Cynthia Alvarez fell in love with Marine Corporal Daniel Mark MacMurray. She was a peace activist, he was a proud veteran, and the two didn't always see eye to eye. But they agreed to love each other.

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Gwen and Yasir weren't the type of couple that liked to run marathons, at first. As hardships pulled their lives in unexpected directions, running became their best— and sometimes only— way of remembering what really mattered.

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Being a sports fan means putting a part of your happiness in the hands of strangers. When they lose, you die a little. But when they win, it's incredible. This week, stories about the triumph and tragedy of being a fan.

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Athletes get all the glory, but there are countless people around them making the games happen– from referees making judgments, to vendors in the stands hawking snacks and beer. In this episode, we're talking to people on the sidelines.

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Every athlete's looking for that extra edge — and for a lot of them, it's their family. Who drove them to practice? Who told them to never give up? In this episode, player's loved ones step into the spotlight.

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On the first episode of a new sports-themed season of the StoryCorps Podcast, we're talking about the game changers: People who altered how their sport was played. Some of these changes were tiny ones we now take for granted. Others changed how the sport looked. But after they made their mark, nothing was the same.

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Today, an episode by our friends at Radio Diaries and Radiotopia from their latest series, "The Unmarked Graveyard: Stories from Hart Island," untangling mysteries from America's largest public cemetery.

Artwork by Juan Astasio.

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Marine Staff Sergeant Nick Bennett and Sergeant Major Dan Miller remember a deployment during the Iraq War that changed their lives.

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All last season we asked our listeners to call our voicemail and tell us their stories. In this special bonus episode, it's their time to shine. Leave us a voicemail at 702-706-TALK, or email us at podcast@storycorps.org.

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In 1964, a 12-year-old paperboy from suburban Long Island spent nearly two weeks hiding among the gleaming attractions of the New York World's Fair. His adventure caused a media sensation, but the world only learned half the story.

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Jackie Miller and her son, Scott Miller, always shared everything with each other, even if it was hard. Scott knew his mother wanted to live life on her own terms, but he wasn't prepared for how she wanted to end it.

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Judd Esty-Kendall's father was an animal lover who filled their house with raccoons, hawks, and critters of every size. At times it was more like a zoo than a home. But there was one creature Judd's father treasured above the rest: A gray wolf.

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Howie Gordon starred in over a hundred porn films in the 70s and 80s under the name Richard Pacheco. But his greatest role was as a father. At StoryCorps, he talked with his son Bobby Gordon about sex, shame, and dirty movies.

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In "My Way," the new season of the StoryCorps podcast— stories from people who found a rhythm all their own and confidently marched to it their whole lives. Our first episode features a graduate of Hamburger University, one man's remarkably brave appearance on conservative radio in the 1990s, a New Yorker who took his mugger out to dinner, and more.

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In 1942, the U.S. allowed Black men to enlist in the Marine Corps for the first time. It was during World War II, and resulted in more than 19,000 Black recruits being sent to Montford Point, North Carolina for basic training. Many of those men are no longer with us, but their voices can be heard in the StoryCorps archive.

These stories are part of our Military Voices Initiative.

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In this special episode, we're remembering StoryCorps participant Rick Abath, who talked to his wife, Diana, about being on guard during the biggest art heist in history. Rick died last month at the age of 57.

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As we close out our special series celebrating 20 years of StoryCorps, hear how our One Small Step initiative is helping to facilitate a national conversation by bringing people together from across the political spectrum.

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This week, we're taking a break from our special series celebrating 20 years of StoryCorps to bring you an interview recorded just days ago. It's an update to a story recorded around the holidays back in 2012, and we just had to share it.

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Mary Johnson-Roy first came to StoryCorps in 2011 to speak with Oshea Israel, the man who murdered her son. In the latest episode from our special series celebrating StoryCorps' 20th anniversary, we'll share updates on a conversation none of us imagined would happen back when StoryCorps started.

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StoryCorps' initiatives have long helped us gather voices that are usually omitted from the historical record, like our LGBTQ+ Outloud initiative. In our continuing celebration of twenty years of StoryCorps, we're sharing some of our favorite recordings from that collection... and how a story close to our founder Dave Isay's heart helped lead to its creation.

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For most of StoryCorps' existence, we've recorded people in person at our storybooths. But on this episode of our special series celebrating 20 years of StoryCorps, we're looking back to when we stepped outside the recording booth to capture stories. Sometimes because we wanted to hear new voices... and sometimes because we had to.

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As we celebrate StoryCorps' 20th anniversary, we bring you the story of a man who integrated his high school as a teenager in Knoxville, Tennessee, and how a StoryCorps listener comment helped him reckon with his past five decades later.

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In the third episode of our special series celebrating two decades of StoryCorps, we're bringing you inside the Mobile Booth—the recording studio we built in a trailer to circle the country, capturing voices that would otherwise never be recorded. Hear some of our favorite stories from the road, and from the people who haul the trailer on a never-ending road trip.

