On this week’s show, we’re airing excerpts of interviews with former hostages produced by an Israeli podcast, Echad Bayom. In these interviews they describe, in a remarkably detailed and complicated way, what happened to them a year ago. We start with Chen Almog-Goldstein.

Yorkshire, 1866. A farmer overcomes his timidity and writes a very important letter to a local beauty.

Host Ira Glass talks with producer Tobin Low about the question he got asked after he and his husband moved in together, and what he thinks people were really asking. (4 minutes)

Host Ira Glass spent America’s presidential election in the swing state of Michigan, where he found very little dispute over the ballot count from Republican poll challengers in Detroit now that they are doing the counting themselves. (8 minutes)

Chen talks about the complicated relationship between her family and the people holding them hostage. (6 minutes)

Reporter Dana Ballout sifts through a very long list—the list of journalists killed in the Israel-Hamas War—and comes back with five small fragments of the lives of the people on it. (10 minutes)

Writer Michael Harriot reexamines the DIY criminal justice system his mom invented to deal with his bad behavior as a child. (20 minutes)

Henry Dee has been locked up for most of his life, nearly 50 years. Now, he’s up for parole.

Donald Trump has talked about taking revenge on his enemies since the early days of his 2024 presidential campaign.

Frank Filocomo thinks people care too much about politics when it comes to dating.

When a common, seemingly innocuous question goes wildly off the rails. (13 minutes)Here's the video this story is about, featuring comedian Adam Ray. 

Majid Khan struggled with his identity when he was young. And then he realized exactly who he wanted to be – a member of Al Qaeda, carrying out orders for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

Since the beginning of the war in Gaza, Yousef Hammash has decided where to go next and when. In Rafah, he is out of options and faces his toughest move yet.

A family sits down to discuss one thing.

Host Ira Glass introduces the new series that Serial is doing about Guantánamo Bay. This is the second of two episodes of theirs that we’re airing.

Guest-host Tobin Low talks to comedian Tig Notaro about a jarring ride to school with her son. (6 minutes)

We talk to high school seniors in Salt Lake City who are trying to have the perfect year.

A big bull, a giant slide, and cowboys on horseback shooting balloons are just a few sights you can take in at the Iowa State Fair.

Chen talks about what it was like to walk around the streets of Gaza in disguise and their eventual release, 51 days after they were taken from their home. (13 minutes)Excerpts from interviews conducted by Lee Naim and produced by Echad Bayom.

A politically divided couple searches for a news source they both can trust. (26 minutes)The original version of this story first appeared on Question Everything, a co-production of KCRW and Placement Theory.

Producer Aviva DeKornfeld heads to the Calgary Stampede to watch as men try out a machine designed to simulate menstrual cramps. (15 minutes)

While on the phone with reporter Maram Hamaid in Gaza, producer Chana Joffe-Walt gets interrupted by Maram’s daughter––Banias, eight, who grabs the phone from her mother and starts telling us about her life. The narrator arrives. (8 minutes)