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This American Life

Each week we choose a theme. Then anything can happen. This American Life is true stories that unfold like little movies for radio. Personal stories with funny moments, big feelings, and surprising plot twists. Newsy stories that try to capture what it’s like to be alive right now. It’s the most popular weekly podcast in the world, and winner of the first ever Pulitzer Prize for a radio show or podcast. Hosted by Ira Glass and produced in collaboration with WBEZ Chicago.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered everyone over 30 in the military to have their testosterone tested. That inspired us to rerun this classic episode where everyone at This American Life tested their testosterone and compared results. It did not lead to workplace harmony.

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 • Prologue: Host Ira Glass talks with producer Alex Blumberg, who explains that he wanted to do this show because of his conflicted relationship with his own testosterone. He tells Ira that the reasons go back to a girl in his 8th-grade homeroom. We also hear from a man who stopped producing testosterone due to a medical treatment, and found his entire personality was altered. (10 minutes)
 • Act One: What’s it like to get injected with testosterone? When Griffin Hansbury transitioned, he got massive shots of it and was surprised at the effect it had on him. (17 minutes)
 • Act Two: The men and women on staff at This American Life decide to get their testosterone levels tested to see who has the most and least, and whether personality traits actually match hormone levels. (13 minutes)
 • Act Three: What happens when a man suddenly loses all of his testosterone? We return to Alex Blumberg’s interview from the top of the show with a man who that happened to. He says life without testosterone is life without desire. By that he doesn’t mean sexual desire. He means any desire. (6 minutes)
 • Act Four: Novelist Miriam Toews interviews her 15-year-old son, someone at an age when boys experience a jolt of ten or twenty times the testosterone they had as children, about all the things she doesn’t understand about what he’s going through. (11 minutes)

Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org

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893: Testosterone

People on journeys they did not intend — or agree to.

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 • Prologue: A woman on a nighttime bus ride wakes up to discover the bus driver is taking the passengers somewhere none of them want to go. (8 minutes)
 • Act One: Ayman Oghanna was reporting in Syria when he got a surprising call from home: one of his neighbors had been arrested for spying. (13 minutes)
 • Act Two: Eileen Sosin Martínez describes life in Havana right now, where blackouts have become so constant that it’s nearly impossible to make ice and garbage trucks don’t collect the trash regularly. (11 minutes)
 • Act Three: A beloved tree in England, more than 100 years old, is mysteriously cut down overnight, leaving the country bereft and enraged and out for justice. (15 minutes)
 • Act Four: When she was 16, Leticia flew from Sao Paolo, where she lived, to Germany. She was seated next to an older woman who did something so surprising during the flight that Leticia still tells people about it today. (9 minutes)

Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org

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892: Trapped on a Bus

Some people in this country think Antifa is a dangerous domestic terror organization. Some think that’s a complete myth. This week, we go to the federal trial where, for the first time, the government sets out to prove that Antifa is real. Zoe Chace reports.

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 • Prologue: Host Ira Glass tells the story of what happened at the Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas. The government claims this was an attack by an Antifa cell. The defense says it was a protest gone awry. This argument goes to court in a first-of-its-kind trial. (7 minutes)
 • Act One: Reporter Zoe Chace walks us through one of the worst days for the defense: all these guns. (5 minutes)
 • Act Two: Zoe takes us through the testimony of the government’s Antifa expert. The defense team is optimistic that things are going well for them. (8 minutes)
 • Act Three: Zoe goes to jail to talk with one of the cooperating witnesses for the prosecution, a former church lady named Lynette Sharp. She has a lot to say about the events in her life that led her to accept a plea deal and testify against her friends. (24 minutes)
 • Act Four: The verdicts come in. (12 minutes)

Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org

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891: The Test Case

On this country's 250th birthday, we bring you stories about the most American people, places, objects, and social norms that make this country what it is.

