A couple guys show off a pretty creative invention.

There’s a political parable about Hillary Clinton that’s made the rounds this year. Host Ira Glass interviews contributor Jack Hitt, who says that in this parable you can see almost every version of Hillary that exists in the popular imagination: the A student, the opportunist, the mastermind, the rat fink, the pragmatist, the truth-twister.

Obesity in America affects a higher percentage of black people than white people. Roxane Gay talks about being black and being fat with host Ira Glass.

Ira talks to Eleanor Gordon-Smith, a writer/reporter in Australia who decides to confront her catcallers and figure out why they do it.

Ira talks about what’s alarming him about this year’s election: facts seem less meaningful than they ever have, and the gap between the mainstream media and right-wing media’s versions of the world have never seemed further apart. CNN’s Jake Tapper explains what it was like to be on the air live when Donald Trump tried to take a huge, obvious lie and pass it off as the truth.

Musician David Berkeley has gotten a lot of requests in his life, but none quite like the offer his agent got last year. A fan wanted Berkeley to come to his house and help save his relationship by serenading the troubled couple with a personal concert.

Nema and Neda Semnani have extraordinarily similar first names – and completely opposite ways of dealing with what happened to their dad when they were little.

There’s a seismic, historic change going on in the Republican party this year. Producer Zoe Chace tells Ira about a place you can eavesdrop on a group of Republican friends as they fret and argue about that change week after week: a podcast called Ricochet.

Doug Deason is a political donor trying to make the biggest decision people like him make every four years – which presidential candidate to back. Producer Zoe Chace follows Deason through the unpredictable primaries of the 2016 election.

Sometimes an entire government has to dive into the deep end of the pool and do something it’s never done before. One of our producers Karen Duffin has the story of the US government doing just that… in a high stakes sink or swim situation.

Producer Neil Drumming conducts an experiment to find out: can two adults, both new in town, become friends, with the right help? (16 minutes)

Jonathan Goldstein tries to convince his uncle and his father to get into the same room and have a conversation for the first time in decades, before it’s too late and one of them dies. This story comes from Jonathan’s podcast Heavyweight, from Gimlet Media.

Producer Dana Chivvis explores the case of a 66-year-old working lifeguard who is suing New York State for age discrimination after refusing to wear a Speedo on the job.

One good place to see how this ad hoc response is working is at an abandoned baseball stadium in Athens. About a thousand Afghans are now living here.

Host Ira Glass interviews author Alain de Botton about why so many of us choose the wrong spouses. Botton is the author of the new novel The Course of Love.

Fat is seen by so many people as a kind of moral issue. They think you’re fat because you’re weak and can’t get control of your own life.

For those in the early stages of dementia, some simple tasks become very complex. Chana sits down with one guy determined to figure out why something that used to be so easy has become so hard.

Ira explains that when Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton all seemed to be against free trade agreements, he got genuinely confused. Is free trade good or bad? Was NAFTA good or evil? Are we down with TPP? He asked Jacob Goldstein of NPR’s Planet Money podcast to explain, once and for all, the pros and cons of free trade.

Host Ira Glass talks with Adam Mansbach about what happened when he went looking for an apartment and was mistaken for someone else. Adam is the author of the book Go The F*** To Sleep.

Producer Zoe Chace takes a trip to the grocery store with Planet Money co-host – and ultimate bargain shopper – Jacob Goldstein.

Ira talks to Tom, who regrets his vote on Brexit this week. And Zoe Chace talks to Harry Enten, a senior analyst at the website FiveThirtyEight, about Donald Trump.

Ira asks Jefrey Emtman do to the impossible—describe the indescribable color he sees in his left eye. Jefrey Emtman is the host of the podcast Here Be Monsters.

Ira re-listens to an interview he did with his mom 16 years ago, three years before she died.