The past several weeks have seen a surge in coverage of the crisis on the US-Mexico border, and the media abounds with critics of immigration reform who fault the Obama administration's lax policies. Bob talks with Carlos Dada, co-founder and editor of the El Salvadoran newspaper El Faro, who says that US critics are completely missing the point.

Spending on negative Obamacare ads eclipsed spending on positive ads by a remarkable 15-1 ratio. Brooke talks with Niam Yaraghi of the Brooking Institution, who says that anti-Obamacare ads actually drove up enrollment.  

It was a New York Times blog that chronicled daily shootings across the country, in an effort to highlight victims of gun violence between highly-covered mass shootings. Co-author Jennifer Mascia recounts what it was like spending a year writing about every victim.

The Sims is one of the most popular video games of all time. But the game came very close to never being released. Bob talks with journalist Simon Parkin about how an unplanned kiss between two Sims characters at a gamer conference created enough buzz to launch the game. Parkin wrote about the kiss on the New Yorker's Elements blog. 

Only a handful of mainstream video games feature gay characters. Bob talks with Samantha Leigh Allen, a transgender writer and academic, about some of the commercially successful games to include LBGT identities.

Truvada is a drug that, taken daily, has been show to prevent HIV infection by as much as 99 percent. Like the polio vaccine, or like the birth control pill, it's a medical breakthrough worthy of massive coverage. Why hasn't there been? Brooke speaks to Rich Juzwiak, a Gawker staff writer, about the drug and what’s holding it back in the media.