Dave Davies

Asher's father died in a car crash in Nigeria when she was 5. Afterward, her mom raised four children on her own in a crime-ridden London neighborhood. Asher's memoir is Where the Children Take Us.

When the COVID crisis hit in 2020, the federal government needed far more N95 masks and other protective equipment than it had — so it began awarding contracts to companies promising to provide them, often at a steep mark-up. J. David McSwane, a ProPublica reporter and author of the new book Pandemic, Inc: Chasing the Capitalists and Thieves Who Got Rich While We Got Sick, says a shocking number of those companies had no experience in providing medical equipment.

Scott Weidensaul has spent decades studying bird migration. "There is a tremendous solace in watching these natural rhythms play out again and again," he says. Originally broadcast March 29, 2021.