diff --git a/code/functions/live-capture/java/nu/marginalia/rss/svc/FeedFetcherService.java b/code/functions/live-capture/java/nu/marginalia/rss/svc/FeedFetcherService.java
index 396fee1e..646c2788 100644
--- a/code/functions/live-capture/java/nu/marginalia/rss/svc/FeedFetcherService.java
+++ b/code/functions/live-capture/java/nu/marginalia/rss/svc/FeedFetcherService.java
@@ -316,6 +316,8 @@ public class FeedFetcherService {
 
     public FeedItems parseFeed(String feedData, FeedDefinition definition) {
         try {
+            feedData = sanitizeEntities(feedData);
+
             List<Item> rawItems = rssReader.read(
                     // Massage the data to maximize the possibility of the flaky XML parser consuming it
                     new BOMInputStream(new ByteArrayInputStream(feedData.trim().getBytes(StandardCharsets.UTF_8)), false)
@@ -342,6 +344,32 @@ public class FeedFetcherService {
         }
     }
 
+    private static final Map<String, String> HTML_ENTITIES = Map.of(
+            "&raquo;", "»",
+            "&laquo;", "«",
+            "&mdash;", "--",
+            "&ndash;", "-",
+            "&rsquo;", "'",
+            "&lsquo;", "'",
+            "&nbsp;", ""
+    );
+
+    /** The XML parser will blow up if you insert HTML entities in the feed XML,
+     * which is unfortunately relatively common.  Replace them as far as is possible
+     * with their corresponding characters
+     */
+    static String sanitizeEntities(String feedData) {
+        String result = feedData;
+        for (Map.Entry<String, String> entry : HTML_ENTITIES.entrySet()) {
+            result = result.replace(entry.getKey(), entry.getValue());
+        }
+
+        // Handle lone ampersands not part of a recognized XML entity
+        result = result.replaceAll("&(?!(amp|lt|gt|apos|quot);)", "&amp;");
+
+        return result;
+    }
+
     /** Decide whether to keep URI fragments in the feed items.
      * <p></p>
      * We keep fragments if there are multiple different fragments in the items.
diff --git a/code/functions/live-capture/test/nu/marginalia/rss/svc/FeedFetcherServiceTest.java b/code/functions/live-capture/test/nu/marginalia/rss/svc/FeedFetcherServiceTest.java
index 88fb07cf..3ddd7f49 100644
--- a/code/functions/live-capture/test/nu/marginalia/rss/svc/FeedFetcherServiceTest.java
+++ b/code/functions/live-capture/test/nu/marginalia/rss/svc/FeedFetcherServiceTest.java
@@ -99,7 +99,9 @@ class FeedFetcherServiceTest extends AbstractModule {
         feedFetcherService.setDeterministic();
         feedFetcherService.updateFeeds(FeedFetcherService.UpdateMode.REFRESH);
 
-        Assertions.assertFalse(feedDb.getFeed(new EdgeDomain("www.marginalia.nu")).isEmpty());
+        var result = feedDb.getFeed(new EdgeDomain("www.marginalia.nu"));
+        System.out.println(result);
+        Assertions.assertFalse(result.isEmpty());
     }
 
     @Tag("flaky")
diff --git a/code/functions/live-capture/test/nu/marginalia/rss/svc/TestXmlSanitization.java b/code/functions/live-capture/test/nu/marginalia/rss/svc/TestXmlSanitization.java
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..36bb92f7
--- /dev/null
+++ b/code/functions/live-capture/test/nu/marginalia/rss/svc/TestXmlSanitization.java
@@ -0,0 +1,26 @@
+package nu.marginalia.rss.svc;
+
+import org.junit.jupiter.api.Assertions;
+import org.junit.jupiter.api.Test;
+
+public class TestXmlSanitization {
+
+    @Test
+    public void testPreservedEntities() {
+        Assertions.assertEquals("&amp;", FeedFetcherService.sanitizeEntities("&amp;"));
+        Assertions.assertEquals("&lt;", FeedFetcherService.sanitizeEntities("&lt;"));
+        Assertions.assertEquals("&gt;", FeedFetcherService.sanitizeEntities("&gt;"));
+        Assertions.assertEquals("&quot;", FeedFetcherService.sanitizeEntities("&quot;"));
+        Assertions.assertEquals("&apos;", FeedFetcherService.sanitizeEntities("&apos;"));
+    }
+
+    @Test
+    public void testStrayAmpersand() {
+        Assertions.assertEquals("Bed &amp; Breakfast", FeedFetcherService.sanitizeEntities("Bed & Breakfast"));
+    }
+
+    @Test
+    public void testTranslatedHtmlEntity() {
+        Assertions.assertEquals("Foo -- Bar", FeedFetcherService.sanitizeEntities("Foo &mdash; Bar"));
+    }
+}