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As we continue celebrating StoryCorps' 20th anniversary, we bring you two of our favorite stories that made a strong impression on our listeners, and we share updates with the participants from the last two decades.

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In this episode, we go back 20 years to the origins of StoryCorps–the challenges of building a recording booth in Grand Central Terminal– and we catch up with the participants from the first ever radio story we broadcast on NPR.

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As StoryCorps' 20th anniversary approaches, we'll be looking back at important moments both in our history and the country's. This week — one more short story from our Military Voices Initiative. Sergeant Ocean Subiono tells his father, Russell Subiono, about what happened when he tried to enlist.

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In celebration of our 20th Anniversary, StoryCorps will be revisiting some of our most memorable conversations from the past two decades. This week, we announce an upcoming special series with this short story from our Military Voices Initiative.

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There are people who help us at every stage of life –– from the moment we're born to our last breath. But at the end, who's helping us when we're gone? On the season finale of the StoryCorps Podcast, twin mortician brothers look back on a life of caring for the dead.

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When a train ride to work veers into a life or death situation, two strangers become an important part of each other's lives.

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50 years ago, most of the nation was glued to "gavel-to-gavel" coverage of the Senate Watergate hearings that would uncover major abuses of power by the Nixon administration. In this episode – how a decision to speak up blew the lid off the largest political scandal in American history.

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Monique "Muffie" Mousseau and her partner Felipa Deleon grew up on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. In this episode, they share the long and sometimes painful journey of fighting for their love, their community, and their ancestors...all while making history.

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Jason Romero was given a serious diagnosis. But to stop running from it he'd have to do something no one had ever done before.

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In 1920, a father made a split-second decision to save his newborn's life by taking her to an incubator exhibit at Coney Island. We meet her in this episode, and she shares how a sideshow attraction saved her life, and thousands of others, when hospitals couldn't, ultimately changing the course of American medicine.

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In 1968, just moments after Robert F. Kennedy was shot, a young photographer for The Los Angeles Times — Boris Yaro — captured the scene in an image that's haunted the nation ever since. In this episode of the StoryCorps podcast, we remember RFK and we revisit the story of that famous photo.

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Rabbi Philip Lazowski remembers a quick decision that saved his life during the Holocaust.

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This season on the StoryCorps Podcast from NPR, eight stories about eight moments that changed everything.

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On this short Memorial Day episode, we'll hear from Marine Lance Cpl. Travis Williams, an Iraq War veteran who lost every other member of his 12-man squad.

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On this short Mother's Day episode, Madzimoyo Owusu came to StoryCorps with her daughter, Johannah Owusu, to honor the memory of the woman who helped shape her life.

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On this extra holiday episode, Terri Van Keuren, Richard Shoup and Pamela Farrell remember how their father, Air Force Colonel Harry Shoup, started the holiday tradition of tracking Santa Claus on U.S. military radar in 1955. donate.storycorps.org/podcast

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What happens when paralyzing fear stops you from following your dream? In our final episode of the season...Jim Von Stein has written 8000 songs, but almost nobody has heard a single one of them...until now...

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In the early 90s, teenagers LeAlan Jones and Lloyd Newman recorded a week of their lives on Chicago's South Side. Working with StoryCorps founder Dave Isay, LeAlan and Lloyd produced a documentary they called Ghetto Life 101, one of the most acclaimed programs in public radio history. In remembrance of Lloyd, who died this week, we bring you a special presentation of Ghetto Life 101.

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In the second part of our Kalaupapa story, we hear how people exiled from society reconnected with family – and found a new community. donate.storycorps.org/podcast

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In this two-part special, we remember a community of forgotten people cast out to a remote Hawaiian island. http://donate.storycorps.org/podcast

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This is the story behind one of the most valuable — and perhaps, most improbable — technologies humanity has ever created. It's a breakthrough called extreme ultraviolet lithography, and it's how the most advanced microchips in the world are made. The kind of chips powering the latest AI models. The kind of chips that the U.S. is desperately trying to keep out of the hands of China.

For years, few thought this technology was even possible. It still sounds like science fiction: A laser strong enough to blast holes in a bank vault hits a droplet of molten tin. The droplet explodes into a burst of extreme ultraviolet light. That precious light is funneled onto a wafer of silicon, where it etches circuits as fine as a strand of DNA. Only one company in the world that can make these advanced microchip etching machines: a Dutch firm called ASML.

Today on the show, how this breakthrough in advanced chipmaking happened — and how it almost didn't. How the long-shot idea was incubated in U.S. nuclear weapons laboratories and nurtured by U.S. tech giants. And, why a Dutch company now controls it.

