On August 9, 2014, an unarmed black teenager named Michael Brown was shot dead by a white police officer in the city of Ferguson, Missouri. Brown was the forth unarmed black man to be killed in the US by police in the span of a month, and the killing sparked several days of protests in the community. The street protests and police response brought Ferguson into the national and international spotlight. Things quickly spiralled: Reports of gunshots fired from the crowds, a state of emergency was declared, the national guard was deployed and the US attorney general launched a federal investigation into the killing. So why was Michael Brown shot? And why was the authorities' response to the protests so disproportionate? Fault Lines travelled to Ferguson to witness the demonstrations and the subsequent heavy-handed police reaction - and to find out how Brown's killing sparked something bigger, exposing tensions that have been bubbling beneath the surface for years.

US police forces are increasingly using military-style tactics to carry out even the most routine daily operations. The number of SWAT teams and SWAT-style raids across the county have skyrocketed in the last few decades. SWAT raids occur at an estimated 50,000 raids per year and a majority take place for low-level crimes. It is a trend that is being propped up by billions of federal dollars in Homeland Security grants and access to free military equipment through the Department of Defense for civilian law enforcement agencies. In the past, police SWAT teams were only used in extreme circumstances; today, they are increasingly sent out to perform routine tasks. Nowadays, there are tens of thousands of military-style police raids every year. But only the worst cases make the news. Fault Lines travels to California and Tennessee to look at the effects of the increasing militarisation of US police departments.

Fault Lines retraces Melissa's steps to Mexico, to find out how a woman in her position could acquire Misoprostol without a prescription, and speaks with advocates on both side of the debate over access to abortions in Texas.

A humanitarian crisis is unfolding along the US border with Mexico. Rising gang violence in Mexico and Central America is pushing thousands of migrant children to flee their homes and seek refuge by attempting to cross the US border. Between 2011 and 2013, the number of unaccompanied minors detained at the border rose by 142 percent. Nearly 70,000 unaccompanied minors have arrived since October 2013 and by the end of fiscal year 2014, the number of child migrants detained at the border is expected to double again. "These are innocent children, fleeing desperate times, whether it's poverty, whether it's violence, whether it's the draw of a better life in the United States," Border Patrol agent Kevin Oaks told Fault Lines. What have these children left behind? And will they be able to stay in the US? Fault Lines goes behind the numbers to examine the wave of child migrants from Central America to the US border, the reasons why they are leaving, and the risks they undertake.

The US child labour law is generally considered one of the strongest in the world in preventing minors from working in dangerous industries. But the agricultural sector is a lone exception. On farms, children as young as 12 can legally work with parental approval. And many other children, younger than that, are often found in the fields working illegally. Nobody knows the true number of children at work in the fields, but farmers reported hiring over 200,000 children under 18 in one year alone. Migrant farmworker families are often so poor that they have little choice but to have their children at work harvesting crops. In effect, their children miss school, change school districts, and fall behind in their curriculums. A large majority of migrant children will not graduate from high school or college and will likely fall into the cycle of poverty where they themselves will be working in the fields to support their families. For years, the federal government - both Congress and the US Department of Labor - have considered legislation and new regulations that would raise the legal age for children to work on farms. This was done with migrant children in mind, but the proposed measures have been largely unpopular. Lobbyists for large farming interests and US congressmen have successfully pushed the bill off the national agenda. The American Farm Bureau says the proposed rules are too broad and would put harmful restrictions on American family farmers. But in rural communities across the country, farmworker advocates are fighting back on behalf of migrant families and their children to protect them from labour practices they say are harmful. Robust federal migrant education programmes in US schools have supported children of farm workers trying to help them graduate. Fault Lines travels to the onion fields of Texas and the tobacco fields of Kentucky, to investigate how child labour affects migrant families, and who benefits from their work.

