Top Government Podcasts

Welcome to "Back in Session," a podcast focused on exploring various state-level policies and legislation shaping our nation, one state at a time. Join our hosts, Ryan Stevens and Ryan DeMara from Duane Morris Government Strategies, as they engage a diverse range of guests to bring you behind the scenes of the legislative process.

Whether you are a policy wonk looking to dive into recent legislative developments, or a curious citizen interested in getting to learn more about the issues in your state and beyond, "Back in Session" is the podcast for you. Each episode offers fresh perspectives, shedding light on challenges and opportunities that shape policy landscapes in states around the country.

Subscribe now to stay informed on the always- evolving policy landscape in states around the country.

It’s Madrid, March 2017. A former official in Venezuela's oil ministry, a lawyer, and three financial advisors are meeting to discuss business. They want to move corruptly-obtained cash without anyone noticing. But little do they know, one of them is wearing a hidden microphone, and records the whole conversation, laying bare the mechanics of a plot to launder millions of dollars embezzled from Venezuela’s state oil company.

From OCCRP and the Colombian production company La No Ficción, this investigative series dissects this secret recording and the broader corruption scheme that siphoned off $1.2 billion from Venezuela's state oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA).

Across five episodes, it follows exiled Venezuelan journalist Laura Weffer as she tries to track down Carmelo Urdaneta, the former oil ministry official who plays a key role in the billion-dollar money laundering conspiracy.

The series also traces the human cost of this corruption, including Laura’s own journey into exile and the voices of other Venezuelans who were battling a severe economic crisis at the same time that their oil money was being “cleaned” by professionals abroad.

To learn more about organized crime and corruption, sign up for our newsletter at occrp.org/newsletter

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This podcast was originally produced in Spanish. But in light of recent events in Venezuela, we are sharing it with a wider audience through this English version, a human-reviewed AI translation. This is our first time using this technology, so minor variations and AI-imperfections may occur. The podcast is available in the original Spanish, at the below links:

• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5inyH4WRo1H82KgvmnmUHh
• Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/cuello-blanco-manos-sucias/id1872501127

We would love your feedback on this experiment at occrp.org/podcast

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One July night in 1995, Deputy Sheriff William G. Hardy was shot behind the Crown Sterling Suites hotel in Birmingham, Alabama. At the same time as the murder, at least ten people saw Toforest Johnson four miles away, at a popular nightclub called Tee's Place. But detectives zeroed in on him as a main suspect in Deputy Hardy’s murder anyway, ultimately resulting in Toforest being tried, convicted, and sentenced to death. For over a quarter century, Toforest has been confined to a 5’ by 8’ cell on Alabama’s death row.

In 2019, investigative journalist Beth Shelburne began covering the case, going down a disturbing rabbit hole revealing many unsettling facts that cast grave doubts about Toforest’s guilt. The facts she found tear at the very foundation of the American criminal justice system: No eyewitnesses or physical evidence tied Toforest to the murder; the state tried to convict a different man for the same crime; and perhaps most disturbing of all, Toforest’s conviction relied on an ‘earwitness’ – a woman who claimed to have eavesdropped on an incriminating phone call, a woman whom prosecutors paid for her testimony, in secret. That payment was not disclosed to the jury, Toforest, or his lawyers until after he had been on death row for 17 years.

From the team behind the award-winning hit podcast Bone Valley, Lava for Good’s Earwitness is an 8-episode docuseries that asks the question, “How did an innocent man end up on death row — and why is the state still trying to execute him over the objection of the prosecutor who put him there?” Shelburne’s unprecedented access to key players—the lead detective, lead prosecutor, witnesses, jurors, and the earwitness herself— illuminate a story filled with disturbing twists, frustrating ambiguities, and shocking admissions. The story of Toforest Johnson and the state's enthusiasm for the death penalty in the face of such troubling evidentiary flaws brings to light the failings of a criminal justice system run amok.

Earwitness is available every Tuesday wherever you get your podcasts. To hear episodes 1 week early and ad free, subscribe to Lava for Good+ on Apple Podcasts.

About the American Manufacturing Communities Collaborative (AMCC)

AMCC is a non-profit organization assembled and led by a group of regional and national stakeholders dedicated to strengthening collaboration within and between regional manufacturing communities. AMCC works to achieve sustainable development in America through economic growth, improved environmental performance, and inclusive well-paid job creation to support the revitalization of American manufacturing. 

Born out of an interagency program, the Investing in Manufacturing Communities Partnership (IMCP), AMCC was created as a national organization of regional stakeholders to continue the important work of deepening connections and sharing best practices within community ecosystems and between manufacturing regions. AMCC has championed the bottom-up, community-driven model of building ecosystems of support to help manufacturers thrive, and was recently designated by the U.S. EDA as the nation’s manufacturing Community of Practice. AMCC supports regional consortia organized to strengthen manufacturing in any number of public/private initiatives to include federal agency community designation programs like IMCP, DOD’s DMCSP, the EDA’s BBBRC and their emerging Tech Hub program.

About Manufacturing an American Century’s Host:

Matt Bogoshian leads the American Manufacturing Communities Collaborative (AMCC), a successor organization to the Obama Administration’s IMCP initiative he helped to lead as Senior Policy Counsel at the U.S. EPA. The work of IMCP and AMCC became a model for the Tech Hub program within the CHIPS and Science Act and other recently enacted federal interventions.

His range of law experience includes time as a business litigator and general counsel, policy official at the California EPA, consumer and environmental prosecutor, and U.S. Navy JAG Corps Officer. His past work includes co-founding the Fourth Sector Group, service on educational and affordable housing boards, writing, podcasting, and teaching environmental law enforcement at Georgetown University Law Center and sustainability law at King Hall, University of California, Davis Law School where he also serves on the board of the California Environmental Law and Policy Center. 

He is the co-author with John Dernbach and Irma Russell of the 2022 book published by the American Bar Association, Sustainability Essentials: A Leadership Guide for Lawyers. 

Matt can be reached at matt.bogoshian@amccmail.org.

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