In which we conduct a little scientific experiment—on tape, with hidden microphones—about whether niceness pays. We wire two waitresses with hidden microphones.

Host Ira Glass reminds the audience about the old TV series MacGyver, about the guy who stops bad guys without a gun. He uses science and sheer ingenuity to invent solutions.

Host Ira Glass talks with This American Life producer Julie Snyder about a personal regime change that happened when she was a kid, after her parents got divorced and her stepdad came on the scene. She says that by the time her parents separated, literature on what to tell the children was everywhere, and the kids took it relatively well.

After 25 years at the same company, a man starts a new life with a new venture: a cable channel that shows nothing but puppies.

Hyder notices changes in Kabul in the year since he visited Afghanistan. Then he heads to Kunar, near the Pakistan border, one of the remote regions where Al Qaeda, the Taliban and local warlords are still fighting the new Afghan government and the U.S. military.

Reporter Jack Hitt explains the alarming difference between theory and practice when it comes to computerized voting machines—specifically, those made by a company called Diebold.

The story of a hustler who wakes up every morning broke, hustles as much as $10,000, and then loses most of it by the time he goes to bed.

Andrea Morningstar tells the story of a ten-year-old girl from small town Michigan named Sarah York, and how she became pen pals with a man who was considered an enemy of the United States, a dictator, a drug trafficker, and a murderer: Manuel Noriega.