Going out to dinner with Juan Tamariz in Madrid is a little like accompanying a cartoon character on a journey to the real world. As Shuja Haider, the author of today’s Sunday Read, walked with him on side streets off the city center’s main drag, the Calle Gran Vía, heads turned left and right.

Mr. Tamariz, 80, has been a professional magician for 52 years, and in that time, he has managed the singular feat of becoming both a household name in his home country and a living legend in magic everywhere. David Blaine has called him “the greatest and most influential card magician alive.” But in Spain, Mr. Tamariz is an icon, less like Mr. Blaine or David Copperfield and more like Kermit the Frog.

In the United States, the most visible performers of magic in the late 20th century were stage illusionists who worked with big boxes and flashing lights. But Mr. Tamariz appears on stage and screen armed with little more than his two hands. He introduced Spanish viewers to the style of magic called “close-up,” done with ordinary objects, in near-enough proximity for a conversation and incorporating the participation of spectators.

This story was recorded by Audm. To hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android.

The Biden administration said this week that it would end the public health emergency for Covid, a sign that federal officials believe that the pandemic has moved into a new, less dire phase.

The move carries both symbolic weight and real-world consequences for millions of Americans.

Guest: Apoorva Mandavilli, a science and global health reporter for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• The end of the public health emergency, planned for May, will bring about a complex set of policy changes and signals a new stage in the government’s pandemic response.
• Among the effects of the change, access to tests and treatment will be more complicated.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

For the past 50 years, the race to become the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee has been shaped by the where the contest begins: Iowa.

But that process could soon be overhauled. In a coming meeting of the Democratic National Committee, South Carolina — a state that is more representative of the party and, possibly, of the country — could take over the key role of going first.

Guest: Adam Nagourney, a West Coast cultural affairs correspondent for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• President Biden’s push to abandon Iowa for younger, racially diverse states is likely to reward candidates who connect with the party’s most loyal voters.
• Reshuffling the early-state order could run into logistical issues in Georgia and New Hampshire.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

The typical sales price of an existing family home in the United States in December: 372,700. The number of layoffs in the tech sector since the beginning of the year: 76,000. The number by which consumer spending fell in December: 0.2 percent. The increase in the cost of the same kind of carton of eggs bought by an editor on “The Daily” a year apart: 251 percent.

What do these numbers tell us about the state of the country’s economy?

Guest: Ben Casselman, an economics and business reporter for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• The U.S. economy showed momentum at the end of 2022, defying recession fears and displaying the resilience of consumers and businesses in the face of inflation and rising interest rates.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

In the United States, 40 million people in seven states depend on water provided by the Colorado River.

After 20 years of drought, the situation is dire and the river is at risk of becoming a “deadpool,” a condition in which there is not enough water to pass through the dams.

The states were supposed to come up with a deal to cut their usage by Tuesday. Now, the federal government may have to step in and make a difficult decision.

Guest: Christopher Flavelle, a climate reporter for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• The seven states that rely on the river for water are not expected to reach a deal on reductions. The federal government could impose cuts for the first time in the water supply for millions of Americans.

For more information on today’s episode, visit 

nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

This episode contains descriptions of violence and strong language.

Tyre Nichols was a 29-year-old Black man who lived in Memphis. His mother described him as living a simple and pleasant life. He worked for FedEx, loved to skateboard, was an amateur photographer and had a 4-year-old son.

On the evening of Jan. 7, after a traffic stop, Mr. Nichols was violently beaten by the police, sustaining severe injuries. He died on Jan. 10.

For weeks, what exactly had happened was unclear. This weekend, videos of the encounter were released.

Guest: Rick Rojas, the Southern bureau chief for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• The five officers charged with the murder of Tyre Nichols are also Black, complicating the anguish and efforts to change the police.
• Recently released video footage included critical moments in which police officers kicked, punched and pepper-sprayed Mr. Nichols while he screamed.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

In the past half-century, 17 percent of the Amazon — an area larger than Texas — has been converted to croplands or cattle pasture. Less forest means less recycled rain, less vapor to cool the air, less of a canopy to shield against sunlight. Under drier, hotter conditions, even the lushest of Amazonian trees will shed leaves to save water, inhibiting photosynthesis — a feedback loop that is only exacerbated by global warming.

According to the Brazilian Earth system scientist Carlos Nobre, if deforestation reaches 20 to 25 percent of the original area, “flying rivers” — rain clouds that recycle the forest’s own moisture five or six times — will weaken enough that a rainforest simply will not be able to survive in most of the Amazon Basin. Instead it will collapse into scrubby savanna, possibly in a matter of decades.

Losing the Amazon, one of the most biodiverse ecosystems on Earth, would be catastrophic for the tens of thousands of species that make their home there. What scientists are most concerned about, though, is the potential for this regional, ecological tipping point to produce knock-on effects in the global climate.

This story was recorded by Audm. To hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android.

This episode contains descriptions of violence and injury. 

In September, protests began in Iran over the death of a young woman, Mahsa Amini, at the hands of the government. The demonstrations have since intensified, as has the government’s response, with thousands arrested and a terrifying campaign of public executions underway.

Today, Iranians who have taken part in the demonstrations tell us — in their own words — why they are willing to brave such severe punishments to help bring about change.

Guest: Cora Engelbrecht, an international reporter for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• The protests in Iran have escalated amid anger over religious rules and a rock-bottom economy.
• A look at the Iranians who have been hanged, and those on death row, as the government tries to crush the monthslong uprising.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

Recent advice from the American Academy of Pediatrics has recommended a bold approach to treating the millions of children in the United States who are affected by obesity. Counseling, drug treatment and even surgery should be considered, the group says.

The guidelines are a response to a deeper understanding of what obesity is — and what to do about it.

Guest: Gina Kolata, a medical reporter for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• The new guidelines have underscored how complicated childhood obesity is for patients and health providers.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

Nonprofit hospitals — which make up around half of hospitals in the United States — were founded to help the poor.

But a Times investigation has revealed that many have deviated from those charitable roots, behaving like for-profit companies, sometimes to the detriment of the health of patients.

Guest: Jessica Silver-Greenberg, an investigative business reporter for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• With the help of a consulting firm, the Providence hospital system trained staff members to wring money out of patients, even those eligible for free care.
• Dozens of doctors have said that this New York nonprofit hospital pressured them to give preferential treatment to donors, trustees and their families.
• Bon Secours Mercy Health, a major nonprofit health system, used a poor neighborhood to tap into a lucrative federal drug program.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

Over the weekend, F.B.I. agents found classified documents at President Biden’s residence in Wilmington, Del., after conducting a 13-hour search.

The search — at the invitation of Mr. Biden’s lawyers — resulted in the latest in a series of discoveries that has already led to a special counsel investigation.

What miscalculations have Mr. Biden and his team make throughout this ordeal?

Guest: Michael D. Shear, a White House correspondent for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• Inside the decision by Mr. Biden and his top advisers to keep the discovery of classified documents secret from the public and even most of the White House staff for 68 days.
• Investigators for the Justice Department recently seized more than a half-dozen documents, some of them classified, at the president’s residence in Delaware.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

In the past decade or more, votes over increasing the U.S. debt ceiling have increasingly been used as a political tool. That has led to intense showdowns in 2011, 2013 and, now, 2023. 

This year, both sides of the argument are dug in and Republicans appear more willing to go over the cliff than in the past. 

What does this year’s showdown look like and how, exactly, did the United States’ debt balloon to $31 trillion?

Guest: Jim Tankersley, a White House correspondent for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• Two decades of tax cuts, recession responses and bipartisan spending fueled more borrowing has set the stage for another federal showdown over the debt limit.
• Last week, America hit its debt limit. Here’s what to know. 

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

In a room in a modest concrete building in a leafy Minneapolis neighborhood is silence exceeding the bounds of human perception. Technically an “anechoic chamber,” the room is the quietest place on the planet — according to some.

What happens to people inside the windowless steel room is the subject of wild and terrible speculation. Public fascination with it exploded 10 years ago, with an article on The Daily Mail’s website. The article left readers to extrapolate their own conclusions about the room from the short, haunting observations of its proprietor, Steven J. Orfield, of Orfield Laboratories.

“You’ll hear your heart beating,” Orfield was quoted as saying. And, “In the anechoic chamber, you become the sound.”

Much of the lore about the chamber’s propensity for mind-annihilation centers on the concept of blood sounds. Hearing the movement of blood through the body is supposedly something like an absolute taboo, akin to witnessing the fabrication of Chicken McNuggets — an ordeal after which placid existence is irreparably shattered.

Despite this, Caity Weaver, a writer for The New York Times Magazine, wanted to give the chamber a go.

To hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android.

With mountains, intense mud, fast-running rivers and thick rainforest, the Darién Gap, a strip of terrain connecting South and Central America, is one of the most dangerous places on the planet.

Over the past few years, there has been an enormous increase in the number of migrants passing through the perilous zone in the hopes of getting to the United States.

Today, we hear the story of one family that’s risking everything to make it across.

Guest: Julie Turkewitz, the Andes bureau chief for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• The pandemic, climate change and growing conflict are forcing a seismic shift in global migration.
• Two crises are converging at the Darién Gap: an economic and humanitarian disaster underway in South America, and the bitter fight over immigration policy in Washington.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, the United States and allies have held back from sending Kyiv their most potent arms.

Over the past few weeks, that has started to change.

Guest: Eric Schmitt, a national security correspondent for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• Ukraine has a narrow window of time to retake more territory ahead of an expected Russian spring offensive.
• The Biden administration is considering the argument that Kyiv needs the power to strike Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014.

For more information on today’s episode, visit 

nytimes.com/thedaily

. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

With little warning or regulation, companies are increasingly using facial recognition technology on their customers — as a security measure, they say.

But what happens when the systems are actually being used to punish the companies’ enemies?

Guest: Kashmir Hill, a technology reporter for The New York Times. 

Background reading: 

• Madison Square Garden Entertainment, the owner of the arena, has put lawyers who represent people suing it on an “exclusion list” to keep them out of concerts and sporting events.
• Some have undermined the company’s ban by using a law passed in 1941 to protect theater critics.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily.

Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

For nearly three years, China had one of the lowest coronavirus death rates in the world, thanks to its strict yet effective “zero Covid” approach.

But last month, the government suddenly abandoned the policy. Since then, there have been millions of coronavirus cases across the country.

Guest: Alexandra Stevenson, the Shanghai bureau chief for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• After micromanaging the coronavirus strategy for nearly three years, China’s leader, Xi Jinping, has suddenly left people to improvise.
• China said that it recorded nearly 60,000 fatalities linked to the coronavirus in the month since the country lifted the “zero Covid” policy.

For more information on today’s episode, visit 

nytimes.com/thedaily

. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

In states where abortion is severely limited or illegal, clinicians face imminent prosecution if they continue to provide abortions. What is much less clear is what happens if providers in blue states offer telemedicine abortions to women in states where that’s against the law. These clinicians, too, could be arrested or sued or lose their medical licenses. To protect themselves, they may have to give up traveling to certain parts of the country — and it’s still no guarantee.

In the face of so much uncertainty and an invigorated anti-abortion movement, large organizations and most clinicians are loath to gamble.

But some providers think that the end of Roe v. Wade calls for doctors to take bold action.

This story was recorded by Audm. To hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android.

The Justice Department is scrutinizing how both former President Donald J. Trump and President Biden came to have classified records after they left office.

Attorney General Merrick B. Garland appointed a special counsel after the discovery of two batches of classified documents from Mr. Biden’s time as vice president.

How are the two cases similar, how are they different and what might that mean for both?

Guest: Glenn Thrush, a Washington correspondent for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• Special counsels are looking into both Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump. Here’s how the situations differ.
• Robert K. Hur has been appointed to oversee the investigation into Mr. Biden’s handling of classified documents. Who is he?

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

For weeks, a string of major storms have hit California, causing extreme flooding. While it might seem as if rain should have a silver lining for a state stuck in a historic drought, the reality is far more complicated.

Today, how California’s water management in the past has made today’s flooding worse and why it represents a missed opportunity for the future of the state’s water crisis.

Guest: Christopher Flavelle, a climate reporter for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• In the wake of recent storms, California is facing questions about whether its approach to handling crippling storms is suited to 21st-century climate threats.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

After Jair Bolsonaro lost October’s Brazilian presidential election to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, many believed that the threat of violence from the defeated leader’s supporters would recede. They were wrong. 

Mr. Bolsonaro had spent years sewing doubt and undermining Brazil’s election system, and last week, thousands of rioters stormed Brazil’s Congress, Supreme Court and presidential offices. 

What happened — and how did Brazil get here?

Guest: Jack Nicas, the Brazil bureau chief for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• What drove a mass attack on Brazil’s capital? Mass delusion.
• The riots in Brazil had echoes of Jan. 6 in the United States. The comparison is inevitable and useful but here are some major differences. 

For more information on today’s episode, visit 

nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

Air travel was a mess over the holidays — in the last 10 days of December, 30,000 flights were canceled. 

While every airline was affected, one stood out: Southwest, which over the past few decades has transformed how Americans fly, melted down. In the last 10 days of the year, it canceled as many flights as it had done in the previous 10 months. 

So what went wrong?

Guest: Niraj Chokshi, a business reporter for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• Southwest’s crisis shows what can go wrong when a company relied on by millions of people moves too slowly to invest in unglamorous parts of its operation.
• The airline’s customers incurred thousands in expenses as they scrambled to get home. 

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

Representative Kevin McCarthy’s bid to become speaker of the House turned into a rolling disaster last week, played out over five long days and 15 rounds of voting. 

Today, the inside story of how it went so wrong — and what he was forced to give up in order to finally win.

Guest: Catie Edmondson, a congressional correspondent for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• Mr. McCarthy’s slog to the speakership ended with a remarkably public show of intraparty strife during a history-making overnight session.
• The speaker’s concessions have given the rebels on the right flank of his party more tools to sow disarray.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

On Christmas Eve in 1971, Juliane Diller, then 17, and her mother boarded a flight in Lima, Peru. She was headed for Panguana, a biological research station in the belly of the Amazon, where for three years she had lived, on and off, with her mother, Maria, and her father, Hans-Wilhelm Koepcke, both zoologists.

About 25 minutes after takeoff, the plane flew into a thunderstorm, was struck by lightning and broke apart. Strapped to her seat, Juliane fell some 10,000 feet, nearly two miles. Her row of seats is thought to have landed in dense foliage, cushioning the impact. Juliane was the sole survivor of the crash.

LANSA Flight 508 was the deadliest lightning-strike disaster in aviation history.

In the 50 years since the crash, Juliane moved to Germany, earned a Ph.D. in biology, became an eminent zoologist, got married — and, after her father’s death, took over as director of Panguana and the primary organizer of expeditions to the refuge.

To hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android.

The current level of biodiversity loss is extraordinary in human history: The global rate of species extinction is at least tens to hundreds of times higher than the average over the past 10 million years. 

At the end of 2022, countries around the world came together in Montreal for an agreement akin to the Paris climate accord to tackle the biodiversity crisis. Here’s more on the effort and how it seeks to confront the problem.

Guest: Catrin Einhorn, who reports on biodiversity and climate for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• Last year, roughly 190 nations, aiming to halt a dangerous decline in biodiversity, agreed to preserve 30 percent of the planet’s land and seas. 

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

George Santos, the Republican representative-elect from New York, ran for office and won his seat in part on an inspiring personal story.

But when Times reporters started looking into his background, they made some astonishing revelations: Almost all of Mr. Santos’s story was fake.

Guests: Michael Gold, a reporter covering New York for The New York Times. Grace Ashford, a reporter covering New York politics for The Times.

Background reading: 

• Mr. Santos said that he was the “embodiment of the American dream.” But his résumé was largely fiction.
• On the first day of the 118th Congress, the Santos saga arrived on Capitol Hill.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

This episode contains strong language and descriptions of violence.
When Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began, many believed the country’s army would quickly crush the Ukrainian forces. Instead, Russian military failures have defined the war.

Today, we hear from Russian soldiers, and explore why a military superpower keeps making the same mistakes and why, despite it all, its soldiers keep going back to fight.

Guest: Michael Schwirtz, an investigative reporter for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• Secret battle plans, intercepted communications and interviews with Russian soldiers explain how a “walk in the park” became a catastrophe for Russia.

For more information on today’s episode, visit 

nytimes.com/thedaily

. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

This episode contains strong language. 
Republicans are set to take control of the House of Representatives for the first time in four years. The transition is shaping up to be chaotic. 

Today, the 118th Congress will gather for the first time in the Capitol, yet there is still a question mark over who is going to be the Republican speaker of the House. 

Why is there still a fight over leadership?

Guest: Catie Edmondson, a congressional correspondent for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• Representative Kevin McCarthy is struggling to break through a wall of entrenched opposition to his speakership from hard-right lawmakers even after agreeing to weaken his leadership power.
• Mr. McCarthy has so far faced no viable challenger. But if he is unable to secure the votes, an alternative could quickly emerge. Here are the Republicans to watch. 

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

This week, The Daily is revisiting some of our favorite episodes of the year and checking in on what has happened in the time since they first ran.

Kirill, 24, worked at a nonprofit for homeless people in the Moscow region. He does not support the policies of President Vladimir V. Putin and is vehemently against the invasion of Ukraine.

After suffering setbacks in the war, Mr. Putin announced a military draft in September. Kirill was among those called up. In September, Sabrina Tavernise spoke to Kirill who was hiding to avoid being served his papers. Since then, Kirill decided to flee Russia to avoid the draft. Today, Sabrina Tavernise checks in with Kirill about what’s happened since he left his country.

Background reading

• Russia’s defense minister, Sergei K. Shoigu, said in October that the target of drafting 300,000 reservists was finished and no more drafts were planned.
• Across Moscow in October, there were noticeably fewer men at restaurants, stores and social gatherings. Many were called up to fight in Ukraine. Others fled to avoid being drafted.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

This week, The Daily is revisiting some of our favorite episodes of the year and checking in on what has happened in the time since.

In May, the United States was stunned by the leak of a Supreme Court draft opinion that previewed the end of Roe v. Wade. After, we spoke to people on both sides of the abortion issue. Today, we revisit conversations with two women, an anti-abortion activist and an abortion provider, and discuss how their lives have changed since the end of the constitutional right to abortion.

Guests: 

• Anja Baker, an anti-abortion activist in Mississippi who works for Her PLAN, a project of the Susan B. Anthony List Education Fund.
• Dr. Jessica Rubino, a family medicine physician who was previously an abortion provider at Austin Women’s Health Center.

Background reading:

• The Times has been tracking the status of abortion laws in each state. Here are the latest updates.
• What does it cost to get an abortion now? With the procedure banned in many states, patients face added expenses for travel, lodging and child care. More of them are turning to charities for help.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

This week, The Daily is revisiting some of our favorite episodes of the year and checking in on what has happened in the time since they first ran.

In July, NASA released new images captured from a point in space one million miles from Earth. Ancient galaxies carpeting the sky like jewels on black velvet. Fledgling stars shining out from deep within cumulus clouds of interstellar dust.

Today, we return to our episode about the moment when the James Webb Space Telescope, the largest space observatory ever built, sent its first images back to Earth — and explore what the telescope has discovered since then in its long journey across the universe. 

Guest: Kenneth Chang, a science reporter for The New York Times.

Background reading

• Here are more scenes of the universe captured by the Webb telescope.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

This week, The Daily is revisiting some of our favorite episodes of the year and checking in on what has happened in the time since they first ran.

This year, we explored the story of Christian Smalls and Derrick Palmer, two Amazon workers at a warehouse in New York City, who had embarked on an improbable attempt to create the company’s first union and succeeded.

Today, we return to their story and learn about the current state of their organizing effort.

Guest: Jodi Kantor, an investigative reporter for The New York Times; and Christian Smalls and Derrick Palmer, warehouse workers who led the first successful unionization attempt at Amazon.

Background reading

• Christian Smalls and Derrick Palmer won the first successful unionization effort at any Amazon warehouse in the United States, one of the most significant labor victories in a generation.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

This week, The Daily is revisiting some of our favorite episodes of the year and checking in on what has happened in the time since they first ran.

This episode contains strong language.

This year, in response to Russia’s increasingly brutal campaign against Ukrainian towns and cities, millions of people — most of them women and children — fled Ukraine. It was the fastest displacement of people in Europe since World War II.

Today, we return to the beginning of the invasion and reporting from our host Sabrina Tavernise, who traveled alongside some of those fleeing the conflict.

