Sep 25, 2020

Transcript
Insomnia Line

 

[RADIOLAB INTRO]

JAD ABUMRAD: Hey, I'm Jad Abumrad. This is a Radiolab. I want to start off with some good news about the show. As most of you know, my longtime co-host, co-conspirator, pal, Robert Krulwich left the show back in January. And a few things were immediately clear. One, he's irreplaceable. There's no other Robert. But simultaneously it was also clear that over the years, the show has grown to be way more than just the Robert-Jad situation. We now have all of these reporters and producers who you hear on the show all the time. It's much more of a collective. And so, in the spirit of doing something new, rather than trying to recapture the old, and in keeping with that chaotic more collective vibe that the show has now become, here's my news: going forward, I'm still gonna be hosting the show, of course, but I will be sharing this space on again, off again with two new co-hosts.

LATIF NASSER: Hello, everybody for the first time.

JAD: [laughs]

LULU MILLER: Hi, there.

JAD: Who aren't actually new.

LULU: Good to see you.

JAD: Latif Nasser and Lulu Miller.

LULU: Jad, are you having cold feet about welcoming us to the fire of the microphone?

JAD: No! So excited. When we were planning this whole thing out, I actually got them into the studio just to sort of talk about the emotional issues of being a Radiolab host.

LATIF: It's a syndrome.

JAD: Actually, it's a pathology.

LATIF: Stockholm syndrome?

JAD: Called hosting.

LATIF: There you go. Welcome.

LULU: Thanks. [laughs]

JAD: Latif, of course, you've heard on the show over and over again, including most recently the series, The Other Latif. On top of that, he just released a Netflix show called Connected, which is very cool. Go check it out. And then Lulu actually started with me on the show like 15-some years ago when it was just a tiny little operation. And she is now back with us after having gone off and co-founded the podcast Invisibilia, written this incredible book, Why Fish Don't Exist that made me cry. Now you will be hearing Lulu and Latif talking to me, bringing their own stories to the show as always, but also talking to our usual incredible lineup of producers and reporters.

LULU: What I'm really excited about is getting to go along with all these different reporters.

LATIF: Yeah. It's like someone else has reported this story and then we get to, like, circle and draw some arrows.

JAD: Circles and arrows.

LATIF: We're good at that. That's our only strength. We can do that.

JAD: Just humor me. Introduce yourselves in this new role just to see how it goes.

LULU: I am Lulu Miller, co-host of Radiolab.

LATIF: Yeah, I'm not sure how the words are going to come out of the mouth here, but let me try them. All right. I'm Latif Nasser, co-host of Radiolab.

JAD: How'd that feel?

LULU: I'll tell you very acutely. What it felt for me was like, I hope I don't screw it up between the time I said that and the time this goes to air. Like, anything can happen between then, and I hope I don't mess it up.

JAD: [laughs] Lulu?

LULU: I was going like that so you could fit 'em so you can see a little—this feels very, very special. Don't make me put words to it.

JAD: Fair enough. But let me just say that I can't even express in words how excited I am to be sharing this space with these two brilliant, strange, deep thinking, deep feeling humans. Having them with us as we head into this—the end of a very strange year and take on whatever comes next, it just feels right to me and really exciting. Now, at this moment in time, Latif is actually still finishing up his paternity leave. He had his second kid just recently, so he's hunkered down at home with a newborn, but Lulu actually jumped into the saddle with us here at Radiolab a few weeks ago and after hanging around and climbing into a bunch of conversations and arguments and meetings, she—well she ended up bringing a little something for all of you today. It's an experiment, sort of. Definitely something we've never done before so we're just gonna dive in. Okay, Lulu, welcome. This is the first time ...

LULU: Hi.

JAD: ... that you and I in our new relationship to one another. It's the first time we do this. Where do you want to start?

LULU: I think it was about a week ago. I think it was about a week and a half ago where we all had a pitch meeting. It was like my second week, maybe, here on the team. Just trying to, like, get my bearings and stuff in. And I brought up how I'd been having trouble sleeping back in the spring, and I noticed pretty quickly that I was one in this wave. There had been all these studies coming out about how insomnia is on the rise.

JAD: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

LULU: And it turned out a ton of people on the team had been thinking about similar stuff, this shadow epidemic of anxiety and sleeplessness, wishing there was a way to tap directly into that space. And within literally a couple minutes, we hatched this idea of setting up an insomnia line, let people call in, and we thought we'd just have the phones open from 2:00 am to sunrise Eastern Standard Time.

