When a joke could get you killed, should you say it anyway? A group of Syrian comedians test the limits of their newfound freedom, a year after the fall of the brutal Assad regime.

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• Prologue: Under the dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad, comedian Sharief Homsi knew which jokes were too dangerous to say on stage. Now that Syria is under the control of a new government, Sharief and the other comedians of “Styria” set out on a national tour to see how far their comedy can go in this new Syria. (6 minutes)
• Act One: The comedians test out risky material and get big laughs on early tour dates. It’s going smoothly until they find out that their show scheduled in the conservative city of Hama is in danger of being cancelled. (13 minutes)
• Act Two: The comedians go to battle with local officials. (18 minutes)
• Act Three: The comedians try everything they can think of to keep their shows from being cancelled. (20 minutes)

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In this special mini-episode -- an extra episode this week! -- we hear from someone in Venezuela with a very specific take on last week's U.S. attack.

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

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• Prologue: When Pete turned 18, his dad took him on a drive to reveal a family secret he was finally old enough to know. (11 minutes)
• Act One: Sometimes, a lore drop comes when you least expect it.  That happened to Jake Cornell and his grandmother. Producer Aviva DeKornfeld talked to Jake about it. (14 minutes)
• Act Two: Ben Austen had a kind of new lore drop happen to him recently. But it was not the clarifying kind of lore drop, where everything suddenly makes sense — it was kind of the opposite. (29 minutes)

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The tiny thing that unravels your world.

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• Prologue: Ira talks to Chris Benderev, whose high school years were completely upended by an impromptu thing his teacher said. (8 minutes)
• Act One: For Producer Lilly Sullivan, there’s one story about her parents that defines how she sees them, their family, and their history. She finds out it might be wrong. (27 minutes)
• Act Two: For years, Mike Comite has replayed in his head the moment when he and his bandmate blew their shot of making it as musicians. He sets out to uncover how it all went awry. (13 minutes)
• Act Three: Six million Syrians fled the country after the start of its civil war. A few weeks ago, one woman watched from afar as everything in her home country changed forever – again. (9 minutes)

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The one animal we can’t seem to live without, even when we really, really want to.

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• Prologue: At the announcement of New York City’s inaugural rat czar, we meet Darneice Foster, who despises the rats outside her apartment. And host Ira Glass introduces two special co-hosts for today’s show. (11 minutes)
• Act One: Producer Elna Baker meets Todd Sklar, a man who can’t quit rats. (22 minutes)
• Act Two: Fifty years ago, New York City started to put garbage out in plastic bags. This has become the number one food source for rats. Producer Ike Sriskandarajah investigates the decision that led to the city’s rat baby boom. (10 minutes)
• Act Three: How did Alberta, Canada pull off a feat that has eluded the rest of human civilization? Ira visits the largest rat-less land in the world. (15 minutes)
• Act Four: We drop a hot mic into a hot mess of a rats’ nest. You’ll never believe what happens next. (3 minutes)

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Stories about the intersection of Christmas and retail, originally broadcast in 1996 when our show was only a year old. Including David Sedaris's "Santaland Diaries" about the seasons he spent working as an elf at Macy's.

How one block in Portland, Oregon became a movie-set war zone that lots of people think is a real war zone.

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• Prologue: What the movie Hearts of Darkness and right-wing influencers have in common. (8 minutes)
• Act One: Producers Zoe Chace and Suzanne Gaber follow a bunch of right-wing influencers as they search for Antifa in Portland. (31 minutes)
• Act Two: We meet the so-called leader of Antifa in Portland. (16 minutes)

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When history comes knocking, you have to figure out what to do.

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• Prologue: Brittany’s job is to answer anonymous calls and texts from people in the military. This year, she’s gotten more than usual–most of them are wondering about what to do with orders they’ve been given. Or orders they’re afraid they’ll get someday in the future. (9 minutes)
• Act One: Jad Abumrad tells the story of the "ideological genealogy” of Fela Kuti’s anti-colonial politics–his mother. In late 1940s Nigeria, Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti found herself at the center of a big, historical moment: an uprising led by thousands of women selling goods in Nigeria’s markets. Jad goes searching for who she really was, and how she became the person who galvanized a movement when history demanded it of her. (45 minutes)

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What’s in the box? What’s in the $%&ing box?!?

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• Prologue: A class of second graders is handed a sealed box with a mystery object inside. They are supposed to guess what it is, but the lesson goes off the rails. (8 minutes)
• Act One: A man is hired along with a crew to dig a mysterious hole on the slopes of Mt. Shasta. The hole goes sixty feet down. But what are they looking for? (24 minutes)
• Act 2: A sparkly mystery. One woman hopes the military-industrial complex is involved. (4 minutes)
• Act Two: What happens when the full force of the federal government arrives on your block? (14 minutes)
• Act Three: A comedian finds himself trapped in an uncomfortable mystery in the backseat of a cab. (4 minutes)

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What’s great about living in a family is that everyone sees everything differently. Also, that’s what’s awful about living in a family. We go behind closed doors with two families.  

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• Prologue: When Heather Gay started taking steps away from Mormonism, she thought it was her secret. That her daughters had no idea. Until she talked to them about their mismatched memories. (17 minutes)
• Act One: In every house, behind every closed door, a private drama is unfolding. In the Rivera house, the drama comes in the form of a question: should they stay or should they go? This question winds its way around the house until someone finally answers it. (44 minutes)

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Shalom Auslander goes on vacation with his family, suspects the beloved, chatty old man in the room next door is an imposter, and sets out to prove it. This and other stories about the pitfalls of making snap judgments about others.

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• Prologue: Amy Roberts thought it was obvious that she was an adult, not a kid, and she assumed the friendly man working at the children's museum knew it too. Unfortunately, the man had Amy pegged all wrong. And by the time she figured it out, it was too late for either of them to save face. Host Ira Glass talks to Amy about the embarrassing ordeal that taught her never to assume she knows what someone else is thinking. (8 minutes)
• Act One: While riding in a patrol car to research a novel, crime writer Richard Price witnessed a misunderstanding that, for many people, is pretty much accepted as an upsetting fact of life. Richard Price told this story, which he describes as a tale taken from real life and dramatized, onstage at The Moth in New York. (12 minutes)
• Act Two: There are situations where making judgments about people based on limited information is not only accepted but required. One of those situations is open adoption, where birth mothers actually choose the adoptive parents for their child. Producer Nancy Updike talks to a pregnant woman named Kim, going through the first stage of open adoption: reading dozens of letters from prospective parents, all of whom seem utterly capable and appealing. (6 minutes)
• Act Three: David Rakoff picks a fight with a hit Broadway show. (6 minutes)
• Act Four: Shalom Auslander tells the story of the time he went on vacation, pegged the guest in the room next door as an imposter, and devoted his holiday to trying to prove it. Shalom is the author of Feh: a Memoir. (22 minutes)

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