Host Ira Glass talks about the way most political apologies go, and chats with a man named Derek Jones about similar sorts of apologies among preteen girls and King David, in the Old Testament.

Reporter Petra Bartosiewicz tells the first half of Rick Convertino's story. The Detroit Sleeper case was one of the earliest Justice Department victories in the war on terror.

A tale of two Santas. There's Tim Conaghan, a full-time professional Santa with a big belly and a real flowing white beard.

Ira Glass tells the story of a little-known treaty dispute with far-reaching ramifications for our understanding of executive power. The dispute is between the President and one of his appointees...to the International Boundary Commission with Canada.

While McCain gathers stray Democrats, Obama is trying to find new ones—in the reddest part of the state. To do that, his campaign has launched enormous registration drives, especially among college students.

Looked at one way, the current flailing economy is a victim of invention—Wall Street invention. Investors and banks and brokers created all sorts of stuff the world would've been better off without.

We continue our story about voter registration in State College, where there are only a few days left until the registration deadline.

Host Ira Glass talks with Yale law professor Jack Balkin about what he calls the Bush Administration's "lawyering style," a tendency to fight as hard as it can, on all fronts, to get what it wants. Ira also plays tape from a news conference with New York Senator Charles Schumer, in which he takes the Justice Department to task for refusing to pay death benefits to the families of two auxiliary policemen who were killed in the line of duty, even though federal law grants those benefits.

Joe Kocur was a hockey enforcer for the Detroit Red Wings and the New York Rangers, back in the heyday of hockey's tough guys. Kocur talks to host Ira Glass about how a good enforcer keeps other players in line.

The most innocent possible student uprising imaginable...documented by an actual student, Hillary Frank, using the crude tools of a telephone answering machine and a shiny red boom box.

Most media stories set in shopping malls don't really tell you much about what it feels like for the people who work in a big retail operation, or for the people who hang out at the mall. Because the mall's more than just sales.

To deal with the financial crisis, our own government has also had to reinvent itself, with questionable consequences. This American Life producer Alex Blumberg and NPR's financial reporter Adam Davidson talk to Brad Setser, an economist at the Council on Foreign Relations who used to work at the U.S. Treasury.

Reporter Petra Bartosiewicz's story continues. Tensions between Rick and his bosses at the Justice Department escalate: They demote him, he sues them, they put him on trial for criminal misconduct, in the very same federal court house where we won the Sleeper Cell case.

Yes, some stores are going out of business in the Cool Springs Galleria, but it's just two stores. We talk to staff at one store that’s closing down, and at another, in the food court, where business is great.

Ira and Adam answer the question: Was the $700 billion bailout bill signed into law today a good idea or a bad one? (10 minutes)

There's this haven on the U.S. railroad—the Amtrak Quiet Car. You can't yammer on your cell phone in the Quiet Car, or yuck it up with your friends, or even talk above a murmur.

Nellie Thomas sold ammunition illegally on the South side of Chicago. He made a good living—in cash.

While riding in a patrol car to research a novel, crime writer Richard Price witnessed a misunderstanding that for many people is pretty much accepted as an upsetting fact of life. Richard Price told this story—which he describes as a tale taken from real life and dramatized—onstage at the Moth in New York.