This American Life (Unofficial)

It’s the midterms! This week’s show is about people changing their minds and not changing their minds — and the people trying to do the persuading.

Sayre Quevedo’s invented a way to do a podcast that feels completely new. He’s been recording nearly all his conversations for years, and the result is something that captures a person’s life in a raw and complicated way that’s rarely heard. His new show Reaching Out also documents his mutually judge-y relationship with his twin brother as they set out to find their long-lost birth father.

Nikole Hannah-Jones made an argument 10 years ago in The New York Times Magazine that became famous. She wrote about choosing a public school for her daughter, Najya, in one of the most racially and economically segregated school systems in the country: New York City. Nikole chose a regular public school, one that most wealthy and middle-class parents wouldn’t consider, and she challenged other parents to do the same. 

She revisits that argument, and that choice, in a series of conversations with producer Chana Joffe-Walt and with her daughter, Najya, who’s now 16 and has her own very different views.

People braving the true final frontier — the gap between people born at slightly different times.

Moments when it seems obvious what to do for someone else, so of course you jump in and try to help — and what happens after that.

Labels are powerful. They can distill you down to a single word. They can get stuck on you without your permission. And sometimes, when they get taken away, they can upend your entire life. On this episode: labels and the havoc they wreak.

People dealing with new, glaring, massive changes happening right where they live.

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.

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

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.