Explore every episode of the podcast American Scandal

Federal investigators uncover Rick Singer’s college admissions scheme, sparking national outrage.

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Lauren Malloy was a baby when her mother, Lori, was murdered in East Providence, Rhode Island. For thirty years, no one told her. Everyone said Lori died of natural causes. Then a stranger sent Lauren a message — and the lie collapsed. Now Lauren is investigating her own mother’s murder. She’s recorded hundreds of hours of interviews with law enforcement, family, childhood friends, and people who won’t stop contradicting each other. Every answer opens a darker question. Every person she trusts seems to be hiding something. And the closer she gets to the truth, the more she realizes the people she trusts may be the ones with the most to hide. A 10-part true crime investigation hosted by the victim’s daughter. Lauren’s mission: to finally uncover the identity of Lori’s killer. 

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Rick Singer expands his illicit college admissions scheme, using a network of corrupt insiders to manipulate his clients’ standardized test scores.

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Independent college counselor Rick Singer discovers a loophole that almost guarantees his wealthy clients entry into elite universities.

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As competition for places at America’s top universities reaches new heights, a charismatic college counselor helps wealthy families gain an edge in the admissions race.

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David McCloskey spent nearly a decade as a CIA analyst before becoming a bestselling spy novelist, giving him a rare perspective on how intelligence really works and how it has changed since the Rosenbergs' time. In this conversation, we discuss what motivates people to spy, what the Rosenberg case reveals about the intelligence world, and how the CIA balances secrecy, accountability, and the challenge of preventing the next intelligence failure.

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Julius and Ethel Rosenberg are put on trial for conspiracy to commit espionage, and the couple and their family are forced to reckon with a shocking sentence handed down by the judge.

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As the FBI works to identify the spy Harry Gold met with in New Mexico, the net closes in on both the Greenglasses and the Rosenbergs.

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David Greenglass begins working with his brother-in-law Julius Rosenberg to pass secrets from the Manhattan Project to Soviet intelligence. But after the Russians build a bomb of their own, the FBI races to uncover the Americans who helped them.

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During World War II, New York communist Julius Rosenberg begins spying for Soviet intelligence and recruiting other Americans to join him. But when his wife’s brother joins the Manhattan Project, Julius targets him as a valuable new recruit and inadvertently sets the stage for the ultimate betrayal.

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Following the Challenger disaster, engineers grapple with guilt and the consequences of raising concerns about the space shuttle’s flaws. Amidst public outcry, the Rogers Commission’s inquiry, including Richard Feynman’s stark demonstration of the O-Rings' vulnerability, uncovers what was known about the design failures and the economic pressures that led officials to move forward anyway. 

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In the tense hours leading up to the Challenger launch, engineers and managers at NASA and its contractor Morton Thiokol heatedly argue over whether to move forward, despite freezing temperatures that threaten to compromise the rocket boosters’ O-Rings. 

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As NASA struggles to keep its ambitious launch schedule on track, engineers at contractor Morton Thiokol raise concerns about a key component of the space shuttle’s rocket boosters: O-Rings, which are designed to prevent fuel leaks. Amid this tension, the Teacher in Space program captivates the nation after Christa McAuliffe is selected, raising public interest in the launch. 

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In January 1986, the Challenger Space Shuttle was poised to make history, carrying seven astronauts, including Christa McAuliffe, the first teacher and civilian selected for space travel. The launch was part of a decade-long effort by NASA to make flights cheaper and more frequent with the use of a reusable space shuttle. But years of budget cuts and risky design choices set the stage for disaster. 

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For decades, the Mafia was the face of organized crime in America. But while the mob's power has faded, organized crime itself has become more global, more sophisticated, and harder to track. Virginia Commonwealth University criminologist Jay Albanese has spent decades studying how criminal organizations adapt and survive. In this conversation, he explains how law enforcement weakened the traditional Mafia, how criminal enterprises shifted from controlling neighborhoods to trafficking across borders, and why he believes corruption remains one of the most important challenges facing modern societies.