JAD: Wow, you went all the way from 2:00 am to sunrise?

LULU: Yeah. We chose a night, which was last Thursday night, September 17. And, you know, the night we picked at this point seems like a totally different world. It was the night before RBG died and about a week before the Breonna Taylor ruling. So this new wave of hardship wasn't in the air yet for us or our callers.

JAD: Okay.

LULU: But at 1:45 am, we tweeted out the phone number and said, "If you're awake, call us."

LISTENER: What up, Radiolab? I'm in Los Angeles, California. I have insomnia.]

LULU: Then—so then the voicemails started rolling in.

JAD: Ooh, like, right away?

LULU: Yeah. So, like, 2:00 am struck.

LISTENER: Heyo, Radiolab. First time listener, long time listener, first time caller.

LULU: There were, like, 40 right off the bat, just waiting.

JAD: Whoa!

LULU: And it was like this immediate cross-section ...

LISTENER: Here, laying in my bed with my dog.

LULU: ... of the country and even beyond.

LISTENER: It's 1:41 in the morning here in Mexico City.

LULU: Of just, like, intensity. I mean, I think the thing we all realized really quick was that we were sticking out this antenna into, like, a really vulnerable time.

LISTENER: Hi, my name is Kendra. I'm calling from Denver, Colorado, and I can't sleep because I miss my mom. She passed away earlier this year, and I miss her every single day. I'm up because I quit drinking a few weeks ago.

LISTENER: I am currently walking circles around my apartment.

LISTENER: I really want to drink again.

LISTENER: I can hear the clock ticking.

LISTENER: All the days are just blending together right now.

LISTENER: I can hear the fans spinning.

LISTENER: Just swimming through time soup.

LULU: You know, people were worried. They were worried about COVID.

LISTENER: I'm a nurse in the time of COVID, and so I don't sleep anymore.

LULU: About their jobs.

LISTENER: I lost my job in March thanks to COVID. I was teaching English as a foreign language.

LISTENER: Today and tomorrow too, I have another job interview.

LISTENER: I don't have a job lined up. I don't tell anybody about this. You know, I wake up every night like this.

LULU: About the state of the country.

LISTENER: With everything that is happening with racism. Yeah.

LISTENER: As a woman, yeah, it's complicated. So I'm considering moving maybe to Costa Rica or Dominican Republic, or even going back to Puerto Rico.

LISTENER: You know how you breathe out, and your lungs squeak a little bit?

LULU: From the West Coast, there was just tons about the smoky sky.

LISTENER: My house has smelled like an ashtray for days.

LISTENER: Been really hazy and smoky and kind of always smells like toast.

LISTENER: As a person who used a ventilator, I feel just discomfort after being surrounded by smoke for over a week.

LISTENER: But there's a fun twist right now, which is—let me see if I can go outside, actually.

LULU: But some places it had rained.

LISTENER: But now there's thunder and torrential rain. Wow, that was a bright flash!

LULU: But, you know, for all the worry, there was another side to the night.

LISTENER: Heyo, Radiolab, man. Name is Ricky, and I'm just vibing right now. You know, even though I'm tired, I just want to stay up just because all of the other hours, you know, were for somebody else just working. And I guess I want those one to three hours to be mine.

LISTENER: I'm not totally sure why I'm awake, but I started drawing, and now I think I maybe don't want to go back to sleep.

LULU: All these people just leaning into their weird thoughts.

LISTENER: The big thing I'm thinking about today is that I learned that horse treadmills exist.

LISTENER: So you imagine you have a building which is mushrooming with mushrooms. [laughs] Literally in the morning when you wake up, instead of plucking your, you know, fruits from the garden, you're actually plucking mushrooms from your building. It's—it's just great to think that maybe one day we can have a building which will give us food.

LULU: Throughout the whole night, that line between reality and fantasy was thin.

LISTENER: I've been having really weird dreams.

LISTENER: Yeah, I have nightmares, terrible dreams.

LISTENER: There was a little baby fox that died, and we were trying to have a funeral for it.

LISTENER: A few minutes ago, I had to break up a fight between a couple of raccoons outside.

LISTENER: There are monsters chasing me.