Background reading

• With most men legally prohibited from leaving Ukraine, the international border gates serve as a painful filter, splitting families as women and children move on.
• Spared direct attacks so far, Lviv, a city in Ukraine’s west, has become a transit point for thousands of refugees and for men and supplies headed to the front lines.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

During his time as a restaurant critic for The Times, Pete Wells has become both feared and revered in the world of dining — crowning those at the top and dethroning those whose time has passed.

But when the pandemic arrived, handing out stars to fancy restaurants made no sense anymore. A fundamental change was needed.

Guest: Pete Wells, a restaurant critic for The New York Times. 

Background reading: 

• For the return of The Times’s star ratings this year, Pete Wells visited La Piraña Lechonera, a weekend party in a Bronx trailer where one man serves up the rich flavors of Puerto Rico.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

A few weeks ago, when President Pedro Castillo of Peru attempted an illegal power grab and ended up in jail, the response was unexpected: Thousands of protesters took to the streets to support him, and some died.

Why does such a divisive leader have such fierce backing? And what does the upheaval in Peru tell us about the way the political winds are blowing in South America?

Guest: Julie Turkewitz, the Andes bureau chief for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• What is going on in Peru and why are people protesting? Here’s what to know.
• Days after Mr. Castillo’s removal from office and arrest, thousands of his supporters have joined protests demanding his reinstatement. To them, he is the voice of the marginalized.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

This episode contains descriptions of violence. 

At the end of every year, The New York Times Magazine devotes an issue to remembering those who have died in the past year.

This year’s focus is gun violence, which is now the leading cause of death for American children, and the short lives that ended far too soon because of it.

Today, we remember three of them: Lavonte’e Williams, Elijah Gomez and Shiway Barry.

On today’s episode: The voices of Cheese, Shiway Barry's best friend; Crystal Cathcart, Elijah Gomez’s aunt, and his mother, Jennifer Cathcart; and Lavonte’e Williams’s mother, Miracle Jones, and Michael Jones and Tanika Jones, his grandparents.

Background reading: 

• A boy just baptized. A girl who just had her Sweet 16. These are the stories of 12 children killed by guns this year.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

Every step of the way, the congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol has been groundbreaking.

As it wraps up its work, the panel referred former President Donald J. Trump to the Justice Department and accused him of four crimes, including inciting insurrection. The referrals do not carry legal weight or compel any action by the Justice Department, but they were a major escalation.

Here’s what happened during the committee’s final public meeting.

Guest: Luke Broadwater, a Congressional reporter for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• Here are six takeaways from the final Jan. 6 hearing, and key findings from the panel’s report, annotated.
• Mr. Trump’s current woes extend beyond the report, but the case the committee laid out against him further complicates his future.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

For weeks, much of the globe has been riveted by the highs and lows of the World Cup in Qatar. On Sunday, the soccer tournament culminated in a win for Argentina and its star, Lionel Messi, against France.

Here’s how the thrill of the game eclipsed the tournament’s tainted beginnings, and what that might reveal about the future.

Guest: Rory Smith, the chief soccer correspondent for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• After a tournament shadowed by controversy, Qatar had the turn in the global spotlight it sought.
• This World Cup has blurred the line between the artificial and the authentic, but the people, as usual, defined the tournament.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

“On his first night at the Brooklyn homeless shelter, Tin Chin met his best friend.”

So begins an unforgettable story of deceit and friendship, and the loneliness of starting life anew in a foreign country.

The journalist Sam Dolnick traces how two men came to find themselves in the homeless shelter, and how their shared backgrounds meant they became fast friends. But the story, as all good stories often do, quickly takes an unexpected turn.

This story was written and narrated by Sam Dolnick. To hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android.

This episode contains strong language.
In the past few weeks, a major breakthrough in the world of artificial intelligence — ChatGPT — has put extraordinary powers in the hands of anyone with access to the internet.

Released by OpenAI, a San Francisco-based company, ChatGPT can write essays, come up with scripts for TV shows, answer math questions and even write code.

Guest: Kevin Roose, a technology columnist for The New York Times and host of the Times podcast “Hard Fork.”

Background reading: 

• ChatGPT has inspired awe, fear, stunts and attempts to circumvent its guardrails.
• The chatbot is suddenly everywhere. Who should decide how it’s built? What could go wrong? And what could go right? The hosts of the “Hard Fork” discuss.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

This fall, as Russia’s losses mounted in Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin announced a draft. Almost immediately, hundreds of thousands of men fled the country, though many more stayed.

Valerie Hopkins, an international correspondent for The Times, spoke to Russians at a draft office in Moscow to gauge how they felt about going to war and who they blame for the fighting.

Guest: Valerie Hopkins, an international correspondent covering the war in Ukraine for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• Across Moscow, there are noticeably fewer men at restaurants, stores and social gatherings. Many have been called up to fight in Ukraine. Others have fled to avoid being drafted.

For more information on today’s episode, visit 

nytimes.com/thedaily

. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

When the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade this year, it appeared to be an unvarnished victory for the anti-abortion movement.

But as the year draws to a close, the realities of a post-Roe America are turning out differently than anyone predicted.

Guest: Kate Zernike, a national correspondent for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• After the midterms, abortion rights advocates hope to harness public support for the long term, while anti-abortion campaigners look to advance new laws.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

Three thousand security officers fanned out across Germany this past week, raiding 150 homes, arresting 25 people and putting more than 50 others under investigation for plotting to overthrow the national government in Berlin.

The target of the counterterrorism operation, one of the biggest that postwar Germany has seen, was a movement known as the Reichsbürger, or citizens of the Reich.

What does the Reichsbürger plot reveal about the depth of right-wing extremism in the country?

Guest: Katrin Bennhold, the Berlin bureau chief for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• Among those arrested was a German aristocrat called Prince Heinrich XIII of Reuss. Nostalgic for an imperial past, the prince embraced far-right conspiracy theories.
• The Reichsbürger movement picked up momentum from conspiracy theories that grew during the pandemic and gained strength from QAnon.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

 Companies like Meta and Twitter have said that they will be cutting jobs. Google and Amazon have announced that they are putting a freeze on any new hiring.

Are tech layoffs a sign of things to come across other sectors? Is this the opening bell for the bad news on the economy that many have been bracing for?

Guest: Jeanna Smialek, a correspondent covering the Federal Reserve and economy for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• President Biden is celebrating a jobs engine that is running hot; Federal Reserve officials want to see more signs of slowing growth amid their campaign to tame inflation.

For more information on today’s episode, visit 

nytimes.com/thedaily

. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

Shortly after the war in Ukraine began, terrified civilians from across the country made their way to their cities’ main train stations.

The stations became scenes of great panic, with people jostling to be admitted onto the crowded trains. Compartments were filled 10 times their intended capacity, and people were packed shoulder to shoulder, unable to sit down. Images from these moments captured the beginning of the largest refugee crisis in Europe since World War II.

In this extensively reported article, Sarah A. Topol explores the history and cultural significance of Ukraine’s railways, and their crucial importance within the war effort.

This story was written by Sarah A. Topol and recorded by Audm. To hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android.

On one level, the case brought before the Supreme Court is about gerrymandering. But on a broader level, it’s about a theory that would completely reorient the relationship between the federal and state governments and upset the ordinary checks and balances.

Guest: Adam Liptak, a correspondent covering the Supreme Court for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• The Supreme Court justices are considering whether to adopt the “independent state legislature” theory, which could give state lawmakers nearly unchecked power over federal elections.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

This episode contains descriptions of distressing scenes. 

Haiti is unraveling. Gangs control much of the capital, thousands have been displaced and hundreds more are dead.

In recent weeks, the government has taken the extraordinary step of asking for an armed intervention from abroad.

What is it like on the ground, and what does the request mean for Haitians?

Guest: Natalie Kitroeff, the bureau chief for Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean for The New York Times. 

Background reading: 

• With unchecked gang violence rocking its capital and a cholera outbreak spreading, Haiti’s government has called for an international armed intervention to stabilize the country.
• Fearing a mass exodus, some Biden administration officials have pressed for a multinational force, but they don’t want to send U.S. troops and haven’t been able to persuade other countries to take the lead.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

This episode contains strong language. 
In the contentious debate over who controls what happens in America’s schools, a new battleground has emerged: library books.

This is the story of what happened when parents in one town in New Jersey tried to remove a handful of books that they said were explicit and sexually inappropriate — and the battle that ensued.

Guest: Alexandra Alter, a reporter covering publishing and the literary world for The New York Times. 

Background reading: 

• As highly visible and politicized book bans have exploded across the United States, librarians — accustomed to being seen as dedicated public servants in their communities — have found themselves on the front lines of an acrimonious culture war, with their careers and their personal reputations at risk.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

Georgia voters are heading to the polls for the final battle of the 2022 midterms — the runoff election between Senator Raphael Warnock, a Democrat, and his Republican opponent, Herschel Walker.

Both parties have their own challenges: Republicans have a candidate quality issue in Mr. Walker, and Democrats are concerned about the turnout of their voter coalition. One side, though, already seems resigned to losing.

Guest: Maya King, a politics reporter covering the South for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• On the eve of Georgia’s Senate runoff, Mr. Warnock warned his supporters about being overconfident, and Mr. Walker urged Republicans to flood the polls.
• The runoff will answer a big question — what’s more powerful: a candidate’s skills and experience, or the tug of political partisanship?

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

For months, the war in Ukraine was about territory as both sides fought to control areas in the country’s south and east.

In recent weeks, the war has taken a new turn.

Mounting attacks on civilian infrastructure have left people across Ukraine without power, heat and sometimes water as the snow begins to fall.

Guest: Marc Santora, the International News Editor for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• Even as Ukrainian workers race to restore basic services like electricity, heat and water, new Russian airstrikes send them back to the starting line.
• Survival kits in elevators, alternative menus in cafes, flashlights and generators everywhere: This is life under Russian bombardment.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

Jon Mooallem met with the director Noah Baumbach to discuss his latest film, an adaptation of Don DeLillo’s 1985 novel “White Noise.”

The pair explore the recent chain of personal and public events in Baumbach’s life, including the toll of the coronavirus pandemic and the death of his father, and how this “routine trauma” has affected his work, and why it prompted him to create a discombobulated, “elevated reality” for his film in the vein of David Lynch, the Coen brothers and Spike Lee.

This story was written and narrated by Jon Mooallem. To hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android.

Last month at COP27, the U.N. climate change conference, a yearslong campaign ended in an agreement. The rich nations of the world — the ones primarily responsible for the emissions that have caused climate change — agreed to pay into a fund to help poorer nations that bear the brunt of its effects. 

In the background, however, an even more meaningful plan was taking shape, led by the tiny island nation of Barbados. 

Guest: David Gelles, a climate correspondent for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• As global warming delivers cascading weather disasters, leaders at U.N. climate talks said it’s time to radically overhaul the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

In a landmark verdict, a jury convicted Stewart Rhodes, leader of the Oath Keepers, a right-wing militia, of sedition for his role in the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol.

The charge he faced, seditious conspiracy, is one that can be traced to the American Civil War. 

How did federal prosecutors make their case, and what does the verdict tell us about just how organized the attack really was?

Guest: Alan Feuer, a reporter covering courts and criminal justice for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• A jury in federal court in Washington convicted Mr. Rhodes and one of his subordinates for a plot to keep Donald Trump in power.
• The outcome of the trial was a signal victory for the Justice Department and could hold lessons for future Jan. 6 cases. 

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

Over the weekend, protests against China’s strict coronavirus restrictions ricocheted across the country in a rare case of nationwide civil unrest. It was the most extensive series of protests since the pro-democracy movement in Tiananmen Square in 1989.

This is what these demonstrations look and feel like, and what they mean for President Xi Jinping and his quest for “zero Covid.”

Guest: Vivian Wang, a China correspondent for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• Demonstrations against coronavirus restrictions in China have evolved into broader demands. What are protesters calling for?
• In a country where protests are swiftly quashed, many who gathered to voice their discontent — under the watchful eye of the police — were uncertain about how far to go.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

For the past few months, Jodi Kantor and Jo Becker, investigative reporters for The New York Times, have looked into a secretive, yearslong effort by an anti-abortion activist to influence the justices of the Supreme Court.

This is the story of the Rev. Rob Schenck, the man who led that effort.

Guest: Jodi Kantor, an investigative reporter for The New York Times. 

Background reading: 

• Years before the leaked draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade, a landmark contraception ruling was disclosed, according to Mr. Schenck.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

The World Cup, the biggest single sporting event on the planet, began earlier this month. By the time the tournament finishes, half the global population is expected to have watched. 

The 2022 World Cup has also been the focus of over a decade of controversy because of its unlikely host: the tiny, energy-rich country of Qatar. 

How did such a small nation come to host the tournament, and at what cost?

Guest: Tariq Panja, a sports business reporter for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• The decision to take the World Cup to Qatar has upturned a small nation, battered the reputation of global soccer’s governing body and altered the fabric of the sport.
• Many in Qatar say the barrage of criticism about its human rights record and the exploitation of migrant workers is laced with discrimination and hypocrisy.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

Being tasked with the turkey on Thanksgiving can be a high-pressure, high-stakes job. Two Times writers share what they’ve learned.

Kim Severson takes listeners on a journey through some of the turkey-cooking gimmicks that have been recommended to Americans over the decades, and J. Kenji López-Alt talks about his foolproof method for roasting a bird.

Guest: Kim Severson, a food correspondent for The New York Times; and J. Kenji López-Alt, a food columnist for The Times. 

Background reading: 

• From brining to bagging to clothing the bird in cotton, every year brings a fresh cooking trick that promises perfection. Here are the oddest and most memorable.
• The secret to great Thanksgiving turkey is already in your fridge, according to J. Kenji López-Alt. 

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

This winter, three major respiratory viruses — respiratory syncytial virus or R.S.V., the flu and the coronavirus — are poised to collide in the United States in what some health officials are calling a “tripledemic.”

What does this collision have to do with our response to the coronavirus pandemic, and why are children so far the worst affected?

Guest: Apoorva Mandavilli, a science and global health reporter for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• Most cases of Covid, flu and R.S.V. are likely to be mild, but together they may sicken millions of Americans and swamp hospitals, public health experts warned.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

Donald J. Trump is running for president again. Donald J. Trump is back on Twitter again. And now a special prosecutor has been appointed to investigate Donald J. Trump again.

In the saga of the Trump investigations, there seem to be recurring rhythms and patterns. Here’s what to know about the latest developments.

Guest: Michael S. Schmidt, a Washington correspondent for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• The two major criminal investigations involving Mr. Trump examine his role in the lead up to Jan. 6 and his decision to retain sensitive government documents at his home in Florida.
• What is it that makes a special counsel “special”?

For more information on today’s episode, visit 

nytimes.com/thedaily

. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

Across the world, developed nations have locked themselves into unsustainable, energy-intensive lifestyles. As environmental collapse threatens, the journalist Noah Gallagher Shannon explores the lessons in sustainability that can be learned from looking “at smaller, perhaps even less prosperous nations” such as Uruguay.

“The task of shrinking our societal footprint is the most urgent problem of our era — and perhaps the most intractable,” writes Shannon, who explains that the problem of reducing our footprints further “isn’t that we don’t have models of sustainable living; it’s that few exist without poverty.”

Tracing Uruguay’s sustainability, Shannon shows how a relatively small population size and concentration (about half of the country’s 3.5 million people live in Montevideo, the capital) had long provided the country with a collective sense of purpose. He also shows how in such a tight-knit country, the inequalities reach a rapid boil, quoting a slogan of a Marxist-Leninist group called the Tupamaros: “Everybody dances or nobody dances.”

Looking for answers to both a structural and existential problem, Shannon questions what it would take to achieve energy independence.

This story was written by Noah Gallagher Shannon and recorded by Audm. To hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android.

The midterm elections have left both parties in a moment of reflection. For Republicans, it’s time to make a choice about Trumpism, but one that may no longer be theirs to make. For Democrats, it’s about how much of their future is inherently tied to the G.O.P. 

Earlier this year, much of the crypto industry imploded, taking with it billions of dollars. From that crash, one company and its charismatic founder emerged as the industry’s savior.

Last week, that company collapsed.

Who is Sam Bankman-Fried, how did he become the face of crypto, and why did so many believe in him?

Guest: David Yaffe-Bellany, a reporter covering cryptocurrencies and fintech for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• Here’s what to know about the collapse of FTX.
• In an interview with The Times, Mr. Bankman-Fried said he had expanded too fast and failed to see warning signs. But he shared few details about his handling of FTX customers’ funds.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

This week, Israel swore in a new Parliament, paving the way back to power for former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, even as he is on trial for corruption. Now, the country is on the cusp of its most right-wing government in history.

Who and what forces are behind these events in Israeli politics?

Guest: Patrick Kingsley, the Jerusalem bureau chief for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• To win election, Mr. Netanyahu and his far-right allies harnessed perceived threats to Israel’s Jewish identity after ethnic unrest and the subsequent inclusion of Arab lawmakers in the government.
• The rise of the Israeli far right has stoked fear among some Palestinians of a surge of violence.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

Divided government appears poised to return to Washington. In the midterm elections, the Republicans seem likely to manage to eke out a majority in the House, but they will have a historically small margin of control.

The Republican majority will be very conservative, made up of longtime members — some of whom have drifted more to the right — and a small but influential group of hard-right Republicans who are quite allied with former President Donald J. Trump and helped lead the effort to try to overturn the 2020 election.

What can we expect from this new Republican-controlled House?

Guest: Julie Davis, congressional editor for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• After the midterm elections, the Republican ranks in the House have grown more extreme and slightly more diverse.
• Republican rebels are trying to make their leaders sweat after a worse-than-expected outcome in the elections.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

Days after voters rejected his vision for the country in the midterms, former President Donald J. Trump is expected to announce a third run for president.

Despite the poor results for candidates he backed, why are Republican leaders powerless to stop him?

Guest: Maggie Haberman, a White House correspondent for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• Republicans may still win the House. But an underwhelming showing has the party wrestling with what went wrong: Was it bad candidates, a bad message or Mr. Trump?
• Mr. Trump has faced unusual public attacks from across the Republican Party.
• Republicans pushing to move past the former president face one big obstacle: His voters.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

On the first nationwide test of American students since the pandemic, scores plummeted to levels not seen in 20 years. The results show how challenging it was to keep students on track during the pandemic.

What do the scores tell us about remote learning, who lost the most ground academically, and what can schools do to help students recover?

Guest: Sarah Mervosh, a national reporter for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• In the U.S., students in most states and across almost all demographic groups have experienced troubling setbacks in both math and reading, according to an authoritative national exam released last month.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

Sandra Plantz, an administrator at Gallia County Local Schools for more than 20 years, oversees areas as diverse as Title I reading remediation and federal grants for all seven of the district’s schools. In recent years, though, she has leaned in hard on a role that is overlooked in many districts: homeless liaison.

Ms. Plantz’s district, in rural Ohio, serves an area that doesn’t offer much in the way of a safety net beyond the local churches. The county has no family homeless shelters, and those with no place to go sometimes end up sleeping in the parking lot of the Walmart or at the hospital emergency room.

Homeless students have the worst educational outcomes of any group, the lowest attendance, the lowest scores on standardized tests, the lowest graduation rates. They all face the same cruel paradox: Students who do not have a stable place to live are unable to attend school regularly, and failing to graduate from high school is the single greatest risk factor for future homelessness.

This story was recorded by Audm. To hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android.

This week’s elections have been startlingly close. Control of both chambers of Congress remain up in the air.

Historically, the president’s party is blown away in midterms. And the Democrats were further hampered this time round by President Biden’s unpopularity.

Considering the headwinds, how did they do so well?

Guest: Nate Cohn, chief political analyst for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• President Biden appears to have had the best midterms of any president in 20 years.
• Election denial didn’t play as well as Republicans hoped. And former President Donald Trump has faced unusual public attacks from across his party following a string of losses.
• As the results continue to come in, here are the latest updates.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

In the early hours of Wednesday, control of both the House and Senate remained uncertain.

Going into the midterms, some analysts expected a repudiation of the Democrats and a surge of Republican victories. But this “red wave” did not materialize. 

Today, we try to make sense of the surprising results. 

Guest: Astead W. Herndon, a national political reporter for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• As the results continue to come in, follow the latest updates here. 

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

Over the last decade, Wisconsin has become an extreme experiment in single-party rule. Republican officials have redrawn the state’s election districts and rewritten laws to ensure their domination of the state’s legislature.

In Tuesday’s elections, those officials are asking voters for the final lever of power: control over the entire system of voting. 

