Since 1961, the Peace Corps, envisioned and created by President John F. Kennedy, has sent volunteers around the globe to help developing countries. The obvious aim is to meet the goals identified by the host country – not the Americans. But just as important are the relationships that develop from this work, promoting world peace and friendship.

"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.

He won a spot on Blake Shelton's last team in 2023, after caving to family pressure to audition for the NBC show. And that's when the way Carlos Rising thought about his musical talent began to shift.

Breaking The News was supposed to be a documentary about a new nonpartisan, nonprofit newsroom called The 19th*, started by two women who wanted to cover news at the intersection of gender, politics, and policy. But when The 19th* launched in early 2020, so did an international pandemic. The way the filmmakers had to film changed. And the story they thought they were telling also changed.

UNCW restoration ecologist Amy Long is rehabilitating local tidal marshes, grasslands, and savannahs. Strategic restoration can bring back biodiversity that was nearly lost, as evidenced by the New Hanover County Landfill property. Two dramatic examples: diverse butterfly populations and regular sightings of bald eagles.

Research clearly shows that spending time in nature is critical for mental, physical, even cognitive health. Can our mental health crises make a stronger case for conservation?

A Traveler’s Guide to the End of the World: Tales of Fire, Wind, and Water, is the newest book from nature writer and New York Times bestselling author David Gessner. His daughter, Hadley, is an undergraduate at New York University. They join us to explore what climate science tells us about the prospect of a hotter, drier, more storm-prone, less livable planet by 2063, the year she turns 60.

Evolutionary Ecologist Stacy Endriss of UNCW’s Environmental Sciences Department is exploring how invasive plants are affecting North Carolina wetlands. She’s also looking at creative approaches – including biocontrol – for dealing with the impacts.

“A fundamental question that each of us must answer is: Who are the victims of racism? Upon careful investigation, it seems quite clear that the answer is ‘everyone’.” Dr. Catherine Meeks, Exec. Director, Absalom Jones Center for Racial Healing

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.

"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.

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.

Alice Brooks says when she learned that her son, Darien, had profound autism spectrum disorder, she cried on the front porch all night. Today, she says Darien and his diagnosis are the greatest blessings of her life.

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.

Black Barbie, the documentary film by Lagueria Davis, explores the way the doll shapes culture, and ultimately the way people think about themselves. It’s a close look at representation, starting with the filmmaker's aunt, Beulah Mae Mitchell, who was on the original Barbie manufacturing line with Mattel and played a key role in bringing Black Barbie to life.

"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.

Blues musician Robert Lighthouse may have grown up in Sweden, but as soon as he turned 18 he came to the United States to live with a native American family on a Hopi reservation and learn about his beloved Mississippi Delta Blues. He had no idea that decades later, he'd travel to a war zone to make music for people living with daily terror. He also had no idea how profoundly that trip would affect him.

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.

Both Cliff Cash and Nancy Witter are professional comedians, have played to sold-out houses across these United States, and call the Cape Fear region home. On this episode they explore the craft of comedy and how it's evolved for them.

In each episode of In The Wild Coastal Plain, we meet a plant or an animal endemic to the southeastern North Carolina biodiversity hotspot – so we can better understand our coastal plain ecosystem and who lives here with us.Today, we’re exploring Holly Shelter, a nature preserve and game land in Pender County that boasts tens of thousands of acres -- one of the last great pieces of connected natural area in southeastern North Carolina. That’s because humans are rapidly building all around it.

Environmental justice can be complicated. The way studies are set up, the way the researchers communicate with the subjects of the study, and what the scientists do with the results – all those protocols are part of what Dr. Britt Moore calls “culturally-responsive science”.

Environmental justice can be complicated. The way studies are set up, the way the researchers communicate with the subjects of the study, and what the scientists do with the results – all those protocols are part of what Dr. Britt Moore calls “culturally-responsive science”.

“A fundamental question that each of us must answer is: Who are the victims of racism? Upon careful investigation, it seems quite clear that the answer is ‘everyone’.” Dr. Catherine Meeks, Exec. Director, Absalom Jones Center for Racial Healing

Black Barbie, the documentary film by Lagueria Davis, explores the way the doll shapes culture, and ultimately the way people think about themselves. It’s a close look at representation, starting with the filmmaker's aunt, Beulah Mae Mitchell, who was on the original Barbie manufacturing line with Mattel and played a key role in bringing Black Barbie to life.

