The Anthrax Files
Season 30, Episode 1 TV-PG
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In the fall of 2001 envelopes carrying deadly anthrax were delivered to U.S. Senate offices, network news divisions and a tabloid newspaper. Five people were killed, many more were infected and the nation was terrorized. Seven years later, after the mistaken pursuit of one suspect, the most expensive and complex investigation ever undertaken by the FBI ended when the organization identified Army scientist Dr. Bruce Ivins as the sole perpetrator of the attacks — after Ivins had taken his own life. Now, new questions are being raised about the FBI’s investigative methods and whether Ivins really did it. FRONTLINE, in a co-production with ProPublica and McClatchy Newspapers, takes a hard look at the FBI’s investigation of the country’s most notorious act of bioterrorism.
Lost In Detention
Season 30, Episode 2 TV-PG
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More than one million immigrants have been deported since President Obama took office. Under his administration, deportations and detentions have reached record levels. The get-tough policy has brought complaints of abuse and harsh treatment, including charges that families have been unfairly separated after being caught in the nationwide dragnet. The administration has promised to make the detention system more humane, and more selectively target the most serious criminals. But it faces Republican critics who urge stricter measures — and a growing backlash among Latino voters, a key 2012 electoral force. In a co-production with the Investigative Reporting Workshop, correspondent Maria Hinojosa investigates Obama’s enforcement strategies and journeys into the secretive world of immigrant detention, with a penetrating look at who is being detained and what is happening to these detainees.
Syria Undercover
Season 30, Episode 3 TV-PG
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As the death toll in Syria nears 3,000, the revolution rages on well after the fall of dictators in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya. While grainy cell phone videos of violent attacks on protesters are making it out, foreign journalists are seldom making it in. In this special newsmagazine report, FRONTLINE offers a rare look from inside, traveling with undercover reporter Ramita Navai into some of the most dangerous parts of Syria to meet members of the opposition movement forced into hiding. As the town of Madaya is besieged by the army, the security forces and the militia, Navai experiences first-hand life as a fugitive when she is trapped in a safe house with three opposition coordinators on the government’s most wanted list. Also this hour: A look at the dictator who has managed to hold on longer than any amidst the Arab unrest — President Bashar al-Assad.
A Perfect Terrorist
Season 30, Episode 4 TV-PG
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It has been called the most spectacular terror attack since 9/11. On the night of November 26, 2008, 10 men armed with guns and grenades launched an assault on Mumbai with a military precision that left 166 dead. India quickly learned the attackers belonged to Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistani militant group associated with Pakistan’s secretive intelligence agency, the ISI. But what wasn’t known then was that a Lashkar/ISI operative had been casing the city for two years, developing a blueprint for terror. His name was David Coleman Headley and he’d been chosen for the job because he had the perfect cover: He was an American citizen. FRONTLINE and ProPublica reporter Sebastian Rotella team up to investigate the mysterious circumstances behind Headley’s rise from heroin dealer and U.S. government informant to master plotter of the 2008 attack on Mumbai.
Opium Brides
Season 30, Episode 5 TV-PG
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Unexpected victims have been caught in the crossfire of attempts to eradicate Afghanistan's flourishing drug trade: young farm girls. Afghanistan produces more than 90 percent of the world's illicit opium. Opium farmers have long borrowed money from drug gangs, some with links to the Taliban, to subsidize their crops. Now, as the Afghan government destroys their livelihood in an eradication program, the farmers find themselves in a horrifying situation: repay their debts or give their daughters to drug-traffickers, often to be used for sex. Award-winning Afghan journalist Najibullah Quraishi reports on the harrowing story of families torn apart and the collateral damage of the counter-narcotics effort in Afghanistan. Also this hour, a timely encore broadcast: FRONTLINE crosses the border into Pakistan, where correspondents Stephen Grey and Martin Smith go inside "The Secret War" against the militants. They uncover evidence of covert support for elements of the Taliban by the Pakistani military and its intelligence service, the ISI. At a safe house not far from where Osama bin Laden was killed, they make contact with one mid-level Taliban commander who tells FRONTLINE, "If they really wanted to, [the Pakistanis] could arrest us all in an hour."
The Interrupters
Season 30, Episode 6 TV-PG
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During one weekend in Chicago in 2008, 37 people were shot, seven of them fatally. FRONTLINE follows a group of older former gang leaders trying to “interrupt” shootings and protect their communities from the violence they once committed. The film follows the inner workings of CeaseFire, an innovative program in Chicago designed to prevent shootings, including weekly meetings where the interrupters report on the simmering disputes and the senseless shootings in their neighborhoods. From director Steve James (Hoop Dreams, Stevie), "The Interrupters" is a compelling observational journey into the stubborn, persistent violence that plagues our American cities.
