Summer is sunsetting but dawn has arrived for several podcasts across public media. The NPR One team gathered a list of new releases to cozy up and listen to this fall.

The podcast episode descriptions below are from podcast webpages and have been edited for brevity and clarity.

How To Do Everything – NPR

Half advice show. Half survival guide. Half absurdity-fest. (Wait, how does this work again? We’re not numbers people.) Each episode, we answer all your burning questions, from how to survive a public bathroom to how to get close to a panda. When we don’t know the answer, which is roughly 92% of the time (again, not numbers people), we bring in overqualified experts to help out. So you’ll eventually walk away knowing how to do everything. That’s what happens when you’re one & a half shows. From the team at Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me!

Start listening to, “Haircuts in Space, Tutus, and the Nasal Ranger.”

Tacos of Texas – KUT & KUTX Studios — Podcasts

KUT & KUTX Studios — Podcasts

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Tacos of Texas is back! With Season 4, we’re taking the taco studio on the road to 3 markets in Texas and talk to locals about the food and the culture in their own communities. You’ll hear about the history of Vaqueros and Breakfast Tacos, learn about HEB’s road to Mi Tienda, meet James Beard award-winning chef Ana Liz Pulido, and more.

Start listening to, “Los Verdes: Goooool!”

Imperfect Paradise – LAist (New Season)

Voters elected Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón in 2020 on his promises to undo decades of mass incarceration, tackle what many viewed as excessive prison sentences, and to generally create a fairer system. LAist Civics & Democracy Correspondent Frank Stoltze explores the criminal justice system Gascón set out to change. He examines decades-old practices and the impact on the people imprisoned through the case of Jose Santana. Santana ended up being sentenced to 22 years in adult prison for robbing two kids of their cellphones when he was 15.

Start listening to, “District Attorney Gascón: Part 1.”

Tradeoffs – WFYI

Generic drugs are, in many ways, the unsung hero of America’s health care system, bringing powerful medical innovations within the reach of millions more people. These cheaper copies of brand-name drugs — from pills that stop heart attacks to antibiotics that cure life-threatening infections — save America hundreds of billions of dollars a year. But will affordable, high-quality generic drugs continue to be there when we need them? Some players are abandoning this business while others slash costs by cutting dangerous corners. Shortages of older generic drugs have become the norm, sending doctors scrambling. At the same time, crucial new medicines are proving tougher to copy on the cheap, saddling patients with brand-name prices. Over the course of “Race to the Bottom,” our new three-part podcast series, we’ll explore why this industry that’s so essential to our health is in trouble — and what could change that.

Start listening to part one, “Race to the Bottom: Boom Times.”

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Health Wanted with Laurel Bristow – WABE

Health Wanted brings you each week’s need-to-know public health headlines and breaks down the science behind trending topics. Host and social media science influencer Laurel Bristow covers everything from Ozempic to the ozone, interviewing experts and answering your questions, all in pursuit of better health.

Listen to, “Vaccines.”

Terrestrials from Radiolab for Kids – WNYC

Terrestrials is Radiolab’s spin-off nature show for families and for people of all ages that explores the strangeness that exists right here on Earth. Each episode feels like a fairytale that is 100% true. Host Lulu Miller (co-host of Radiolab) leads you on a nature walk to encounter incredible creatures, wild storytellers, and original songs from “The Songbud” Alan Goffinski. That’s right! We sing on this show; don’t worry, good voices not required. Listen in with your whole family. Or all alone. This season, we are tackling the overlooked – the treasures, secrets, and wildness waiting right underneath our noses. From tree stumps, to lichen, to humble squirrels that fade into the background so easily. When you look close at the creatures we usually ignore, you’ll find all kinds of secrets hidden inside.

Start listening to, “The Stumpisode: The Wild World of Tree Stumps!”

Hush – OPB

Hush is an investigative podcast from OPB, uncovering the buried truth about critical stories in the Pacific Northwest. In the first season, we look at the case of Jesse Lee Johnson, a Black man who lived for 17 years on Oregon’s death row for a crime he says he didn’t commit, and we try to understand why the state tried for so long to kill him.

Listen to episode 1, “Jesse.”