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In 1997, investigator William Oldham learns that imprisoned mobster Burton Kaplan once worked with two corrupt NYPD detectives. What Kaplan knows could put Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa away for life. But getting him to talk won’t be easy.

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In the aftermath of an FBI raid on New York’s crime families, Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa are threatened with exposure by the mobster they’ve been working for.

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After surviving an assassination attempt, mobster Anthony Casso turns to his police contacts for help identifying his attacker.

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In 1969, police cadet Stephen Caracappa meets fellow recruit Louis Eppolito. The two officers soon rack up allegations of misconduct—but nothing is proven, and before long, their dealings with the Mafia lead to murder.

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Ted Kennedy spent the rest of his life in the shadow of Chappaquiddick. The accident that killed Mary Jo Kopechne effectively ended his chances at the presidency, but raised longlasting questions about whether a less powerful man would have faced far greater consequences. Peter Canellos is a veteran political journalist and editor of Last Lion: The Fall and Rise of Ted Kennedy. In this conversation, he examines how the Kennedy machinery closed ranks after the accident, what it meant to be the last surviving Kennedy brother, and how a man defined by his failures ultimately became what many consider the most legislatively consequential senator of the twentieth century.

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Ted Kennedy thinks he has put the mysterious incident on Chappaquiddick behind him, when a new legal threat emerges that threatens to destroy his political future.

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Police on Chappaquiddick Island recover the body of a young woman from Ted Kennedy’s Oldsmobile and begin to question the Senator’s story about what happened.

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Following a car accident on the island, Ted Kennedy and his associates rush to save Mary Jo Kopechne. Afterward, Kennedy’s friends encourage him to report the crash, but while Kennedy delays, the wrecked car is discovered and a police investigation begins. 

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The young Ted Kennedy follows in the footsteps of his older brothers and enters the world of politics. But he struggles to cope with the burden of his family’s ambition and with the grief of losing his older siblings in tragic circumstances.

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Is the genius American innovator just a myth? In this special episode of American Scandal, tech journalists Mark Harris and Kara Swisher, and former CEO and author Safi Bahcall unpack the dangerous allure of this narrative, and how Stockton Rush and OceanGate were far from the only examples.

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Two years later than scheduled, Titan finally takes its first paying passengers to the wreck of the Titanic. But amid the crushing pressure of delivering on his business plan, Stockton Rush ignores red flags about his submersible’s safety, and his dream of deep-sea exploration ends in tragedy.

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As OceanGate’s experimental submersible Titan begins deep-sea testing, engineers and industry experts raise urgent safety concerns—only to be ignored by CEO Stockton Rush. Driven by ambition and convinced the rules don’t apply to him, Rush pushes Titan deeper and deeper, setting the stage for catastrophe.

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Driven by ambition and convinced that innovation justifies risk, entrepreneur Stockton Rush pushes forward with increasingly experimental submersible designs.

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In June 2023, the OceanGate submersible Titan vanishes during a dive to the wreck of Titanic, triggering a frantic multinational search involving ships, aircraft, and deep-sea robots.

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Chris Winterbauer and Lizzie Bassett Boman have always been fascinated by the stories that lie behind the big screen—the on-set dramas and untold disasters that befell some of Hollywood’s biggest movies on their journey into theaters. In 2019, they started their own podcast “What Went Wrong” to share those stories, and in this conversation with Lindsay, they discuss the notorious accident on the set of Twilight Zone: The Movie—how it fit into a pattern of reckless behavior in Hollywood and whether the movie industry has really changed in the years since.

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After the fatal accident on the set at Indian Dunes, John Landis, George Folsey Jr. and others from the production team face a reckoning in court.

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Production on John Landis’ segment of Twilight Zone: The Movie reaches its dramatic finale.

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After casting two children in vital roles, production on John Landis’ segment of Twilight Zone: The Movie moves onto its climactic Vietnam village sequence.  