Guest: Reid J. Epstein, a reporter covering elections and campaigns for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• In Wisconsin, a 50-50 battleground state, Republicans are close to capturing supermajorities in the State Legislature that would render the Democratic governor irrelevant even if he wins re-election.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

For the Democrats to hold on to power in Washington, they have to do what President Biden did in Pennsylvania two years ago: Break the Republican Party’s grip on the white working-class vote, once the core of the Democratic base. 

In tomorrow’s midterm election, no race better encapsulates that challenge than the Pennsylvania Senate candidacy of John Fetterman.

Is the plan working or is this crucial group of voters now a lost cause for the Democrats?

Guest: Shane Goldmacher, a national political reporter for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• Among white working-class voters in places like northeast Pennsylvania, the Democratic Party has both the furthest to fall and the most to gain.
• In the final days of the Pennsylvania Senate race, Mr. Fetterman has acknowledged that his recovery from a stroke remains a work in progress, leaning into the issue with a mix of humor, sarcasm and notes of empathy. 

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

The phenomenon of babies stolen from hospitals in Spain, once shrouded in secrecy, is now being spoken about.

The thefts happened during the end of the regime of Francisco Franco, the right-wing dictator who ruled the country until 1975, and even today the disappearances remain a subject of mystery and debate among scholars.

According to the birth mothers, nuns who worked in maternity wards took the infants shortly after they were delivered and told the women, who were often unwed or poor, that their children were stillborn. But the babies were not dead: They had been sold, discreetly, to well-off Catholic parents, many of whom could not have families of their own. Under piles of forged papers, the adoptive families buried the secret of the crime they committed. The children who were taken were known in Spain simply as the “stolen babies.” No one knows exactly how many were kidnapped, but estimates suggest tens of thousands.

Nicholas Casey relates Ana Belén Pintado’s discovery, after the deaths of her parents, that she was a “stolen baby,” and considers the web of culpability and the tricky question of blame, as Spain reckons with its past.

This story was written by Nicholas Casey and recorded by Audm. To hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android.

This moment in politics will be defined by shifts at the grass-roots level. It wasn’t long ago that Democrats used to brag about the coalition they had built — full of young people, minority voters and college-educated women. Today, we talk to members of the Democratic base, many of whom no longer see a clear path forward for the party.

“The Run-Up” is a new politics podcast from The New York Times. Leading up to the 2022 midterms, we’ll be sharing the latest episode here every Saturday. You can search for “The Run-Up” wherever you get your podcasts. Visit nytimes.com/therunup for more.

With an unpopular president and soaring inflation, Democrats knew they had an uphill battle in the midterms.

But the fall of Roe v. Wade seemed to offer the party a way of energizing voters and holding ground. And one place where that hope could live or die is Michigan.

Guest: Lisa Lerer, a national political correspondent for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• Some top Democrats say that their party has focused too much attention on abortion rights and not enough on worries about crime or the cost of living.
• The outcome of the midterms will affect abortion access for millions of Americans. Activists on both sides are focused on races up and down the ballot.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

For decades, many universities have used race as a factor when deciding which students to admit. In the past, the Supreme Court has backed that practice, called affirmative action, in the interest of creating a diverse student body.

This week, however, the majority-conservative court is considering a case that may change affirmative action forever.

Guest: Adam Liptak, a correspondent covering the Supreme Court for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• The Supreme Court appears ready to rule that race-conscious admissions programs at Harvard and the University of North Carolina were unlawful.
• In the clash over affirmative action, both sides invoke Brown v. Board of Education, the unanimous 1954 decision that said the Constitution prohibits racial segregation in public schools.

For more information on today’s episode, visit 

nytimes.com/thedaily

. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

Early on Friday, an intruder broke into the San Francisco home of Nancy Pelosi and bludgeoned Ms. Pelosi’s husband, Paul, with a hammer.

The shocking attack underlined fears about the growing number of threats against members of Congress and the woeful lack of security around those lawmakers.

Guest: Catie Edmondson, a congressional correspondent for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• A trail of strained relationships. An itinerant life that included a stint living in a storage unit. A personality that was “consumed by darkness.” Who is the man accused of attacking Mr. Pelosi?
• The assault at the Pelosi home comes as threats against members of Congress have increased in recent years.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

It was long awaited, and some doubted that it would ever come to pass, but last week, the tech billionaire Elon Musk officially took over Twitter.

The platform was once the place of underdogs, a public square that allowed users to challenge the moneyed and powerful. Is that about to change?

Guest: Kevin Roose, a technology columnist for The New York Times, and co-host of the Times podcast “Hard Fork.”

Background reading: 

• A decade ago, Twitter was a tool for rebels and those challenging authority. But over time, the powerful learned how to use it for their own goals.
• Mr. Musk and a group of his advisers have been meeting with company executives, working on layoffs, ordering up product changes, talking with advertisers and reviewing content moderation policies.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

Four years ago, Xi Jinping set himself up to become China’s leader indefinitely.

At last week’s Communist Party congress in Beijing, he stepped into that role, making a notable sweep of the country’s other top leaders and placing even greater focus on national security.

Guest: Chris Buckley, chief China correspondent for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• At the congress, Mr. Xi didn’t mention two long-repeated maxims. To many, it’s a warning of the turbulent times to come.
• Mr. Xi has created a new ruling elite packed with loyalist officials primed to elevate his agenda of bolstering national security and turning China into a technological great power.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

For Sam Anderson, a staff writer, traveling with animals can lead to enlightening experience. In this essay for The New York Times Magazine, Mr. Anderson explores what he has learned from a lifetime of voyaging with animals, and what it means to connect with another creature: bridging spiritual, physical and even temporal distances, and reaching into “something like evolutionary time.”

“An animal voyage,” Mr. Anderson writes, “is special because it requires us to make many journeys all at once.”

This story was written and narrated by Sam Anderson. To hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android.

This moment in politics will be defined by shifts at the grass-roots level. Today, we talk to conservative voters about the forces animating the midterm elections for them — and what Washington can learn from the people. 

What do you think of “The Run-Up” so far? Please take our listener survey at nytimes.com/therunupsurvey. 

“The Run-Up” is a new politics podcast from The New York Times. Leading up to the 2022 midterms, we’ll be sharing the latest episode here every Saturday. If you want to hear episodes when they first drop on Thursdays, follow “The Run-Up” wherever you get your podcasts, including Apple, Spotify, Google, Stitcher and Amazon Music.

Voters in Brazil on Sunday will choose between two larger-than-life, populist candidates in a presidential race that is widely seen as the nation’s — and Latin America’s — most important election in decades.

Who are the candidates, and why is the future of Brazilian democracy also on the ballot?

Guest: Jack Nicas, the Brazil bureau chief for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• The contest — a matchup between Brazil’s two biggest political heavyweights — could swing either way and promises to prolong what has already been a bruising battle that has polarized the nation and tested the strength of its democracy.
• For the past decade, Brazil has lurched from one crisis to the next. Brazilians will decide between two men who are deeply tied to its tumultuous past.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

As Democratic Party leaders assessed their vulnerabilities in this year’s midterm elections, the one state they did not worry about was New York. That — it turns out — was a mistake.

Despite being a blue state through and through, and a place President Donald J. Trump lost by 23 points two years ago, the red tide of this moment is lapping at New York’s shores.

Why is New York up for grabs?

Guest: Nicholas Fandos, a Metro reporter for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• Ahead of the midterms, New York has emerged from a haywire redistricting cycle as perhaps the most consequential congressional battleground in the country.
• Republicans are pressing their advantage deep into Democratic territory in the closing stretch of the 2022 campaign, competing for an abundance of House seats.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

A few days ago, when the House committee investigating Jan. 6 issued a subpoena to former President Donald J. Trump, it raised a legal question: Can Congress compel a former president to testify?

The committee’s move, while dramatic, is not without precedent.

What do presidential subpoenas of the past teach us about the moment we’re in, and about what the former president might do next?

Guest: Luke Broadwater, a congressional reporter for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• The Jan. 6 committee issued a subpoena to Mr. Trump, paving the way for a potentially historic court fight over whether Congress can compel testimony from a former president.
• If the former president fights the subpoena, his lawyers are likely to muster a battery of constitutional and procedural arguments for why a court should allow him not to testify.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

In the early days of its war on Ukraine, Russia cut off gas supplied to most of Europe, plunging the continent into the most severe energy crisis in decades.

Soaring prices have put some European leaders on the defensive over their support of Ukraine in the war as they navigate economic crises and bubbling unrest at home.

Guest: Matina Stevis-Gridneff, the Brussels bureau chief for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• European countries are facing dwindling supplies of Russian natural gas. The scarcity has distorted the market, driving gas prices to historic highs and pulling up the price of electricity.
• The downfall of Britain’s prime minister sent perhaps the clearest signal yet that political peril awaits those who fail to address inflation and the erosion of living standards.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

This episode contains strong language. 

Hundreds of candidates on the ballot in November still deny that President Biden won in 2020 — a level of denialism that is fueling harassment and threats toward election workers. 

Few have experienced those attacks as viscerally as election workers in Arizona. Today, we speak with the top election official in the state’s largest county. 

Guest: Stephen Richer, the recorder of Maricopa County in Arizona. 

Background reading: 

• Election officials are on alert as voting begins for midterm elections, the biggest test of the American election system since former President Donald J. Trump’s lies about the 2020 results launched an assault on the democratic process.
• Over 370 Republican candidates have cast doubt on the 2020 election despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, according to a New York Times investigation.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

Yiyun Li has garnered legions of fans with her unsparing prose, writing extensively about her own struggles with depression and suicidality.

Her latest novel, “The Book of Goose,” is no different, sharing the same quality that has made Ms. Li something of a beacon to those suffering beneath unbearable emotional weight.

Alexandra Kleeman, also a novelist, meets Ms. Li to discover the secrets of her charm, her experience of growing up in China and her writing process.

This story was written by Alexandra Kleeman and recorded by Audm. To hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android.

How a 12-year project to lock in political power in Wisconsin could culminate in this year’s midterms – and provide a glimpse into where the rest of the country is headed. 

“The Run-Up” is a new politics podcast from The New York Times. Leading up to the 2022 midterms, we’ll be sharing the latest episode here every Saturday. If you want to hear episodes when they first drop on Thursdays, follow “The Run-Up” wherever you get your podcasts, including on Apple, Spotify, Google, Stitcher and Amazon Music.

Prime Minister Liz Truss of Britain has resigned after only 44 days in office. Hers is the shortest premiership in the country’s history.

What led to her downfall, and why has Britain entered a period of such profound political dysfunction?

Guest: Mark Landler, the London bureau chief for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• Prime Minister Liz Truss’s resignation, yet another episode of political instability, only added to Britons’ concerns and frustrations over galloping inflation and a looming economic crisis.
• Her fate was sealed three weeks ago when currency and bond traders reacted to her new fiscal program by torpedoing the pound and other British financial assets.
• Penny Mordaunt, Rishi Sunak and Ben Wallace, all current or former Conservative cabinet members, are seen as candidates to replace Ms. Truss. 

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

After a summer of news that favored Democrats and with just two weeks until the midterms, a major new poll from The Times has found that swing voters are suddenly turning to the Republicans.

The Times’s Nate Cohn explains what is behind the trend and what it could mean for Election Day.

Guest: Nate Cohn, the chief political analyst for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• According to the Times/Siena College poll, American voters see democracy in peril, but saving it isn’t a priority.
• Despite Democrats’ focus on abortion rights, disapproval of President Biden seems to be hurting his party.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

This episode contains strong language.
A leaked audio recording of Latino lawmakers in Los Angeles making racist comments has created a political firestorm and brought demands for resignations.

But not only has the uproar forced the authorities to reckon with what officials say behind closed doors, it has also raised a sharp issue: Why is a city with so many Latino constituents represented by so few of them?

Guest: Shawn Hubler, a California correspondent for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• The recording of the private conversation between three council members and a labor leader has already led to two resignations. Here’s what to know about the controversy.
• The disparaging remarks highlighted a history of racism within the Latino community.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

Since Hurricane Ian devastated southwestern Florida last month, residents have filed a record number of insurance claims for the damage caused by the storm.

Today, Chris Flavelle, a climate reporter for The Times, discusses whether the insurance companies can survive. And if they can’t, what will the effect be on Florida’s housing market, the cornerstone of its economy?

Guest: Christopher Flavelle, a climate reporter for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• The hurricane’s record-breaking cost will make it even harder for many to get insurance, experts say — threatening home sales, mortgages and construction.
• Aerial videos and photos show the destruction caused by Hurricane Ian on Fort Myers Beach, Fla.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

Herschel Walker, the former football star who is running for the Senate, is, according to the Times political reporter Maya King, a “demigod in Georgia sports and in Georgia culture.”

The midterm election in that state is crucial — it could determine whether Democrats keep control of the Senate. Mr. Walker’s candidacy, however, has been tainted by a slew of stories about his character, including claims that he paid for an abortion for a former girlfriend despite publicly opposing the procedure.

Guest: Maya King, a politics reporter covering the South for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• How Republicans cast aside concerns and learned to love Mr. Walker.
• Will any of the allegations against Mr. Walker actually matter?

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

In July 2020, Stephanie Long, the school superintendent in Leland, Mich., wrote a heartfelt letter to her students and their families after George Floyd’s murder by Minneapolis police officers. Haunted by the images she’d seen in the media, she wrote: “Why be in a position of leadership,” she asked herself, “and not lead?”

“All people of color,” Ms. Long typed, “need us to stand with them to clearly state that we condemn acts of systematic and systemic racism and intolerance.” She envisioned profound pedagogical changes in her school; she imagined creating illuminating discussions within classrooms and searching, transformative conversations in the community beyond. She hit send. A degree of support came in reply. A letter of praise signed by 200 Leland alumni was published in a peninsula newspaper.

But angry emails, phone calls and letters poured in from within the district and, because Long’s message made the local news and spread over the internet, from across the country. They labeled her “a disgrace,” “a Marxist,” “a traitor.”

Daniel Bergner, a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine, wrote about what happened when a superintendent in northern Michigan raised the issue of systemic racism.

This story was written by Daniel Bergner recorded by Audm. To hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android.

When Georgia flipped blue in the 2020 election, it gave Democrats new hope for the future. Credit for that success goes to Stacey Abrams and the playbook she developed for the state. It cemented her role as a national celebrity, in politics and pop culture. But, unsurprisingly, that celebrity has also made her a target of Republicans, who say she’s a losing candidate. On today’s episode: the Stacey Abrams playbook, and why the Georgia governor’s race means more to Democrats than a single elected office.

“The Run-Up” is a new politics podcast from The New York Times. Leading up to the 2022 midterms, we’ll be sharing the latest episode here every Saturday. If you want to hear episodes when they first drop on Thursdays, follow “The Run-Up” wherever you get your podcasts, including on Apple, Spotify, Google, Stitcher and Amazon Music.

In 2019, Julia Longoria, then a Daily producer, traveled to Nashville to speak with Ella Maners and her mother, Katie Maners.

Ella, 8 going on 9, was terrified of tornadoes and getting sick. So she did something that was even scarier than her fears: confront them at Fear Facers camp.

We revisit her story and catch up with Ella, now 12 and in the fifth grade, who has since returned to the camp.

Background reading: 

• Three years ago, Ella spent a week at Fear Facers Summer Camp, a day camp in Florida that helps children learn to deal with obsessive-compulsive and anxiety disorders.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

This episode contains mention of suicide.

A year ago, Lynsea Garrison, a senior producer on The Daily, started telling the story of N, a teenager in Afghanistan.

N’s family tried to force her to marry a member of the Taliban, but she resisted. When she tried to escape to the U.S., however, her case was rejected, so she had to remain in Kabul, fearful and in hiding.

Here’s what happened next.

If you are having thoughts of suicide, and you live in the United States, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 (TALK). You can find a list of additional resources at SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources. Additional resources in other countries can be found here.

Background reading: 

• Listen to Part 1 and Part 2 of N’s story, which we first began to follow after the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan.
• A single year of extremist rule has turned life upside down for Afghans, especially women.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

Just before the sun came up on Saturday on the Kerch Strait Bridge, a strategically and symbolically important link between Russia and the Crimean Peninsula, a bomb detonated, creating a giant fireball.

But Ukrainian elation about the explosion quickly turned into concern about how Russia would respond. And in the days since, Moscow’s retaliation has been to pound Ukrainian cities with missiles in the most sweeping rocket assault since the start of the war.

Guest: Michael Schwirtz, an investigative reporter for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• President Vladimir V. Putin vowed that more strikes would follow if Russian targets were hit again.
• The hail of missiles also seemed intended to appease the hard-liners in Russia who are furious with the humiliating setbacks on the battlefield.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

To tackle its critical shortage of affordable housing, California has taken aim at a central tenet of the American dream: the single-family home.

Telling the story of one such property, in San Diego, can teach us about the larger housing crisis and how we might solve it.

Guest: Conor Dougherty, an economics reporter at The New York Times and author of “Golden Gates: Fighting for Housing in America.”

Background reading: 

• The transformation of 5120 Baxter Street in San Diego is a projection of California’s tighter, taller future.
• NIMBYs, referring to residents who fight nearby development — especially anything involving apartments — are often blamed for worsening the housing crisis.

For more information on today’s episode, visit 

nytimes.com/thedaily

. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

The search for intelligence beyond Earth has long entranced humans. According to Jon Gertner, a regular contributor to The New York Times Magazine, this search has been defined “by an assumption that extraterrestrials would have developed radio technologies akin to what humans have created.”

However, Mr. Gertner writes, “rather than looking for direct calls to Earth, telescopes now sweep the sky, searching billions of frequencies simultaneously, for electronic signals whose origins can’t be explained by celestial phenomena.”

What scientists are most excited about is the prospect of other planets’ civilizations being able to create the same “telltale chemical and electromagnetic signs,” or, as they are now called, “technosignatures.”

This story was written by Jon Gertner and recorded by Audm. To hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android.

How the Republican grass roots got years ahead of a changing country, and whether the Democrats can catch up.

“The Run-Up” is a new politics podcast from The New York Times. Leading up to the 2022 midterms, we’ll be sharing the latest episode here every Saturday. If you want to hear episodes when they first drop on Thursdays, follow “The Run-Up” wherever you get your podcasts, including on Apple, Spotify, Google, Stitcher and Amazon Music.

If President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia follows through on his threats to use a nuclear weapon in Ukraine, he is likely to turn to a specific type.

Tactical nuclear weapons have a fraction of the strength of the Hiroshima bomb and of the super bombs and city busters that people worried about during the Cold War.

What exactly are these weapons, how did they develop and what would it mean if Mr. Putin resorted to them in the war in Ukraine?

Guest: William J. Broad, a science reporter and senior writer for The New York Times. 

Background reading: 

• American officials suspect that Mr. Putin is discovering that small nuclear weapons are hard to use, harder to control and a far better weapon of terror and intimidation than a weapon of war.
• Amid recent nuclear threats from Russia, President Biden calls “the prospect of Armageddon” the highest since the Cuban Missile Crisis.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

In the struggle to control inflation, the Federal Reserve has raised interest rates five times already this year.

But those efforts can be blunted if companies keep raising prices regardless. And one industry has illustrated that difficulty particularly starkly: the car market.

Guest: Jeanna Smialek, a federal reserve and economy reporter for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• Many companies have been able to raise prices beyond their own increasing costs over the past two years, swelling their profitability but also exacerbating inflation. That is especially true in the car market.
• Inflation stayed far above the Federal Reserve’s goal in August, as prices climbed more quickly than economists expected.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

A few weeks into this year’s monsoon season in Pakistan, it became clear that the rains were unlike anything the country had experienced in a long time.

The resulting once-in-a-generation flood has marooned entire villages and killed 1,500 people, leaving a trail of destruction, starvation and disease.

Guest: Christina Goldbaum, an Afghanistan and Pakistan correspondent for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• The flooding has crippled Pakistan’s agricultural sector, threatening a food crisis and dealing another critical blow to a country already in the economic doldrums.
• Farm laborers are scrambling to salvage whatever they can from the battered remains of their cotton and rice harvests. It is desperate work.
• More than 33 million people have been displaced, with vast areas of Pakistan likely to take months to dry out.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

The last Supreme Court term was a blockbuster. The justices made a number of landmark rulings, including in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which ended 50 years of the constitutional right to abortion in the United States.

The new term could be just as testing, with a series of deeply divisive cases on the docket.

Guest: Adam Liptak, a correspondent covering the United States Supreme Court for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• The six-justice conservative supermajority seems poised to dominate the Supreme Court’s new term as it did the earlier one.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

Latino voters have never seemed more electorally important than in the coming midterm elections: the first real referendum on the Biden era of government.