Louisiana is a state simultaneously dependent on the fossil fuel industry and deeply impacted by climate change brought on in part by its activity. Ten years after Hurricane Katrina, land continues to disappear from under some of the US's first climate refugees. Louisiana pledged $50bn to save the rapidly vanishing coastline, but the state is struggling to find the money. A series of lawsuits could change that equation and hold the world's largest oil companies accountable for their role in the environmental crisis. Meanwhile, watchdogs say that regulators have fast-tracked approvals for fracking operations in the Gulf of Mexico. Fault Lines explores Louisiana's ambitious restoration plan, the fate of its coastal communities, and how the offshore fracking boom could impact both.

The richest 1% of US Americans earn nearly a quarter of the country's income and control an astonishing 40% of its wealth. Inequality in the US is more extreme than it's been in almost a century — and the gap between the super rich and the poor and middle class people has widened drastically over the last 30 years.Meanwhile, in Washington, a bitter partisan debate over how to cut deficit spending and reduce the US' 14.3 trillion dollar debt is underway. As low and middle class wages stagnate and unemployment remains above 9%, Republicans and Democrats are tussling over whether to slash funding for the medical and retirement programs that are the backbone of the US's social safety net, and whether to raise taxes — or to cut them further.The budget debate and the economy are the battleground on which the 2012 presidential election race will be fought. And the United States has never seemed so divided — both politically and economically.How did the gap grow so wide, and so quickly? And how are the convictions, campaign contributions and charitable donations of the top 1% impacting the other 99% of Americans? Fault Lines investigates the gap between the rich and the rest.

The mass shootings in Littleton, Newtown, and the Washington, DC Navy Yard have become a rallying cry for gun control in the United States. Yet, on average, every day across the country at least three women are killed by intimate partners, the majority shot to death. Guns and domestic violence are a lethal combination in the US. In many states, domestic abusers can easily evade federal background checks by ordering a gun online, purchasing it at a gun show, or buying it from a private seller. Even when public outrage pushed the gun control debate to centre stage, the US Senate blocked a federal proposal to expand background checks for gun purchases. Fault Lines travels to South Carolina, a state with the highest rate of women killed by men, to explore the circumstances that put women at risk of domestic violence homicide.

Fault Lines examines the Trump Administration's special relationship with the religious right, with implications for the 2018 US midterm elections and beyond. Keywords: religious right, Trump, evangelical.

South Sudan is less than four years old, but the world's newest nation now tops the ranks of failed states worldwide. After decades of civil war with the north of Sudan, it was meant to be a dream come true. But the country has disintegrated into chaos. Thousands of people have been killed and almost two million displaced in a civil conflict that erupted in late 2013. How has a country that was born out of so much promise turned into such a nightmare? Were there warning signs that this could happen? Fault Lines investigates how a select group of US politicians and advocates shepherded the nation into existence, and asks what responsibility they now bear for the political and humanitarian disaster unfolding in South Sudan.

Fault Lines investigates the multi-billion-dollar industry of college football, the players who produce that wealth, and their demands for a more equitable game.

The United States is now the world's largest oil and gas producer. That is in part because of what is happening in North Dakota where advances in fracking have unlocked crude oil in the Bakken shale formation in the western part of the state. North Dakota is now producing more than a million barrels of oil a day. Ten years ago there were fewer than 200 oil-producing wells in the Bakken. Now there are more than 8,000. The rapid pace of development has made North Dakota the state with the lowest unemployment rate in the nation, but the boom has brought with it a serious problem: It has the highest worker fatality rate in the nation. Fault Lines spent six months investigating safety risks in North Dakota's oil fields and uncovered a dark side to the boom - the human cost. Why are so many dying and who should be held responsible?

We live in a world run through with Fault Lines. Al Jazeera's Fault Lines takes you beyond the headlines and holds the powerful to account as we examine the US' role in the world.