The Real CSI
Season 30, Episode 8 TV-PG
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From the courtroom to the living room (thanks to the hit television series CSI), forensic science is king. Expertise on fingerprints, ballistics and bite mark analysis are routinely called on to solve the most difficult criminal cases - and to put the guilty behind bars. But how reliable is the science behind forensics? A FRONTLINE investigation finds serious flaws in some of the best-known tools of forensic science and wide inconsistencies in how forensic evidence is presented in the courtroom. From the sensational murder trial of Casey Anthony and the FBI's botched investigation of the Madrid terrorist bombing to capital cases in rural Mississippi, FRONTLINE documents how a field with few uniform standards and unproven science can undermine the search for justice. As part of the investigative series Post Mortem, Correspondent Lowell Bergman reports in a joint investigation with ProPublica and the Investigative Reporting Program at UC Berkeley.
Murdoch's Scandal
Season 30, Episode 9 TV-PG
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Over half a century Rupert Murdoch's business audacity and political shrewdness built one of the world's most powerful media empires. Now his dynasty is under threat - not from outside competition, but from shocking accounts of bribery, blackmail, and invasion of privacy. The scandal has prompted criminal investigations on both sides of the Atlantic. It has also cracked open the insular world of the Murdoch family, its news executives, and the political elite who court their favor. Today, the 80-year-old owner of the Wall Street Journal and FOX News Channel is in the fight of his life. In a joint production with the CBC, FRONTLINE correspondent Lowell Bergman tells the story of the battle over the future of News Corporation, Rupert Murdoch's reputation and his family's fortunes.
Money, Power, and Wall Street: Part One
Season 30, Episode 10 TV-PG
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Part One: FRONTLINE producer Michael Kirk (“Inside the Meltdown,” “The Warning”) investigates how two U.S. administrations have confronted the crisis — while dealing with sharp internal divisions and a relationship with Wall Street marked by mistrust and dependence, mutual interests and competing goals. The investigation charts the largest government bailout in U.S. history, a series of decisions that rewrote the rules of government and fueled a debate that would alter the country’s political landscape. Focusing on the Obama administration, FRONTLINE tells the story of a newly elected president with a mandate for change grappling with the multi-headed menace of economic instability, and with fundamental choices about winners and losers and the direction of his presidency.
Money, Power, and Wall Street: Part Two
Season 30, Episode 11 TV-PG
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Part Two: This episode opens with Barack Obama taking office in the midst of the worst economic crisis in 80 years. To the surprise of many, he adopts a strategy to help the very Wall Street firms that plunged the American economy into chaos. FRONTLINE goes inside the White House to meet the key figures locked in a fierce debate over the administration’s game plan and follows those who said they had no choice but to rescue Wall Street. Did they choose the right course? In the final hour, FRONTLINE probes into a Wall Street culture that remains focused on making risky trades. Bankers left an ugly trail of deals extending from small American cities to European capitals. For more than three years, regulators have tried to fix an industry steeped in conflicts of interest, excessive risk taking and incentives to cheat. New rules and regulations are being written, but can they fend off the next crisis?
Cell Tower Deaths
Season 30, Episode 12 TV-PG
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Learn about the hidden cost of better and faster cell phone service, and about unreliable medical evidence in several child death cases.
Al Qaeda in Yemen
Season 30, Episode 13 TV-PG
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Since the death of Osama bin Laden, Yemen has become the hottest front in the war against Al Qaeda. Now, with headlines about a terrorist plot to bomb a U.S.-bound airliner, award-winning reporter and FRONTLINE correspondent Ghaith Abdul-Ahad travels into the heart of Yemen's radical heartland. His first hand report shows how members of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) have taken advantage of turmoil in the country to impose their rule on areas of south Yemen. As the US expands its drone war to prevent terrorists from establishing a new safe haven, FRONTLINE shows how AQAP is taking control of towns and cities in an attempt to establish its own state. Also in this hour, the story of Al Qaeda operative Fahd al Quso -- killed in a U.S. drone strike in Yemen early this month - as told by former FBI agent Ali Soufan who first interrogated him before 9/11.