LISTENER: My cat is sitting on my neck.

LISTENER: I'm on the planet Califrax, about 73 light years from Earth.

LISTENER: Right now, I'm looking at Mars from my backyard. I can see it just by looking at the sky. It's particularly red.

LISTENER: And I would very much love to fall asleep, but I can't.

LISTENER: Yeah, I can't sleep.

LULU: You know, all told, there are over 200 calls. And if anything came through loud and clear, it was that during those hours, people feel really alone.

LISTENER: I'm alone and I'm scared.

LISTENER: If you want to call me back, I'm at 817 ...

LISTENER: Feel free to give me a call back. The number is ...

LISTENER: Give me a call back. 856 ...

LISTENER: I might be awake for a while longer.

JAD: Coming up, conversations across the void and a trip to the stars. Radiolab will continue in a moment.

[LISTENER: Howdy, this is Blake Crozier from Nashville, Tennessee. Radiolab is supported in part by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, enhancing public understanding of science and technology in the modern world. More information about Sloan at www.sloan.org.]

[JAD: Science reporting on Radiolab is supported in part by Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation initiative dedicated to engaging everyone with the process of science.]

JAD: This is Radiolab. We are back. I'm Jad Abumrad.

LULU: And I am your co-host, Lulu Miller.

JAD: Yes!

LULU: And interestingly enough ...

LATIF: Hey, it's Latif calling in the bathroom. I'm actually calling in the bathroom because I don't want awake the baby.

LULU: At 2:47 am on the insomnia line, we got a call from our other co-host, Latif Nasser ...

LATIF: I wanted to share a little factoid that I discovered.

LULU: ... being very, very Latif.

LATIF: Which was that in 1939 there was a ship, a P class destroyer. It's called the HMS Porcupine. And it broke into two pieces, and then they named the pieces the HMS Pork and the HMS Pine, which was just incredible. The HMS Pork and the HMS Pine! [laughs] Okay. All right.

LULU: Anyway, back to the mission at hand. A bunch of Radiolabbers had all gathered to man the phones and screen the voicemails. And 2:00 am hits and ...

RACHAEL CUSICK: There's voicemails. There's voicemails already!

LULU: ... we started calling people back. Here we go. On the phone here is Shima Oliaee.

LISTENER: Hello?

SHIMA OLIAEE: Hey, this is Shima calling from Radiolab. What's your name?

LISTENER: My name is Kweijo Adai.

SHIMA: Where are you?

LISTENER: I'm in New Haven, Connecticut. I'm on Bassett Street, and I have been commissioned by the city to make the city's first Black Lives Matter mural. I'm sketching out the words, which are 22 by 277 feet in total. And then on Sunday, people are gonna come and take some yellow paint and I'm gonna orchestrate them to fill in the letters.

SHIMA: Is there a reason that you have to do this mural at 3:30 in the morning? It's 3:30 where you are, right?

LISTENER: It's 3:30 in the morning, yeah. So the city of New Haven commissioned me to make this mural, but they only are closing the street from—they're only closing the street from 6:00 am on Saturday to 9:00 pm. And I told them, like, this is a pavement mural. Like, you need to close the street so I can, like, sketch it out, and make sure that there's enough drying time after we paint or ...

SHIMA: Yeah.

LISTENER: And they're like, "Well, we can't do that. So ..."

SHIMA: In your sketch, are there, like, people in this mural, or is it just the letters themselves?

LISTENER: Oh, it's just—it's just the words 'Black Lives Matter' in, like, yellow paint. And, you know, this message is—I was conflicted with this message because I would rather be, like, painting flowers or painting—painting people, but, like, having to paint this is—it's been really tough.

SHIMA: Why?

LISTENER: It's tough to be reminded and to have to remind others of your own humanity. That's difficult for me.

SHIMA: Yeah.

LISTENER: I don't know how much we're doing in terms of a city to, you know, make it so that I don't have to paint this mural again.

SHIMA: Hmm.

LISTENER: Good morning, this is Alex.

SARAH QARI: Hi, Alex. This is Sarah calling from Radiolab.

LULU: Next, producer Sarah Qari.

SARAH: It seems like you might have called a while ago.

LISTENER: I wake up at that time because that's when rodents tend to be most active. And I work in Boston, so there's plenty of rodents to be had.

SARAH: You're an exterminator?

