This American Life (Unofficial)

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 sto...

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...

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.