Producer Zoe Chace with a political fable that she noticed playing out last week in North Carolina. (11 minutes)Zoe covered Mark Harris’ election fraud case in the podcast The Improvement Association by Serial Productions and The New York Times.

Sarah Polley has always been reluctant to jump into challenging situations.

Banias talks about the war.

Two adult sisters revisit old rivalries when they compete for a world record in typing with their pinkies. (16 minutes)

Who’s trying to bridge the gap between Blue America and Red America? Ira gets a glimpse of one guy who might be able to do just that.

Chen describes hearing the Israeli news while in captivity, including one night when her own father was interviewed.

An excerpt from “Belles Lettres," a short story by Nafissa Thompson-Spires from her book Heads of the Colored People, performed by actors Erika Alexander and Eisa Davis with a cameo from our colleague Alvin Melathe.

Ira observes that we are in a moment of national reconsideration.

Why are people asking me if my mother recognizes me, when it’s totally beside the point? (14 minutes)Janelle Taylor originally wrote about her mother in an academic paper for Medical Anthropology Quarterly.

Micaela Blei accidentally solves a crime that had been going on for a long time, right under her nose, and has to decide what to do next. She told this story onstage at The Moth.

The 251 hostages taken by Hamas a year ago have become a divisive symbol in Israel.

Ira talks to Chris Benderev, whose high school years were completely upended by an impromptu thing his teacher said. (8 minutes)

Producer Nancy Updike tells the story of the people of Venezuela trying to prove who won their recent presidential election beyond a shadow of a doubt. (22 minutes)

A skateboarding legend makes a final attempt at a high-flying trick. (6 minutes)

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.