I also contacted NPR and received this response from them:
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Yesterday, we made a change to our web server caching configuration that resulted in the same RSS feed being served for all NPR RSS URLs. This caused podcast apps to act as if all of our podcasts had changed their titles and added hundreds of new episodes. Depending on your settings, this might have caused your podcast application to begin downloading a large number of podcast episodes.
Thanks to listeners and platform partners who reported this problem to NPR, we were able to quickly identify the source of the error and roll back our earlier configuration change. The root problem is now resolved, but it may take some time – up to 48 hours – before the change is reflected in your podcast application. We’re incredibly sorry for the inconvenience.
If you have any questions or need more information, don’t hesitate to let us know.
Sincerely,
Khalon
NPR Audience Relations