This episode was hosted by Jeff Guo and Sally Helm. It was produced by Willa Rubin and edited by Jess Jiang. It was fact-checked by Dania Suleman, and engineered by Patrick Murray. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

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On the day after the election, Wall Street responded in a dramatic way. Some stocks went way up, others went way down. By reading those signals — by breaking down what people were buying and what they were selling — you can learn a lot about where the economy might be headed. Or at least, where people are willing to bet the economy is headed.

On today's show, we decode what Wall Street thinks about the next Trump presidency — what it means for different parts of the economy, and what it means for everyone. Does the wisdom of the market think President Trump will actually impose new tariffs and lift regulations? What about taxes and spending? And will inflation ultimately go up or down?

What markets bet President Trump will do. That's today's episode.

This episode was hosted by Jeff Guo, Sally Helm, Erika Beras, and Keith Romer. It was produced by Sam Yellowhorse Kesler and Willa Rubin. It was edited by Martina Castro and fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. Engineering by Gilly Moon. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

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Back in the 90s, the federal government ran a bold experiment, giving people vouchers to move out of high-poverty neighborhoods into low-poverty ones. They wanted to test if housing policy could be hope – whether an address change alone could improve jobs, earnings and education.

The answer to that seems obvious. But it did not at all turn out as they expected.

Years later, when new researchers went back to the data on this experiment, they stumbled on something big. Something that is changing housing policy across the country today.

Today's episode was originally hosted by Karen Duffin, produced by Aviva DeKornfeld, and edited by Bryant Urstadt. The update was hosted by Amanda Aronczyk, produced by Sean Saldana and fact checked by Sierra Juarez. Our supervising executive producer is Alex Goldmark.

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Ray and Becky Queen live in rural Oklahoma with their kids (and chickens). The Queens were able to buy that home with a VA loan because of Ray's service in the Army. During COVID, the Queens – like millions of other Americans – needed help from emergency forbearance. They were told they could pause home payments for up to a year and then pick up again making affordable mortgage payments with no problems.

That's what happened for most American homeowners who took forbearance. But not for tens of thousands of military veterans like Ray Queen.

On today's show, we follow two reporters' journey to figure out what went wrong with the VA's loan forbearance program. How did something meant to help vets keep their houses during COVID end up stranding tens of thousands of them on the brink of foreclosure? And, once the error was spotted, did the government do enough to make things right?

Today's episode was produced by James Sneed. It was edited by Meg Cramer. And fact-checked by Dania Suleman. Engineering by Cena Loffredo. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

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If you... exist in the world, it's likely that you have gotten a letter or email at some point informing you that your data was stolen. This happened recently to potentially hundreds of millions of people in a hack that targeted companies like Ticketmaster, AT&T, Advance Auto Parts and others that use the data cloud company Snowflake.

On today's show, we try to figure out where that stolen data ended up, how worried we should be about it, and what we're supposed to do when bad actors take our personal and private information. And: How our information is being bought, sold, and stolen.

This episode was hosted by Amanda Aronczyk and Keith Romer. It was produced by Sam Yellowhorse Kesler and edited by Meg Cramer. It was engineered by Ko Takasugi-Czernowin with an assist from Kwesi Lee, and fact-checked by Dania Suleman. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

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On today's show, we have two stories from The Indicator, Planet Money's daily podcast. They just launched Love Week, a weeklong series exploring the business and economic side of romance.

First, hosts Wailin Wong and Adrian Ma fire up the gas logs and pour a mug of cocoa to discuss the made-for-TV rom-com machine, and how television executives learned to mass produce seasonal romance.

Then, Wailin and host Darian Woods discuss another romance medium: the romance novel. Once relegated to supermarket aisles, these books are now mainstream. And authors, an often-maligned group within publishing, have found greater commercial success than many writers in other genres. We find out how romance novelists rode the e-book wave and networked with each other to achieve their happily-for-now status in the industry.

This episode is hosted by Erika Beras, Wailin Wong, Adrian Ma, and Darian Woods. These episodes of The Indicator were originally produced by Julia Ritchey and engineered by Kwesi Lee. They were fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. Kate Concannon is The Indicator's Editor.

You can listen to the rest of the series at The Indicator's feed, or at npr.org/love

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Over the past two decades, there's been a sort of tectonic economic shift happening under our feet. More and more companies have switched from selling goods one by one to selling services, available as a subscription. These days everything from razor blades to meal kits to car washes have become subscriptions. But all that convenience has also come with a dark side – some companies have designed their offerings to be as easy as possible to sign up for and also as difficult as possible to cancel. Many consumers are now paying for way more subscriptions than they even know about.

On today's show, we discover how we all fell into this subscription trap – who is winning and who is losing in this brave new subscription based world – and what both the government and the free market are doing to try and fix it.

This episode was hosted by Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi and Jeff Guo. It was produced by James Sneed. It was edited by Jess Jiang, fact-checked by Sierra Juarez, and engineered by Valentina Rodriguez Sanchez. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

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