Latinos make up 20 percent of registered voters in two crucial Senate races — Arizona and Nevada — and as much or more in over a dozen competitive House races.

In the past 10 years, the conventional wisdom about Latino voters has been uprooted. We explore a poll, conducted by The Times, to better understand how they view the parties vying for their vote.

Guest: Jennifer Medina, a national politics reporter for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• Two years after former President Donald Trump made surprising gains with Hispanic voters, Republican dreams of a major realignment have failed to materialize, according to a New York Times/Siena College poll. 

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

In September 2021, a group of female minority students at Arizona State University confronted two white male students who were studying in the library’s multicultural center.

The women were upset with what they saw as blatant antagonism: One of the men sported a “Didn’t Vote for Biden” shirt, the other had a “Police Lives Matter” laptop sticker. The women felt they had chosen the multicultural center in order to rile them. A heated row between both parties erupted, a video of which quickly went viral, threatening to upend the lives of all involved.

For The New York Times, Sarah Viren, a journalist and essayist, explored the incident in the context of “the widening gyre of the culture wars.” The row at Arizona State was, she explained, “a symbolic fight,” one that raised questions of “wokeism” and “free speech,” the perils of viral videos, and the purpose of “safe spaces.”

“It was a brief drama that was also a metaphor,” Ms. Viren wrote. “But watching and rewatching that drama unfold from my computer, I kept asking myself: a metaphor for what?”

This story was written by Sarah Viren and recorded by Audm. To hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android.

Why we can’t understand this moment in politics without first understanding the transformation of American evangelicalism.

“The Run-Up” is a new politics podcast from The New York Times. Leading up to the 2022 midterms, we’ll be sharing the latest episode here every Saturday. If you want to hear episodes when they first drop on Thursdays, follow “The Run-Up” wherever you get your podcasts, including on Apple, Spotify, Google, Stitcher and Amazon Music.

As the sun came up over Florida yesterday, a fuller picture began to emerge of the destruction that Hurricane Ian had inflicted on the state and its residents.

The Category 4 storm washed away roads, bridges, cars, boats and homes. The damage is so extensive that, according to the state’s governor, Ron DeSantis, it may take years to rebuild.

Guests: Patricia Mazzei, the Miami bureau chief for The New York Times; Richard Fausset, a Times correspondent based in Atlanta; Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs, a national news reporter for The Times; and Hilary Swift, a photojournalist.

Background reading: 

• Data from NASA reveals how warm ocean waters in the Gulf of Mexico provided the fuel that turned Hurricane Ian into such a potent force.
• The scale of the wreckage was staggering, even to Florida residents who had survived and rebuilt after other powerful hurricanes.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

Kirill, 24, works at a nonprofit for homeless people in the Moscow region. He does not support the policies of President Vladimir V. Putin and is vehemently against the invasion of Ukraine.

After suffering setbacks in the war, Mr. Putin announced a military draft a week ago. Kirill was among those called up. As he hides out to avoid being served his papers, Kirill spoke to Sabrina Tavernise about how his life has changed.

Guest: Kirill, a 24-year-old from Moscow who is attempting to avoid the draft and who asked that only his first name be used to avoid reprisals.

Background reading: 

• In a rare admission of official mistakes, the Kremlin has acknowledged that the military draft has been rife with problems.
• Resistance to the draft has grown as villagers, activists and even some elected officials ask why the conscription drive appears to be hitting minority groups and rural areas harder than the big cities.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

Mahsa Amini, 22, traveled from her hometown in the province of Kurdistan to the Iranian capital, Tehran, this month. Emerging from the subway, she was arrested for failing to cover her hair modestly enough. Three days later, she was dead.

The anger over Ms. Amini’s death has prompted days of rage, exhilaration and street battles across Iran, with women stripping off their head scarves — and even burning them — in the most significant outpouring of dissent against the ruling system in more than a decade.

Guest: Farnaz Fassihi, a reporter for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• The protests have been striking for the way they have cut across ethnic and social class divides, but there is one group that has risen up with particular fury.
• Beyond the anger over Ms. Amini’s death lies a range of grievances: a collapsing economy, brazen corruption, suffocating repression, and social restrictions handed down by a handful of elderly clerics.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

During the pandemic, an enormous amount of money — about $5 trillion in total — was spent to help support the newly unemployed and to prop up the U.S. economy while it was forced into suspension.

But the funds came with few strings and minimal oversight. The result: one of the largest frauds in American history, with billions of dollars stolen by thousands of people.

Guest: David A. Fahrenthold, an investigative reporter for The New York Times, focused on nonprofits.

Background reading: 

• Investigators say there was so much fraud in federal Covid-relief programs that — even after two years of work and hundreds of prosecutions — they’re still just getting started.
• A federal watchdog almost tripled its estimate of the amount of unemployment benefits paid out to people who weren’t entitled to them, raising the figure to $45.6 billion, from $16 billion.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

The high poverty rate among children was long seen as an enduring fact of American life. But a recent analysis has shown that the number of young people growing up poor has fallen dramatically in the past few decades.

The reasons for the improvement are complicated, but they have their roots in a network of programs and support shaped by years of political conflict and compromise.

Guest: Jason DeParle, a senior writer at The New York Times and a frequent contributor to The New York Times Magazine. 

Background reading: 

• Child poverty in the United States has fallen 59 percent since 1993, a new analysis showed.
• Few states have experienced larger declines in child poverty than West Virginia. One family’s story illustrates the real-life impact that an expanded safety net has provided to millions across America.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

The concept of having a “body clock” is a familiar one, but less widespread is the awareness that our body contains several biological clocks. Understanding their whims and functions may help us optimize our lives and lead to better overall health, according to scientists.

Every physiological system is represented by a clock, from the liver to the lungs, and each one is synced “to the central clock in the brain like an orchestra section following its conductor,” writes Kim Tingley, a New York Times journalist who explored the effect this knowledge has on how conditions are treated, and spoke to scientists about how misalignment or deregulation of these clocks can have a profound effect on our health.

Exploring the components that dictate our lives, and how they work together like the “gears in a mechanical watch,” Ms. Tingley builds a case for the importance of paying attention to all our circadian rhythms — and not just when it comes to monitoring our sleep.

This story was written by Kim Tingley and recorded by Audm. To hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android.

In kicking off the midterms, Joe Biden talked about American democracy as a shared value, enshrined in the country’s founding — a value that both Democrats and Republicans should join together in defending. But there is another possible view of this moment. One that is shared by two very different groups: the voters who propelled Biden to the presidency … and the conservative activists who are rejecting democracy altogether.

“The Run-Up” is a new politics podcast from The New York Times. Leading up to the 2022 midterms, we’ll be sharing the latest episode here every Saturday. If you want to hear episodes when they first drop on Thursdays, follow “The Run-Up” wherever you get your podcasts, including on Apple, Spotify, Google, Stitcher and Amazon Music.

Evangelicals make up about a quarter of the population in the United States and are part of the nation’s largest religious group. But lately the movement is in crisis.

The biggest issue is church attendance. Many churches closed at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic and struggled to reopen while congregations thinned.

But a smaller audience isn’t the only problem: Pastors are quitting, or at least considering doing so.

Guest: Ruth Graham is a national correspondent covering religion, faith and values for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• Across the country, theologically conservative white evangelical churches that were once comfortably united are at odds over many of the same issues dividing the Republican Party and other institutions.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

In a speech on Wednesday, President Vladimir V. Putin said that he would require hundreds of thousands more Russians to fight in Ukraine — and alarmed the West by once again raising the specter of nuclear force.

The mobilization signals that Mr. Putin is turning the war from one of aggression to one of defense, offering clues about what the next phase of the fighting will involve.

Guest: Anton Troianovski, the Moscow bureau chief for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• Accelerating his war effort, Mr. Putin accused the West of trying to “weaken, divide and ultimately destroy” Russia.
• American and other officials vowed to continue sending military, economic and humanitarian aid to Ukraine.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

Last week, nearly 50 Venezuelan migrants showed up, without warning, on the wealthy island of Martha’s Vineyard.

Their arrival was the culmination of a monthslong strategy by two of the United States’ most conservative governors to lay the issue of undocumented immigration at Democrats’ doorstep.

How has this strategy played out and what has it meant for the migrants caught in the middle?

Guest: Miriam Jordan, a national correspondent covering immigration for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• Scores of migrants have been shipped north by southern Republican governors. Here’s what you need to know.
• Martha’s Vineyard, the moneyed summer resort, has become an unlikely arena in the fight over illegal immigration.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

Adnan Syed was accused of the 1999 killing of his classmate and ex-girlfriend Hae Min Lee, whose body was found buried in a car park in Baltimore.

He was convicted and sentenced to life in prison but has proclaimed his innocence for the last 23 years.

Mr. Syed was the subject of the first season of the podcast “Serial,” which painstakingly examined his case and the evidence against him.

Yesterday, his conviction was overturned. On today’s episode, the “Serial” team looks at how this happened. 

Guest: Sarah Koenig, the host and executive producer of the “Serial” podcast.

Background reading: 

• Mr. Syed had been serving a life sentence for the 1999 murder of his high school classmate Hae Min Lee. Here is the timeline of his legal journey.
• A Baltimore City Circuit Court judge vacated Mr. Syed’s conviction “in the interests of justice and fairness.”

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

The funeral of Queen Elizabeth today will be one of the most extraordinary public spectacles of the last several decades in Britain, accompanied by an outpouring of sadness, reverence and respect.

But the end of the queen’s 70-year reign has also prompted long-delayed conversations about the future of the Commonwealth and of the four nations that make up the United Kingdom.

Guest: Mark Landler, the London bureau chief for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• In Commonwealth nations with British colonial histories, Queen Elizabeth’s death has rekindled discussions about a more independent future.
• The loss of the beloved figurehead has left many in Britain anxious and unmoored, unsure of their nation’s identity, its economic and social well-being, or even its role in the world.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

“Nobody’s gonna know. They’re gonna know.”

If you’ve been on TikTok in the past year, you’re most likely familiar with these two sentences, first drolly uttered in a post by TikTok creator Chris Gleason in 2020. The post has become a hit and has been viewed more than 14 million times.

But the sound is more famous than the video.

When uploading a video to TikTok, the creator has the option to make that video’s audio a “sound” that other users can easily use in their own videos — lip-syncing to it, adding more noise on top of it or treating it like a soundtrack. Gleason’s sound has been used in at least 336,000 other videos, to humorous, dramatic and sometimes eerie effect.

The journalist Charlotte Shane delves into the world of repurposed sounds, exploring how TikTok and other apps have enabled, as she writes in her recent article for The Times, “cross-user riffing and engagement, like quote-tweeting for audio.” She also considers “what makes a sound compelling beyond musical qualities or linguistic meaning.”

While “brainfeel” may be an apt buzzword for the sensation audio memes elicit, Ms. Shane writes, it is more than a mere trend: We have entered the “era of the audio meme.”

This story was written by Charlotte Shane and recorded by Audm. To hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android.

It’s March 2013. The G.O.P., in tatters, issues a scathing report blaming its electoral failures on an out-of-touch leadership that ignores minorities at its own peril. Just three years later, Donald Trump proves his party dead wrong. Today, how certain assumptions took hold of both parties — and what they’re still getting wrong — heading into the midterm elections.

The adoption of electric cars has been hailed as an important step in curbing the use of fossil fuels and fighting climate change. There is a snag, however: such vehicles require around six times as many metals as their gasoline-powered counterparts.

A giant storehouse of the necessary resources sits at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. But retrieving them may, in turn, badly damage the environment.

Guest: Eric Lipton, an investigative reporter for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• Mining in the Pacific Ocean was meant to benefit poorer countries, but an international agency gave a Canadian company access to seabed sites.
• Miles below the surface, harvesting metallic nodules may threaten animals found nowhere else on the planet.
• Here are some of the seabed authority emails and other documents The Times assembled as it worked on its investigation of seabed mining.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

With the midterm elections a few weeks away, Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, forwarded a plan to save his party from the growing backlash over abortion.

But the proposal — a federal ban on almost all terminations after 15 weeks — has served mostly to expose the division among Republicans about the issue.

Guest: Lisa Lerer, a national political correspondent for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• Mr. Graham’s effort has reignited debate on an issue that Republicans have worked to confront before midterm elections in which abortion rights have become a potent issue.
• The rejection of Mr. Graham’s bill was the latest misfire in the party’s struggle to unite behind a clear strategy.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

When President Biden canceled college debt last month, he left untouched the problem that created that debt: the soaring price of college.

In the 1980s, the list price of undergraduate education at a private four-year institution could hit $20,000 a year. At some of these schools in the last couple of years, it has topped $80,000. 

Why has a college education become increasingly costly, and why has that become such a difficult problem to solve?

Guest: Ron Lieber, a personal finance columnist for The New York Times and author of “The Price You Pay for College.”

Background reading: 

• Instead of making higher education free, the United States subsidizes it later through repayment plans and attempts at debt cancellation. The complexity is disrespectful, Ron Lieber writes in his “Your Money” column.
• Also from “Your Money”: Student loan borrowers don’t deserve “forgiveness,” they deserve an apology. 

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

Over the weekend, Ukraine’s military stunned the world. After months of a kind of stalemate, its military took hundreds of miles of territory back from Russia — its biggest victory since the start of the war.

How did the war reach this critical point, and what does Ukraine’s success mean for the future?

Guest: Eric Schmitt, a correspondent covering national security for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• A lightning Ukrainian offensive in the country’s northeast has reshaped what had become a grinding war of attrition.
• Stunned by a lightning advance, Russia has acknowledged the loss of the northern region of Kharkiv, which cast doubt on the premise that Ukraine could never defeat it. 

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

The U.S. Open crowned its winners this weekend. But for a lot of fans, this year’s competition was less about who won, and more about a player who wasn’t even involved in the final matches.

Serena Williams, who announced last month that she’d be retiring from tennis after this year’s tournament, has made an indelible impact on her sport and left a legacy away from the court that has very little precedent.

Guest: Wesley Morris, a critic at large for The New York Times and co-host of Times podcast “Still Processing.”

Background reading: 

• At the U.S. Open, Serena Williams laughed, rocked sparkly shoes, rang the bell at the stock exchange, beat two opponents, teared up and said goodbye. Here’s an exploration of her magical last week in tennis.
• As Ms. Williams played her final matches, women have seen their own lives reflected in the triumphs and trials of the tennis superstar.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

The Claremont Institute, a right-wing think tank in California, has in recent years become increasingly influential in Republican circles. In 2016, its goal was to turn Donald J. Trump into a legitimate candidate — and then it did .

The journalist Elisabeth Zerofsky traces the origins of the divisive organization, explaining how it made the intellectual case for Trumpism but also how, with ties to Ron DeSantis and John Eastman, the think tank has become a home for “counterrevolutionary” politics that go far beyond the former president.

This story was written by Elisabeth Zerofsky and recorded by Audm. To hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android.

The death of Queen Elizabeth II on Thursday brought to an end a remarkable reign that spanned seven decades, 15 prime ministers and 14 American presidents.

During her time on the throne, which saw the crumbling of the British Empire and the buffeting of the royal family by scandals, Elizabeth’s courtly and reserved manner helped to shore up the monarchy and provided an unwavering constant for her country, the Commonwealth and the wider world.

Guest: Alan Cowell, a contributor to The New York Times and a former Times foreign correspondent.

Background reading: 

• Amid social and economic upheaval across her 70-year reign, the queen remained unshakably committed to the rituals of her role.
• Her heir, Charles, was long an uneasy prince. But he comes to the throne, at 73, as a self-assured, gray-haired eminence.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

As California watches the impact of rising temperatures devastate its environment with brutal heat waves and raging fires, the state is taking increasingly far-reaching steps to combat climate change.

One of those measures — banning the sale of new gasoline-powered cars by 2035 — could prove a turning point for the transition to electric vehicles.

Guest: Neal E. Boudette, an automotive correspondent for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• Not only is California the largest auto market in the United States, but more than a dozen other states also typically follow California’s lead when setting their own auto emissions standards.
• Automakers such as General Motors have equally ambitious aspirations for electric cars, but moving away from internal-combustion vehicles will not be easy.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

A counteroffensive by Ukrainian forces to try to drive Russian troops out of southern Ukraine has placed the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the biggest in Europe, directly in the path of the fighting.

As the world scrambles to prevent a catastrophe, the plant’s workers find themselves in a dangerously precarious position.

Guest: Marc Santora, an international news editor for The New York Times, currently based in Kyiv. 

Background reading: 

• Renewed shelling has put the Zaporizhzhia plant at risk despite the presence of U.N. monitors, underscoring what the International Atomic Energy Agency has called the “unprecedented” peril of the moment.
• The U.N. inspectors have called for a security protection zone around the plant. The risks are grave for all involved.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

In November, Americans will head to the polls for the first nationwide election since the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021. But what happens this fall won’t just be about who wins and who loses. On the first episode of "The Run-Up,” host Astead Herndon lays out the stakes of the midterm elections and explores the big questions the podcast is looking to answer. 

“The Run-Up” is a new politics podcast from The New York Times. You can follow it wherever you get your podcasts, including on Apple, Spotify, Google, Stitcher and Amazon Music.

Today marks the unofficial start of the campaign for the midterm elections. This year’s midterms will be the first major referendum on the Biden era of government — and a test of how much voters want to reinstall the Trump wing of the Republican Party.

On today’s episode, Astead W. Herndon, a political reporter and the host of our new podcast, “The Run-Up,” offers a guide to the campaign. He’ll explore the forces at play in this election and how we arrived at such a fraught moment in American politics.

Background reading: 

• Listen to the premiere of "The Run-Up," a podcast dedicated to the 2022 midterms.
• Democratic leaders, once beaten down by the prospect of a brutal midterm election in the fall, sense a shift in the political winds. But it may not be enough.
• Heading into 2022, Republicans were confident of a red wave. But now some are signaling concern that the referendum they anticipated on President Biden is being complicated by former President Donald Trump.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

 An influx of Fentanyl, a highly lethal synthetic narcotic, has aggravated the opioid crisis in the United States and prompted communities to scramble for ways to lower the skyrocketing rates of overdose deaths.

In Vancouver, a Canadian city that has been at the forefront of innovative approaches to drug use, a novel and surprising tactic is being tried: It’s called “safer supply.”

Guest: Stephanie Nolen, a global health reporter for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• The mounting toll of overdose deaths has spurred a search for new solutions, and Vancouver has tried more of them, faster, than anywhere else.
• Why is fentanyl so deadly? How can you ensure that your loved ones, including your children, stay safe? Experts offer tips to talk about opioids with your family.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

Few leaders have had as profound an effect on their time as Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union, who died this week at 91.

It was not Mr. Gorbachev’s intention to liquidate the Soviet empire when he came to power in 1985. But after little more than six tumultuous years, he had lifted the Iron Curtain and presided over the dissolution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, ending the Cold War.

Guest: Serge Schmemann, a member of The New York Times’s editorial board.

Background reading: 

• Adopting principles of glasnost and perestroika, Mr. Gorbachev weighed the legacy of seven decades of Communist rule and set a new course, decisively altering the political climate of the world.
• With the war in Ukraine, Russia’s current leader, Vladimir V. Putin, is trying to unravel Mr. Gorbachev’s legacy.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

This episode contains detailed descriptions of a mass shooting that some listeners may find disturbing.

A trial is underway in Parkland, Fla., to determine the fate of the gunman who killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in 2018.

The trial is expected to last for months, forcing people in Parkland to relive the pain of a day they have spent years trying to put behind them.

We look back at conversations with some of the survivors of the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

Guest: Jack Healy, a national correspondent for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• The rare trial of a gunman in a mass shooting has underscored how massacres shatter families and communities over time.
• As weeks of painful testimony and videos unfold to determine whether the Parkland gunman will face the death penalty, students who spoke out about gun violence have encouraged engagement and changed the national debate.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

This episode contains discussions about suicide, self-harm and mental health issues.

In decades past, the public health risks teenagers in the United States faced were different. They were externalized risks that were happening in the physical world.

Now, a new set of risks has emerged.

In 2019, 13 percent of adolescents reported having a major depressive episode, a 60 percent increase from 2007. And suicide rates, which had been stable from 2000 to 2007 among this group, leaped nearly 60 percent by 2018.

We explore why this mental health crisis has become so widespread, and why many people have been unprepared to handle it.

Guest: Matt Richtel, a correspondent based in San Francisco for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• Depression, self-harm and suicide are rising among American adolescents. The coronavirus pandemic intensified the decline in mental health among teenagers but predated it.
• Increasingly, anxious and depressed teens are using multiple, powerful psychiatric drugs, many of them untested in adolescents or for use in tandem.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

Since he left office, former President Donald J. Trump has been facing several investigations.

