This American Life

People tossing words out into the world impulsively, to ignite and burn over decades.

When a doctor breaks the law, he might go to jail like anybody else. But who decides whether he can keep his medical license? On today’s show, the not-often-talked-about realm of licensing boards, and the disturbing decisions they sometimes make.

In this moment when our country is so deeply divided, we have stories of people who are tied together, but imagine radically different futures. In one case, a movie star and her ex-husband plot against Kim Jong-Il. In another, a woman stalks her doppelgänger. And sometimes, one bed is the basis for an entire relationship, even for a man who almost never sees the person who shares his bed.

At a time when going to the movies is mostly out of the question, we bring the movies to you.

For the holiday weekend, a roadtrip through history. In this moment when Americans are tearing down monuments and rethinking how to address the shameful parts of America’s past, we return to a story from the early days of our radio show that took that on, in a vivid and complicated way. Sarah Vowell and her twin sister Amy headed out on the road to retrace the Trail of Tears – the route their Cherokee ancestors took when expelled from their own land – and reflected on the question, what are we supposed to do with the mix of good and bad that is this country?

Teachers, students and parents around the country have been bracing themselves all spring and summer long for the start of this unprecedented school year. This week, it's here.

It’s the last few weeks of summer, so we’re going to the beach! This week, stories from the surf and sand.

From the moment we wake up in the morning there are a trillion rules — big and little — governing our lives. But sometimes, we encounter one we just can't abide by. In a pitched moment of rule-questioning, a show about rules and the people who break them.

Years ago, producer Chana Joffe-Walt started reporting on one school in New York. She thought the story was about segregation and inequality in public schools. But the more she looked into it, the more she realized she was witnessing something else. She was seeing the inordinate power of white parents at this school. This is the first episode of Chana’s new mini-series: Nice White Parents.