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

Joshuah Bearman's story continues. Chris Butler makes a transition into true criminal behavior.

One evening last fall, Rachel McKibbens got a text from her younger brother, Peter. It read: “I’ve been too distraught to tell you, but Dad passed away today at 2:42 p.m.” She had no idea her father had even been sick, and no idea that her brother was also dying.

Jeffrey Brodeur worked at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and was put in charge of an Osprey Cam — a live web feed of an osprey nest near his office. Which he thought was just charming — until the mother osprey in the nest began acting strangely.

Ira Glass travels through Israel with Adam Davidson, who speaks Hebrew and has countless Israeli cousins and other family members. They find that the entire country has moved to the right in reaction to Palestinian violence.

Every year, thousands of teenagers come from all over the world to experience American high school. Last year, thirteen students from Palestine came to the US on a program sponsored by the US State Department.

Starlee Kine was becoming friends with a woman named Robin when they started to encounter an obstacle, a common obstacle people run into when the become friends as adults.

We asked listeners to call in with their stories of getting away with it, and got nearly 1000 messages. Here are a handful.

Writer Etgar Keret reads his story about a bus driver who refuses to open the doors for late passengers. (9 minutes)This story is from Etgar's book, The Bus Driver Who Wanted To Be God & Other Stories.

Short fiction from Bess Kalb about a groundhog named Susan, who has her own opinions about the holiday named after her species. (7 minutes)You can find more work from Bess at The Grudge Report on Substack.

Romantic comedies usually don’t get much respect.  Producer Neil Drumming explains what’s so great about them. (5 minutes)

The Hammash family’s group chat unfolds over texts, starting before the war.

As a kid, Aric Knuth sent cassette tapes to his dad, a merchant marine gone for months at a time. He’d leave one side blank and ask for a reply—but none ever came. Aric talks to Ira Glass about what it was like to finally ask his dad why.

We hear kids recorded at Chicago's Navy Pier and at a public swimming pool discussing their mean friends. And Ira Glass interviews Lillie Allison, 15, about the pretty, popular girls who were her best friends—until they cast her out.

A group called Improv Everywhere decides that an unknown band, Ghosts of Pasha, playing their first ever tour in New York, ought to think they're a smash hit. So they study the band's music and then crowd the performance, pretending to be hard-core fans.

A group called Improv Everywhere decides that an unknown band, Ghosts of Pasha, playing their first ever tour in New York, ought to think they're a smash hit. So they study the band's music and then crowd the performance, pretending to be hard-core fans.

Reporter Ben Austen continues the story.

Producer Nancy Updike shares a pattern that she's noticed recently: eleven steps that Middle Eastern dictators have been taking on the path to losing power.

We hear about how Brandi Byrd and many other offenders end up in Judge Williams' drug court. One reason drug courts were created was to save money by incarcerating fewer people.

Zoe Chace gives an eyewitness account of what has been happening at 26 Federal Plaza, an immigration courthouse in New York City.

Chaim and Billy both lived in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, just blocks away from each other, in worlds that almost never collided. Chaim was a Hasidic Jew—he'd never heard pop music or watched MTV.

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.