They include the congressional inquiry into the Jan. 6 attack at the Capitol and the F.B.I.’s search of Mar-a-Lago, his club and Florida residence, as part of an investigation into his handling of classified material.

Of all the government investigations, the one that is receiving the least attention — a case being made by a local prosecutor in Georgia — may end up being the most consequential.

Guest: Richard Fausset, a correspondent based in Atlanta for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• Over a year into a criminal investigation of election interference by Mr. Trump and his allies, a Georgia prosecutor is beginning to show the broad contours of her inquiry.
• Fani T. Willis, the Atlanta area district attorney, is seeking to build a broad conspiracy case that encompasses multifaceted efforts by Trump allies to disrupt and overturn the 2020 election.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

Going to college can be a shock to most: Leaving the comfort of friends and family for a leap into the unknown, a fresh start. But what is the university experience like as a refugee?

The journalist Maddy Crowell met some of the 148 Afghan women who have been enrolled in U.S. colleges to complete their degrees, and relates how they have adapted to American and collegiate life a year on from the fall of Kabul.

It has, she finds, been far from easy. Ms. Crowell wrote that one student said “she spent her days pinballing among exhaustion, despair and a sort of cautious optimism.”

This story was written by Maddy Crowell and recorded by Audm. To hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android.

President Biden’s announcement this week that he would cancel chunks of student loan debt stands to have a major impact for many of the 45 million Americans who owe $1.6 trillion for having gone to college.

Who will benefit from the plan, what will the cost be to the taxpayer and the economy, and, ultimately, could the White House have done more?

Guest: Stacy Cowley, a finance reporter for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• The plan for student loan forgiveness comes after months of deliberations in the White House over fairness and concerns that it could exacerbate inflation before the midterm elections.
• The move has kicked off heated fiscal debate and raised the possibility of opening a deep political rift.
• Here’s what you need to know about Mr. Biden’s proposal.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

Daria Dugina and her father, Aleksandr Dugin, have been major figures in the Russian propaganda landscape, advocating Russian imperialism and supporting the invasion of Ukraine.

But a few days ago, Ms. Dugina was killed in a car bomb after leaving a nationalist festival, fueling speculation about who carried out the attack and whether Moscow’s reaction could affect the war in Ukraine.

Guest: Anton Troianovski, the Moscow bureau chief for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• The clamor over the killing of Ms. Dugina highlights the prominence of her fellow pro-war Russian ultranationalists.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

Across industries and income brackets, a growing number of American workers are discovering that their productivity is being electronically monitored by their bosses.

This technology is giving employers a means to gauge what their employees are doing and it’s already impacting how much and when people get paid.

Times investigative reporters have discovered that this tracking software is more common than one might think.

Guest: Jodi Kantor, an investigative reporter for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• Across industries and incomes, more employees are being tracked, recorded and ranked. What is gained, companies say, is efficiency and accountability. What is lost?

For more information on today’s episode, visit 

nytimes.com/thedaily

. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

Even as the anti-abortion movement celebrates victories at the Supreme Court and in many states across the country, there is debate about where to go next.

A hard-edge faction is pursuing “abortion abolition,” a move to criminalize abortion from conception, targeting not only the providers but also the women who have the procedure.

Guest: Elizabeth Dias, a correspondent covering faith and politics for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• Abortion “abolitionists” are looking to gain followers after the decision to overturn Roe, unsettling mainstream anti-abortion groups.

For more information on today’s episode, visit 

nytimes.com/thedaily

. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

For more than 500 days, coal miners in rural Alabama have been on strike. Around 900 workers walked off the job in April 2021, and they haven’t been back since.

As the strike drags on, the miners are discovering that neither political party is willing to fight for them.

For Braxton Wright, 39, a second-generation coal miner and, until recently, a Republican, the experience has altered his view of American politics.

Guest: Michael Corkery, a business reporter for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• To make ends meet, some striking coal miners in Alabama have picked up work at an Amazon warehouse. It’s the same one where workers have tried to unionize.

For more information on today’s episode, visit 

nytimes.com/thedaily

. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

In the past decade, planting trees has come to represent many things: a virtuous act, a practical solution and a symbol of hope in the face of climate change. But can planting a trillion trees really save the world?

Visiting the Eden Reforestation Projects in Goiás, Brazil, and interviewing numerous international scientists and activists, the journalist Zach St. George offers a vivid insight into the root of the tree-planting movement — from the Green Belt Movement of the 1970s to the Trillion Tree Campaign of the 2010s — and considers the concept’s environmental potential, as well as the movement’s shortcomings.

This story was written by Zach St. George and recorded by Audm. To hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android.

What is a black hole? Why do we remember the past but not the future? If time had a beginning, does it have an end?

We don’t have the answers to some of the universe’s biggest questions. What we do know often feels bleak, such as the notion that in a billion years there will most likely be no life on Earth. Or the reality that someday the entire human race will probably be forgotten.

Nonetheless, people search for answers. These are some of the cosmic questions that haunt the human experience.

Guest: Dennis Overbye, the cosmic affairs correspondent for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• When the largest space observatory ever built sent its images back to Earth, here’s what astronomers saw.
• In space you can’t hear a black hole scream, but apparently you can hear it sing. Hear what that sounds like.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

Last week, the F.B.I. took the extraordinary step of searching Mar-a-Lago, former President Donald J. Trump’s private club and Florida home. Their goal? To find materials he was thought to have improperly removed from the White House, including classified documents.

An inventory of the material taken from the search showed that agents seized 11 sets of documents with some type of confidential or secret marking on them.

We explore some of the latest developments in the case.

Guest: Maggie Haberman, a White House correspondent for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• Mr. Trump and his allies have given often conflicting defenses of his retention of classified documents. These shifting explanations follow a familiar playbook.
• The Justice Department’s warrant for the search and two critical supporting memos shed considerable light on the Mar-a-Lago investigation.
• Here’s a timeline of the former president’s false and misleading statements on the search.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily.

Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

Across the United States, airline travel this summer has been roiled by canceled flights, overbooked planes, disappointment and desperation.

Two and a half years after the pandemic began and with restrictions easing, why is flying still such an unpleasant experience?

Guest: Niraj Chokshi, a business reporter for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• The question for many travelers is whether they can trust airlines to get them where they want to go on time. Here is what to know about the air travel mess.
• Travelers on both sides of the Atlantic have endured long lines, delays or cancellations, and plenty of frustration. Is this the new normal?

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily.

Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

One year ago this week, when the Taliban retook control of Afghanistan, they promised to institute a modern form of Islamic government that honored women’s rights.

That promise evaporated with a sudden decision to prohibit girls from going to high school, prompting questions about which part of the Taliban is really running the country.

Guest: Matthieu Aikins, a writer based in Afghanistan for The New York Times and the author of “The Naked Don’t Fear the Water: An Underground Journey with Afghan Refugees.”

Background reading: 

• After barring girls from high school — and harboring a leader of Al Qaeda — the Taliban risks jeopardizing the billions of dollars of global aid that keeps Afghans alive.

For more information on today’s episode, visit 

nytimes.com/thedaily

. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

Carried interest is a loophole in the United States tax code that has stood out for its egregious unfairness and stunning longevity. 

Typically, the richest of the rich pay 40 percent tax on their income. The very narrow, select group that benefits from carried interest pays only 20 percent. 

Earlier versions of the Inflation Reduction Act targeted carried interest. But the loophole has survived. Senator Kyrsten Sinema, Democrat of Arizona, demanded her party get rid of efforts to eliminate it in exchange for her support. 

How has the carried interest loophole lasted so long despite its obvious unfairness? 

Guest: Andrew Ross Sorkin, a columnist for The New York Times and the founder and editor-at-large of DealBook.

Background reading: 

• What is the carried interest loophole and why hasn’t it been closed by now?
• Ms. Sinema’s puzzling defense of the loophole.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

It was a long-shot bet on liquid natural gas, but it paid off handsomely — and turned the United States into a leading fossil-fuel exporter.

The journalist Jake Bittle delves into the storied career of Charif Souki, the Lebanese American entrepreneur whose aptitude for risk changed the course of the American energy business.

The article outlines how Mr. Souki rose from being a Los Angeles restaurant owner to becoming the co-founder and chief executive of Cheniere Energy, an oil and gas company that specialized in liquefied natural gas, and provides an insight into his thought process: “As Souki sees it,” Mr. Bittle writes, “the need to provide the world with energy in the short term outweighs the long-term demand of acting on carbon emissions.”

In a time of acute climate anxiety, Mr. Souki’s rationale could strike some as outdated, even brazen. The world may be facing energy and climate crises, Mr. Souki told The New York Times, “but one is going to happen this month, and the other one is going to happen in 40 years.”

“If you tell somebody, ‘You are going to run out of electricity this month,’ and then you talk to the same person about what’s going to happen in 40 years,” he said, “they will tell you, ‘What do I care about 40 years from now?’”

This story was written by Jake Bittle and recorded by Audm. To hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android.

Five years ago, after decades of resistance, the Boy Scouts of America made a momentous change, allowing girls to participate. Since then, tens of thousands have joined.

Today we revisit a story, first aired in 2017, about 10-year-old twins deciding which group to join, and find out what’s happened to them since.

Background reading: 

• In 2017, the decision to open up the Boy Scouts was celebrated by many women but criticized by the Girl Scouts, which said that girls flourish in all-female groups.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

This episode contains strong language and descriptions of an abortion.

With the end of Roe v. Wade, Louisiana has become one of the most difficult places in the United States to get an abortion. The barriers are expected to disproportionately affect Black women, the largest group to get abortions in the state.

Today, we speak to Tara Wicker and Lakeesha Harris, two women in Louisiana whose lives led them to very different positions in the fight over abortion access.

Background reading: 

• The Supreme Court decision to reverse Roe, far from settling the matter, has kindled court and political battles that are likely to go on for years.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

On Monday, federal agents descended on Mar-a-Lago, the private club and Florida home of former President Donald J. Trump, reportedly looking for classified documents and presidential papers.

Trump supporters expressed outrage about the agency’s actions, while many Democrats reacted with glee. But what do we know about the search, and what comes next?

Guest: Maggie Haberman, a White House correspondent for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• The search at Mar-a-Lago was the culmination of a lengthy conflict between a president proud of his disdain for rules and officials charged with protecting the nation’s records and secrets.
• Experts say that the Justice Department would have carefully weighed the decision to carry out the search, suggesting that the investigation is serious and fairly advanced.
• Here is the timeline leading up to the search.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

This weekend, Democrats passed legislation that would make historic investments to fight climate change and lower the cost of prescription drugs — paid for by raising taxes on businesses.

How did the party finally make progress on the bill, and what effects will it have?

Guest: Emily Cochrane, a Washington-based correspondent for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• Here’s what is in the climate, tax and health care package.
• How Senator Joe Manchin turned from a holdout into a deal maker.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

This episode contains descriptions of distressing scenes. 

In a landmark ruling, a jury in Texas ordered Alex Jones, America’s most prominent conspiracy theorist, to pay millions of dollars to the parents of a boy killed at Sandy Hook for the damage caused by his lies about the mass shooting.

What is the significance of the trial, and will it do anything to change the world of lies and misinformation?

Guest: Elizabeth Williamson, a feature writer based in the Washington bureau of The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• What to know about the defamation case against Alex Jones, the far-right conspiracy theorist who used his Infowars media company to spread lies about the Sandy Hook school shooting.
• The parents of a child killed in the Sandy Hook shooting were awarded $45.2 million in punitive damages at the conclusion of the trial. 

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

The more he insisted that his name was Joshua, the more delusional he came to be seen.

Journalist Robert Kolker tells us the remarkable story of Joshua Spriestersbach, a homeless man who wound up serving more than two years in a Honolulu jail for crimes committed by someone else.

It was a case of mistaken identity that developed into “a slow-motion game of hot potato between the police, the courts, the jails and the hospitals,” Mr. Kolker writes. He delves into how homelessness and mental illness shaped Mr. Spriestersbach’s adult life, two factors that led him into a situation in which he had little control — a bureaucratic wormhole that commandeered and consumed two and a half years of his life.

This story was written by Robert Kolker and recorded by Audm. To hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android.

Charles Falls Jr., known as Chillie, loves to take cruises. But Covid, as it has done for so many, left him marooned at home in Virginia.

As he told Cristal Duhaime, a producer at the Times podcast First Person, as soon as restrictions eased, he eagerly planned a return to the waves. But for Chillie, who suffers from prostate cancer, resuming his beloved travels — particularly aboard the cramped quarters of a cruise ship, most people’s idea of a pandemic nightmare — was especially perilous.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

This episode contains mention of sexual assault. 

Kansas this week became the first U.S. state since the fall of Roe v. Wade to put the question of abortion directly to the electorate.

The result was resounding. Voters chose overwhelmingly to preserve abortion rights, an outcome that could have important political reverberations for the rest of the country.

Guest: Mitch Smith, a correspondent covering the Midwest and the Great Plains for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• The defeat of the ballot measure in Kansas was the most tangible demonstration yet of a political backlash against the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe.
• The result relied on a broad coalition of voters who turned out in huge numbers and crashed through party and geographic lines.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

Democrats are meddling in Republican primaries this year to an unusual degree, attempting to elevate extremist candidates who they think will be easy to defeat in midterms in the fall.

Nowhere has that strategy been more divisive than in the election for a House seat in Michigan.

Guest: Jonathan Weisman, a congressional correspondent for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• The meddling in Republican primaries has prompted angry finger-pointing and a debate among Democrats over the perils and wisdom of the strategy.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

On Monday, President Biden announced that the United States had killed Ayman al-Zawahri in a drone strike in Afghanistan. 

Al-Zawahri was the leader of Al Qaeda. A long time number two to Osama bin Laden and the intellectual spine of the terrorist group, he assumed power after bin Laden was killed by U.S. in 2011. 

Who was al-Zawahri, and what does his death mean for Afghanistan’s relationship with the United States and for the threat of global terrorism? 

Guest: Eric Schmitt, a senior correspondent covering national security for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• The drone strike that killed al-Zawahri, a key plotter of the 9/11 attacks, capped a 21-year manhunt. 
• Killed at 71, al-Zawahri led a life of secrecy and violence. 

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

In mid-June, cases of monkeypox were in the double digits in the United States. There were drug treatments and vaccines against it. There didn’t seem to be any reason for alarm.

But in the weeks since, the virus has spread rapidly across the country, with some local and state officials declaring public health emergencies.

Guest: Apoorva Mandavilli, a science and global health reporter for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• Longstanding weaknesses in the American public health system are giving monkeypox a chance to become entrenched.
• Here are answers to three pressing questions about how the virus spreads and how it can be treated.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

For generations, America’s major publishers focused almost entirely on white readers. Now a new cadre of executives is trying to open up the industry.

The journalist Marcela Valdes spent a year reporting on what she described as “the problematic history of diversity in book publishing and the ways it has affected editors, authors and what you see (or don’t see) in bookstores.”

Interviewing more than 50 current and former book professionals, as well as authors, Ms. Valdes learned about the previous unsuccessful attempts to cultivate Black audiences, and considered the intricacies of an industry culture that still struggles to “overcome the clubby, white elitism it was born in.”

As one publishing executive puts it, the future of book publishing will be determined not only by its recent hires but also by how it answers this question: Instead of fighting over slices of a shrinking pie, can publishers work to make the readership bigger for everyone?

This story was written by Marcela Valdes and recorded by Audm. To hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android.

For decades, Republicans have sought to make gains with a critical voting block: Latinos.

Last month, when Mayra Flores was elected to Congress from Texas, she finally showed them a way to gain that support. Today, we explore what her campaign tells us about the future of the Latino vote.

Guest: Jennifer Medina, a national reporter for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• Ms. Flores has leaned into her personal story to persuade voters with conservative values that it’s time to give the Republicans a try.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

To fight historic levels of inflation, the Federal Reserve this week, once again, raised interest rates, its most powerful weapon against rising prices.

The move was intended to slow demand, but there was also a psychological factor: If consumers become convinced that inflation is a permanent feature of the economy, that might become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Guest: Jeanna Smialek, a correspondent covering the Federal Reserve and the economy for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• The Federal Reserve has pushed up borrowing costs at the fastest pace in decades.
• The New York Times invited readers to share their thoughts about the price rises and asked how much more inflation they expected.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

This episode contains details of alleged sexual assault. 

In the past year, more than 20 women have accused the star N.F.L. quarterback Deshaun Watson of sexual misconduct.

Despite the allegations, Watson has signed one of the most lucrative contracts in the history of football, with the Cleveland Browns, and will take the field today for training camp.

Guest: Jenny Vrentas, a sports reporter for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• The accusations have been frequent and startling: More than two dozen women have said that Watson harassed or assaulted them. Watson and his lawyers say the encounters were innocuous.
• N.F.L. players pay a small price when accused of violence against women, a peer-reviewed study has found.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

After Roe v. Wade was overturned, Democrats introduced a bill to prevent the right to gay marriage from meeting the same fate as the right to abortion.

The bill was expected to go nowhere, but it has won more and more Republican support and now seems to have a narrow path to enactment.

Guest: Annie Karni, a congressional correspondent for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• Larger-than-expected Republican support in the House for legislation to codify marriage equality caught both parties off guard.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

Born in response to the 2008 financial crisis, cryptocurrency was supposed be a form of money that eliminated the traditional gatekeepers who had overseen the tanking of the economy.

But a crash in value recently has raised questions about cryptocurrency’s central promise.

Guest: David Yaffe-Bellany, a reporter covering cryptocurrencies and fintech for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• No one wanted to miss out on the cryptocurrency mania. A global industry worth hundreds of billions of dollars rose up practically overnight. Now it is crashing down.
• Celsius Network was managing more than $20 billion in assets. Last month, it became the latest crypto venture to spiral into a crisis.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

How do you teach your child about sex? It’s a perennial question that has spawned hundreds of illustrated books meant to demystify sexual intercourse.

But for the Canadian author Cory Silverberg, there was something lacking. Silverberg, who uses they/them pronouns, felt that books on sex aimed at children often omitted mention of intimacy in the context of disability or gender nonconformity. And so they set about making a book of their own.

They wanted to tell a story of how babies are made that would apply to all kinds of children, whether they were conceived the traditional way or through reproductive technologies, whether they live with adoptive or biological parents, and no matter their family configuration.

The book critic Elaine Blair, who had also felt that children’s literature on sex was a little thin on inclusivity, recalls being drawn in by the fact that Silverberg’s “Sex is a Funny Word” is one of few children’s books that contend with the fact that children encounter representations of sexuality in the media.

Ms. Blair met up with Silverberg in Houston to understand the germ of the idea and the editorial process of delivering the book, from conception to print.

This story was written by Elaine Blair and recorded by Audm. To hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android.

The Great Salt Lake is drying up.

Soaring demand for water, exacerbated by drought and higher temperatures in the region, are shrinking the waters, which play such a crucial role in the landscape, ecology and weather of Salt Lake City and Utah.

Can the lake be saved?

Guest: Christopher Flavelle, a climate reporter for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• Utah’s dilemma raises a core question as the United States heats up: How quickly are Americans willing to adapt to the effects of climate change, even as those effects become urgent, obvious, and potentially catastrophic?

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

A series of blockbuster hearings from the Jan. 6 committee has put growing pressure on Attorney General Merrick B. Garland to bring criminal charges against former President Donald J. Trump over the efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

Before today’s committee hearing, we speak with Andrew D. Goldstein, one of the prosecutors who led the last major investigation into Mr. Trump, about why winning a case against the former president is such a challenge.

Guest: Andrew Goldstein, a federal prosecutor who was part of the Mueller inquiry into Mr. Trump. 

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Background reading: 

• Mr. Trump has issued a rambling 12-page statement containing his usual mix of outlandish claims, hyperbole and outright falsehoods, but also, apparently, with something different: the beginnings of a legal defense.
• Robert S. Mueller III was often portrayed as the omnipotent fact-gatherer for his inquiry, but it was Mr. Goldstein who had a much more involved, day-to-day role. (Here’s our profile of Mr. Goldstein from 2019.)

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

Across the United States, Republicans emboldened by the overturning of Roe v. Wade are passing laws intended to stop medical staff from providing an abortion.

But those same laws may also be scaring health workers out of providing basic care for miscarriages.

Guest: Pam Belluck, a health and science writer for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• Although post-Roe laws are technically intended to apply only to abortions, some patients have reported hurdles receiving standard surgical procedures or medication for the loss of desired pregnancies.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

A record-breaking heat wave is currently washing over Europe. In parts of Britain, the mercury has hit a freakishly high 100 degrees Fahrenheit or more.

