We meet the doctors. Rana Awdish spends hours of each day walking the floors of the ICU checking in on her co-workers, which means that maybe more than any single person in the hospital she knows best what the staff has been going through at each stage of this pandemic. One doctor that has deep ties to Detroit is Geneva Tatem.

A protestor who thinks the Hong Kong police are terrible has a chat with his dad — a police officer.

Jerome Ellis is a composer and musician. But this year, at an annual New Year's Day performance event, he got on stage with no instrument, or anything else, and broke a small rule in a monumental way.

Diane Wu has the story of a woman who goes to South Korea to meet her birth mother, a trip that lets her visit one of the other worlds in which she almost lived.

People want to do the right thing, but it’s not always possible.

A mysterious tunnel in Toronto leads to wild public speculation. Nick Kohler tells Ira the story behind the tunnel, which he wrote about for MacLean’s.

Bim Adewunmi talks about the feeling of now.

Host Ira Glass explains how things have changed in Hong Kong this month, and wonders how things are going for a protester we’re calling Jennifer, who he went to protests with back in the fall.

Leo Hornak's story about Abdi continues. Abdi encounters one obstacle after another on the streets of Nairobi.

In just one year, everything in one ordinary public middle school changed. It went from an incoming class of thirty sixth graders—most of them Black, Latino, and Middle Eastern—to a class of 103 sixth graders.

To cope with this pandemic, producer Sean Cole finds himself turning to a movie about a pandemic, What's So Bad About Feeling Good? But the virus in this movie isn’t like any you’ve ever heard of. (20 minutes)

When someone stole Jessamyn Lovell’s ID, she became obsessed with the thief. Miki Meek tells what happened.

Abdurahman Tohti left his home country, China, behind 7 years ago to move to Turkey, safe from the Chinese regime that discriminates and arbitrarily detains Uyghurs, specifically, which Abdurahman is. Reporter Durrie Bouscaren talks to him about what happened to his wife and children and extended family in China, and the endless challenges he faces trying to be sure they are safe.

Ben Calhoun talks to a man in ICE detention in Louisiana about how he and people around him are following the election. But right as the results are coming in, the man’s case takes a serious turn.

When Lissa’s niece, Carla Yellow Bird, went missing in 2016, Lissa threw everything she had into figuring out what happened to her—including talking for hours on the phone with someone she suspected was involved.

The stories of undocumented people so often sound cliche. Writer Karla Cornejo Villavicencio has heard all of them, and thought she could do better.

Sarah Vowell and her twin sister, Amy, retrace the Trail of Tears. They visit the town in Georgia that was the capital of the Cherokee Nation before the Cherokee were expelled. They enjoy a tourist trap hotel in Chattanooga. They go to Ross's Landing, the embarkment point for the water route of the Trail of Tears. (27 minutes)

Ira talks to his dad about a job he had before Ira was born.

Writer Kimberly Jones provides context with a brief history of the American economy, told through a popular board game.

Nadia Reiman talks to Ninotchka and Marco in Florida. The mother and son immigrated from Venezuela, and while they live and work together, they feel very differently about American politics.

Maya Gurantz tells the story of Glenn and Laurie Mutchler, who go further than most parents to create a magical Christmas for their kids, Colin, Erica and Adam. Theirs included a family mythology of Santas that had its own logic, with many Santas and a family elf named Jeko, who were never jolly and often thrillingly scary.

The story of someone stuck in a difficult situation, from Etgar Keret. (8 minutes)This was read for us in English translation by actor Michael Chernus.

Producer Lilly Sullivan used to feel such a strong kinship with “the loneliest creature on earth” that one of her first radio pieces seven years ago was about him. (9 minutes) You can read Lilly's 2013 report about this whale.