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** THE WEEKLY REVEAL
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Monday, August 4, 2025


** The Bible Says So…or Does It?
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** Joshua Lott/The Washington Post/Getty
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It’s Hi. I’m Al Letson, host of Reveal and More To The Story.

One of my favorite people on TikTok is Dan McClellan. He’s a religious scholar with an armful of degrees and a knack for calling out misinformation about the world’s most influential and argued-over book: the Bible.

And today, there seems to be more misinformation about what the Bible and its authors were trying to tell us, especially from Christian nationalists, who far too often seem to be bending the message of the Bible in a pursuit for power. A few years ago, Dan began pushing back against what he saw as misguided biblical interpretations. And since then, he’s grown quite a following: almost 1 million people on TikTok and thousands more on YouTube who look for his thoughts on topics like the “sin of empathy,” what the Bible says about slavery, or maybe just to see what graphic T-shirt Dan has decided to wear that day. (He, like me, is a self-confessed comic book nerd.)

What I love about Dan and his videos is that he’s not afraid to challenge someone’s long-held biblical beliefs, including mine, as you’ll hear in this week’s conversation on More To The Story ([link removed]) . I hope you check it out.

Find this episode wherever you listen to Reveal, and don’t forget to subscribe:
Apple Podcasts ([link removed]) | Spotify ([link removed]) | iHeartRadio ([link removed]) | Pandora ([link removed])


** They Followed Doctors’ Orders. The State Took Their Babies.
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** Ash Ponders for Reveal
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Listen to the episode ([link removed])
Jade Dass was taking medication to treat her addiction to opioids before she became pregnant. Scientific studies and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say this leads to the best outcomes for both mothers and babies. But after Dass delivered a healthy daughter, the hospital reported her to the Arizona Department of Child Safety, which conducted an investigation and separated her from her newborn.

“I just couldn’t believe it, that people would act like this,” Dass says. “Like how they couldn’t see—it's, like, you have no humanity if you’re gonna take someone’s baby.”

To understand the scale of this issue, reporter Shoshana Walter, data reporter Melissa Lewis, and a team of Reveal researchers and lawyers filed 100 public records requests, putting together the first-ever tally of how often women are reported to child welfare agencies for taking prescription drugs during pregnancy.

This week on Reveal, in an update of an episode that originally aired in 2023, we follow Dass as she grapples with losing custody of her baby—and makes one last desperate attempt to keep her family together.

Walter has turned some of her reporting for Reveal into a book about the addiction treatment industry, Rehab: An American Scandal ([link removed]) , which comes out this month.
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🎧 Other places to listen: Spotify ([link removed]) , iHeartRadio ([link removed]) , Pandora ([link removed]) , or wherever you get your podcasts.
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** In Case You Missed It
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** Brendan Smialowski/Getty
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** 🎧 Trump’s New World (Dis)order ([link removed])
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The Trump administration’s America First approach to foreign policy is perplexing and even destabilizing some longtime US allies.

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** Alex Brandon/AP
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** 🎧 Ibram X. Kendi vs. America’s “Antiracism Backlash” ([link removed])
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He rocketed to national attention during the BLM movement—then endured a storm of criticism. The author and professor debates America’s choice between democracy and dictatorship.

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** Illustration by Michael Foy; Getty
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** 🎧 The Landlord Gutting America’s Hospitals ([link removed])
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A real estate company buys up hospitals and then leases them back to health care systems. Dozens of its hospitals have gone bankrupt.

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** Julio Cortez/AP
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** 🎧 The Real Conspiracy Behind the Texas Floods ([link removed])
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Journalist David Sirota discusses how climate change drives disasters—while politicians deny and deflect.
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This issue of The Weekly Reveal was written by Arianna Coghill and copy edited by Nikki Frick. If you enjoyed this issue, forward it to a friend ([link removed]) . Have some thoughts? Drop us a line (mailto:[email protected]) with feedback or ideas!

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