LISTENER: Yes. That's what most people call us. We have fancier names for ourselves, but—and yeah, so I usually wake up at two, drive into the city and start chasing rats.

SARAH: All right, take care. Have a good rest of your night, morning.

LISTENER: You too. Have a great rest of your day.

SARAH: You too.

LISTENER: Thank you. Bye.

LISTENER: Who's there?

MOLLY WEBSTER: Is this Bobby?

LISTENER: Yeah.

LULU: Then Molly Webster.

MOLLY: Bobby, it's Molly Webster from Radiolab. How are you?

LISTENER: I'm amazing. I mean, I'm looking out over at Brighton Beach. Ocean. I'm on my terrace with my trees and my plants.

MOLLY: Can you tell me either why you're awake or if something's keeping you awake?

LISTENER: I've always been an insomnia person since I was a little kid. You know, I'd sneak out of the house when I was a teenager, you know, like 13, 14. I'd go wander out on the beach at night at midnight and sing to the ocean, you know? Let's see what I can see. I'm here on the 18th floor.

MOLLY: Okay.

LISTENER: Overlooking—over there that's Rockaway.

MOLLY: Is that the ocean that I can hear in the background or, like, wind?

LISTENER: Well, I don't know. It might be traffic, but the ocean's out there.

MOLLY: [laughs]

LISTENER: Anyway, it's a beautiful night. What a great life I have. How blessed we are.

LISTENER: Hi.

MOLLY: Hi, is this Azul?

LISTENER: Yeah. Hello.

MOLLY: Tell me where you are at and why you're awake.

LISTENER: Yeah. So I am in Portland, Oregon, and I am awake because we are about to embark on a little road trip all the way to Minnesota to get away from the smoke, from the fires. I hear that the skies feel blue in other places, so I'm really excited.

MOLLY: Like, what is it like to live without a sky?

LISTENER: Honestly, it's pretty trippy. It feels like I live either in an Instagram, like, filter or something like that.

MOLLY: Are there other ways in which the world looks or feels or sounds different because of the fires?

LISTENER: Friday was, like, one of the toughest days. All the birds just, like, stopped showing up or singing.

MOLLY: Whoa!

LISTENER: It was really quiet.

LISTENER: Today, I think, was the first day of, like, actual fresh air, so I've just been sitting outside and, like, breathing that in while it lasts.

TOBIN LOW: Where am I reaching you right now? Where are you?

LULU: Producer Tobin Low.

LISTENER: I am in the Bay Area in Northern California. I'm standing in my yard, just to come outside and be reminded that there's still life out here. Like, to hear the crickets. It's really beautiful. It's like gleeful insomnia.

TOBIN: Can you take a deep breath for me and sort of describe what that feels like now that the air is clear?

LISTENER: Mm-hmm. [breathes] It feels freeing.

LISTENER: Hello?

TRACIE HUNTE: Hi!

LULU: Reporter Tracie Hunte.

LISTENER: Hi, how are you?

LULU: Speaking with a woman named Maya.

LISTENER: I'm okay, I'm okay.

TRACIE: Where are you?

LISTENER: I'm calling from Westchester, New York.

TRACIE: And why are you awake?

LISTENER: I'm a college student right now. Got homework 'til one, active brain 'til four.

TRACIE: Oh.

LISTENER: There's just been so much going on. It feels like doom and gloom all day long. There's no light at the end of the tunnel.

TRACIE: Have you ever, like, thought about calling a friend when you're up this late? Another friend that you know might be having trouble sleeping?

LISTENER: No, not actually. Well, I called you guys. [laughs]

TRACIE: [laughs] I know. Well, that's—that's kind of why I asked the question.

LISTENER: Yeah. It's like something I always do during the day, but never that I think to do at night when I know we're all feeling this way.

TRACIE: Yeah. Well Maya, can I pass on a tip that I learned recently for falling asleep?

LISTENER: I would love one. [laughs]

TRACIE: Okay, so why don't you try—when you're lying in bed, try thinking of a letter and, like, an easy one, like an M or a B or something. And then think of every word you can make with that letter and just see if you can bore yourself to sleep.

LISTENER: Modern day of counting sheep.

TRACIE: It's kind of like counting sheep. I'm gonna give you a letter. I'm going to think of the letter L.

LISTENER: Sure. Yeah. Lily pads. Light. My legs. Labs. Labradoodles, lamp posts, layers.

