Nature photographer David Slater went to Indonesia. While he was there, he got some stunning photos of monkeys.

John continues the story of the Dakota War of 1862, and how it resulted in the expulsion of the Dakota people from the state of Minnesota. Then John goes back to his hometown to see how this history is being taught today.

Alix Spiegel tells the story of Robert Dixon, who's in a maximum security prison in Vacaville California and is unlikely to ever get parole because of his score on the psychopath test. The test also is called "the checklist" or, more formally, the PCL-R, which stands for "Psychopathy Check List—Revised." Alix tells the story of its creation and reports that the man who created the test, Bob Hare, is concerned at how it's being used today in the criminal justice system.

Reporter Petra Bartosiewicz tells the first half of Rick Convertino's story. The Detroit Sleeper case was one of the earliest Justice Department victories in the war on terror.

Alix Spiegel's story continues.

Sandra's father decides, at age 70, to take a Chinese wife.

The late Ron Brown, the former U.S. Secretary of Commerce, could have had an easy life, but chose instead to take on stressful, difficult tasks.

After the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, U.S. diplomats had to start working the phones to assemble a coalition of nations to combat this new threat. Some of the calls, you get the feeling, were not the easiest to make.

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.

Actress Sue Scott reads a short story by Etgar Keret. Etgar's newest book is a memoir called The Seven Good Years.

Host Ira Glass talks about the human urge to turn something inanimate into something that's alive, about the moment Pinocchio stops being a concoction of wood and string and becomes a real boy. He chats with Ronn Lucas, a ventriloquist, about moments when his dummies have seemed alive enough to surprise him.

When Executive Editor Emanuele Berry’s friend pitched her a show about Black Lives Matter activists, she was not sure. He made it anyway and it’s really good. Today we are featuring some of Saidu Tejan-Thomas Jr.’s reporting from the podcast Resistance. He’s captured a story about Black Lives Matter that has always been there but nobody ever tells. (4 minutes)You can hear Resistance from Gimlet, a Spotify company.

We hear excerpts from our 2009 episode that was recorded at Penn State. Though the focus of that episode was student drinking and partying, we hear how much of the culture of the school is organized around football and how deeply people loved the team and Coach Joe Paterno.

As we were putting together this week's show, we came across a talk that changed the way we seeall the stories in it. Ira explains.

An Allen Ginsberg poem and Ira Glass.

We hear a phone call from this week between Kirk Johnson in California, and Ajmal, a man standing in a canal outside the airport in Kabul, Afghanistan.

Robert Krulwich's stories, on NPR, CBS and ABC, are neither wacky nor pompously serious. He explains, though, that if you try to occupy the territory between wacky and serious, there are dangers.

Host Ira Glass on the weird news vortex of the past week. (3 minutes)

Reporter Alix Spiegel and playwright David Kodeski tell stories about Niagara Falls. During the hour we hear from Paul Gromosiak, a man who's obsessed with the Falls, writes about them, thinks about them all the time, but never goes there, because "they've ruined the falls." We hear a man who went over the falls in a barrel, and we hear the recordings he made inside the barrel as he went over. There's a man who picks up the bodies of people who've jumped over the Falls.

Ira talks to a Muslim woman who tweeted on election night that she was worried she would no longer feel safe wearing a hijab.

Ira Glass talks to Bim Adewunmi about her understanding of delight through American pop culture and the summer she spent in the US as a 19-year-old.

Two teachers find themselves thrown into a heated and ugly fight with parents right before school opens back up. Producer Miki Meek has this story from Utah.

Host Ira Glass talks to business professor Pino Audia and Fast Company magazine columnist Dan Heath about corporate creation myths, and why so many of them involve garages.

This week we document what happened when the President’s executive order went into effect, and talk about the way it was implemented. A major policy change thrown into the world like a fastball with no warning.