Question Everything with Brian Reed – KCRW

Reporter Brian Reed re-examines everything about journalism, the profession he thought he knew. In the middle of making his second hit podcast, Brian got sued. Accused. Told the biggest story of his career – the Peabody Award-winning series S-Town – wasn’t journalism. Which meant he had to spend years proving that it was. Obsessing over the question, “What is journalism, anyway?” Join Brian as he turns the tools he’s acquired over his years as a journalist on journalism itself. With gripping stories, reporting, and interviews every other Thursday, Question Everything is a show for anyone who’s ever felt confused, frustrated, or misled by the news they rely on. At a time when distrust in the media is at an all time high, when so many believe that journalism is failing, Question Everything is a real-time quest to try and make journalism better.

Listen to episode one, “The Critic.”

How Wild – KALW

How Wild hits trails around the country, exploring the meaning of wilderness. A century ago, the U.S. set aside the first official wilderness. You’ll hear stories from rangers, scientists, hikers, environmentalists, and Tribal leaders as they grapple with the realities of wilderness on a changing planet, and whether the concept of “wilderness” has ever really existed.

Start listening to, “Untrammeled.”

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College Uncovered – GBH

Divisive protests, police crackdowns, and a chilling backlash against free speech are among the reasons that a growing number of students say they don’t feel welcome on some college campuses. Conflicts over abortion, LGBTQ+ rights, and DEI, as well as what can and can’t be taught in classrooms are stirring up campus life against the backdrop of a contentious presidential election. A majority of students say abortion laws and restrictions around the discussion of race and gender would have at least some effect on where they go to college, according to Gallup polling. The same polls also find that some students at four-year universities feel as if they don’t belong or disrespected. Students on the left and right alike say they’re increasingly reluctant to express controversial opinions, but that it’s okay to report on classmates or faculty who do. That’s why we’re exploring the politics of higher education this season. College has become a new battleground in the culture wars, and it’s affecting where students enroll and what they’re learning. Learn more from the Hechinger Report’s College Welcome Guide!

Listen to episode one, “Un-welcome to college.”

NPR’s Jessica Green and Jack Mitchell curated and produced this piece.

I’ve been crying a lot lately.

I find myself sitting on the couch in my living room, folding laundry between Zoom meetings, the U.S. Open on in the background, my aging hands in the foreground, and I break into tears. I’m not sobbing because Zverev won or because my hands remind me of my grandmother’s, though slightly less waxy, veiny and spotted. It’s something bigger, something deeper, something I can’t quite put my finger on.

I’m on the 405 on my way to pick up my daughter from school, stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic, and again I begin to cry. I cry on my way to work and as I sit on the warm sand in Malibu looking out at the sea. I cry during yoga, as I hike Temescal Canyon, as I wait in line for a $22 smoothie at Erewhon. These episodes have been creeping up on me for months now. Little by little, they have invaded my head space and my nervous system. I’m at a loss for words — I cry.

It could be a number of things. My husband and I have been arguing nonstop about emotional labor and my ongoing attempts to decenter him in our marriage. It’s exhausting and fruitless. I’m no longer writing. I have a UTI, again. But these things are too easy, too obvious. I try to snap out of it. Meditation, sound baths, breathwork — nothing helps.

And then, out of the blue, I get a call from my landlord: She’s selling the duplex, and we may have to move. The potential of being forced to leave rent-controlled, under-market housing in Westwood, a safe neighborhood on the Westside in a good school district, should push me over the edge. Tears should be running down my face in torrents, but they aren’t. I find myself feeling happier than I’ve felt in months. We might have to move. We might have to move. We can leave. We’ll have to leave! I smile from ear to ear and start dreaming of another life in another place. And then it hits me. I’ve fallen out of love with L.A.