Today there are nearly 40,000 foreign contract workers on bases in the US military’s Central Command. Hailing primarily from India and Nepal, these labourers serve American troops in facilities in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere - doing jobs including cooking, housekeeping and driving. The US military subcontracts these manual jobs to private companies, which in turn subcontract hiring to Gulf-based contractors and local recruiters. The promise of high salaries makes these so-called 'third country nationals' believe heading to a war zone is worth the risk. To get the jobs, many dip into their savings and take out loans to pay thousands of dollars in local agents fees. But in Afghanistan, they find wages far lower than anticipated. Locked into an indentured workforce, they nevertheless remain to earn enough funds to repay their loans. So, has the US military come to rely on an indentured workforce? In this investigation, Fault Lines finds that these labourers regularly end up deceived and indebted, victims of local recruiters who charge thousands of dollars for a chance to be placed in one of these jobs, and labour traffickers who profit from military contracts. We retrace the journey these workers often make – from villages in India to labour camps in Dubai – to examine how the US staffs its bases during wartime. And we travel to the Persian Gulf and the US to find out who should be held accountable.

Fault Lines traces Bangladesh's garment supply chain and asks if US retailers know where their clothes are being made.

We live in a world run through with Fault Lines. Al Jazeera's Fault Lines takes you beyond the headlines and holds the powerful to account as we examine the US' role in the world.

We live in a world run through with Fault Lines. Al Jazeera's Fault Lines takes you beyond the headlines and holds the powerful to account as we examine the US' role in the world.

We live in a world run through with Fault Lines. Al Jazeera's Fault Lines takes you beyond the headlines and holds the powerful to account as we examine the US' role in the world.

We live in a world run through with Fault Lines. Al Jazeera's Fault Lines takes you beyond the headlines and holds the powerful to account as we examine the US' role in the world.

Fault Lines travels to Baltimore to investigate the city's fractured relationship with law enforcement and a string of alleged police brutality cases that preceded Freddie Gray's death.

Fault Lines follows the 2013 wildfire season, chasing the flames as they spread throughout the West. As millions of hectares continue to burn each year, we examine what is going wrong with the war on wildfires and look at the true costs of putting them out.

Fault Lines examines the rise of hate in the United States and the toll it is taking on communities across the country. Keywords: white supremacy, alt right, nationalism, Trump.

We live in a world run through with Fault Lines. Al Jazeera's Fault Lines takes you beyond the headlines and holds the powerful to account as we examine the US' role in the world.

We live in a world run through with Fault Lines. Al Jazeera's Fault Lines takes you beyond the headlines and holds the powerful to account as we examine the US' role in the world.

Fault Lines reports on the consequences of a century-long US policy designed to forcibly dispossess Indigenous children of their culture.

Fault Lines travels to Chicago to investigate the role of the police union contract in creating a code of silence.

A report on the aftermath of the Anacortes oil refinery explosion and ongoing efforts to hold the company accountable.

Fault Lines explores the hidden epidemic of suicide among US firefighters and asks why more isn't being done to help.

We live in a world run through with Fault Lines. Al Jazeera's Fault Lines takes you beyond the headlines and holds the powerful to account as we examine the US' role in the world.

We live in a world run through with Fault Lines. Al Jazeera's Fault Lines takes you beyond the headlines and holds the powerful to account as we examine the US' role in the world.

We live in a world run through with Fault Lines. Al Jazeera's Fault Lines takes you beyond the headlines and holds the powerful to account as we examine the US' role in the world.

We live in a world run through with Fault Lines. Al Jazeera's Fault Lines takes you beyond the headlines and holds the powerful to account as we examine the US' role in the world.

Fault Lines investigates the legacy of crude hair science at the FBI and the many lives it continues to affect.

An insight into the battle for Native American land rights as protests continue against the Dakota Access oil pipeline.

We live in a world run through with Fault Lines. Al Jazeera's Fault Lines takes you beyond the headlines and holds the powerful to account as we examine the US' role in the world.

We ask why many former Afghan translators for the US military risk their lives to return to Afghanistan from the US.

We travel to Alaska to examine the cost of climate change, as rising temperatures erode people's lands and lives.

Fault Lines travels across the US to find out how Donald Trump became the Republican Party's presidential nominee.

We live in a world run through with Fault Lines. Al Jazeera's Fault Lines takes you beyond the headlines and holds the powerful to account as we examine the US' role in the world.

A look at Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders on the campaign trail as they battle for the future of the US Democratic Party.