Producer Bim Adewunmi on a decades-long political battle in Florida — between the incumbent state bird and the challenger that threatens to knock it off its perch.

Ira Glass talks to journalist Jochen Bittner about a political lie from 1920s Germany and the lessons it holds for 2020s America. His op-ed about this ran in the New York Times. Bittner’s one of the people who runs the Opinion section of the German newspaper Die Zeit.

Rebecca Shrader thought she knew what was right when it came to abortion. Then she got pregnant.

Guest host Susan Burton watches videos of female legislators sharing very private stories.

When the United States Congress saw a problem — sex trafficking — it acted to eliminate it.

Reporter Mike Giglio tries to answer the question: Just how much should the residents of Pawlet fear their new neighbor? (21 minutes)

A state senator tries persuading his own constituents, from his own party, that the 2020 election was not stolen. (17 minutes)

At a Muslim community center in New York, two lawyers teach a workshop on how to react when an FBI agent shows up at the door asking questions. The workshop is a project of CLEAR — Creating Law Enforcement Accountability and Responsibility — at the City University of New York School of Law.

When Saidu’s friend Marcus-David Peters was killed by police, he wanted to figure out what to do with the weight of that loss. He began following three men who began protesting after the murder of George Floyd. They seemed to know what to do when faced with police violence. Saidu tells the story of their lives after they began protesting with the Warriors in the Garden.

You can’t get herd immunity until you deal with the herd, and get enough of them moving together in the same direction. That’s been difficult this past year, in a way it’s never been during any other epidemic in our history.

Mohamedou talks with Sydney, who still thinks he was a major player in Al Qaeda. She was an intelligence analyst, who spent weeks at Guantanamo, questioning him.

Fifteen years after a bloody Shakespeare production that, at its height, had people fainting night after night, producer Bim Adewunmi talks to its director, Lucy Bailey.

Ira goes out birding with birder extraordinaire Noah Strycker, who tells the dramatic story of the bird that changed his life: the turkey vulture.

Reporter Anna Maria Barry-Jester tells the story of two public health officials in Santa Cruz County, California, whose lives have been completely upended by threats and harassment over the past year. (20 minutes)This story is a collaboration with Kaiser Health News. You can read their version here.

Mohamedou talks to a man he only knew as Mr. X and who still gives him nightmares.

For the last year, writer Karen Cheung has been watching her hometown of Hong Kong change in big and small ways under a new law, and wondering when and if leaving will be her last resort.

When you need to retrieve all manner of treasures secured behind steel doors and complex locks, there’s one man you can count on: safecracker Dave McOmie.

Carmen Milito tells Ira the story of a date she went on as a teenager, and the bird her mom brought to the occasion.

Producer Aviva DeKornfeld was interested in the toll that having a wakeup-moment could have on a family, and she heard about someone who had a moment like that over a decade ago. He tried to pull his family into activism too, and what unfolded was the most extreme example of things going badly in a family that Aviva heard of.

We continue our story about three members of Warriors in the Garden. After a summer of protest, the Warriors have to figure out what to do when their activism draws the attention of the police. (25 minutes)

Reporter Paul Tough and Host Ira Glass look at the biggest change in admissions this year: colleges no longer requiring the SATs. Paul speaks to a student whose SAT score determined her future.

Cindy and Dayana Carcamo are close. But recently, they’ve been struggling with this thing that happened when they were very young.