Dollars and Dentists
Season 30, Episode 14 TV-PG
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Dental care can be a matter of life and death. Yet millions of Americans can't afford a visit to the dentist. An investigation by FRONTLINE and the Center for Public Integrity reveals the shocking consequences of a broken safety net. Poor children, entitled by law to dental care, often cannot find a dentist willing to see them. Others kids receive excessive care billed to Medicaid, or major surgery for preventable tooth infections. For adults with dental disease, the situation can be as dire - and bankrupting. While millions of Americans use emergency rooms for dental care, at a cost of more than half a billion dollars, corporate dental chains are filling the gaps in care, in some cases allegedly overcharging patients or loading them with high priced credit card debt. Correspondent Miles O'Brien investigates the flaws in our dental system and nascent proposals to fix them.
Endgame: AIDS in Black America
Season 30, Episode 15 TV-PG
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Thirty years after the discovery of the AIDS virus among gay white men, nearly half of the one million people in the United States infected with HIV are black men, women and children. This groundbreaking FRONTLINE exploration of one of the country’s most urgent, preventable health crises traces the history of the epidemic through the experiences of extraordinary individuals who tell their stories: Nel, a 63-year old grandmother who married a deacon in her church and later found an HIV diagnosis tucked into his Bible; Tom and Keith, who call themselves “Bornies,” survivors who were born with the virus in the early 1990s; and Jovanté, a high school football player who didn’t realize what HIV meant until it was too late. From Magic Johnson to civil rights pioneer Julian Bond, from pastors to health workers, people on the front lines tell moving stories of the battle to contain the spread of the virus, and the opportunity to turn the tide of the epidemic. The director/producer/writer is Renata Simone, producer of the 2006 award-winning FRONTLINE series “The Age of AIDS.”
Fast Times at West Philly High
Season 30, Episode 16 TV-PG
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Students and teachers from West Philadelphia High School, a public high school serving one of the most disadvantaged neighborhoods in Philadelphia, defy expectations as they design and build two super-hybrid cars for international competition and compete for the chance to be part of a technological revolution. In summer 2010, the high school's EVX Team raced against mega-sized auto manufacturers, multimillion-dollar start-ups, and university teams from around the world in the Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE competition. The challenge: build an affordable, 100 miles-per-gallon car. The prize: $10 million dollars. In Fast Times at West Philly High, FRONTLINE explores the viability of these cars, the potential that exists within our young people, and the prospects of effective innovation in public education. Also in this hour, a growing body of evidence suggests that the make-or-break moment for high school dropouts may actually be in middle school. And yet middle schools, with their vulnerable population, have long been overlooked. Now a group of dedicated educators are thrusting middle school onto center stage. They want to use data to find the answer to the middle school malaise. What's more, they insist this data already exists, has enormous power to help repair a broken school system and to predict and prevent dropouts before they happen.
Alaska Gold
Season 30, Episode 17 TV-PG
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The Bristol Bay region of southwest Alaska is home to the last great wild Sockeye salmon fishery in the world. It's also home to enormous mineral deposits-copper, gold, molybdenum-estimated to be worth over $300 billion. Now, two foreign mining companies are proposing to extract this mineral wealth by digging one of North America's largest open-pit mines, the "Pebble Mine," at the headwaters of Bristol Bay. FRONTLINE travels to Alaska to probe the fault lines of a growing battle between those who depend on this extraordinary fishery for a living, the mining companies who are pushing for Pebble, and the political framework that will ultimately decide the outcome.
The Battle for Syria
Season 30, Episode 18 TV-PG
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As fighting rages in the streets of Syria's largest city, FRONTLINE producer Jamie Doran and correspondent Ghaith Abdul-Ahad journey to the heart of the insurgency, inside the rebel groups that are waging a full-scale assault on the forces of President Bashar al-Assad. Within “liberated zones” near the city of Aleppo, the rebels not only fight the Syrian Army, but struggle against each other in a bitter rivalry between secular and Islamist fighters. "The Battle for Syria" is an unprecedented portrait of Syria's rebel leaders, the toll of the war on civilians, and the outlines of a potential struggle for power in post-Assad Syria. Also this hour: a look inside the House of Assad.
Dropout Nation
Season 30, Episode 19 TV-PG
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What does it take to save a student? Every year, hundreds of thousands of teenagers in the United States quit high school without diplomas — an epidemic so out of control that nobody knows the exact number. What is clear is that massive dropout rates cripple individual career prospects and cloud the country’s future. At Houston’s Sharpstown High, once a notorious “dropout factory,” a high-stakes experiment is underway to rescue students from the edge. FRONTLINE spent a semester immersed in Sharpstown High to produce an unforgettable portrait of four students in crisis and the teachers, counselors and principal waging a daily, personal struggle to get them to graduation. A troubling and inspiring journey through the maze of an inner-city high school, “Dropout Nation” investigates the causes, challenges, and potential solutions of a national emergency.
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