Tim Reeves runs a hospital in rural Pennsylvania, and he’s trying to do something that is so hard to do and that he knows is completely up to him.

Writer Marie Phillips believes that magic is not just reserved for the beginning of a relationship.

Host Ira Glass meets some of the city’s newest arrivals in every New Yorker’s least favorite place. (9 minutes)

Fifty years ago, New York City started to put garbage out in plastic bags. This has become the number one food source for rats.

Producer Alix Spiegel talks to one of her closest friends, Sarah Blust, about the time Sarah met a stranger who, unbeknownst to her, had already spent years thinking about her. (29 minutes)

Jane Doe walks into a public ethics hearing at the Idaho state capitol and navigates the aftermath. (23 minutes)Song: “Here We Have Idaho”  Fiona Apple (vocals) Amy Wood (drums and percussion) David Garza (acoustic guitar, electric guitar, piano, vocals) Sabastian Steinberg (bass, electric autoharp, vocals) John Would (tremolo guitar) Engineered by John Would, Amy Wood, Fiona Apple Mixed and mastered by John Would

LA writer/performer Sandra Tsing Loh discovers that a local rock band has recorded a song about her own father, wildly misinterpreting who he is. They think he’s a free spirit; she believes he’s a worried, miserly grump.

Producer Valerie Kipnis follows a group of people who’ve just arrived at their new home, a tent shelter in the middle of nowhere. (11 minutes)Reporting help from Jika Gonzalez.

Kristina Karamo and her camp defend themselves against Warren’s attacks that they’re bad at fundraising and bad at leading the party. (13 minutes)

At the announcement of New York City’s inaugural rat czar, we meet Darneice Foster, who despises the rats outside her apartment.

In the 1920s, at the height of the Spiritualism movement, a friendship blossomed between two men with opposing views on the topic: Harry Houdini and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Houdini was a skeptic.

Masha Gessen has fled their home country, Russia, twice. First as a teenager, then again as an adult.

Sean Cole attempts to kick his 35 year-long smoking habit, using a book that’s said to have helped millions of people to quit. (33 minutes)

Megan Tan never felt close to her father. For years they’ve been distant.

One of our producers, Nadia Reiman, talked to officials who work in the asylum and refugee branches at the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services.

Over the last few years, producer Chana Joffe-Walt has been checking in with someone who wears the mantle of being “it” well. She’s a school principal named Teresa Hill.

In the months following the court’s decision, two women are stalled getting abortions. Reporter Caroline Kitchener follows Kae and Taylor in those early months, as they try to figure out what to do.

Ira accompanies photographer Tamara Staples as she attempts to photograph chickens in the style of high fashion photography. The chickens are not very cooperative. (15 minutes)Tamara's photos have been collected in a book, The Magnificent Chicken: Portraits of the Fairest Fowl.

At the start of the year, Warren Carpenter was a Kristina Karamo supporter; helped her get elected.

Jasmine and Gabbie are best friends. BFFs! But there’s something major that they’ve never been able to talk about.

Psychiatry used to be all talk. Then came a patient named Ray Osheroff.