People hate L.A., so falling out of love with it might make sense to you. It’s not a true city, it’s too spread out, there are no seasons, the traffic is dreadful, they say with smug looks on their faces as they leave in flocks to colder places. But I don’t hate L.A. I love it; I always have. I’ve loved L.A. since I was a child growing up in Orange County, a brown kid in a sea of white kids who felt unseen and alone. L.A. is my city. It’s people who look like me in thrift stores on Melrose. It buzzes with energy. It’s dirt and grit shoved up against beauty and splendor. It’s real — it allows space for complicated things to exist side by side. It’s my dad’s family in East L.A., chicharrones, an ice cream truck and menudo after church on Sundays. It’s my mom’s family in Alhambra, strawberry jam on fried chicken, the Dodgers and a Boy George poster on the back of a bedroom door. L.A. is everything, was everything. L.A. was once my savior, my only hope.

So, what changed? A lot.

I’ve been married for 10 years now, I have a kid, I’ve lost people I love, my literary agent fired me, the wildfires are out of control and it’s getting hotter — all things that surely have affected my love affair with this city.

My identity has shifted, and I feel off-kilter. I’m no longer a hopeful young girl, dreaming of life in the City of Angels. I’m older. Wiser? Maybe. I’ve failed a bunch. I’m not who I thought I’d be. L.A. isn’t what I thought it’d be either. Can we survive these truths? I want to …

I want to fall back in love. But how?

I light a candle in front of Santa Barbara, the patron saint of my family, and ask her to guide me. I place pink gemstones on my heart chakra as I sleep. I begin spending time in the moonlight. I read “Nightbitch.” I drive through downtown Los Angeles at night with my windows down and the sunroof open as I did with my aunt and uncle when I was a child. The lights are magic; there is something in the air.

I eat a French dip sandwich and a pickled egg that stains my fingertips purple at Philippe’s and feel satiated. I take my daughter to the Self-Realization Fellowship Lake Shrine. We feed the ducks and the turtles. A swan nips at her outstretched hand. She laughs and runs around the lake. I watch her and see myself as a child. I write this short piece and actually enjoy the process. I make arroz con pollo and cry because it tastes like my childhood and reminds me of my grandma. But it’s a different cry than before. It feels different. Like I’m taking something back.

I decide to make the city mine again.

I begin to avoid the people, places and things that irk me. I go analog (for the most part). I stay firm in my boundaries. I am more present than I’ve ever been. I wake up a little bit earlier each morning to look at my daughter’s perfect face as she sleeps beside me. I listen to the birds chirping outside my window. I kiss my husband because he buys me cheese and figs. We argue slightly less but recover and repair faster. I start taking the streets and avoiding the freeways. I make a promise to find one thing about the city to be grateful for each day: shade, In-N-Out, free museums, sunshine, the ocean, kind neighbors (thank you, Mary and Paul), walkable neighborhoods, the public library, reproductive freedom.

In the midst of rebuilding my gratitude, I begin to remember who I am. The city abides. She becomes my ally, giving me cool breezes, green lights, a healthy dose of vitamin D. I’m lighter, freer, and then one day, many days since my crying began, I feel hope pulsing in the back of my brain, and I know I’m right where I’m supposed to be. I love L.A., and L.A. loves me.

So even though my joints ache and my body slips into perimenopause, even though my marriage is going through a rough patch and my creative practice has seemingly died, I know I’ll be OK. In the words of Anthony Kiedis of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, “At least I have her love, the city, she loves me. Lonely as I am. Together we cry.”

The author is a teacher and a writer. She lives in Westwood with her daughter and her husband.

L.A. Affairs chronicles the search for romantic love in all its glorious expressions in the L.A. area, and we want to hear your true story. We pay $400 for a published essay. Email LAAffairs@latimes.com. You can find submission guidelines here. You can find past columns here.

BERLIN — Beef and chicken glisten as they rotate slowly on vertical spits before they are carved off in razor-thin strips. Two cooks slide from a sizzling griddle to a warm toaster in a practiced dance. Mounds of fresh tomatoes, cabbage and red onions shine in a colorful tableau.

The scene at Kebap With Attitude in Berlin’s trendy Mitte neighborhood is typical of any street-side stand or restaurant where cooks pile the ingredients into pita bread to create the city’s beloved döner kebab.

But the snack’s status could be in jeopardy if the European Commission approves a bid by Turkey to regulate what can legally take the döner kebab name.