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A young John Landis fulfills his dreams of becoming a Hollywood director. But he’s eager to prove he can do more than just comedy, and when Steven Spielberg approaches him with a new project, he jumps at the opportunity to show what he can do.

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Like many Americans, the 2008 financial crisis left Anat Admati furious. A professor at Stanford, she became one of the country’s leading voices calling attention to how confusion, complexity and misleading claims allowed major banks to load up on dangerous amounts of debt. Today, she argues that little has changed. In this conversation, we discuss the faulty arguments bankers use to fight oversight, how corporate power has expanded in the years since the crisis, and what can be done to create a fairer and more stable economy.

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After Lehman Brothers declares bankruptcy, U.S. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson is thrust into a financial war, knowing every decision he makes could tip the nation even deeper into chaos. 

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As Lehman Brothers teeters on the edge of bankruptcy, Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson summons Wall Street’s most powerful figures for one fateful weekend—their last chance to save Lehman and prevent the collapse of the global financial system.

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After the collapse of top Wall Street investment bank Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers scrambles to convince the world it won’t be next, but dirty truths about the firm’s finances threaten to destroy what credibility it has left.

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Rising from humble summer intern to the formidable CEO of Lehman Brothers, Dick Fuld is determined to make the investment bank succeed, even if that means making risky bets that could set the stage for disaster.

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Patricia Hearst reunites with her family. Federal prosecutors navigate a trial that's become a national sensation.

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With the SLA in tatters, Patricia Hearst goes on the run. The FBI gets an unusual tip, one that promises a breakthrough.

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Patricia Hearst confronts a deadly new reality. The Hearst family tries to strike a deal with the SLA.

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Media heiress Patricia Hearst moves to Berkeley, intent on building a new life. In Oakland, a group of political radicals plot a deadly attack.

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University of Michigan law professor David Moran never planned to spend his career freeing the wrongfully convicted. But after handling several appeal cases that exposed deep flaws in the system, he realized how widespread the problem really was. In 2009, he co-founded the Michigan Innocence Clinic, which has since helped free more than 45 people. Moran joins Lindsay to discuss how the West Memphis Three case reflects the patterns he’s seen across wrongful convictions, why prosecutors sometimes pursue cases built on faulty evidence, and whether the justice system is finally learning from its mistakes.

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Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jessie Misskelley challenge their convictions for the murder of three 8-year-old boys. They battle the Arkansas legal system for almost 20 years in the hopes of securing a new trial.

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Damien Echols and Jason Baldwin are put on trial for murdering three 8-year-old boys in West Memphis, Arkansas. Though the police have limited physical evidence, they’re confident they can convince the jury that Echols and Baldwin are part of a Satanic cult. The explosive verdict leads to a controversy that lasts over two decades. 

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A month after the brutal murders of three 8-year-old boys in West Memphis, Arkansas, a suspect confesses to police. His testimony leads to the arrest of two other local teenagers, who police accuse of conducting a Satanic ritual sacrifice. As the trial dates near, critics claim the affair has become more like a witch hunt than a legitimate investigation. 

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On May 5, 1993, three 8-year-old boys are brutally murdered in West Memphis, Arkansas. The tiny local police department launches an investigation but finds little physical evidence to lead them to a suspect. Eventually, outside pressure pushes them to charge someone with the killings, whether or not the evidence supports their conclusions.

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Journalist Zach Goldbaum has reported from the frontlines of the climate crisis, uncovering corruption, cover-ups, and corporate crimes that shape our world. As host of Lawless Planet, he investigates how environmental disasters are too often treated as accidents rather than crimes, and why corporations escape real accountability. He joins Lindsay to discuss the hidden stories behind cases like Deepwater Horizon, the rise of climate activism, and how the oil industry’s unchecked power threatens people and the planet.

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As oil continues to leak into the Gulf, BP claims it will “make it right”. But the company does everything they can to silence critics and hide the scale of the disaster. 

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