"Mahatma Gandi said the way you measure a society is how they treat the weakest in the society."Maad Abu-Ghazalah says this is why he started rescuing abused and abandoned dogs and donkeys in the West Bank. As a Palestinian-American with family still there, he explores his culture and his hopes for peace.

Andy Wood: Bullfrog tadpoles have an alkaloid in their skin. It’s a chemical compound that tastes a little bit like rotten lemon and Ajax. It’s a horrible taste, so very few things eat them.RLH: Have you tried this? It’s a very, um, specific description.AW: I would never admit that.In the wild coastal plain of southeastern NC, Andy Wood and I explore the wildness of suburban stormwater management ponds. What we find is, no surprise, quite a surprise.

The most vulnerable populations around the region struggled during 2023 – including humans, animals, and even native plants. What does the state of these groups say about us?

Enviva company officials assured critics that wood pellets are mostly made of waste: treetops, limbs, even sawdust. Not true, according to reporting from environmental journalist and WFU Professor Justin Catanoso, who also says the science shows wood pellet burning contributes more to the climate crisis than burning coal.

Cooking food, working as nurses, working in maintenance and repair units, dressing as men: for millennia, women have worked near and actually on the battlefield. But they still make up less than a quarter of the active U.S. military force, and they still face career barriers.Despite fear of retaliation in the face of misogyny, three local female veterans, Deborah Dicks Maxwell, Marcia Morgan, and Veronica Carter, say they're proud of the times they spoke up for their rights and dignity.

"Everybody that goes to combat, it touches them in a certain way. It's hard to talk about some of those things."Marine Corps veteran Steven Shortt says so many like him want to connect with civilians, especially given the growing divide between the military and civilian communities. But when one of your core values is serving a mission larger than yourself, it gets weird.

What makes history come alive? When you can see repercussions, for good or for ill, in the present day. It’s why North Carolina state historian LeRae Umfleet, the author of the state’s official report on Wilmington’s 1898 massacre and coup d'état, keeps talking about it.

The history of standup comedy is so difficult to separate according to culture, that it becomes surprisingly transcendent of race, ethnicity, and cultural background. But does that equate to being a model of diversity, equity, and inclusion? That’s a work in progress and one of the questions we explore.

Andy Wood: Bullfrog tadpoles have an alkaloid in their skin. It’s a chemical compound that tastes a little bit like rotten lemon and Ajax. It’s a horrible taste, so very few things eat them.RLH: Have you tried this? It’s a very, um, specific description.AW: I would never admit that.In the wild coastal plain of southeastern NC, Andy Wood and I explore the wildness of suburban stormwater management ponds. What we find is, no surprise, quite a surprise.

Iliana Regan is owner and chef of The Milkweed Inn – a rustic, woodsy, and hard-to-reach getaway in the Hiawatha National Forest on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. She’s also a Michelin starred chef and the author of two books. On this episode, how she thinks about gender – especially her own, how she deals with fear and why people are scary, and what she found on a foraging trip through the saltwater marshes of southeastern North Carolina.