LULU: And this was something we did do from time to time that we knew we probably couldn't help much. We would give people little offerings that we hoped might at least change their mindset.

JAD: Hmm.

LULU: So okay, I'll just play you one last.

JAD: Yeah, yeah, please.

LULU: Hey, is this Tristan?

LISTENER: Yeah, speaking.

LULU: I'm sorry that sleep is eluding you.

LISTENER: [laughs] Yeah.

LULU: So yeah, can you just say again where you are and why you're awake?

LISTENER: I'm in Detroit and I'm in my bed that half the time has doubled now as a workspace. And it's been really troubling separating work from personal life. And whole days go by that are just one contiguous—you know, it feels like just trapped, I guess.

LULU: Well, may I offer you a sonic gift to maybe try a different thing and see if it helps?

LISTENER: Oh, yeah.

LULU: Okay. Can you stay on the phone? But can you turn—can you get all those screens away from you?

LISTENER: Yeah, I can close that and move that out of the way.

LULU: All right, I'm gonna pipe in a special guest.

[phone ringing]

LULU: Guests. Multiple.

WES SWING: Hey, can you hear us?

LISTENER: Yeah, I can. Hey, I'm Tristan. Nice to meet you.

WES SWING: Hey, nice to meet you.

KELLEY LIBBEY: Hi.

LISTENER: Hey.

LULU: Musicians Wes Swing and Kelly Libby from Virginia.

WES SWING: And we've got a song to play here. The song is called "Middle of the Night."

LISTENER: Wow! [laughs]

WES SWING: All right, here it goes. [singing] I'll look for you when the fog rolls through, when the fog. And I'll take you in when you've paid for those sins, when you've paid.

JAD: And they just—they just called up and sang? How did they ...

LULU: I asked them if they would be willing to sing a lullaby to someone who couldn't sleep. And they gave me a window that they would, like, get up and do it.

JAD: I see. That was nice. I like that.

LULU: Yeah. And to end this whole thing.

LISTENER: Thank you.

LISTENER: Bye.

LULU: This whole sleepless ..

LISTENER: [yawns]

LULU: ... anxious ...

LISTENER: [yawns]

LULU: ... nighttime experiment.

LISTENER: I'm just tired, and I want to go back to sleep.

LULU: I want to leave everyone with one more of these offerings. The first one comes from producer Annie McEwen.

FLETCHER LEE JOHNSON: Hello.

ANNIE MCEWEN: Hi! I can just see the very top of your head.

FLETCHER LEE JOHNSON: Uh-huh.

ANNIE: Can you hear me?

FLETCHER LEE JOHNSON: Yeah.

ANNIE: Good to meet you.

FLETCHER LEE JOHNSON: Good to meet you.

ANNIE: First of all, I want you to introduce yourself. So tell me, what is your name?

FLETCHER LEE JOHNSON: What's the name, Mommy?

MOTHER: You know what your name is.

FLETCHER LEE JOHNSON: Oh, Fletcher!

ANNIE: Fletcher is such a good name. What's your last name?

FLETCHER LEE JOHNSON: So my whole name is Fletcher Lee Johnson. We live in Kitville, Tennessee.

ANNIE: How old are you?

FLETCHER LEE JOHNSON: I'm five.

ANNIE: I wanted to talk to you about sleep. Do you have trouble falling asleep?

FLETCHER LEE JOHNSON: Yeah. Every night I stay a long time until I get to sleep.

ANNIE: And why is that? What are you thinking when you're trying to fall asleep?

FLETCHER LEE JOHNSON: I'm not thinking of anything. I just have a lot of energy to stay up at night.

ANNIE: Yeah. What would you rather do? What does your body want to do when you're trying to keep it still?

FLETCHER LEE JOHNSON: I like to have a dance party, but one night we did that.

ANNIE: [gasps] You did?

FLETCHER LEE JOHNSON: Yeah. I just like to have dance party every night, but I can't.

ANNIE: [laughs] Yeah. What do your pajamas look like?

FLETCHER LEE JOHNSON: Glow in the dark PJs.

ANNIE: Glow in the dark PJs? That's cool!

FLETCHER LEE JOHNSON: Yeah. One of my old ones, when I was four, I had, like, a glowing skeleton one that matches where my bones are. And now I bought a new one for a five year old.