While that is happening, both Europe and the United States — two of the world’s largest contributors to global warming — are abandoning key commitments to limit emissions.

Guest: Somini Sengupta, the international climate reporter for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, an ardent champion of the fossil fuel industry, has almost single-handedly doused any hopes of immediate climate action in Washington.
• The European Parliament recently endorsed labeling some gas and nuclear energy projects “green.” Critics said it would prolong the reliance on fossil fuels.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

In the past, President Biden has called Saudi Arabia a “pariah” for its human rights abuses and said that he would never meet with its de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

But Mr. Biden’s first trip as president to the Middle East included talks with the prince. What prompted the change in course?

Guest: Ben Hubbard, the Beirut bureau chief for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• Mr. Biden’s visit to Saudi Arabia garnered scathing criticism and modest accords.
• An unspoken result of Mr. Biden’s meeting with Prince Mohammed: A setback in the case of Jamal Khashoggi, a journalist who was killed by Saudi agents in 2018.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

People heading to court often turn to the internet for guidance. In so doing, many come across the work of Justin Paperny, who dispenses advice on his YouTube channel. His videos offer preparation advice and help manage expectations, while providing defendants information to be able to hold their current lawyers accountable, and to try to negotiate a lighter sentence.

Mr. Paperny, a former financial criminal, also leads White Collar Advice with his partner Michael Santos, another former convict. The firm is made up of 12 convicted felons who each have their own consulting specialty based on where they served time and their own sentencing experiences.

The journalist Jack Hitt relates the story of the two men and the details of their firm, which “fills a need in 21st-century America.” It is, Mr. Hitt writes, “a natural market outgrowth of a continuing and profound shift in America’s judicial system.”

This story was written by Jack Hitt recorded by Audm. To hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android.

Ancient galaxies carpeting the sky like jewels on black velvet. Fledgling stars shining out from deep within cumulus clouds of interstellar dust. Hints of water vapor in the atmosphere of a remote exoplanet.

This week, NASA released new images captured from a point in space one million miles from Earth.

Today, we discuss the James Webb Space Telescope, the world’s most powerful space observatory, its journey to launch and what it can teach us about the universe.

Guest: Kenneth Chang, a science reporter for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• Here are more scenes of the universe captured by the Webb telescope.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

In recent days, the political crisis in Sri Lanka has reached a critical point, with its president fleeing the country and protesters occupying his residence and office. Today, “The Daily” explores how the island nation, whose economy was once held up as a success story in South Asia, came apart — and why it’s a cautionary tale.

Guest: Emily Schmall, a South Asia correspondent for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• Yesterday, mass demonstrations and tear gas filled the streets of Colombo, the Sri Lankan capital, and late into the night, protesters clashed with the police outside Parliament.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

For months, leaders of the Democratic Party and President Biden have been bracing for huge losses in the upcoming midterm elections. Today, “The Daily” explores a new New York Times poll that complicates that thinking — and could set the stage for a very different showdown in November.

Guest: Nate Cohn, a domestic correspondent for The Upshot at The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• Here’s what a new Times poll shows about divisions and dissatisfaction in the United States.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

Last week, Elon Musk announced that he was pulling out of his $44 billion agreement to purchase Twitter. Today, we explore why a company that once tried to fend off this acquisition is now trying to force Mr. Musk to buy it.

Guest: Kate Conger, a technology reporter for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• Why Mr. Musk is leaving Twitter worse off than it was when he said he would buy it.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

When the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the court’s conservative majority argued it was simply handing the question of abortion to the states and their voters to decide for themselves.

But in reality, the court was ensuring that many states, from Arizona to Ohio, would immediately ban the procedure without much debate, because their legislatures are now dominated by hard-line Republicans. Today, we tell the story of how those Republican legislators achieved that dominance.

Guest: Kate Zernike, a political reporter for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• How the beginning of the end of Roe v. Wade arrived on election night in November 2010.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

Warning of imminent ecological catastrophe, the Earth Liberation Front became notorious in the late 1990s for setting fire to symbols of ecological destruction, including timber mills, an S.U.V. dealership and a ski resort. The group was widely demonized. Its exploits were condemned by mainstream environmental groups, ridiculed by the media and inspired a furious crackdown from law enforcement.

But in 2022 the group is more relevant than ever. These days even America’s mainstream environmental movement has begun to take a more confrontational approach, having previously confined its activities largely to rallies, marches and other lawful forms of protest. Even the “staid” environmental groups based in Washington have slowly started to embrace more radical tactics. Climate activists are starting to abandon their dogmatic attachment to pacifism, choosing instead to work toward destroying the “machines” inflicting the damage — but will such a radical idea prove effective?

The journalist Matthew Wolfe delves into the world of the activists, and questions the future of environmental activism.

This story was written by Matthew Wolfe and recorded by Audm. To hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android.

After a flurry of ministerial resignations and calls from members of his own party for his departure, Boris Johnson agreed on Thursday to resign as prime minister of Britain.

During his tenure, Mr. Johnson survived a series of scandals and skated past a lot of bad news. But even he was unable to maneuver his way out of his latest misstep.

Guest: Mark Landler, the London bureau chief for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• Mr. Johnson’s resignation brought a messy end to a messy three-year tenure.
• Here’s a guide to why he was forced out and who might succeed him.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

After Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973, a group of conservative lawyers embarked on what would become a decades-long mission to reverse the ruling.

One of those lawyers, James Bopp, explains how they succeeded and what comes next.

Guest: James Bopp, general counsel for the National Right to Life Committee. 

Want more from The Daily? For one big idea on the news each week from our team, subscribe to our newsletter. 

Background reading: 

• Reaction to the Supreme Court’s decision reflected a polarized nation: jubilation and relief on one side, outrage and grief on the other. Both sides quickly pivoted to the fights ahead.
• Reversing the ruling in Roe v. Wade, far from settling the matter, has instead kindled court and political battles across the states that are likely to go on for years.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

Brittney Griner, the American W.N.B.A. star who has been detained in Russia since February, recently sent a letter to President Biden. “I’m terrified I might be here forever,” she wrote.

The White House vowed to use “every tool” to bring Ms. Griner back to the United States, but organizing her release is a tricky proposition, complicated not least by Washington’s break with Moscow over the war in Ukraine.

Guest: Michael Crowley, a diplomatic correspondent for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• Brittney Griner has endured months in a Russian prison and faces the threat of years more.
• Her letter to Mr. Biden asked him to keep her case in mind. “I realize you are dealing with so much, but please don’t forget about me and the other American detainees. Please do all you can to bring us home,” she wrote.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

President Biden has heralded the recent gun safety bill as the most significant federal attempt to reduce gun violence in 30 years.

But after a gunman opened fire from a rooftop onto a Fourth of July parade in a Chicago suburb, questions abound about what the landmark legislation will — and will not — achieve.

Guest: Sheryl Gay Stolberg, a Washington correspondent covering health policy for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• Six people were killed and dozens more wounded in the deadly shooting at a parade in Highland Park, Ill., a suburb of Chicago. The police have taken a 22-year-old man into custody.
• Gun violence researchers have waged an often-frustrating battle to translate their findings into public policy.
• Here’s what is in the gun safety law — officially called the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act — and what was left out.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

A little over 50 years ago, Nancy Stearns, a young lawyer, was presenting a case in New York with a bold legal assertion: that the right to abortion was fundamental to equal rights for women.

She never got to conclude her argument — first New York changed the law, then came Roe v. Wade. Now, with Roe overturned, she describes how it feels to watch the right to terminate a pregnancy fall away.

Guest: Nancy Stearns, a lawyer who used an argument of equal rights to challenge the constitutionality of abortion bans.

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Background reading: 

• The United States almost took a different path toward abortion rights. Abramowicz v. Lefkowitz was the first case in the country to challenge a state’s strict abortion law on behalf of women.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

At the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, European leaders painted the battle in stark moral terms, imposing harsh sanctions against Russia and talking about President Volodymyr Zelensky as a hero.

But as the war drags on, different conversations have taken place behind the scenes to consider what Ukraine might need to give up to achieve peace.

Guest: Matina Stevis-Gridneff, the Brussels bureau chief for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• Countries in the Group of 7 face dueling pressures: Penalizing Russia while easing the economic pain at home.
• Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany and President Emmanuel Macron of France are expected to visit Ukraine on Thursday — but they may face a tense reception.

For more information on today’s episode, visit 

nytimes.com/thedaily

. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

On Jan. 6, 2021, when supporters of Donald Trump stormed the Capitol, Cassidy Hutchinson was at work in the White House alongside her boss, Mark Meadows, then the chief of staff.

Her stunning testimony has provided a fly-on-the-wall account of what Mr. Trump knew about the events that day.

Guest: Luke Broadwater, a congressional reporter for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• Ms. Hutchinson’s evidence made her one of the most forceful and compelling witnesses to reveal details about Mr. Trump’s bizarre and violent behavior.
• The revelations could nudge Mr. Trump closer to facing criminal charges, legal experts said.
• Here’s a timeline of the key scenes in Ms. Hutchinson’s testimony.

For more information on today’s episode, visit 

nytimes.com/thedaily

. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

In the days since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, states have rushed to either ban, restrict or protect abortion.

The different approaches have created a fragmented, patchwork map of America.

Guest: Margot Sanger-Katz, a domestic correspondent covering health care for The New York Times.

Want more from The Daily? For one big idea on the news each week from our team, subscribe to our newsletter. 

Background reading: 

• With Roe overturned, the distances many women will need to travel for an abortion will increase drastically.
• Here are answers to some of the fundamental questions about the ramifications of the justices’ decision.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

This episode contains strong language and mentions sexual assault.

The Supreme Court decision on Friday to overturn Roe v. Wade sent abortion clinics into a tailspin.

That day Rosenda, a receptionist at a family planning clinic in Arizona, spent eight hours on the phone telling women the clinic could no longer help them.

“I wanted to hug her, I wanted to help her but I know I can’t,” she said of one patient she called. “I wanted to scream.”

In the hours after the decision, we spoke to clinic doctors and staff members trying to make sense of the news.

Want more from The Daily? For one big idea on the news each week from our team, subscribe to our newsletter. 

Background reading: 

• The overturning of Roe set off waves of triumph and of despair, from the protesters on either side massing in front of the Supreme Court, to abortion clinics and crisis pregnancy centers.
• Over the weekend, anti-abortion forces vowed to push for near-total bans in every state in the nation, and abortion rights groups insisted they would harness rage over the decision to fight back in the courts. See our updates from Sunday.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

Michael Kimmelman, the architecture critic of The New York Times, traveled to Houston to observe an approach to chronic homelessness that has won widespread praise.

Houston, the nation’s fourth-most populous city, has moved more than 25,000 homeless people directly into apartments and houses in the past decade, an overwhelming majority of whom remain housed after two years.

This has been achieved through a “housing first” practice: moving the most vulnerable from the streets directly into apartments, instead of shelters, without individuals being required to do a 12-step program, or to find a job.

Delving into the finer details of the process, Kimmelman considers the different logic “housing first” involves. After all, “when you’re drowning, it doesn’t help if your rescuer insists you learn to swim before returning you to shore,” he writes. “You can address your issues once you’re on land. Or not. Either way, you join the wider population of people battling demons behind closed doors.”

This story was written and narrated by Michael Kimmelman. To hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android.

This episode contains strong language.

The Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, a ruling that eliminates women’s constitutional right to abortion after almost 50 years. “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start,” Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. wrote on behalf of the majority, while President Biden has denounced the court’s action as the “realization of extreme ideology.” In this special episode, we explore how the court arrived at this landmark decision — and how it will transform American life.

Guest: Adam Liptak, a reporter covering the Supreme Court for The New York Times.

Want more from The Daily? For one big idea on the news each week from our team, subscribe to our newsletter. 

Background reading: 

• Read the majority decision that overruled Roe v. Wade, with notes by New York Times reporters.
• The court’s decision was one of the legacies of President Donald J. Trump, with all three of his appointees in the majority in the 6-to-3 ruling. Privately, the former president has called the reversal of Roe “bad” for the Republican Party.
• Abortion is now banned in several states, with trigger laws in others set to take effect in the coming days. See where women would be most affected.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

A bitter debate about the criteria for enrolling students at Lowell, in California, has echoes of the soul-searching happening across the U.S. education system.

Guest: Jay Caspian Kang, a writer for Times Opinion and The New York Times Magazine; and Jessica Cheung, a senior audio producer for The Daily. 

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Background reading: 

• The decision to replace Lowell High School’s admission process with a lottery system was a key factor at play in a recall election in February that ousted three members of San Francisco’s school board.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

In the most sweeping ruling on firearms in decades, the Supreme Court struck down a New York law today that had placed strict limits on carrying guns outside the home. The decision has far-reaching implications, particularly for six other states that have similar laws limiting guns in public. This evening, we revisit an episode from November 2021 that tells the story behind one of the most significant gun cases in American history.  

Guest: Adam Liptak, a reporter covering the Supreme Court for The New York Times.

While coming rulings on abortion and guns have garnered lots of attention, the Supreme Court is also set to make another major decision in a less-publicized suit involving climate change.

The case, about how far the Environmental Protection Agency can regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, could affect the way the entire government makes rules and regulations.

Guest: Coral Davenport, a correspondent covering energy and environmental policy for The New York Times.

Want more from The Daily? For one big idea on the news each week from our team, subscribe to our newsletter. 

Background reading: 

• Republican attorneys general and conservative allies have waged a multiyear campaign to tilt courts against climate action.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

During his campaign for president and in his first year in office, Joe Biden tried to be all things to all people. But trying to govern on behalf of such a broad political coalition has left his administration with something of an identity crisis.

In alarming figures for Democrats ahead of the midterms, Mr. Biden’s approval rating has reached the lowest level of his presidency, while 70 percent of Americans say that the country is on the wrong track.

Guest: Alexander Burns, a national political correspondent for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• Confidential polling data obtained by The Times highlights the biggest challenges for Mr. Biden and his party in this election year.
• The $1.9 trillion pandemic-relief law unleashed a giant wave of spending on local construction projects and programs. But Democratic candidates aren’t getting much credit for it.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

This episode contains strong language.

When Drew Mena and Amena Sengal decided to relocate their young family from New York to Austin, Texas, they figured they’d have no problem.

What they hadn’t realized was that, across the country, home prices — and competition to secure properties — had risen to jaw-dropping levels.

Guest: Francesca Mari, a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine and a fellow at the think tank New America.

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Background reading: 

• Soaring demand, pinched supply, regular buyers acting like speculators … will real estate ever be normal again?

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

First Person is the newest show from New York Times Opinion. Each week, host Lulu Garcia-Navarro shares the stories of people living through the headlines. In this episode, Lulu asks: Are parents’ rights truly rights for all parents, no matter their politics?

Parental rights. It’s a term that burst into the public consciousness in recent years. This year alone, 82 bills have been introduced in 26 states under the banner of parental rights. On issues such as masking, vaccine mandates, critical race theory and book bans, parents are showing up at school board meetings to demand a greater say in their children’s education and lives. And it has coalesced into a powerful political force on the right.

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For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

This episode contains strong language.

The House committee that was tasked with scrutinizing the events surrounding the attack at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 is holding a series of public hearings.

Testimony from key figures has explored a campaign by former President Donald J. Trump and his allies to subvert American democracy and cling to power by reversing an election. The panel has recounted how Mr. Trump’s actions brought the United States to the brink of a constitutional crisis.

Guest: Luke Broadwater, a congressional reporter for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• On Thursday, testimony laid out how Mr. Trump pressured Vice President Mike Pence to overturn his election defeat, even after he was told it was illegal. Here are four takeaways from Day 3.
• Follow a detailed timeline of the key moments, from the buildup to the attack to now.
• Here are answers to some common questions about the House committee investigating the riot and the proceedings.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

Cases of the monkeypox virus are spreading in many countries where it has rarely, if ever, been seen before, including in the United States.

Although there are a lot of unknowns about the illness, the rapidly rising number of infections has caused alarm bells to sound among public health agencies.

Guest: Apoorva Mandavilli, a reporter for The New York Times, with a focus on science and global health.

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Background reading: 

• In the U.S., the monkeypox outbreak has grown to around 80 cases. Globally, there have been about 2,000 confirmed cases.
• The outbreak poses a “real risk” to public health, the World Health Organization said.
• Here’s what to know about monkeypox and the risks it poses.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

The meteoric rise of the U.S. stock market over the past two years has come to an abrupt end.

A steep downturn recently has led to what’s known as a bear market. But what does that mean, and why might policymakers have to hurt the economy to help it in the long term?

Guest: Jim Tankersley, a White House correspondent for The New York Times, with a focus on economic policy.

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Background reading: 

• Steep downturns of stocks by 20 percent or more are relatively rare, but how long they last could portend damage.
• The last such drop happened in early 2020 as the coronavirus spread. Here’s what else to know about bear markets.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

The Senate has reached a bipartisan deal that could lead to the most significant federal response to gun violence in decades.

Senator Chris Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, was deeply involved in the negotiations. Today, he tells us how news of the shooting in Uvalde, Texas, left him with a feeling of desperation — and renewed determination to make progress.

Guest: Senator Chris Murphy, who has spent the decade since the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., trying to enact change on gun safety.

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Background reading: 

• The agreement put forward by 10 Republicans and 10 Democrats would provide funding for states to enact “red flag” laws that allow the authorities to temporarily confiscate guns from people deemed to be dangerous.
• Though the deal is less than Democrats wanted, it is still seen as a significant step that could save lives.
• Americans in communities scarred by mass shootings acknowledged the proposal as progress but said it did not go far enough.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

In the nearly four months since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the United States has been giving officials in Kyiv a steady stream of intelligence to aid them in the fight.

But what is becoming clear is that the Ukrainians are not returning the favor.

Guest: Julian E. Barnes, a national security reporter for The New York Times covering the intelligence agencies.

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Background reading: 

• American intelligence agencies know far more about Russia’s military than about Ukraine’s war strategy, officials say.
• The outcome of battles for key cities in eastern Ukraine could prompt the country’s Western allies to start rethinking their goals.

For more information on today’s episode, visit 

nytimes.com/thedaily

. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

Ezra Marcus takes a deep dive into the world of OnlyFans and self-described e-pimps, and untangles the vast web of models, agencies and “chatters” (the people who often act as the OnlyFans models in private messages with the customers) that support these lucrative businesses.

The article explores how e-pimps can help turn a seemingly simple exchange of “dollars for sexts” into a transaction that extends across layers of third-party intermediaries.

With the help of e-pimps, even the most impersonal of transactions are fine-tuned to feel personal. As Mr. Marcus discovers: “That OnlyFans creator you’re DMing? It’s probably a marketing ghostwriter impersonating a woman.”

When it comes to OnlyFans and its legions of e-pimps, deceit and desire work together closely.

This story was written by Ezra Marcus and recorded by Audm. To hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android.

This episode contains strong language.

This week, voters in San Francisco ousted Chesa Boudin, their progressive district attorney. The move was seen as a rejection of a class of prosecutors who are determined to overhaul the criminal justice system.

But what happened to Mr. Boudin can be seen as more the exception than the rule.

Guest: Astead W. Herndon, a national political reporter for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• By ousting Mr. Boudin, voters in San Francisco put an end to one of the United States’ most pioneering experiments in criminal justice overhaul.
• The progressive backlash in California has sent a signal about the potency of law and order as a political message in 2022.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

This episode contains strong language.

After a nearly yearlong investigation, the congressional committee examining the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol will begin holding televised hearings on Thursday.

One focus of the hearings will be the Proud Boys. The trajectory of that group, which grew out of a drinking club in New York City for men who felt put upon by liberal culture, has now led to charges of trying to overthrow the United States government.

Guest: Alan Feuer, a reporter covering courts and criminal justice for The New York Times. 

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Background reading: 

• A federal indictment has charged five members of the Proud Boys, including Enrique Tarrio, its former leader, with seditious conspiracy.
• How Gavin McInnes, the Proud Boys founder, went from Brooklyn hipster to far-right provocateur.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

After a series of deadly mass shootings in the United States, the National Rifle Association and some Republican leaders and conservatives are pointing to mental illness.

This approach raises a question: How can the mental health system stop gun violence when mental illness is so rarely the cause of it?

We revisit a conversation from 2018 with a psychiatrist who is wrestling with that challenge.

Guest: Dr. Amy Barnhorst, the vice chairwoman of community psychiatry at the University of California, Davis. 

