The pandemic forced restaurant server Shelly Ortiz to put on her “Covid Goggles.” What she saw through them made her reevaluate her ideas of what’s important.

A boy rides shotgun in a memorable car ride with his mother, and in the process learns how his father earns money for their family. This story appears in Domingo Martinez’s memoir, The Boy Kings of Texas, which was a finalist for the National Book Award.

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

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

Dr.

Paul Tough turns to UT Austin to see what happens if you admit students with great grades, who didn’t perform well on the SAT, into your college.

Amy D'Addario had ferried her mother to the hospital dozens of times before.

One of the 590,000 casualties of U.S. Covid-19 this year was Leiah Danielle Jones.

When Neena Pathak found out she had a fibroid, it didn’t seem so bad. But then it got bigger, more uncomfortable, bloodier… and she had to decide if she was going to have to get surgery to get it removed.

Shamyla always loved books. Like lots of other eleven-year-olds back in 1989, she loved The Babysitters Club.

People given the difficult task of deciding who lives and who dies.

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.

A woman’s dog has an unexpected reaction to the pandemic, and a mother has to re-think how to teach her son to drive.

Host Ira Glass takes us on a tour of the various ways the pandemic has affected going to college this year.

Ira tells three stories about the ghosts captured whenever you record sound. (10 minutes)Michèle Dawson Haber wrote about hearing her father’s voice on tape as a Modern Love column "Hearing His Voice Changed Everything," in The New York Times.

Host Ira Glass revisits the one movie he’s seen more than any other, about an ocean liner that gets hit by a tsunami and flips over. (9 minutes)

Lana has a problem lots of mothers have right now during the pandemic—but a more extreme version of it.

Producer Chana Joffe-Walt talks to a seventh grader who doesn’t have a seventh grade, or an eighth grade. (11 minutes)

Leo’s family moved away from Rochester, NY, leaving behind all of Leo's friends and stranding him in a new — and in his opinion, much worse — middle school. (10 minutes)

Because the U.S. doesn’t usually prosecute anyone under 18 for the crime of smuggling people illegally across the border from Mexico, tons of teenagers do it, for money. Reporter Kevin Sieff spent months talking to some of them.

David Kestenbaum follows one person as they try to find something—a set of words, some facts, a story—to convince Trump Republicans to get themselves vaccinated.

In families with sisters, every sister has their role to play. And whatever your role is, it sort of becomes your identity: the sweet one, the diva, the rebel.

Writer Kiese Laymon tells Elna Baker his most embarrassing story, involving one of the most important people in his life. Kiese Laymon is the author of Heavy and Long Division.

Brian and Peg disagree over a very important thing. Host Ira Glass tries to figure out who’s right.