ANNIE: Yesterday on the phone, we talked a little bit about how you dream about monsters.

FLETCHER LEE JOHNSON: Oh, I dream about monsters every night.

ANNIE: What are these monsters? Tell me about them.

FLETCHER LEE JOHNSON: So, like, lovely boxing monsters.

ANNIE: Okay.

FLETCHER LEE JOHNSON: But there's a lot of other ones that are really scary.

ANNIE: Is it hard to fall asleep because of the monsters?

FLETCHER LEE JOHNSON: Yeah, because they're way too scary. So I have to wake up.

ANNIE: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I have that problem, too. It's hard to fall asleep when you're afraid of things.

FLETCHER LEE JOHNSON: Mm-hmm.

ANNIE: Mm-hmm. Fletcher, I want to ask your advice about something. So tonight we're gonna have a lot of people call in to our radio show, and they're gonna be people who can't fall asleep. And they're trying and trying and trying, but they just can't. And they're so tired, but they can't fall asleep. I want to know, what advice do you have for them? What do you think they should do?

FLETCHER LEE JOHNSON: They should—I was gonna send some of my meditations.

ANNIE: Okay, that's a good idea. Do you want to read me your meditation? Do you want to try doing that?

FLETCHER LEE JOHNSON: Yeah, I guess so.

ANNIE: And then we can play it tonight for the sleepy people that can't fall asleep.

FLETCHER LEE JOHNSON: Can I take my shoes off?

ANNIE: I'll take my shoes off, too.

FLETCHER LEE JOHNSON: Blast off in the space. First, let's get ready to relax. Lay down. Close your eyes. Get in a comfortable position. Take six deep breaths. Now imagine you're in space with the stars. Down below, you see planet Earth.

FLETCHER LEE JOHNSON: And you can see all the way to your backyard. The blackness of space, the sparkle of the stars. It makes you want to lift off to planet Mars. On the way, you soak in a lot of stars, constellations. You pass the Andromeda and the Hercules and the Leos. Wow, those are really cool constellations! While you are looking at all the stars and constellations, you take three deep breaths because it's a lot to take in. Planet Mars is a long way away, so you float into your spaceship and fall asleep on the floor and dream of all the things you want to do tomorrow. Now you blast off back home, and at the morning time, you play with mommy, and you play baseball, soccer and frisbee, and go on more adventures and maybe visit Saturn, the planet with the rings next.

JAD: Oh my God, Fletcher from Tennessee, you are amazing! I want you to talk to me every night! Lulu, wow! [laughs] Thank you for taking us on that journey.

LULU: Yeah.

JAD: And also, thanks to Annie McEwen and Rachael Cusick who helped Lulu produce what you just heard. And to the entire Radiolab team that rode shotgun with Lulu all night, screened calls, talked to people who called in: Tracie Hunte, Shima Oliaee, Molly Webster, Annie McEwen, Sarah Qari, Tobin Low.

LULU: Also, big thanks to Fletcher Lee Johnson and his mom, Elaine Boyd. And to Six Feet of Separation, the publication by and for kids where we found Fletcher's sleep meditation. Thanks to Chris Collin, Alice Wong, LeVar Burton, musicians Wes Swing and Kelley Libby, Karen K. Ho for her great tips on how to fall asleep, and to Jin Wang who helped with reporting for this show. And finally, a big shout out to our friends at Reply All who do a mean call-in show.

JAD: Yes.

LULU: If you like this, we highly recommend you check out their episode called "Hello."

JAD: I'm Jad Abumrad.

LULU: And I am Lulu Miller.

JAD: Thanks for listening.

LULU: Goodbye.

[LISTENER: This is Grace calling from Chicago, Illinois. Radiolab was created by Jad Abumrad and is edited by Soren Wheeler. Lulu Miller and Latif Nasser are our co-hosts. Dylan Keefe is our director of sound design, Suzie Lechtenberg is our executive producer. Our staff includes Simon Adler, Jeremy Bloom, Becca Bressler, Rachael Cusick, David Gebel, Bethel Habte, Tracie Hunte, Matt Kielty, Tobin Low, Annie McEwen, Sarah Qari, Arianne Wack, Pat Walters, and Molly Webster. With help from Shima Oliaee, Sarah Sandbach, and Jonny Moens. Our fact-checker is Michelle Harris.]

 

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