I grew up hearing about Colombian drug cartels dumping huge amounts of cocaine into the United States to feed America's insatiable craving for the fine white powder that made entertainers and socialites feel amazingly cool. Our government went to war against drugs with billions of dollars and helicopters, social programs...

I recently worked on a documentary on contraband in prison, pithily titled "Prison Contraband." It was shot in two California state prisons, Avenal and Solano, and premieres in the "Vanguard" documentary series on Current TV tonight, Wednesday, November 18. It's about a serious issue--the ongoing struggle to...

From music to movies to newspapers, the media industries are struggling to figure out how to use the Internet without losing their shirts. With some combination of envy and disgust, they've watched from the sidelines as the pornography industry seized every opportunity to get before the wider audience all of...

As the Obama administration weighs its options in Afghanistan, the big question they are most certainly grappling with is: what does it take to defeat an insurgency? And as advisers pour through the history of successful counterinsurgency campaigns, they might be tempted to take a page from a very recent...

Over the years, I've worked on a number of environmental stories that have taken me from one part of the globe to another, from Madagascar to China and all the way to Greenland. For me, this entire journey has been a bit accidental, because I'd never really...

FREEDOM 



Congrats. You're free. Who cares, right? Sure, I'm free, you're free, we're all free. Presidents and puritans have paraded under the banner of freedom for generations. Braveheart coined the battle cry. I think we take it for granted in light of what you'll see in "Vanguard's" 
"

On the same day that Michael Jackson died of a prescription drug overdose, so did 11 other people just in Florida alone. That's the average for the Sunshine State, anyway. Eleven people a day. If you're counting, that's roughly 6,000 overdoses - just in one state - in the time...

Last year my fellow "Vanguard" journalist and friend, Mariana Van Zeller, returned from the Iran/Iraq border where she had spent two weeks living side-by-side with Kurdish guerillas. Mariana was investigating a story about the U.S. funding a group known as PJAK, the Party for a Free Life in...

Ruthless Mexican drug lords are using increasingly violent tactics against government crackdowns on the deadly drug trade. As the situation escalates with an increasing number of kidnappings and murders, the U.S. wants to ensure the violence stops at the border.

"Vanguard" Journalist Laura Ling investigates the "Narco...

Once the ultimate globalization success story, the island of Saipan now faces one of the fastest economic collapses in history. After suffering a harsh history of military struggles, as well as a temporary economic boom after becoming a U.S. commonwealth, the island now stands devastated.

Saipan's economy exploded as U.S....

As drug dealers in Oakland turn to pimping for greater profits and lower legal risk, they fill their pockets by exploiting legions of young women from 11 to 17 years of age. Pimps are marketing girls on the Internet, listing hundreds who can be found behind Web links advertising "**Hot,...

If there's one place on Earth where climate change is being celebrated, it just might be Greenland.

The giant island, which is actually a semi-autonomous county of Denmark, just moved a giant step closer to full independence, thanks in part to global warming. Over 76 percent of Greenlanders voted...

This summer, I took a road trip across the country to see what's really on the minds of young Americans at this critical moment in American history. I've never been across the U.S. by land so I was excited to see this big and open country of ours.

High gas...

There's been a lot of talk about whether the U.S. and Iran are going to war. The real question is whether the U.S. and Iran are already at war......

Adam Yamaguchi is a correspondent and producer for the award-winning Vanguard unit of Current journalists. Vanguard's special presentation "World Without Water" airs Wednesday, September 10th at 7 p.m. PST/10 p.m. EST. The show will also be available on Current.com.

If you've been paying any attention to gas prices this...

Ethanol. It's meant to fuel our cars, but is it also fueling a global food crisis?

With gas prices at record highs, alternative fuels may be the key to decreasing our dependence on foreign oil and lowering the price at the pump. However, in the case of...