Throughline

What can and can't the president do — and how do we know? The framers of the U.S. Constitution left the powers of the executive branch powers deliberately vague, and in doing so opened the door for ev...

20 Feb 202551min

The alleged link between vaccines and autism was first published in 1998, in a since-retracted study in medical journal The Lancet. The claim has been repeatedly disproven: there is no evidence that v...

13 Feb 202548min

Wong Kim Ark was born in the U.S. and lived his whole life here. But when he returned from a trip to China in August of 1895, officials wouldn't let him leave his ship. Citing the Chinese Exclusion Ac...

6 Feb 202557min

Who owns stolen art? Today on the show, the bloody journey of a Benin Bronze from West Africa to the halls of one of England's most elite universities — a tale of imperialism, betrayal, and the making...

30 Jan 202548min

The Eighth Amendment. What is cruel and unusual punishment? Who gets to define and decide its boundaries? And how did the Constitution's authors imagine it might change? Today on Throughline's We the ...

23 Jan 202547min

Whether it's pesticides in your cereal or the door plug flying off your airplane, consumers today have plenty of reasons to feel like corporations might not have their best interests at heart. At a mo...

16 Jan 202546min

Our dreams can haunt us. But what are we to make of them? From omens and art to modern science, we tell the story of dreams and the surprising role they may play in our lives. (Originally ran as The W...

9 Jan 202549min

Defeating old age? In 1899, Elie Metchnikoff woke up in Paris to learn he had done just that. At least, that's what the newspaper headlines said. Before long he was inundated with mail from people beg...

2 Jan 202549min