part of our...
-
Monologues (The War Horse Sessions): One Step From Nuclear War, and I Didn’t Even Know It
One night In 1968, Ed Meagher was finishing his last shift at Clark Airways, which included authenticating and repeating messages for the nuclear-armed B-52 fleet in Southeast Asia. Then his phone lines started dinging, with signal after signal — and he couldn’t figure out why none were a match....
-
Monologues (The War Horse Sessions): What Poetry Taught Me About Moving Past War
This month on Things That Go Boom, we’re passing the mic to three veterans to share their memories in their words. In this first entry: When paratrooper Bill Glose came home from the Gulf War after leading his platoon, silence was his fortress. That all changed when a friend suggested he start...
-
Bringing it Home
After a season spent examining feminist foreign policies around the world, we turn our attention back to the US. Will the US adopt a feminist foreign policy? And what would that mean? In this episode, three remarkable activists, organizers, and academics share their perspectives on where we are…
more -
Where Are the Women, Really?
Political Scientist Cynthia Enloe is, arguably, the reason we’re all here. She was one of the first to explore gender in international relations, and the first to ask, “Where are the women?” But what she meant when she asked that question? It’s been lost in a sea of nuances around feminism and...
-
Is Anybody Listening?
As civilian casualties mount in Gaza and many more conflicts around the world kill and displace vulnerable people, we ask, "What can feminist foreign policy do about war crimes?" The international community doesn’t have a great track record of timely intervention to stop atrocities. But one-sided...
-
The End of the World as We Know It
When news of a new disaster seems to roll in every day… it can feel like there’s little hope. But what if we had… another option? Not just to reverse course on climate change, but to set the course for a better future. Carol Cohn and Claire Duncanson think we do. GUESTS: Carol Cohn, University of...
-
Inside Poland’s Abortion Crossroads
When does something as deeply personal as abortion become a matter of foreign policy? Maybe when it becomes a stand-in for national values and belief systems. Or maybe when it becomes a clever wedge to divide societies. Today, Polish abortion activists are on the cusp of a huge change. After 30...
-
The War at Home
Mexico's gotten a lot of praise for its feminist foreign policy — despite ongoing femicide in the country. But Mexican women are doing more than just pointing out the hypocrisy. They're using these new foreign policy tools to fight back at home in the war against their own bodies. On this…
more -
Fika and Feminism: Part 2
It took two years, after holdups from Turkey and Hungary, but Sweden has officially joined NATO. A move not everyone in Sweden is super psyched about. But this country’s history isn’t quite so peaceful as it might seem. So, can a peace-loving nation with a war-loving legacy keep the peace… when...
-
Fika and Feminism: Part 1
This season on Things That Go Boom, we’re on a mission to figure out this new thing spreading like wildfire across the world: feminist foreign policy. But to even begin to understand what it is and where it’s going, we had to start in the place where it failed. We’re calling this season, “The F...
-
Season 9: The F-Word
With more than 50 elections set to take place around the world, 2024 will be a battle for democracy. It will also be a battle for peace. Because after doing things the same way for, pretty much ever, countries in Europe and Latin America have been experimenting with something called “feminist...
-
Things That Go Boom Introduces: Click Here
Click Here is a podcast, hosted by Dina Temple-Raston, that tells true stories about the people making and breaking our digital world. Earlier this year, the FBI added Mikhail Pavlovich Matveev to their Most Wanted hacker list for his alleged role in a number of ransomware attacks against U.S....
-
Well, What Do You Know?
What do swarms of autonomous drones, facial recognition, and nuclear test site monitoring have in common? They are all things we were still curious about as we wrapped up this internet and security season of Things That Go Boom. In this mailbag episode, experts weigh in to help answer some tough...
-
Least Cost Paths
On Sunday, the people of Poland cast their votes in an election that some have called a battle for the country’s soul. When we released this episode, we were still watching for the various parties to confirm the parliamentary coalitions that would lead to the final result. But experts tell us no...
-
Tobacco, Trust, and the Artist Formerly Known as Twitter
We’re about a year out from a presidential election, and former President Donald Trump is leading the Republican pack in spite of his supporters’ attack on the US Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. The attack reflected the anger and violence that can be stoked by misinformation. But the issue of...
-
Will the Internet Suck Us Dry?
When we say that we’re going to store something “in the cloud” it sounds like an ethereal place somewhere in the atmosphere. But the online cloud is generated by computer servers in data centers all over the world. Thousands of them. And AI is likely to ramp up demand. These data centers don’t...
