We find someone brave enough to stand up and make a case FOR lying.

Emmanuel Dzotsi explores the phenomenon of people lying on first dates to project a better version of themselves.

Nancy Updike reports from Cairo, Egypt about what people were doing there this week, namely: going to meetings to create their new democracy.

There are about seventy thousand Americans living in mainland China today, according to the Chinese and US governments. A lot of the Americans in China only stay for a few years, but then there are others — American ex-pats who’ve lived in China for a decade or more with no foreseeable plans to come home.

Ira teaches Sarah Vowell how to drive with some advice from Tom and Ray Maggliozi, the hosts of NPR's Car Talk. It turns out that although we think of how-to's as the most rational thing in the world — follow the simple instructions and you'll learn — in real life, they're anything but simple.

Ira takes a Medieval scholar from the University of Chicago, Michael Camille, to Medieval Times — a chain of fake castles where visitors eat Medieval food and drink Medieval Pepsi and watch a supposed recreation of a Medieval jousting tournament. The scholar finds that there are many historical inaccuracies, but that Medieval Times does capture something essential and interesting about the spirit of the Middle Ages.

Awhile back, San Francisco experienced a rash of burglaries that all fit a pattern. The suspect got into businesses at night through skylights, or the attic, and then lowered himself in with ropes where he would rob safes.

Producer Nancy Updike goes to the West Bank to investigate why Israeli soldiers routinely wake up Palestinian families in the middle of the night, to take photos of the teen boys in the house.

Starlee Kine tells the story of a man more obsessed with reruns than even she is. Director Trent Harris made a movie called The Beaver Trilogy.

Marian Fontana's husband was a Brooklyn firefighter who was killed on September 11, 2001. Afterwards, she started an organization, fighting to keep her husband's fire station open, and to help victims' families.

Ralph and Sandra Fisher, who run a show-animal business in Texas, had a beloved Brahman bull named Chance. Chance was the gentlest bull they'd ever seen, more like a pet dog than a bull.

The story of an FBI sting that involves gangsters, G-men, and lots and lots of people who want to work in the movies. It's adapted from an article by Elizabeth Gilbert that first appeared in GQ magazine.

What happens when a dad tries too hard to protect his child from disappointment and instead enthrall the child. With the best of intentions, New Yorker writer Lawrence Weschler did all that, and in the process accidentally broke his daughter's heart.

This is a story about an odd breach of trust between father and child, done unintentionally, and what happens next. Lawrence Weschler is an author and journalist. He and his 11-year-old daughter Sara tell the tale.

A reading from the zine Motorbooty about the crisis of World Band Overpopulation. Then, This American Life contributor Sarah Vowell on someone who is not part of the world band overpopulation problem: Scott Lee, the world's greatest fan of the Fastbacks, a respected, semi-obscure Seattle alternative band.

There’s been a big, messy, fascinating story unfolding in Los Angeles for awhile… involving two big law enforcement agencies: the LA county sheriff’s department, which is huge, and the FBI. A secret investigation got exposed.

A lawyer with almost no experience in criminal law is assigned to a criminal case with a sentence of 20 years to life. This happened because, in Louisiana, like in a few states, public defenders’ offices are so short-staffed that courts are ordering private attorneys to take pro bono clients.

Once he starts preaching his own revelation, Carlton Pearson's church falls apart. After all, when there's no hell (as the logic goes), you don't really need to believe in Jesus to be saved from it.

When she was three years old, Georgia was caught by immigration officials when a Milwaukee woman tried to bring her into the country illegally from Jamaica. She ended up at a residential detention center in Chicago.

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

Dal LaMagna made a fortune selling high-quality grooming products. And after retiring, he wanted to do some good in the world.

Reporter Scott Carrier does a story about Harvey "Job" Matusow.

Josh Seftel and Rich Robinson's trek across South Africa continues. They head to the "South African Woodstock" and to a group that's half Nancy Reagan's "Just Say No" campaign and half terrorist campaign.

Sigrid Fry-Revere was fed up with the kidney donation system in this country. So, she went somewhere that seemed to be doing a better job with its transplant patients— possibly one of the last places you’d expect.