Kevin Maurer, an award-winning journalist and New York Times bestselling author has written extensively about and inside war zones. When he heard of the mysterious disappearance of retired Marine and Wilmington resident Grady Kurpasi during a Russian ambush in Ukraine, he started investigating. That led to an article about the extraordinary life and death of Grady Kurpasi in Rolling Stone Magazine. Former Marine and close friend Don Turner also joins us to shed light on Grady's disappearance and the efforts to bring him home.

Down Here We Come Up, which took more than fifteen years to write, started as an exploration of the jarring class differences between the northern and southern United States. But the novel Sara Johnson Allen actually completed, set just outside of Wilmington, NC, raises even deeper questions about what defines family and a home place, and whether ancestral ties are enough.

As natural areas disappear, we’re taking a closer look at what we’re losing, species by species, in a new series called In The Wild Coastal Plain. In this second episode, we explore the intertwined fates of the red-cockaded woodpecker and longleaf pine.

As natural areas disappear, we’re taking a closer look at what we’re losing, species by species, in a new CoastLine series called In The Wild Coastal Plain. On this edition of CoastLine, we explore why the intertwined fates of the red-cockaded woodpecker and longleaf pine are important harbingers of the area's fate.

Alice Brooks says when she learned that her son, Darien, had profound autism spectrum disorder, she cried on the front porch all night. Today, she says Darien and his diagnosis are the greatest blessings of her life.

Summer is a busy time in southeastern North Carolina for wildlife rehabilitators. It is against the law to take a wild animal into captivity unless you have a license from the state. But well-meaning people do this, often without understanding how they're probably doing more harm than good.

Andy Wood: "Beavers are an ally for maintaining water quality, air quality, biodiversity, and flood protection. One beaver pond can retain millions of gallons of stormwater, slowly releasing it into the stream so that downstream homes aren't suddenly flooded with a rush of water."There's so much to learn about this animal that many developers consider a pest.

As natural areas disappear in southeastern North Carolina, we’re taking a closer look at what we’re losing, species by species, in a new series called In The Wild Coastal Plain. Andy Wood is our guide, and in this edition of CoastLine, we explore how it came to be and why the American Beaver is a keystone species (not a pest).

When most Americans see a large alligator, they see a menace. When filmmaker Montana Cypress sees one, he respects the potential danger. But he grew up seeing his fellow Miccosukee Tribe members work with alligators in front of audiences in the Florida Everglades. Tourists call it wrestling, but Montana sees a profound connection between human and animal.

When birds started dying from known and mysterious diseases, biologists told us backyard bird feeders pose risks to birds that include disease, collision, and predation. Jill Peleuses of Wild Bird & Garden and Cape Fear Bird Observatory explains how to mitigate those risks and actually help our local and visiting birds.

What does it mean to get sucked into the school-to-prison pipeline? Jamir Jumoke describes traumatic early years and what it took to break the cycle.

NPR Special Correspondent Susan Stamberg visited Wilmington, NC in late May 2023. Two interviews, one in front of several hundred people, one in WHQR's CoastLine studio, reveal the origins of the NPR sound, a fiercely rigorous journalist, and a voraciously curious woman who injects humor into almost anything.

One photojournalist from North Carolina influenced the civil rights struggle in the United States, enjoyed a friendship with President Richard Nixon, was a member of the first African American press delegation on an official U.S. diplomatic trip overseas, and descended from one of the victims of the Wilmington 1898 coup d’etat. Alexander Rivera, Jr. also lit a fire in the imagination of UNCW History Professor Glen Harris, who wrote his biography: Social Justice and Liberation Struggles: The photojournalistic and public relations career of Alexander McAllister Rivera Junior

So many who brave dangerous treks across unfriendly terrain and tumultuous oceans to escape war, violence, and poverty find themselves stuck in camps that do not satisfy the most basic human needs: sanitation, enough food, dry clothes. Author Dana Sachs explains how a grassroots volunteer effort has sprung up where governments and NGOs have failed.

Blues musician Robert Lighthouse may have grown up in Sweden, but as soon as he turned 18 he came to the United States to live with a native American family on a Hopi reservation and learn about his beloved Mississippi Delta Blues. He had no idea that decades later, he'd travel to a war zone to make music for people living with daily terror. He also had no idea how profoundly that trip would affect him.

He calls them the Seven Natural Wonders of southeastern North Carolina. Can you guess what they are? We live in a biodiversity hotspot – for now, anyway — and environmental scientist Roger Shew is hoping that the more people learn about these natural wonders, the more they’ll care about saving them.

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.

Our Father, the Devil is Ellie Foumbi's first feature film, and she has a distribution deal. The Tribeca Film Festival calls the lead performances "Oscar-worthy" — in a story that explores trauma, what forgiveness means, and whether anything is unforgiveable.