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 • Prologue: Ira talks to Pablo Torre about Major League Baseball’s new challenge system, and how it’s been optimized for maximum drama. (10 minutes)
 • Act One: Writer Jiayang Fan wrestles with a very common question she has never quite understood. (5 minutes)
 • Act Two: People come from all over the country to walk down one of Michigan’s tallest sand dunes, and then promptly turn around and trudge back up. Aviva DeKornfeld talks to Americans spending their limited vacation time on this punishing activity. (8 minutes)
 • Act Three: Emanuele Berry talks to Ira about Season 13 of the reality TV show, Survivor, known to fans as the “race war” season. (8 minutes)
 • Act Four: Years before his famous dictionary, Noah Webster wrote a book that took on a life of its own and served an unexpected purpose. (8 minutes)
 • Act Five: Emmanuel Dzotsi investigates a musical phenomenon very particular to the United States: singers embellishing the end of the national anthem. (9 minutes)

Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org

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890: Maximal Americanness

We spend an hour in the last two minutes of the fourth quarter, behind and desperate, with people trying any damn thing they can think of.

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 • Prologue: Five years after Ora first started experiencing mysterious and debilitating health problems, she decides to try a treatment that she knows very well might kill her. Host Ira Glass talks to her about the experience. (9 minutes)
 • Act One: Two lawyers have just three months to stop their client's execution. In Texas, where this story takes place, these kinds of appeals to get people off death row fail 94% of the time. (38 minutes)
 • Act Two: At the Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego, migrants figured out an ingenious way to communicate with the activists gathered outside of the detention center’s walls. (13 minutes)

Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org

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889: There’s Something About Hail Mary

Regular people trapped inside Greek myths.

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 • Prologue: When a mysterious, ripped-open package arrives on Pablo's doorstep, he takes it as a sign. (4 minutes)
 • Act One: Pablo flies closer to the sun. (14 minutes)
 • Act Two: In Greek mythology, there's Hades, where everyone goes when they die. You have to cross the river Styx to get there, and there’s a gate with this three-headed dog. He’s guarding the entrance and he’s supposed to make sure only actual dead people enter. This story is about a real person in America who stood at those very gates. Which is not the easiest job it turns out, at least not right now. (24 minutes)
 • Act Three: A mortal gets the assignment of a lifetime — to go interview an actual god who is living on earth, traveling under the name of Lionel Messi. (11 minutes)

Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org

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888: Not Today, Hades!

One family faces the Trump administration’s ban on trans people serving in the military, and responds with a surprising secret weapon.

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 • Prologue: Geirid and Chrissy are extreme planners. But about a year ago, they were confronted with a situation that even they had no idea how to plan for. (4 minutes)
 • Act One: Geirid and Chrissy make an “in case of emergency, break glass” spreadsheet and get some big news. (14 minutes)
 • Act Two: Geirid and Chrissy have less than a month to make a life-changing decision. The government gives them two options, and they try to find a third. (21 minutes)
 • Act Three: A short story from Rachel Khong: Two people have a very consequential choice to make, given to them by God. (15 minutes)

Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org

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887: Two Is One, One Is None!

Since the war began in Iran, we've heard very little from people inside the country — and there's a reason for that. The entire country has been under an internet blackout. We worked with reporters Roxana Saberi and Fatemeh Jamalpour to get voice memos out of the country. Even though it was dangerous and difficult, people wanted to be heard.

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 • Prologue: Shirin's parents suddenly disappear into the blackout. (5 minutes)
 • Act One: It’s a war and a blackout. People want to talk about both. (17 minutes)
 • Act Two: What happened before America and Israel went to war with Iran. (9 minutes)
 • Act Three: Iranians have many opinions about the war, and about each other. (12 minutes)
 • Act Four: What happened inside Iran the night President Trump threatened that "a whole civilization could die." And a clue about where the internet blackout is headed. (19 minutes)

Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org

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886: Blackout

Ira always hated commencement speeches. Then he felt like he had to give this one.

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Ira (Reluctantly) Gives a Graduation Speech

People discovering information about their own lives that they did not know and suddenly everything looks very different.

892: Trapped on a Bus

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