there’s nothing quite like the rush of being deep into the archive and finding an episode I haven’t heard yet
This American Life
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"It was like they fell overboard during the pandemic and swam straight to the bottom, thinking it was the surface."
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Watch the video of Jahmal's grandmother, Lela Mae Williams, and her children getting on the bus that would take them north in 1962. This archival footage is from 's collection.
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"It's kind of like what's happening now with Republican governors loading migrants onto buses and planes and sending them to Democratic states. I thought, it's just like the Reverse Freedom Rides all over again." —
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NYC: & invite you to on Oct. 23 for "We Weren’t Taught This"—an evening of jokes, takes, and good conversation. Featuring , Jordan Jensen, and . Tickets: bit.ly/3S6NUDh
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In 1962, Southern segregationists came up with a retaliation against the Freedom Rides: using the same weapon as civil rights activists—the Greyhound bus—they lured Black families north with the false promise of housing and jobs.
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This week: People taking it upon themselves to figure out the truth of what exactly went down in their own family, even if it was kind of ugly.
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Wonderful to hear audio from 's collection included in this week's , and to see footage from our collection accompanying the episode on their site. Nothing better than getting history out of the archive and into the world!
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Jahmal Williams stumbles on a clue about his grandmother’s history that answers a question he’s always had. bit.ly/3TrYXYR
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Jahmal Williams stumbles on a clue about his grandmother’s history that answers a question he’s always had. bit.ly/3TrYXYR
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Rachel's father and brother died of Covid, weeks apart. She’d had no idea her father was sick, no idea her brother was dying. They were unvaccinated, but the story of what happened started long before that.
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On the radio this weekend: Two people go on excavations of their families’ pasts. Including the first episode of “We Were Three” from , hosted by our own Nancy Updike. bit.ly/3CxTCIJ
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Don't miss this new three-part series from Nancy Updike, one of the founding producers of our show, who has made some of our best stories.
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NPR's looks at the Republican divide in AZ, illustrated in part by ' attempts to maintain establishment control in her neighborhood.
"How in the world did everything turn on it's head"
This really is a must-listen.
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There's a surge of new "Stop the Steal" recruits becoming precinct committeemen for the Republican Party. If they get their way, it's going to shift the way we do elections pretty fundamentally for years to come.
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“Like he was punching himself in the face” — One of the middle school boys who kept a “pedo database” on a teacher told about taking notes each time the teacher was creepy with the girls. Listen here on
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A group of 6th grade boys are bothered by their teacher’s behavior. They complain, but no one listens. So they decide to take things into their own hands.
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There's a whole movement to fill the lower ranks of the Republican Party—the precinct committee jobs—with people who think the last election was stolen.
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What happens when election deniers take over the Republican Party at the ground level and become poll watchers? I teamed up with to tell the story of MAGAzona for
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On the radio this weekend: People taking it upon themselves to keep an eye on those in charge. bit.ly/3fPzLwQ
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So at 6:20am I am driving to my gym class, listening to where I learn that: 1.) Female black widows actually don't kill their mates any more than other spiders, it was just observed by some male scientists and basically THE PATRIARCHY. /1
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This wonderful new episode of features our own Nancy Updike, her husband Dan, and their search for a photo taken by a stranger 19 years ago.
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If a black widow spider is so deadly, why, in the last several decades, is there no record of *anyone* dying from a bite? looks at the data to set the record straight.
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I documented Ilya's journey home for radio.
It's my first piece for , part of: thisamericanlife.org/780/setting-th
I hope it captures the nuance, the complexity, the intense difficulty...of what it's like to make sense of home when home is in the middle of war and occupation.
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. desperately wants to set the record straight for everybody about whether aliens regularly visit earth—they don’t, he says. He looks for help proving this from the U.S. Congress.
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Here's a little story about my first piece for
It's about 12-year old Ilya, who returned home to Mariupol, this past fall.
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. intended to have an anonymous, romantic rendezvous, but instead wound up having to decide whether or not to clear up a big misunderstanding.
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A few months ago I told a story on that was so wild and embarrassing it caught the attention of
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I am! 🕷🕷🕷
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Hey everybody!! @KelsPadge is on @ThisAmerLife today talking about spiders!!!! 







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12-year-old Ilya's family escaped Ukraine to safety in Poland. And then they decided to return to their hometown of Mariupol, a city badly damaged and now under Russian control. Ilya explains what happens when they got there.
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. is on a mission to disabuse the world of its incorrect assumptions about an allegedly murderous creature: the black widow spider.
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On the radio this weekend: Getting to the facts can be difficult, but it’s always the right thing to do. Except when it isn’t. bit.ly/3SNfoOW
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. tells the story of how safecracker Dave McOmie was asked to break into a very complex vault, left behind by Prince after he died.
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Amy had ferried her mother to the hospital dozens of times before. But then, on a trip that turned out to be the last one, the GPS chose a different route—one full of memories. bit.ly/30wyHGz
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This week’s This American Life is a repeat of the episode with my story about Charon crossing the Styx with a chatty passenger on board - beautifully read by . So lovely to hear it again!
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On the radio this weekend: Getting from Point A to Point B—with expert assistance. bit.ly/30wyHGz
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What’s it like to be on the boat with Charon, the immortal ferryman, heading into the underworld? Writer imagines one such trip.
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"People are handed from smuggler to smuggler, like links in a chain, until they get to the border. And when they get there, the last guides who take them on the last mile of the journey are teenage boys, doing teenage boy things."
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Because the U.S. doesn’t usually prosecute anyone under 18 for smuggling people across the border from Mexico, tons of teenagers do it, for money. spent months talking to some of them.
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