Sometimes even when you live through something, it can be hard to see it for what it is. Reporter Katie Worth has a story about a 7th-grader in that position.

Washington Post reporter, Isaac Arnsdorf, and producer, Zoe Chace, continue the story about the takeover of the Republican party. Together, they hit the road to document how the presence of the MAGA newbies are changing things on the ground in Arizona. Isaac is writing a book all about the MAGA plot to take over America.

Back in 1999 there was series of bombings of apartment buildings in Moscow and across Russia. 300 people died. It happened just as Vladimir Putin was coming to power.

Chana talks about a recent news story that unexpectedly connects the two stories in today’s show. (3 minutes)

After the murder of George Floyd, sales of books by Black authors skyrocketed. Now, there are efforts to ban many of the same books.

Ira introduces the first part of the latest podcast from Brian Reed (S-Town) and Hamza Syed — which all started when Hamza was a student with a burning question.

Host Ira Glass reminds us that, before they change the country, all major Supreme Court cases start with just a person, in a place. (3 minutes)

Writer Marie Phillips has a short story about a strange man in a parking lot, offering to grant one wish.

We test Jiayang Fan’s self-proclaimed special skill by having her listen to three Chinese-Americans speak, and then guss when they came to the U.S. (20 minutes)

Protestors came out across Russia after the Ukraine invasion. In this act, that we first broadcast in 2017, we hear from young people who attended anti-government protests that swept through Russia.

Writer Kiese Laymon wanted to talk through one fact in particular about Geraldine Chapman Talley’s life: her move from Alabama to Buffalo.

As a new high school principal, Dr. Whitfield felt moved by the national renouncement of racism he saw all around him in the wake of George Floyd’s murder.

One of the last independent newspapers in Russia finds new ways to cover a war that the government doesn’t want them to cover.

Ira talks with a radio announcer in Truckee, California, about the increasingly alarming content of his fishing reports.

Ira and Ben consider how officers could be flagged for bad policing in a more systematic way, rather than the freak occurrence of a couple walking into an officer’s home and finding a KKK application up on his wall.

Producer Sean Cole tells one of his favorite stories — about the ending of the book A Clockwork Orange.

Ken had created a website and abandoned it. Years later, a stranger reaches out to him and tells him he can make money off it.

The official investigation by the city of Muskegon into the officer’s past gets underway– and we have a transcript of what went down! Finally we hear the officer – and his wife – explain themselves.

Our former colleague Neil Drumming has never seen “It’s a Wonderful Life” – which makes no sense given that he’s seen almost every other movie there is.

Producer Alix Spiegel reports on the city of Pacifica, California. A huge fight erupted there after it was asked to start planning for sea level rise.

Ira Glass brings us back to the moment of celebration when the anti-gerrymandering constitutional amendment was passed in Ohio.

Ira’s story of Yibin Li continues.

Reporter James Spring visits a refugee camp in Tijuana, Mexico filled with Ukranians fleeing the war.

David Kestenbaum desperately wants to set the record straight for everybody about whether aliens regularly visit earth. They don’t, he says.