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Background reading: 

• Many Republicans opposed to more gun control have called instead for investing in mental health programs, increasing funding for law enforcement and bolstering security at schools. Many Democrats say they are missing the point.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

In calling for Republicans to pass gun safety measures like expanded background checks, Democrats point to polls that show most Americans support the idea. 

They aren’t wrong about the polling. In fact, some polls show that over 90 percent of Americans support expanded checks. 

Polling, however, does not tell the whole story. 

Guest: Nate Cohn, a domestic correspondent for The Upshot at The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• Broad public support for gun control may not be as broad as polling shows or as Democrats hope. 

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

This episode contains strong language and details of a sexual assault accusation.

Since a jury ruled in favor of Johnny Depp in his defamation case against his ex-wife Amber Heard, there has been impassioned debate about what exactly the outcome means for the #MeToo movement.

It raises the question: If people being accused of sexual assault can potentially win defamation cases in court, what does that mean for the accused — and the accusers — moving forward?

Guest: Julia Jacobs, a culture reporter for The New York Times. 

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Background reading: 

• Johnny Depp’s victory against his ex-wife Amber Heard in one of the highest profile defamation cases to go to trial could inspire others accused of abuse or misconduct to try their luck with juries. 

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

We cannot escape our bodies. So how do we reconcile them with who we really are?

Sam Anderson, a staff writer, considers this particular conundrum of the human condition by recounting his lifelong struggle to maintain a healthy weight: his teenage triumph over the “legendary snacker” he was in middle school, the slow creep of the pounds in early adulthood, and the pandemic’s expansive effect on his waistline.

Anderson also explores what it takes to monitor food consumption, the linguistic legacy of 1980s diet culture, the curse of intergenerational weight problems, the natural limitations of weight-loss efforts and the importance of self-acceptance.

This story was written and narrated by Sam Anderson. To hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android.

In 1791, enslaved Haitians did the seemingly impossible. They ousted their French masters and created the first free Black nation in the Americas.

But France made Haitians pay for that freedom.

A team of reporters from The New York Times looked at the extent and effect of the ensuing payments.

Guest: Catherine Porter, the Toronto bureau chief for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• The first people in the modern world to free themselves from slavery and create their own nation were forced to pay for their freedom. A Times investigation explores Haiti’s reparations to France.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

As a proportion of its population, California has one of the lowest rates of gun deaths in the United States — 8.5 per 100,000 people, compared with 13.7 nationally.

How did the state get that way?

Guest: Shawn Hubler, a California correspondent for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• Californians are about 25 percent less likely to die in mass shootings, compared with residents of other states, according to a recent study. In a newsletter this week, the Times correspondent Shawn Hubler looked into how and why gun laws there work.

For more information on today’s episode, visit 

nytimes.com/thedaily

. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

This episode contains strong language.

Gemma Lopez, 10, watched a movie in class that day. Jacob Albarado, a Border Patrol officer, was getting his hair cut when he heard there was a gunman at his daughter’s school, where his wife is a teacher. Ricardo Garcia, a hospital groundskeeper, can still hear the screaming of parents in the emergency room.

These are some of the stories of those who lived through the devastation of the shooting at Robb Elementary School.

Guest: Rick Rojas, a national correspondent for The New York Times; Natalie Kitroeff, a correspondent for The Times; and Eduardo Medina, a reporter covering breaking news for The Times. 

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Background reading: 

• A week after the shooting, the nearly two dozen funerals have begun in a community that must contemplate an agonizing new reality.
• As soon as the scale of the tragedy became clear, congregants rushed to Sacred Heart Catholic Church. In the days since, they’ve kept going in search of comfort and community.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

After the shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, the explanation for how the police acted kept shifting.

Now, a clearer picture has emerged.

Guest: J. David Goodman, the Houston bureau chief for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• A timeline from the state police raised the painful possibility that had officers done more, and faster, not all of those who died — 19 children and two teachers — would have lost their lives.
• The degree to which some law enforcement officers on the scene disagreed with the decision to hold back has become more apparent.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

A dire lack of baby formula in the United States in the past few weeks has been blamed on production deficiencies such as the small number of manufacturers and an inflexible supply chain.

But Christina Jewett, an investigative reporter at The Times, has traced it back further, to deadly bacteria whose detection set off a chain of events that ultimately led to the shortage.

Guest: Christina Jewett, an investigative reporter who covers the Food and Drug Administration for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• While most recent attention has been focused on fixing the supply shortfall, regulators are confronting deeper issues of safety that persist in formula manufacturing.
• Baby formula supplies from Europe have been shipped to the United States to address the shortage, though it may take weeks for supermarket shelves to be fully stocked again.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

In Pennsylvania, a candidate falsely claiming election fraud in 2020 prevailed in a crowded Republican primary for governor. But in Georgia, two incumbents — the governor and the secretary of state — beat back challenges from “stop the steal” opponents.

Is re-litigating the 2020 election a vote winner for Republicans? Or is it increasingly becoming a losing issue?

Guest: Reid J. Epstein, a politics reporter for The New York Times who covers campaigns and elections.

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Background reading: 

• Two G.O.P. primaries in Georgia exposed the limit of Donald J. Trump’s hold on his party’s base.
• But Doug Mastriano’s win in Pennsylvania has provoked dissension and anxiety among Republican strategists, donors and lobbyists.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

This episode covers incidents of mass violence.

At least 21 people, including 19 children, were killed when a gunman opened fire at the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, on Tuesday morning.

It was the deadliest school shooting in the United States since the 2012 attack on the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.

For some of the Sandy Hook parents, news of yet another school massacre provoked a chilling sense of numbness.

Guest: Elizabeth Williamson, a feature writer for The New York Times and the author of a book on the aftermath of Sandy Hook.

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Background reading: 

• Some Sandy Hook parents whose children were killed in the 2012 attack in Newtown, Conn., shared their emotions and responses to another school shooting.
• President Biden said that it was “time to turn this pain into action” in remarks following the massacre in Uvalde.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

For decades, the U.S. has walked a careful line when it comes to Taiwan — vowing to protect the island from China, without saying exactly how far it would go to do that.

On Monday, that appeared to change.

Guest: David E. Sanger, a White House and national security correspondent for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• President Biden’s seemingly offhand remarks about Taiwan, made during his visit to Asia, caught some of his staff by surprise.
• The Russian invasion of Ukraine has been closely watched by those in Taiwan who feel that their island faces a similar threat from Beijing.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

Three months since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, one of the biggest surprises has been the inability of the Russian military to achieve some of its basic goals. One clear example: A failed attempt to cross the Donets river in eastern Ukraine earlier this month left hundreds of Russian soldiers dead. Its aftermath is raising doubts in Russia, even among the military’s most ardent supporters.

Guest: Anton Troianovski, the Moscow bureau chief for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• The disastrous Russian attempt to cross the Donets river resonated with some pro-Russian war bloggers who did not appear to hold back in their criticism of what they said was incompetent leadership.
• It appears that much of the military culture and learned behavior of the Soviet era has repeated itself in the war in Ukraine, including corruption in military spending and the longstanding practice of telling government leaders what they want to hear.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

Chronic pain is one of the leading causes of long-term disability in the world. By some measures, 50 million Americans live with chronic pain, in part because the power of medicine to relieve it remains inadequate.

Helen Ouyang, a physician and contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine, explores the potentially groundbreaking use of virtual reality in the alleviation of acute pain, as well as anxiety and depression, and meets the doctors and entrepreneurs who believe this “nonpharmacological therapy” is a good alternative to prescription drugs.

A lush forest, a snow-capped mountain, a desert at sunset — could these virtual experiences really be the answer for managing chronic pain?

This story was written by Helen Ouyang and recorded by Audm. To hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android.

Throughout the pandemic, long Covid — symptoms that occur after the initial coronavirus infection — has remained something of a medical mystery.

Now, amid the latest surge of infections, a series of major studies are shedding light on the condition.

Guest: Pam Belluck, a health and science reporter for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• Long Covid has become one of the most daunting legacies of the pandemic.
• Some research has shown that lingering symptoms are more prevalent in people in their 30s and 40s — when workers are often in the prime of their careers.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

In the post-Trump era, some red states have moved aggressively to rebuke the Biden administration at the local level and signal to voters what a Republican-led country might look like.

In Texas, immigration is a key battleground. Today, we speak to Hunter Schuler, a member of the National Guards, about why Gov. Greg Abbott has sent him and thousands of other security officers to the U.S.-Mexico border.

Guest: Lulu Garcia-Navarro, a Times Opinion podcast host; and J. David Goodman, the Houston bureau chief for The New York Times. 

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Background reading: 

• Operation Lone Star is an expensive and unusual effort to reinforce border security. But after a year, there is little to show for it.
• Soldiers sent to patrol the border have complained of difficulties and a seemingly rudderless mission.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

For the past two months, a group of Ukrainian fighters has been holed up in the Azovstal steel plant in the city of Mariupol, mounting a last stand against Russian forces in a critical part of eastern Ukraine.

On Monday, Ukraine finally surrendered the plant.

After the end of the determined resistance at Azovstal, we hear from Leonid Kuznetsov, a 25 year-old soldier who had been stationed inside.

Guest: Michael Schwirtz, an investigative reporter for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• Hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers who fought at the steel plant in Mariupol face an uncertain future in Russian custody.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

When the Supreme Court decriminalized abortion with Roe v. Wade, it established the United States as a global leader on abortion rights, decades ahead of many other countries. 

Now, with Roe likely to be overturned, we look to Mexico, a country where the playbook for securing legalized abortion could be a model for activists in the United States. 

Guest: Natalie Kitroeff, a correspondent covering Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• Verónica Cruz spent years defying the law in Mexico, helping thousands of women get abortions. Now that Mexico has legalized abortion, activists are bringing their mission to a country moving in the opposite direction: the United States.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

Over the weekend, an 18-year-old man livestreamed himself shooting 13 people and killing 10. Within hours it became clear that the shooter’s intent was to kill as many Black people as possible. The suspect wrote online that he was motivated by replacement theory — a racist idea that white people are deliberately being replaced by people of color in places like America and Europe. 

What are the origins of this theory, and how has it become simultaneously more extreme and more mainstream?

Guest: Nicholas Confessore, a political and investigative reporter for The New York Times. 

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Background reading: 

• Replacement theory, a fringe conspiracy fostered online and espoused by the suspect in the Buffalo massacre, has been embraced by some right-wing politicians and commentators.
• Here are our updates on the Buffalo shooting and the aftermath. 

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

The Times journalist Caity Weaver was tasked by her editor to go on an adventure: With an old college friend she would spend a week in California, living out of a converted camper van, in pursuit of the aesthetic fantasy known as #VanLife.

Given the discomfort that can arise even in the plushiest of vehicles, it’s a surprising trend that shows no sign of letting up. As Weaver explains, even the idea of living full time out of a vehicle has “become aspirational for a subset of millennials and Zoomers, despite the fact that, traditionally, residing in a car or van is usually an action taken as a last resort, from want of other options to protect oneself from the elements.”

Unpacking the craze by testing it herself, Weaver offers a humorous account of the trials of not being adequately prepared, claustrophobia, long restaurant lines, the increase in traffic within the national parks, and the disappointment that occurs when an Instagram aesthetic bumps up against reality. Sometimes fantasies are too good to be true.

This story was written by Caity Weaver and recorded by Audm. To hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android.

This episode contains strong language. 

Hilma Wolitzer lost her husband, Morty Wolitzer, a psychologist who loved cooking and jazz, on April 11, 2020. They had been together for 68 years.

Mary-Margaret Waterbury’s uncle Michael Mantlo had introduced her to Nirvana, grunge and Elvis Costello.

After Terrie Martin’s first born, April Marie Dawson, died at age 43, Ms. Martin said she carried around guilt for not taking more precautions. “I killed my daughter,” she said. “And I have learned nothing from loss.”

Carmen Nitsche’s mother, Carmen Dolores Nitsche, died on May 14, 2020. They were only a few miles apart, but she said she was unable to hold her mother’s hand on her final journey.

In the coming days, the number of known deaths from Covid-19 in the United States is expected to reach one million.

We asked listeners to share memories about loved ones they have lost — and about what it’s like to grieve when it seems like the rest of the world is trying to move on.

“Time keeps moving forward, and the world desperately wants to move past this pandemic,” one told us. “But my mother — she’s still gone.”

Want more from The Daily? For one big idea on the news each week from our team, subscribe to our newsletter. 

Background reading: 

• As the United States approaches a Covid toll that only hints at the suffering of millions more Americans mourning loved ones, President Biden urged vigilance against a virus that has “forever changed” the country.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

Fresh data from the U.S. government on Wednesday showed that inflation was still climbing at a rapid pace, prompting President Biden to say that controlling the rising prices was his “top domestic priority.”

But not everybody experiences inflation equally. Why is that?

Guest: Ben Casselman, an economics and business reporter for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• What’s your rate of inflation? You can answer seven questions to estimate your personal inflation rate here.
• Rising prices could hurt Democrats in the midterms, and Mr. Biden has sought to turn the debate over the economy against his opponents.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

This episode contains descriptions of sexual violence. 

 In Part 1 of our two-part series, we spoke to anti-abortion activists about their preparations for a future without Roe v. Wade.

Today, we talk to people working in abortion clinics about what the potential change could mean for their patients.

“Everybody’s scared,” said one provider from Oklahoma. “Every single person that walks in our clinic, you can see the fear on their faces.”

Want more from The Daily? For one big idea on the news each week from our team, subscribe to our newsletter. 

Background reading: 

• Half of women in the United States could lose access to abortion without Roe v. Wade.
• Here’s how Democrats in Congress are trying to protect abortion rights.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

For years, President Vladimir V. Putin has taken advantage of Victory Day — when Russians commemorate the Soviet triumph over Nazi Germany — to champion his country’s military might and project himself as a leader of enormous power.

This year, he drew on the pageantry of May 9 for an even more pressing goal: making the case for the war in Ukraine.

Guest: Anton Troianovski, the Moscow bureau chief for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• Victory Day in Moscow this year was set up to be a lavish government-orchestrated show of Russian strength and a claim of rightful dominance over a lost empire.
• Mr. Putin delivered a speech in which he vowed that the military would keep fighting to rid Ukraine, in his false telling, of “torturers, death squads and Nazis.”

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

This episode contains descriptions of suicide. 

Over the past five years, a series of investigations by The Times has revealed the terror and tragedy that America’s air wars, despite being promoted as the most precise in history, have brought to civilians on the ground.

The program has also exacted a heavy toll on the military personnel guiding the drones to their targets. They include soldiers such as Capt. Kevin Larson, a decorated pilot, who died by suicide after a drug arrest and court-martial.

For suicide prevention resources in the United States, go to SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources. Go here for resources outside the United States.

Guest: Dave Philipps, a national correspondent covering the military for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• Captain Larson was one of the best drone pilots in the U.S. Air Force. Yet as the job weighed on him and untold others, the military failed to recognize its full impact.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

It was meant to mark the start of their lives out of college, but the adventure quickly turned into a nightmare. Beginning with what seemed to be a lucky whale sighting, three friends set out on a sea-kayaking trip through Glacier Bay National Park in Alaska, watching out for bears, and having a good time, when tragedy struck.

In recounting the days preceding and following the accident, which seriously injured one of his friends, the Times journalist Jon Mooallem explains how he was forced to reckon with his fears. Detailing the incident’s surprising repercussions, he muses on the importance of overcoming one’s fears, and finding poetry in life’s darkest moments.

This story was written by Jon Mooallem. To hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android.

Today, we revisit a two-part series that first ran in 2018 about the history of Roe v. Wade and the woman behind it.

Almost 50 years ago, when the Supreme Court first ruled that women had the constitutional right to an abortion, it was met with little controversy.

In Part 2, we asked: How, then, did abortion become one of the most controversial issues of our time?

Guest: Sabrina Tavernise, co-host of The Daily. As a correspondent in 2018, she reported on the story of Roe v. Wade.

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Background reading:

• Norma McCorvey, the “Jane Roe” of Roe v. Wade who became a divisive icon for both sides of the abortion debate, died in 2017 at the age of 69.
• What would the end of Roe mean? Here are some key questions and answers.

For more information on today's episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. 

This week, the release of a draft Supreme Court opinion striking down Roe v. Wade has put a spotlight on the 50-year-old case that redefined abortion in America.

Today, we revisit a two-part series that first ran in 2018 about the history of the case and the woman behind it.

In Part 1, the story of Jane Roe.

Guest: Sabrina Tavernise, co-host of The Daily. As a correspondent in 2018, she reported on the story of Roe v. Wade.

Want more from The Daily? For one big idea on the news each week from our team, subscribe to our newsletter. 

Background reading:

• The leaked draft opinion that would overturn Roe v. Wade also takes aim at its version of history, challenging decades of scholarship that argues abortion was not always a crime.
• Remembering a time before Roe: When New York legalized abortion in 1970, three years before the landmark ruling, hundreds of thousands of women traveled there from other states for the procedure.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily.

Since the leak of the Supreme Court draft opinion on overturning the constitutional right to abortion, both sides of the fight have been scrambling.

Today, in the first of two parts, we speak to anti-abortion activists such as Michael Gonidakis, president of Ohio Right to Life, about what comes next.

“It’s been a whirlwind,” he said. “We’re in uncharted territory.”

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Background reading: 

• For half a century, right-wing legal thinkers have been working toward the moment foretold by the leaked draft.
• Democrats aim to use abortion rights to jolt state legislative races.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

If the Supreme Court revokes Roe v. Wade, individual states will probably be left to make their own decisions about abortion provision.

Some states will ban abortion, and some will continue to allow it. And then there is a third group: swing states, where a final decision will be up for grabs.

Guest: Margot Sanger-Katz, a domestic correspondent covering health care for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• Who gets abortions in the United States?
• What are trigger laws? And which states have them?

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

The revelation that the Supreme Court could end the constitutional right to abortion in the United States has set off a political firestorm and deepened divisions about one of the most contentious issues in American society.

What exactly is in the draft opinion that was leaked this week, and what does it mean for the court and for the country?

Guest: Adam Liptak, who covers the Supreme Court for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• Here are some key questions and answers about the possible effects of ending Roe v. Wade.
• If the Supreme Court does overturn the ruling, where would abortion be banned?

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

Unlike other former presidents after leaving office, Donald J. Trump has remained in the middle of the political stage — raising more money than the Republican Party itself and doling out coveted endorsements.

Who has Mr. Trump backed in the midterms? And to what lengths have candidates gone to secure his favor?

Guest: Shane Goldmacher, a national political reporter for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• Inspiring fear, hoarding cash, doling out favors and seeking to crush rivals, Mr. Trump is behaving more like an old-time political boss than a typical former president.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

The United States is seeing a revival in union membership.

In the last six months, the National Labor Relations Board has recorded a 60 percent increase in workers filing for petitions that allow for union elections to take place.

The circumstances that have prompted these unionization efforts have some similarities with the period that brought the largest gain in union membership in U.S. history, during the 1930s.

What can that era tell us about today, and are current efforts just a blip?

Guest: Noam Scheiber, a reporter covering workers and the workplace for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• Since the Great Recession, the college-educated have taken more frontline jobs at companies like Starbucks and Amazon. Now they’re helping to unionize them.

For more information on today’s episode, visit 

nytimes.com/thedaily

. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

Is there a connection between former President Donald J. Trump’s pressure campaign on Ukraine, the Russian invasion and the events of Jan. 6, 2021?

The journalist Robert Draper talked to Fiona Hill, John Bolton and other former Trump advisers to gauge the extent to which the ex-president’s actions had a ripple effect.

This story was written by Robert Draper and recorded by Audm. To hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android.

As the horrors of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have became clearer, the Biden administration has pivoted to a more aggressive stance, with officials talking about constraining Moscow as a global power.

But that is an escalation, and escalations can go wrong.

Guest: David E. Sanger, a White House and national security correspondent for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• The United States toughened its messaging on the Ukraine war, saying that the American aim was not just to thwart the Russian invasion but also to weaken Russia so it could no longer carry out such military aggression anywhere.
• The change in stance could signal a situation that pits Washington more directly against Moscow.

For more information on today’s episode, visit 

nytimes.com/thedaily

. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

This week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released new data that showed around 60 percent of Americans — more than half of adults and three quarters of children — have now been infected with the coronavirus. 

But herd immunity looks likely to remain elusive, and many people are still at high risk from Covid-19.

What do the C.D.C. figures mean for immunity in the United States, and for the future of the pandemic?

