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This summer, thousands of former Marines all across the country learned something alarming. The base where they had been stationed, Camp Lejeune in Jacksonville, N.C., was the site of one of the worst water contaminations in U.S. history.
A new documentary called “Semper Fi” follows one man’s journey from devoted Marine to activist searching for answers about what happened at Camp Lejeune, who knew and when.

Every year some 10,000 children end up in emergency rooms because of serious choking incidents, many of them involving hot dogs. And that’s only the number of cases reported. And while there is oversight of toys that pose a choking risk, when it comes to something that is actually supposed to go in a kid’s mouth, parents are pretty much on their own. The American Academy of Pediatrics has issued a policy statement asking the government to do more, but as it turns out, it took an inventor — a businessman — to come up with an ingenious solution.

In a country where bigger is almost always better, cities like Youngstown, Ohio, are trying to come back to life by shrinking themselves. This Blueprint America story reports on Youngstown’s plan to restore its former greatness, but on a smaller scale.

I was the main editor on this piece for Blueprint America, PBS.

The title comes from a conversation I had with Eymund Diegel, who took me out on the canal by canoe. Eymund is an Urban Planner with an encyclopedic knowledge of the Gowanus Canal. He talked about the natural streams that have been flowing into the canal for centuries and that will still be around long after we’re gone. The piece is best appreciated with headphones.

Over the span of more than 10 years, Hughes has traveled the globe documenting people in one outfit in which they feel safe and comfortable and one in which they feel sexy. The photographs are accompanied by audio interviews in which predominately women, and some men, answer questions about themselves and what makes them feel safe, sexy, vulnerable and powerful. Hughes has taken the project to Canada, Sweden, Brazil, South Africa and Swaziland.

As per usual at Need to Know, I edited the video.

As we watched the remarkable scenes of revolution in Egypt last week, one member of the Need to Know staff was immersed nearly 24/7 — and for good reason. Producer Mona Iskander is Egyptian-American, with some of her family still living in Cairo. She stayed in touch with them constantly and we at Need to Know were able to see the revolution unfold through her eyes.

I was the editor on this piece.