In the balance is an industry that generates annual sales of roughly 2.3 billion euros (nearly $2.6 billion) in Germany alone, and 3.5 billion euros (nearly $3.9 billion) across Europe, according to the Berlin-based Association of Turkish Döner Producers in Europe.

“From the government to the streets, everyone is eating döner kebab,” Deniz Buchholz, the owner of Kebap With Attitude, said as waiters ferried steaming orders from the kitchen to hungry lunchtime customers on a rainy Monday afternoon.

The word “döner” is derived from the Turkish verb “dönmek,” which means “to turn.” The meat is grilled for hours on a spit and sliced off when the meat becomes crisp and brown. In Turkey, the dish originally was made of lamb and sold only on a plate. But in the 1970s, Turkish immigrants in Berlin opted to serve it in a pita and tweak the recipe to make it special for Berliners.

“They realized that the Germans like everything in the bread,” said Buchholz, who was raised in Berlin and has Turkish roots. “And then they said, ‘OK, let’s put this dish into a bread’ and this is how it came to döner kebab Berlin-style.”

In April, Turkey applied to have döner kebab protected under a status called “traditional specialty guaranteed.” It’s below the vaunted “protected designation of origin” that applies to geographic region-specific products, like Champagne from its eponymous region in France, but could still impact kebab-shop owners, their individual recipes and their customers throughout Germany.

Under Turkey’s proposal, beef would be required to come from cattle that is at least 16 months old. It would be marinated with specific amounts of animal fat, yogurt or milk, onion, salt, and thyme, as well as black, red and white peppers. The final product be sliced off the vertical spit into pieces that are 3 to 5 millimeters (0.1 to 0.2 inches) thick. Chicken would be similarly regulated.

The European Commission must decide by Sept. 24 whether 11 objections to the application, including from Germany’s Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture, have merit. If they do, Germany and Turkey will have up to six months to hammer out a compromise. The European Commission has the final say.

“We have taken note of the application from Turkey with some astonishment,” Germany’s Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture said in a statement to The Associated Press.

“The kebab is part of Germany, and the diversity of its preparation methods reflects the diversity of our country — this must be preserved. In the interests of the many fans in Germany, we are committed to ensuring that the doner kebab can remain as it is prepared and eaten here,” the ministry said.

It appears that vegetables, turkey and some veal kebabs — all of which are popular in Germany — would no longer be allowed under Turkey’s application because it does not specifically mention them, causing confusion in the German food industry.

“The kebab belongs to Germany. Everyone should be allowed to decide for themselves how it is prepared and eaten here. There’s no need for guidelines from Ankara,” Cem Özdemir, Germany’s federal food and agriculture minister who also has Turkish roots, wrote on social platform X.

Buchholz of Kebap With Attitude said he isn’t worried about possible regulations.

Although he said it might be a way to keep the quality high for the traditional döner kebab — he believes it has lapsed in some places — he added that shop owners might have to harness Berlin’s legacy of creative solutions to keep their expanded menus.

“We will go the Berlin way and we’ll find a solution to name it different,” he said, like calling it a “veggie sandwich.”

Döner kebab impacts the political sphere, too. Anger over kebab costs that have risen into the double-digits led the Die Linke, the Left party, to ask German Chancellor Olaf Scholz for a “price break” that would have subsidized the street food and set a maximum price for customers. Scholz declined, but took to social media to explain that increasing food costs come in part from soaring energy costs — which are fueled by Russia’s war on Ukraine.

And German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier engaged in “döner diplomacy” when he brought a third-generation kebab-shop owner, as well as a full skewer of meat, to Turkey in April. The trip was the first official visit there by a German president in a decade, even as Turkey’s populist president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is seen as having increasingly authoritarian instincts. Erdogan’s reputation has made some Turkish citizens who own kebab shops in Germany fearful of speaking out against the proposed regulations for fear of facing reprisals when they go home.

In its objection, the German Hotel and Restaurant Association wrote that Turkey’s proposals differ from typical German preparations for döner, and that the regulations could lead to economic problems for kebab shops — as well as potential legal challenges.

The German döner kebab economy should not be held to Turkish rules, the association said in a statement.

“The diversity of the kebab must be preserved,” the association said.