Fresh Air

'Washington Post' reporter Craig Timberg explains how military-grade spyware licensed to governments and police departments has infiltrated the iPhones of journalists, activists and others. "It takes a story like this to help people understand how deeply enmeshed these tiny little computers have gotten into our lives," Timberg says. "I still carry my iPhone everywhere I go .....

After winning an Oscar for co-writing the film 'Moonlight,' McCraney says he received a lot of opportunities, many of which he turned down. "Some of it had to do with waiting for the other shoe to drop," he says. He's now the creator of the TV series 'David Makes Man,' which is in its second season on OWN. The series begins with a Miami boy whose mother struggles with addiction — and has echoes of McCraney's own childhood.

Dr. Wen is an emergency physician, CNN Health Analyst and former Baltimore Health Commissioner. We talk about mask and vaccine mandates, the return to school and work, and the Delta variant. "Unfortunately, we're in a situation now where the vaccinated are having to pay the price for the actions of the unvaccinated," she says. Wen emigrated from China as a child and relied on the public health system while she had severe asthma. She has a new memoir called 'Lifelines...

Abumrad is the creator of the hit public radio series RadioLab. The show started off as a series about science-related mysteries, but now it investigates all kinds of stories. The new RadioLab miniseries, 'The Vanishing of Harry Pace,' is about the man who co-founded a publication with WEB DuBois, co-wrote St. Louis Blues with WC Handy, founded the first Black-owned record company, helped desegregate a Chicago neighborhood — and then kind of disappeared...

Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson talks about directing the new film 'Summer of Soul,' documenting the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival. It features performances by Nina Simone, Stevie Wonder, Mahalia Jackson and more, and reflects on the cultural and political changes of the time. We'll also talk about big changes in Questlove's life.

Jazz critic Kevin Whitehead remembers electric guitarists George Barnes and Mary Osborne, who were born 100 years ago...

Hugh Grant has been nominated for an Emmy for his role in the HBO miniseries 'The Undoing,' in which he played an adulterous doctor suspected of murder. Grant got his start in romcoms, but lately he's been getting darker roles. "It's alarming how many pretty unpleasant narcissists I've played or been offered in the last six or seven years. But It's certainly been a blessed relief after having to be Mr. Nice Guy for so many years," he says...

Journalist Ron Brownstein says Republican-controlled state legislatures are taking a sharp right turn, in a conscious backlash against unified Democratic control of Congress. These states are not only passing voting rights restrictions, they're passing a torrent of other conservative bills that reflect the cultural and racial priorities of Trump's base. Brownstein is a senior editor at 'The Atlantic' and a senior political analyst at CNN...

Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson is coming out of the pandemic a changed man. The co-founder of the Roots and the music director for 'The Tonight Show' did something he never thought he'd do — he bought a farm in upstate New York. "I thought chaos was the only way that I could exist. But now I embrace quiet and I can hear myself think...

Long after Jeffrey Epstein got a lenient sentence for sexual abuse of minors, 'Miami Herald' reporter Julie K. Brown identified 80 women who said they survived his abuse. "There is nothing that was more powerful than the words of the women talking about this themselves," she says. Her book is 'Perversion of Justice.'

Memoirist Akash Kapur was raised in an intentional community in India, then moved to the U.S. at age 16. He's seen the idealism of people trying to remake human society and renounce materialism. He's also seen how idealism and spirituality can turn into zealotry--and how individuals can become victims of their own search for perfection. Kapur writes about the reality of utopian communities in 'Better to Have Gone: Love, Death, and the Quest for Utopia in Auroville...