Host Ira Glass talks to producer David Kestenbaum about what it was like to be a kid magician.

If there is intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, why haven’t we heard from the extraterrestrials yet? Producer David Kestenbaum explains The Fermi Paradox to host Ira Glass. The possibility that we are alone in the universe makes David sad.

Our producer David Kestenbaum spoke with some people who are in the grand gesture business: skywriters.

Two civil servants who do not like our new President weigh their options. Quit? Stay? Stay and fight? Producer David Kestenbaum reports.

Guest host David Kestenbaum talks to producer Diane Wu about a list she keeps of things she means to know. Sweet potatoes vs. yams.

A judge in a suburban New Jersey courtroom wants the people who come before him to see the rules as fair. Including our reporter, David Kestenbaum.

David’s story continues. He visits his old physics professor, who helps him figure out what to think.

Earlier this month, North Korea fired an intercontinental ballistic missile… one powerful enough, news reports said, to reach Alaska. People were shocked.


We’ve all heard reports that voter fraud isn’t real. But how do we know that’s true? David Kestenbaum went on a quest to find out if someone had actually put in the work—and run the numbers—to know for certain.

Ira with two magicians who take the premise of magic – that it’s all about deception – and try to stand that on its head to get to something utterly real, unfaked and emotional. (16 minutes) David Blaine is on tour for the summer.

Mike Wilson, the editor of the Dallas Morning News, recently got some hate mail from conservative readers. They think that the media—and his paper—are biased.

Nature photographer David Slater went to Indonesia. While he was there, he got some stunning photos of monkeys.

Producer Zoe Chace has been following Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake for the last few months, reporting on the run-up to his re-election bid in 2018.

Back in 1999 there was a series of bombings of apartment buildings in Moscow and across Russia. 300 people died. It happened just as Vladimir Putin was coming to power.

In 1980, deep in a nuclear missile silo in Arkansas, a simple human error nearly caused the destruction of a giant portion of the Midwest. Joe Richman, founder of Radio Diaries tells the story.  Eric Molinsky helped report this story.

Remember learning that women’s menstrual cycles tend to sync up when they spend a lot of time together? Producer Diane Wu was skeptical. So she went looking for evidence.

The Navy’s Seventh Fleet has seen a string of collisions and accidents, killing 17 sailors this year. Producer Stephanie Foo learned about a part of Navy life that investigators say played a role in these accidents.

Producer Zoe Chace attends the DeploraBall, a party for trolls and others who say they memed Trump into the presidency.

The man who organized the rally in Charlottesville is named Jason Kessler. He says he’s not to blame for the violence that happened there, including the death of a counter protester.

Ira Glass' friend Lucy used to love listening to the radio psychologist Joy Browne, who she thought always had the best advice. But is it possible for someone's advice to just be too good? Ira Glass talks to Lucy to find out.

Among friends, Elna Baker is famous for her romantic advice: go big! She talks to Ira about successes and failures.