This American Life (Unofficial)

People experiencing Christmas in brand new ways, giving the holiday even more meaning.

Something we’ve never done before: true stories told in the form of a game show.

People trying to coax each other across the line, from one side to the other.

Not long ago, Republicans in Ohio passed a constitutional amendment to end gerrymandering in the state. And then a funny thing happened. The same Ohio Republicans drew electoral maps that violated their own constitutional amendment. They’ll be using them in this week’s midterm elections. We try to understand how that could happen.

We hear from kids who are dealing with some of the country’s most contentious debates. Debates that are supposedly about them.

Two people go on excavations of their families’ pasts. Including the first episode of the new podcast, “We Were Three,” hosted by our longtime producer, Nancy Updike, and from Serial Productions and The New York Times.

People taking it upon themselves to keep an eye on those in charge.

Getting to the facts can be difficult, but it’s always the right thing to do. Except when it isn’t.

An exploration of the very upper limits of what you do for someone you love.

When a fundamental part of yourself changes dramatically, are you still who you thought you were?

Ten people were killed at a grocery store in Buffalo, NY. Their stories, as you’ve never heard them.

Stories of people racing against time to solve a problem. Will they make it?

An investigation into a very basic question about people: Are most of us bad or good?

The Supreme Court case that overturned Roe v. Wade began with a lawsuit filed by a Mississippi abortion clinic. On the day Roe was overturned, we were there. Stories from the center of this moment of history, the day it happened.

Getting from A to B via Z.

Kids navigating hairy situations all on their own, with no help from grown-ups.

Government isn’t doing much to prevent school shootings. So parents are jumping in: parents whose kids have died in mass shootings, in the wake of each shooting. They take practical, effective action — and they get results.

People staring squarely at the truth, and still finding it hard to believe what they’re seeing.

A man finds himself thrust into a new world he didn’t necessarily ask to visit. He takes a look around.

Four personal stories from the war in Ukraine.

In this moment when autocrats and almost-autocrats are getting bolder and more powerful, we bring you two stories of resistance, from Hungary and Russia.

People trying to jump in and solve other people's problems, putting themselves directly in the gap between the problem and the solution.

Three people, and one animal, who know the path their lives will take until, suddenly, they don’t.

The pandemic broke school. Can we ever go back?

Stories about Vladimir Putin. Did he come to power in 1999 by killing hundreds of innocent Russians? How’s he really seen in his home country? This show is a mix of old and new stories we’ve done about him.

A woman wakes up and discovers her backyard has disappeared, and other stories from places slowly coming apart.

A while back, one of our producers Brian Reed was in England giving a speech about the podcast he'd hosted, S-Town. A journalism student approached him, asking for advice about a story he wanted to look into – something that’d been big news in Britain, something he’d thought about for years. Brian and the student, Hamza Syed, decided to team up to try and solve the mystery at the heart of that story. The original idea was to put this on our show, but it got too big. Too many twists and turns! This week, it rolls out as a spectacularly great podcast called The Trojan Horse Affair. We’re excited to bring you their first episode today.

Last week's story continues, about a Michigan couple who walked into a police officer's house and made a disturbing discovery. This week: the police officer suffers the consequences and so does the couple.

Rob and Reyna Mathis make an unsettling discovery in the home of a local police officer. Soon, their whole city is asking questions about who the officer really is and what he's been doing.

In 2020, a series of violent, highly publicized killings of Black Americans sparked outrage and a national movement to eradicate racism and its evils. That movement gave way to a newer, reactionary one, a backlash that is playing out in schools and school board meetings across America. Host Emanuele Berry shares stories about Black people who got tangled up in this current backlash in both extreme and very personal ways.

People use machines to find people they lost.

People earnestly doing what they're told, and absolutely not getting what they were promised.

In 2006, a new convert showed up at a mosque in Orange County, California. Known as Farouk al-Aziz, the convert was actually an FBI informant named Craig Monteilh. That informant’s infiltration of the mosque is at the heart of FBI v Fazaga, a case heard at the Supreme Court last month. We return to our episode from 2012, which tells the story behind it.

Stories about birds and the hearts they sway, the havoc they wreak, the lives they change.

Getting the point across — or trying to, anyway.

A man who was imprisoned for 14 years in Guantanamo Bay, without charges, gets out and issues an invitation to all the people who kept him there. Amazingly, three of them agree to talk.

We bring the movies to you.

Getting from Point A to Point B—with expert assistance.

An hour devoted to embarrassing stories. They’re not always just little moments – funny, daily stuff that we laugh about later. Some can change you for the rest of your life.

What happens when one family goes all in on fighting climate change.

Who thought that would be good for a kid?

We made you a mixtape. Don't make a big deal out of it or anything.

People trying to escape all kinds of seemingly impossible situations.

The pandemic forced jobs to change, but then the workers changed, too.

Bad neighbors. What can you do about them?

What’s recovery mean, anyway?

Words mean things, but some words are especially meaningful.

Solving problems using very extreme measures.

The bonds between sisters and how they get broken and fixed—or not.

So many of us, we don’t want to think about death. We avoid grieving when we lose someone, distract ourselves, look away. In this episode, at a moment when so many families are mourning, we have stories of people figuring out how they’ll grieve, and doing a pretty good job of it.