First Contact

#411 - 25 June 2010

Stories of first encounters with unknown and distant beings: Girls, foreigners and perhaps even aliens. Including a story by comedian Mike Birbiglia about his first kiss.

Social Contract

#410 - 18 June 2010

Richard Ravitch has helped fix three governmental crises, including when New York City nearly went bankrupt in 1975. What's changed, to make it so much harder for him to solve the state's current financial crisis? (Photo: stress balls in the state budget office.)

Held Hostage

#409 - 4 June 2010

A kidnapping victim in Colombia spends his nights listening to a radio station that plays messages from the families of the kidnapped. That and other stories of people held captive—by criminals, by paperwork, and in one man's case, his own body—and the ways they try to cope.

Island Time

#408 - 21 May 2010

Unprecedented amounts of money have been pledged to Haitian relief in the last few months. American households have given over $1 billion and in March, 120 countries pledged over $9 billion(!) to rebuild. The only problem is that—historically—blanketing a country in aid and money has never really worked so well. Is there a chance this time things could be different?

The Bridge

#407 - 7 May 2010

We bring you stories of bridges from three different countries, including one in China that's famous for its massive size and its high suicide rate. One takes it upon himself to patrol the bridge, looking for jumpers. You can read entries from the watchman's blog here. This and other stories where we stop before getting to the other side.

True Urban Legends

#406 - 23 April 2010

Can a rat crawl through your plumbing and end up in your toilet? Can your cell phone give you a brain tumor? Download a transcript or read much more information about our Steve Poizner story. Christopher Ketcham's GQ cell article is here.

Inside Job

#405 - 9 April 2010

For seven months a team of investigative journalists from ProPublica looked into a story for us, the inside story of one company that made hundreds of millions of dollars for itself while worsening the financial crisis for the rest of us.

Enemy Camp 2010

#404 - 2 April 2010

Living behind enemy lines, among the enemy, it's sometimes hard to remember why you're fighting in the first place.

NUMMI

#403 - 26 March 2010

A car plant in Fremont California that might have saved the U.S. car industry. In 1984, General Motors and Toyota opened NUMMI as a joint venture. Toyota showed GM the secrets of its production system: How it made cars of much higher quality and much lower cost than GM achieved. Frank Langfitt explains why GM didn't learn the lessons—until it was too late.

Save the Day

#402 - 12 March 2010

Stories about one person single-handedly taking charge of a situation gone wrong—including one man's mission to rescue two kids who were kidnapped by alleged murderers and taken to Mexico, and another about a professor's mission to keep the educators of a liberal arts college from extinction.