They’re the most frequently performed major surgeries in the world. So why do so many patients feel severe pain during them?
A woman with muscular dystrophy tries to convince doctors that she has the same gene mutation as an Olympic athlete.
Summer is a time when change seems more possible than ever. But is that really how it happens?
People on a mission to achieve their goals before their window of opportunity closes.
Trump froze U.S. foreign aid and dismantled USAID. We examine the agency’s impact and hear from people trying to navigate this chaotic moment.
Conversations across a divide: People who are outside a war zone check in with family, friends, and strangers inside.
A show about people who are suddenly confronted with who they are.
People immersed in chaos try to solve for what it all adds up to.
A couple devises a strategy to get their daughter's killer prosecuted and to get attention for other Native families.
Artifacts and exhibits of this particular moment we are living through.
Sometimes, life’s biggest mysteries require one very specific person to answer them.
Unnecessary and outrageous lies that make you wonder — why lie about that in the first place?
Zach Mack and his dad try to mend a rift between them in a very unusual way.
People stuck in a loop, trying to find their way out.
People living in that in-between moment before everything changes.
People try a radical approach to solving their problems.
The tiny thing that unravels your world.
Banias is an 8-year-old kid living in Gaza. And she has a story to tell — many stories, in fact.
How do you count almost 12 million votes if you’re not the government?
A colossal effort to un-tame a whale and send him back to the ocean.
We talk to people who helped make Trump's victory happen and some who are looking to what’s next.
A wee flame, flickering in the dark.
Thirteen parole board members decide whether or not one man should be released from prison.
Abbas Alawieh, a leader in the Uncommitted movement, grapples with how to get his voters the thing they want.
Chen Almog-Goldstein tells the story of life as a hostage in Gaza.
One kid comes to America as an exchange student and commits herself to the senior year experience.
People trying and struggling to see what another person sees.
We spend a few days at the Iowa State Fair.
When the best—and perhaps only—way to say something is to write it down.
In a crisis, when all logic suggests that you get away from the dangerous thing, how will you respond?
People rethinking some of the most important relationships in their lives.
Boen Wang goes back to a day that changed the course of his family's story.
In Rafah, Yousef is out of options and faces his toughest move yet.
Trump has a plan for his second term: retribution. We check in with the people who’ve crossed him.
People tethered to one particular other person, whether they want to be or not.
How they organize the chaos of the world, for good and for bad.
The trial for the men accused of orchestrating the September 11 terrorist attacks still hasn’t started yet.
Majid believed that if he could testify in court about what happened to him at a CIA black site, he would be given a break. Was he right?
People taking it upon themselves to solve the tiny, overlooked crimes of the world.
The other day, longtime This American Life staffer Seth Lind told Ira Glass something that blew his mind. So he took Seth into the studio.
The things we break and the ones we can't fix.
People waking up to the fact that the world has suddenly changed.
A series of phone calls to a man in Gaza about what he and his family are experiencing.
Your mother and I have something we want to talk with you about.
An investigation of when and why people ask loaded questions that are a proxy for something else.
What it means to have words—and to lose them.
People finding themselves in situations that are worse than they thought and deciding to really go with it.
A political party in a major swing state bets on a total outsider.
A series of conversations with a man in Gaza over the course of one week.
New York City has scrambled to try and provide shelter and services to over 150,000 migrants. We take a look at how that’s going.
When you realize that help is not on the way, what do you do next?
Turkeys, chickens, geese, ducks, fowl of all kinds—real and imagined—and their mysterious hold over us.