-
Who Gets To Shut It All Down?
Internet blackouts — when internet service is shut down in a country or region — have become much more common over the last decade. But who gets to decide when these disruptions are necessary? From thwarting political protests to preventing cheating on school exams, we’re diving into the who…
more -
How to Break a Fish
It’s one of our biggest problems in 2023, and it can feel distinctly human. But it's not. All sorts of animals deal with all sorts of misinformation every day, including some of our oldest ancestors — like the humble fish. This week on Things That Go Boom, we exit the human world entirely to see...
-
Lost in Translation
Greg is an artist whose clients include Magic the Gathering and Dungeons and Dragons. And much like a lot of the folks striking in Hollywood right now, he’s ticked off about AI. It’s a story we hear a lot these days: AI is having an impact on everything in our lives, and it’s killing creators’...
-
Can You Hack a Nuke?
In the age of Oppenheimer, nuclear weapons didn’t have much to do with computers. And, for a long time, most nukes were running on 1970s-era floppy disk systems. But as technology has advanced the US — and all the other nuclear weapons states — have started putting military communications, early...
-
The Internet Is at the Bottom of the Sea
We need the internet. No, seriously. In 2023, the digital realm isn’t so much a portal as it is the undercurrent of our lives: The web carries our culture, our communication, our bank accounts — and, yes, our global security. But all of that traffic flows through a series of cables at the bottom…
more -
Coming Soon: Troubleshooting
You know the internet — that big, vast, expanse that powers our lives and every single thing we do. It’s all we seem to talk about these days: spyware, malware, phishing attacks, TikTok bans, Russian disinformation, and beyond. But how much do you really know about the internet? Or the threats…
more -
How a US Reporter Was Imprisoned in Putin’s Russia
We’re hard at work on Season 8 of Things That Go Boom, coming your way July 10. But in the meantime, we wanted to drop in and share a special episode with you from our friends at Project Brazen. How did Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich end up in prison in Russia, and what happens…
more -
Getting L-A-O-D
America’s war on communism in southeast Asia dragged the entire region into the fray, and the impacts are still an ever-present danger. (You might remember our episode this season on landmines and clusters.) But here’s what we didn’t get into before: The legacy of that violence here — in our own...
-
Mr. Fonio
There are tens, or even hundreds, of thousands of edible plants in the world. But humans only cultivate a couple hundred of those at any significant scale. And when we eat, we tend to stick to just a few: More than half of the calories that humans consume around the world today come from just…
more -
What’s Next for Brazil After Bolsonaro?
Just two years ago, Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was in prison. It’s a fairytale-like comeback story. But his life is also a food story. From a hungry childhood raised by sharecropper parents, Lula made ending hunger a major part of his first two highly popular terms as…
more -
Can Cluster Bombs Show Us How To Stop a Nuclear War?
Despite being banned, anti-personnel landmines and unexploded submunitions still litter fields from Bosnia to Bangladesh. And they’re even being used in Ukraine. Does that mean the treaties that ban their use aren’t working? Experts say the story isn’t so simple, and that, actually, the treaties…
more -
How Xi Jinping Plans to Fill China’s ‘Rice Bowl’
One morning in the 2010s, a rural midwestern farmer called the cops. There was a guy in a suit sniffing around a field near town. A big SUV dropped him off. And the story of how the man got there? That can tell us a lot about Xi Jinping’s past, present, and future. China’s seen incredible growth...
We're indexing this podcast's transcripts for the first time — this can take a minute or two. We'll show results as soon as they're ready.
No matches for "" in this podcast's transcripts.
No topics indexed yet for this podcast.
Loading reviews...
ABOUT THIS SHOW
Stories about the ins, outs, and whathaveyous of what keeps us safe. Hosted by Laicie Heeley.
HOSTED BY
PRX
CATEGORIES
Loading similar podcasts...
Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Things That Go Boom have?
Things That Go Boom currently has 115 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Things That Go Boom about?
Stories about the ins, outs, and whathaveyous of what keeps us safe. Hosted by Laicie Heeley.
How often does Things That Go Boom release new episodes?
Things That Go Boom publishes regularly with 115 episodes available. Check the episode list for the typical release schedule.
Where can I listen to Things That Go Boom?
You can listen to Things That Go Boom on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Things That Go Boom?
Things That Go Boom is created and hosted by PRX.
URL copied to clipboard!