Guest: Apoorva Mandavilli, a science and global health reporter for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• Sixty percent of Americans, including 75 percent of children, had been infected with the coronavirus by February — another remarkable milestone in a pandemic that continues to confound expectations.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

Joseph A. Kennedy, a former high school football coach, was fired after he made a habit of going to the 50-yard line after his team’s games to thank God and to lead his players in prayer.

On Monday, the Supreme Court heard his suit. The justice’s decision in the complex case could make a major statement about the role religion may play in public life.

Guest: Adam Liptak, a reporter covering the Supreme Court for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• Coaching was his calling, Mr. Kennedy said. But after the school board in Bremerton, Wash., told him to stop mixing football and faith on the field, he left his job and sued.
• Members of the Supreme Court’s conservative majority indicated that Mr. Kennedy had a constitutional right to pray after games.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

In January 2021, one of President Biden’s first big moves in office was to sign an executive order mandating masks in airports and on planes and other forms of public transit.

But an unexpected ruling from a judge in Florida has abruptly and unexpectedly overturned that mandate — and the implications of the decision could tie the government’s hands when it comes to future health emergencies.

Guest: Sheryl Gay Stolberg, a Washington correspondent covering health policy for The New York Times; and Heather Murphy, a reporter covering travel for The Times.

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Background reading: 

• In the end, the mask mandate was brought down by a little-known nonprofit, a conservative judge, and chance.
• While the C.D.C. wants to keep the mandate intact, appealing the ruling is risky: If the Florida decision is upheld, it could permanently weaken the agency’s authority.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

A Times investigation last year found that minor traffic stops in the United States were far more deadly than widely thought — in the previous five years, 400 unarmed motorists who were not under pursuit for any violent crime were killed by the police during such checks.

We look at the different efforts across the country to rethink the stops and at the pushback from opponents who say that restrictions on the practice could keep more guns and criminals on the streets.

Guest: David D. Kirkpatrick, an investigative reporter for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• A recent example of a fatal end to a traffic stop was the death in Grand Rapids, Mich., of Patrick Lyoya, an unarmed 26-year-old Black man who was pulled over for a mismatched license plate.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

America is home to 735 billionaires with a collective worth greater than $4.7 trillion, according to Forbes. There were just 424 billionaires in 2012, Forbes found, and only 243 a decade before that. The billionaires keep multiplying.

In this article, Willy Staley uses information from the first billionaire count — commissioned in 1981 by the entrepreneur Malcolm Forbes for his own magazine — to consider the reasons behind the rapid increase in American billionaires, but also the changing attitudes on publicizing the details of one’s wealth.

Many factors enabled American entrepreneurs to amass such enormous fortunes, including the Reagan administration’s policies, the arrival of computer technology, the creation of a more globalized economy and the rise of the developing world.

Yet despite the conspicuous consumption this level of wealth often encourages, Staley finds that few billionaires want to be discovered. So how do you keep tabs on America’s billionaires?

This story was written by Willy Staley and recorded by Audm. To hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android.

When they go to the polls on Sunday, voters in France will be faced with the same two presidential candidates as 2017: Emmanuel Macron, the president and a polished centrist, and Marine Le Pen, the leader of the far-right National Rally party.

Yet the context is different. There is a war in Europe, and the contest is tight.

What are the stakes in the runoff election, and how has the race become so close?

Guest: Roger Cohen, Paris bureau chief for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• President Emmanuel Macron will face Marine Le Pen, the far-right leader, in the runoff on Sunday. The outcome will be crucial for France and reverberate globally.
• No French president has been the object of such intense dislike among significant segments of the population as Mr. Macron. How deep that loathing runs will be a critical factor in the election.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

In Texas, a heated political battle is taking place over care provided to young transgender people, with Gov. Greg Abbott taking a leading role.

The story of this confrontation began, improbably, with the contentious divorce of a suburban couple from Dallas, and a nasty custody battle over their daughter.

We look at how a domestic dispute precipitated one of the fiercest political clashes in the country, and return to yesterday’s story about a trans teenager, Grayson, and his mother to explore the impact of this clash.

Guests: J. David Goodman, The New York Times’s Houston bureau chief, covering Texas; and Azeen Ghorayshi, a reporter covering the intersection between sex, gender and science for The Times.

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Background reading: 

• How a custody battle in the Dallas suburbs amplified a growing conservative cause and helped fuel a move to treat transgender medicine as abuse.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

In recent years, there has been a sharp increase in the number of younger Americans who identify as transgender and are seeking medical intervention to support their transition. 

This increase has coincided with laws introduced in Republican State Houses across the country that seek to block trans youth from accessing gender-affirming care. Nowhere is the political battle more polarized and heated than in Texas. 

In the first of two episodes on the situation in Texas, we explore the story of one family seeking such care for their son when the political storm hit. 

Guest: Azeen Ghorayshi, a reporter covering the intersection between sex, gender and science for The New York Times. 

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Background reading: 

• A Texas clinic for transgender adolescents closed last year amid political pressure. Its demise is evidence of how treating trans minors has become a contentious issue in Republican-controlled states.
• Texas officials have begun investigating parents of transgender adolescents for possible child abuse, according to a recent lawsuit. 

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

Nearly two months into the war in Ukraine, many Russians have gone from shock and denial to support for their troops and anger at the West.

What is behind this shifting view, and what does it mean for those who go against it?

Guest: Anton Troianovski, the Moscow bureau chief for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• In Russia, some citizens are turning on one another, illustrating how the war is feeding paranoia and polarization in Russian society.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

Across the United States, 45 million borrowers now owe $1.6 trillion in debt for federal loans taken out for college — more than consumers owe on any other debt except mortgages.

For the past two years, beginning as the pandemic spread, the U.S. government has allowed tens of millions of Americans to stop paying back their students loans.

This experiment in debt deferral has had unintended consequences, and poses a dilemma for President Biden.

Guest: Stacy Cowley, a finance reporter for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• The Biden administration has paused student loans once again. The four-month delay means the pause will become an issue again before the midterm elections.
• While politically popular with Mr. Biden’s party, the extension of the loan moratorium has drawn criticism for adding a small measure of oomph to the inflation the government is trying to tame.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

The Indigenous Brazilian territory of Ituna-Itatá was established in 2011 for the protection of an isolated group that has never been contacted by outsiders or fully confirmed to exist. But despite its special status, it has become one of the most invaded Indigenous territories in Brazil since the election of the pro-development, anti-regulatory president, Jair Bolsonaro, in 2018 — becoming something of a poster board for the Amazon’s eventual demise.

William Langewiesche explores the process of defending these preserves from outside harm, and uses Ituna-Itatá, which has now been heavily deforested, as a grim illustration of the intractable forces destroying the Amazon through logging, ranching and mining.

This story was written by William Langewiesche and recorded by Audm. To hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android.

In the 1990s, Dennis Wayne Hope committed a series of armed robberies. After proving adept at escaping prison, he was put in isolation. He has been there for nearly three decades.

His case, if the Supreme Court agrees to hear it, could answer the fundamental question of how long people can be held in solitary confinement.

Guest: Adam Liptak, a reporter covering the Supreme Court for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• Mr. Hope has spent more than half his life in solitary confinement, in a cell that is nine feet long and six feet wide — smaller than a compact parking space.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

Elon Musk’s recent investment in Twitter has turned a high-profile and frequent user of the platform into the company’s largest stakeholder.

At first, the involvement of Mr. Musk, the C.E.O. of Tesla, was seen by the social media giant as a chance to gain a powerful ally. Instead, Twitter’s fate has suddenly become much harder to predict.

Guest: Mike Isaac, a technology correspondent for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• Twitter has survived founder infighting, boardroom revolts and outside shareholder ire, but Mr. Musk is an activist investor unlike any other.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

After a disastrous defeat in northern Ukraine, Russia has begun a high-stakes battle for the east, while Western allies arm Ukrainian fighters determined to stave off the attack.

After Moscow’s pivot, what lies in store in the coming weeks?

Guest: Eric Schmitt, a senior writer covering terrorism and national security for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia defined a more limited military goal: taking control of the Donbas region in the east of Ukraine — not the whole country.
• Russia reorganized the command of its flagging offensive, selecting for the mission a general accused of ordering strikes on civilian neighborhoods in Syria.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

On the campaign trail and when he first came to office, President Biden had ambitious plans to deal with climate change, including promises to reduce fossil fuel production. 

Since the start of the war in Ukraine, however, Mr. Biden has largely stopped making the case for these plans, instead turning his focus to pumping as much oil and gas as possible. 

What is behind the president’s retreat on climate?

Guest: Coral Davenport, an energy and environmental policy correspondent for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• Rising costs at the pump, war in Ukraine, an emboldened fossil fuel industry and stalled legislation have imperiled President Joe Biden’s climate agenda.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

This episode contains strong language. 

A year and a half ago, the Times journalists Jodi Kantor and Karen Weise began examining labor practices at Amazon.

In the process, they met Christian Smalls and Derrick Palmer, two Amazon workers at a warehouse in New York, who had embarked on an improbable attempt to create the company’s first union. Last week, they did it.

We sat down Mr. Smalls and Mr. Palmer to ask them how it happened.

Guest: Jodi Kantor, an investigative reporter for The New York Times; and Christian Smalls and Derrick Palmer, warehouse workers who led the first successful unionization attempt at Amazon. 

Want more from The Daily? For one big idea on the news each week from our team, subscribe to our newsletter. 

Background reading: 

• How Christian Smalls and Derrick Palmer won the first successful unionization effort at any Amazon warehouse in the United States, potentially one of the most significant labor victories in a generation. 

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

For more than two decades, Belarus existed in an equilibrium of quiet authoritarianism. If the government’s repressions didn’t directly touch them, most Belarusians tolerated them. But over the course of 2020, the country’s history and identity, which never much interested a majority of people who lived there, became something they would sacrifice their lives for.

Sarah A. Topol explores the battle over a political mural in a public park in Minsk and considers the future of Belarus. As a remarkable campaign of defiance against an increasingly totalitarian regime, the mural is an emblem of strength and a call for change — but to what end?

This story was written by Sarah A. Topol and recorded by Audm. To hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android.

Thirty years ago, Germany put forth a theory for how to work with Russia. Major energy deals, leaders argued, would keep Russia from going to war with its neighbors.

Over the past 20 years, Germany has made itself incredibly dependent on Russian gas. 

The war in Ukraine has complicated that relationship and has shown how Germany’s approach to Russia has not only failed, but also backfired.

Guest: Katrin Bennhold, the Berlin bureau chief for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• Germany, dependent on Russian gas, has so far refused to cut off President Vladimir V. Putin, whose war it is effectively subsidizing to the tune of some $220 million in energy payments a day.
• Under increasing pressure to sever the country’s reliance on Russian energy, German officials must contend with deeply rooted economic ties. 

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

As countries have struggled with disease and death throughout the coronavirus pandemic, one part of the world seems to have been mostly spared: central and western Africa.

South Africa was deeply affected by waves of the coronavirus, as were countries in East Africa like Kenya and Uganda. But nations in the center and west of the continent appear to have been largely spared.

What is behind these low case and death rates — and what does that tell us about the future of the pandemic?

Guest: Stephanie Nolen, a global health reporter for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• The coronavirus was expected to devastate Africa, but higher-income and better-prepared countries appear to have fared far worse.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

This episode details graphic scenes. 

Many around the world are calling the indiscriminate attacks on civilians in Bucha, a suburb northwest of the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, a war crime.

But investigating such atrocities is painstakingly complicated. Could one case that resulted in convictions — the genocide in Bosnia in the 1990s — offer lessons on how to proceed?

Guest: Roger Cohen, the Paris bureau chief for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• With Russian forces retreating, Ukrainians in Bucha are finding scores of bodies in yards and on the roads amid mounting evidence of intentional and indiscriminate killings.
• The images from Bucha spurred Western leaders to promise even tougher sanctions against Russia.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

Ukraine and Russia are enormous producers of wheat, corn, barley, sunflower oil and fertilizer. One study calculated that the two countries accounted for 12 percent of the world’s calories.

With Ukraine under attack and Russia hit with strict sanctions, a huge supply of food is suddenly trapped — with Africa and the Middle East particularly imperiled.

Guest: Jack Nicas, the Brazil bureau chief for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• An increase in world hunger could be one of the repercussions of the war in Ukraine.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

After months of investigation by a congressional committee, a federal judge has found that President Donald J. Trump and his allies most likely engaged in illegal activity in the wake of the 2020 election.

How did the committee achieve that ruling?

Guest: Luke Broadwater, a congressional reporter for The New York Times.

Have you lost a loved one during the pandemic? The Daily is working on a special episode memorializing those we have lost to the coronavirus. If you would like to share their name on the episode, please RECORD A VOICE MEMO and send it to us at thedaily@nytimes.com. You can find more information and specific instructions here.

Background reading: 

• The judge’s comments in the civil case of a lawyer, John Eastman, who advised Mr. Trump, marked a significant breakthrough for the House committee.
• The ruling does not necessarily mean that a prosecution would arrive at the same conclusion. Here’s an explanation.

Want more from The Daily? For one big idea on the news each week from our team, subscribe to our newsletter. 

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

Exploring the personal experiences of Sara Mardini and Seán Binder, two volunteers who were arrested in February 2018 after helping migrants cross safely into Lesbos, Greece, the journalist Alex W. Palmer outlines the complex situation aid workers in Europe find themselves in: increasingly demonized by local authorities while also facing pressure from different ends of the international political spectrum.

Palmer traces the origins of the problem, explaining how, in the early days of the migrant crisis, the grass-roots response embodied the broadly held values of E.U. citizens: to be a place of refuge and compassion, to create a new future from the ashes of two world wars and to set an example based on morality rather than power.

But, as Palmer discovers, this idea was never unanimous, and it was only a matter of time before this compassion and idealism was eclipsed by anger and resentment. Many rejected the idea of newcomers entirely. Terrorist attacks and acts of criminality committed by asylum seekers further worsened collective sentiments and heightened public unease about the challenges of integration. The topic became a pawn for far-right media outlets and politicians, who helped stoke the growing anti-immigrant temper, portraying Europe as on the brink of being overrun by foreign hordes — and aid workers as part of the problem.

A highly politicized issue, the debate surrounding the migrant crisis continues to rage. As volunteers are targeted, what’s next for migrant aid in Europe?

This story was written by Alex W. Palmer and recorded by Audm. To hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android.

This episode details graphic scenes. 

Russia has mounted a brutal siege around the port city of Mariupol for more than a month, framing it as the key to a war of liberation. In reality, it’s a campaign against a city that is critical to Russia’s strategy — it would help open an important supply route and serve as a symbol of victory. 

What is happening inside Mariupol, and what does the fighting mean for the future of Russia’s war on Ukraine? 

Guest: Valerie Hopkins, a correspondent for The New York Times, currently based in Ukraine.

Have you lost a loved one during the pandemic? The Daily is working on a special episode memorializing those we have lost to the coronavirus. If you would like to share their name on the episode, please RECORD A VOICE MEMO and send it to us at thedaily@nytimes.com. You can find more information and specific instructions here.

Background reading: 

• In Mariupol, Russia is using hunger as a weapon of war. Residents described how they are surviving a monthlong siege of the southern port with little food and other necessities.
• As the war in Ukraine moves into its second month, fears grow of Mariupol’s fall to Russia.

Want more from The Daily? For one big idea on the news each week from our team, subscribe to our newsletter. 

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

In the past, Republicans have been able to secure what some see as an unfair political advantage by gerrymandering political districts.

But after the recent redrawing of zones, the congressional map across the U.S. is perhaps more evenly split than at any time in the past 50 years.

What happened?

Guest: Nate Cohn, a domestic correspondent for The Upshot at The New York Times.

Have you lost a loved one during the pandemic? The Daily is working on a special episode memorializing those we have lost to the coronavirus. If you would like to share their name on the episode, please RECORD A VOICE MEMO and send it to us at thedaily@nytimes.com. You can find more information and specific instructions here.

Background reading: 

• The surprisingly fair congressional map defies the expectations of many analysts — and it is something of an accident.

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For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

A series of text messages released in the past week show how Ginni Thomas, wife of Justice Clarence Thomas of the Supreme Court, urged White House officials to push to overturn the result of the 2020 election.

There has never been a spouse of a sitting justice who has been as overt a political activist as Ms. Thomas — and that presents a real conundrum for the court.

Guest: Jo Becker, an investigative reporter for The New York Times. 

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Background reading: 

• The long crusade of the Thomases has taken them from the fringes of the conservative movement to the very center of it.
• In the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election, Ginni Thomas was involved in a range of efforts to keep President Donald J. Trump in power.

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At every step of his political career, Senator Joe Manchin III has helped a West Virginia power plant that is the sole customer of his private coal business, including by blocking ambitious climate action.

A Times investigation has revealed the strands of the unusual relationship between Mr. Manchin and that especially dirty power plant, showing just how entwined they are.

Guest: Christopher Flavelle, a climate reporter for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• How Mr. Manchin aided coal, stymied climate legislation, and made a fortune.

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Since the beginning of Russia’s war in Ukraine, 10 million Ukrainians — about a quarter of the population — have been displaced, and about four million have fled the country.

Iryna Baramidze is one of them. From a middle-class neighborhood of Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, she has been married to her husband for 12 years and has an 11 year-old son, Yuri.

Over three weeks, our producer Clare Toeniskoetter followed Iryna as she made an impossible choice.

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Background reading: 

• After meeting with Ukrainian refugees in Poland last week, President Biden called Vladimir Putin “a butcher.”
• As Ukrainians flood into Poland, the travel industry has become part of an effort to supply transportation, accommodation and more to the refugees.

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Demand for traveling nurses skyrocketed during the pandemic. In March 2020, there were over 12,000 job opportunities for traveling nurses, but by early December of that year, the number had grown to more than 30,000 open positions. Lauren Hilgers details the experiences of America’s traveling nurses and questions whether this “boom” will continue.

Myriad factors compelled thousands to abandon their permanent posts, among them the flexible nature of being a traveling nurse and its associated lifestyle (fewer hours, better pay). Traveling nurses can often make more in months than they would make as staff nurses in a year. Insufficient support to deal with waves of coronavirus sufferers at hospitals has driven many away.

But, as Hilgers writes, while hospitals have scrambled to hire traveling nurses, many have been chafing at the rising price tag. A number of states are exploring the option to cap travel-nursing pay, and the American Hospital Association is pushing for a congressional inquiry into the pricing practices of travel-nursing agencies. However, Hilgers concludes, the problem is unlikely to be solved until hospitals start considering how to make bedside jobs more desirable.

After two years, nurses in the United States have borne witness to hundreds of thousands of Covid deaths. Should their pay reflect this?

This story was recorded by Audm. To hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android.

Since the Taliban took control of Afghanistan last year, thousands of women and girls who were in school or had jobs were forced back into their homes.

The Daily producers Lynsea Garrison and Stella Tan have been talking to women and girls across the country about their lives under Taliban rule — and about what kind of future they now face.

Background reading: 

• The Taliban has reneged on its promise to open Afghanistan’s girls’ schools. The reversal could threaten aid as international officials had made girls’ education a condition for greater assistance.

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. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

From the outside, Russia’s relentless bombardment of Ukraine looks indiscriminate and improvised. But the approach is part of an approach devised decades ago in Chechnya.

The Times journalist Carlotta Gall, who covered the Chechen conflict, explains why wars fought by Russia some 30 years ago could inform what happens next in Ukraine.

Guest: Carlotta Gall, the Istanbul bureau chief for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• Russia’s experience in a string of wars led to the conclusion that attacking civilian populations was not only acceptable but militarily sound.

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Democratic support for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, who could become the first Black woman to serve as a Supreme Court justice, was never in much doubt. Less certain was the depth of Republican opposition.

To analyze how the arguments have played out so far in her confirmation hearing, we look at four key moments.

Guest: Adam Liptak, a reporter covering the Supreme Court for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• In her first day of hearings, Judge Jackson gave few hints about her judicial philosophy but spoke forcefully about public safety and terrorism.
• On Tuesday, Judge Jackson pushed back against Republican attacks on her record, presenting herself as a firm believer in judicial restraint.

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Among the actions taken by the West to punish Moscow for the invasion of Ukraine is the blacklisting of the incredibly rich and politically connected Russian businessmen known as oligarchs.

But how could sanctions on Russia’s superwealthy increase the pressure on President Vladimir V. Putin to end the war?

Guest: Matt Apuzzo, a reporter for The New York Times, based in Brussels.

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Background reading: 

• For nearly a decade, sanctions have been little more than names on a list for wealthy Russians. Now, amid the war in Ukraine, governments are working to give them bite.
• Western investment, law and lobbying firms have previously helped enmesh oligarchs into financial and legal systems.

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