In 1998, Jerry Cribbs took a risk and started a choral group that performs two free, high-quality concerts a year. 25 years later, a new artistic director takes the helm, Dr. Aaron Peisner, as Cape Fear Chorale – Jerry’s original vision – is going strong.

Legions of people have tried to bridge gaps – gaps between political opposites, between the genders, between generations, and among races. Some have varying levels of success, for a time. But what happens when the structured conversations go away? Do people continue their connections? One local effort seems to be fostering real friendships among people of different backgrounds and races.

Gay or trans kids are at infinitely higher risk of harm if rejected by the adults around them. In ultra-conservative churches that condemn LGBTQ+ identities, parents often have to decide between their child and their church community. But a group of women that call themselves the Mama Bears is seeking to change that. Filmmaker Daresha Kyi joined us to talk about the power of Mama Bear love.

Finding sand for beach renourishment is a never-ending quest for beach towns. Could Frying Pan Shoals be the answer? BOEM is paying for a study of the shoals as the National Marine Fisheries Service worries dredging could harm this essential fish habitat.

Why is Burgaw likely to get a hot new restaurant in the near future? How do you learn to be a tree farmer in a few short years? And how much money is enough? These are some of the questions we explore with social entrepreneur Richard Johnson, who made his fortune in the dot-com era, retired to Wilmington, NC, and has his revitalization sights set on a tiny town in Pender County, population about 3000.

Black History Month brings a raised awareness of people left out of America’s mainstream historical narrative. It can generate much-needed discussion of current areas of inequality among the races. But so often the burden for leading these explorations lands on the shoulders of our Black teachers, historians, and leaders. Not on this episode. Listen to two white people, Professor Kim Cook and Jim Downey, undertake the work with humility and some inevitable awkwardness.

The mission of the Carlisle Industrial School: “Kill the Indian” and “Save the Man.” We're learning more about so-called boarding schools from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, engineered by white men to educate Native American children. While the stories are a new component of American history for white people, the trauma they perpetrated spans generations. Geoff O'Gara made a film about one of the affected tribes.

Land degradation is a serious problem in Africa as fertile grasslands get drier and thorny vegetation with deeper roots takes over. Wildlife and domesticated livestock alike have fewer places to graze – which, of course affects humans. But desertification is not the only form of land degradation. Deforestation and destroying wetlands are other forms. And that’s happening right here in the Cape Fear region.

Tom Ericson closed his well-loved garden supply store, The Transplanted Garden, in 2022 for personal reasons. But he's sharing his expertise on what to plant in the (slightly!) colder winter months, what your winter garden to-do list should look like, and why pruning hydrangeas can remove the coming blooms.

The Cape Fear region sees its share of human trafficking thanks, in part, to the tourism economy. And as reports of cases rise in NC, local nonprofit leaders hope to educate the public about the signs.

"Healing is hard. But you're not alone anymore. Keep going." It's a note that Ana Shellem wrote to herself about healing from serious childhood trauma that included sexual abuse, eating disorders, and psychological abuse and neglect. She's now a sought-after commercial fisherman supplying oysters, clams, mussels, stone crabs and the occasional whelk to superstar chefs in NC. She's also a Marine Fisheries Commissioner, appointed by Governor Roy Cooper.

Emily Armstrong and Pat Ivers were in their 20s but had the audacity to lug around heavy video cameras and lighting equipment. Through their relentless embrace of their passion for punk, these two women wound up creating a comprehensive video catalog of important punk icons. They accomplished all this in a male-dominated, aggressive, and sometimes violent milieu.

Why are so many holiday traditions, religious and secular, celebrated during the darkest time of the year? Religious Scholar Dr. Herbert Berg explains. And two local chefs — Dean Neff of Seabird and Keith Rhodes of Catch offer simple holiday menu ideas for home cooks.

Most of us know the story – or at least the basics – of the only successful coup d'état in American history. The 1898 Wilmington, NC massacre perpetrated by white supremacists which killed citizens, forced elected officials from office, and drove successful Black professionals out of the city. But documentary filmmaker Christopher Everett, who produced Wilmington On Fire in 2015, is working on Wilmington On Fire Part II. He's telling a new story of Black power, prosperity, and self-reliance fueling a resurgence of a thriving African American population in the port city.

Sea levels are rising. Storms are intensifying. And the world’s sandy beaches and dunes are more important than ever for the protection of coastal environments. And yet sand mining is on the increase — much of it for beach nourishment. But is beach nourishment doing what we want it do? And is the public money used for beach protection actually preserving a public resource for the public good?

There's a food security plan in development through NC State's Cooperative Extension in New Hanover County. There's a grass-roots volunteer project that collects food from neighbors for monthly porch drops. Mike Claxton offers observations from one of the larger food pantries in Brunswick County. Cierra Washington of the Northside Food Cooperative talks about a deeper approach to feeding people. These efforts are all making a real difference in peoples' lives in the Cape Fear region. And, yes, hunger persists in one of the wealthiest parts of North Carolina.

Philip Gerard contended that the unhealed wounds and unresolved issues from the Civil War were a major driver of today’s Great American Divide. His next book idea, Toward a More Perfect Union: Why America Lost the Civil War and How to Win It Now, will remain unwritten. But he offers some of the ideas that would have gone into that book in other places. We take a closer look at his consistency and courage in this remembrance of a rich, well-lived, albeit abbreviated life.

After the NAACP filed at least two lawsuits over discriminatory practices, Ricky Kelly knew the story of Black Bike Week in Atlantic Beach, SC had to be told. But how do you make a documentary film when you've never made a film before and you don't even own a camera? Ricky bought a camera, and he and his wife, Cherie embarked upon what would become a new filmmaking career.

What The River Knows opens on Thalian Hall’s mainstage on November 10th, the 124th anniversary of the 1898 white supremacist massacre. Playwright Alicia Inshiradu has worked on what she calls a "passion project" for more than two decades.

As a 7-year-old, Alfred Schnog watched through hotel room curtains as the Nazis gleefully destroyed Jewish-owned businesses. His parents had encouraged their young boys to watch and told them to never forget what they were seeing. He never did forget. And he told us the story 2018. He passed away the very next year, in 2019, three days after the 81st anniversary of Kristallnacht – that Night of Broken Glass.

When Mallory Cash started her professional life as a lawyer, she never imagined she'd let that career go in just a few short years. When she had her first child, she wanted to document how her daughter made her feel, and photographing the baby was the best way to do that. She also never dreamed her desire to chronicle her child's development would lead to an impressive and growing portfolio of southeastern luminaries — or a journalistic collaboration with Pulitzer Grantee Melba Newsome.

Despite the fact that school administrators across the U.S. say they won’t tolerate hazing, they’ve launched outreach efforts to educate students and parents, and they’ve suspended Greek organizations that violate school policy, the practice of hazing and the resulting long-term injuries and deaths continue.That’s the focus of award-winning filmmaker Byron Hurt’s most recent documentary, called Hazing, and it’s what we explore on this episode of CoastLine.

Sure, you have a non-native invasive species, a beautiful plant, by the way, in a container on your back patio. There's no way it will wind up in a wild space, choking out native plants, depleting the local ecosystem, starving the pollinators. No way. Right? Wrong. Barbara J. Sullivan, who once was a traditional, English garden enthusiast, keeping things clipped, raked, and tucked, took her time accepting some of these ideas. She also implemented them in stages. As she explains, once you understand your private green space as part of an inseparable whole, you will never see it the same way again.

Research confirms that it’s not only trans kids, but also gender-expansive kids, at increased risk of suicidal behavior and other risk factors for suicide. So why has this part of the rainbow become an argument to either prove transgender doesn't exist or that gender-expansive must be trans? It's an closer look of the meaning of gender-expansive with UNCW Professor Julie-Ann Scott Pollock.

Imagine a space for artists in which the "white gaze" is not allowed. Professor John-Paul Zaccarini is creating FutureBlackSpace with just such protections. In this episode, we explore why. We also learn about intersectionality and what it means for him as a man who is reminded of his multiple marginalized identities each time he walks into white spaces.

The breakout moment for Damon Wayans came on the show, In Living Color, which ran for four years in the early 1990s. It was the first Black sketch comedy show on network television. And while he’d already enjoyed a season on Saturday Night Live, In Living Color gave him the chance to showcase not only his comedic performing chops – but also his ability to write sketches and create characters.

First Officer LeRoy Homer fought terrorists on United Airlines Flight 93 after they stormed the cockpit. While the hijackers intended to direct the plane towards Washington, D.C., they could not disable the autopilot function. So they sent the plane plunging into a Pennsylvania field, killing everyone on board. LeRoy Homer's widow, Melodie Homer, has allowed her grief to shape her life's work, which includes improving aviation safety and helping underrepresented young people fulfill their dreams of flying.

Joshua Halsey, Elaine’s great-great-grandfather, was shot 14 times and killed by white supremacists on November 10, 1898, leaving his wife, Sallie, a widow.Elaine Brown, born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, along with her siblings, are putting together the fragmented stories of their family and learning about how the massacre shaped their lives. In her personal and artistic life, she tells her stories as Poet E Spoken.