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.”

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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.

Want more from The Daily? For one big idea on the news each week from our team, subscribe to our newsletter. 

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.

Want more from The Daily? For one big idea on the news each week from our team, subscribe to our newsletter. 

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.”

Want more from The Daily? For one big idea on the news each week from our team, subscribe to our newsletter. 

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.

Want more from The Daily? For one big idea on the news each week from our team, subscribe to our newsletter. 

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.

Want more from The Daily? For one big idea on the news each week from our team, subscribe to our newsletter. 

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.

Want more from The Daily? For one big idea on the news each week from our team, subscribe to our newsletter. 

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.

Want more from The Daily? For one big idea on the news each week from our team, subscribe to our newsletter. 

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.

Want more from The Daily? For one big idea on the news each week from our team, subscribe to our newsletter. 

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. 

Want more from The Daily? For one big idea on the news each week from our team, subscribe to our newsletter. 

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.

Want more from The Daily? For one big idea on the news each week from our team, subscribe to our newsletter. 

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.

Want more from The Daily? For one big idea on the news each week from our team, subscribe to our newsletter. 

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.

Want more from The Daily? For one big idea on the news each week from our team, subscribe to our newsletter. 

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.

Want more from The Daily? For one big idea on the news each week from our team, subscribe to our newsletter. 

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.

Want more from The Daily? For one big idea on the news each week from our team, subscribe to our newsletter. 

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.

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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.

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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. 

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.

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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.

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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. 

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.

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

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

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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For more information on today’s episode, visit 

nytimes.com/thedaily

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

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

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

More than two years into the pandemic, coronavirus infections are surging in China and nations in Europe. The reason: BA.2, a highly contagious version of the Omicron variant.

At the same time, the United States is doing away with a number of pandemic restrictions, with mask mandates ending and businesses no longer requiring proof of vaccination from customers.

We explore what these BA.2 surges look like and ask whether the U.S. is ready for a new wave of Covid cases.

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

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Background reading: 

• Another Covid surge may be coming, and some scientists are warning that the U.S. isn’t doing enough to prevent it from endangering vulnerable Americans and upending lives.
• Many epidemiologists suspect that BA.2 may reverse the decline of cases in the United States. Here’s what we know so far about the variant. 

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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. 

In the high-stakes competition to dominate the business of clean energy, the Democratic Republic of Congo is a major arena: The country is the source of more than two-thirds of the world’s cobalt, a key component of electric-car batteries.

In recent years, China has established a strong presence in Congo, while the United States has lost ground. We went to the African country to understand how that happened.

Guest: Dionne Searcey, a correspondent for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• The United States failed to safeguard decades of diplomatic and financial investments in Congo, where the world’s largest supply of cobalt is now controlled by Chinese companies backed by Beijing.
• The power struggle over Congo’s cobalt has rattled the clean-energy revolution.

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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. 

It has been three weeks since the war in Ukraine began. The fighting grinds on and there is no clear end in sight. But what are the potential paths forward in the coming days and weeks?

On Wednesday, President Volodymyr Zelensky, in an address to Congress, proposed one such path, though it is an incredibly unlikely one: a no-fly zone over Ukraine.

Elsewhere, Times reporting has suggested four other potential scenarios — a diplomatic end to the conflict; protracted monthslong fighting; China coming to Russia’s rescue; and President Vladimir V. Putin expanding the conflict beyond Ukraine’s borders.

We explore these scenarios and consider which of them is most likely to occur.

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 accurately predicted the start of the war in Ukraine, sounding the alarm that an invasion was imminent despite Moscow’s denials and Europe’s skepticism. Predicting how it might end is proving far more difficult.
• In a speech to Congress, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine called for a no-fly zone and more weapons to combat Russia’s assault and implored President Biden to be “the leader of peace.”

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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. 

With prices on the rise in the U.S. economy, the Federal Reserve is expected to announce on Wednesday an increase in interest rates, essentially pouring a cold glass of water on the economy.

Why would the central bank do that? The answer lies in the inflation crisis of the 1970s, when a failure to react quickly enough still looms large in the memory.

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

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Background reading: 

• The Federal Reserve is facing the fastest inflation most Americans have ever seen. The response may require some aggressive — and painful — measures.
• What is inflation, why is it up, and whom does it hurt? Here’s what to know.

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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. 

This episode details graphic scenes and contains strong language.

The image shows four people lying on the ground — a woman, a man and two children who had been fleeing from a suburb of Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital. The woman and her children had been killed by a mortar moments earlier. Around them are Ukrainian soldiers attempting to revive the man.

The picture was taken by the photojournalist Lynsey Addario, alongside Andriy Dubchak, a Ukrainian videographer. When it was published by The Times, the image became a watershed, offering irrefutable evidence that Russia’s tactics in the war were killing civilians.

Guest: Lynsey Addario, a photojournalist currently working in Ukraine.

Background reading: 

• President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has repeatedly denied that his forces are targeting civilians. But only a handful of Ukrainian troops were near the bridge when mortar shells began raining down, and they were helping refugees escape Kyiv.

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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. 

Russians and Ukrainians are deeply connected. Millions of Ukrainians have relatives in Russia. Many have lived in the country.

But Moscow has taken steps to shield its people from open information about the war, even as its bombing campaign intensifies.

When Ukrainians try to explain the dire situation to family members in Russia, they are often met with denial, resistance, and a kind of refusal to believe.

Guest: Valerie Hopkins, a correspondent for The New York Times, currently in Ukraine.

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Background reading: 

• A wave of disinformation has emanated from the Russian state as the Kremlin tries to shape the messages most Russians are receiving.
• At the same time, the last vestiges of a Russian free press are being dismantled.

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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. 

Rozina Ali profiles Rashida Tlaib, the 45-year-old second-term congresswoman from Detroit, who has risen from adverse circumstances to play a significant role in American politics, most notably bringing greater awareness to the ongoing conflict over Palestine.

Tlaib is the only Palestinian American serving in the House of Representatives, and the first with family currently living in the West Bank, whose three million inhabitants’ lives are, as Ali explains, “intimately shaped by American support for Israel.”

The article explores the criticism leveled at Tlaib, sometimes viciously, by Republicans and pro-Israel Democrats for calling Israel an “apartheid regime,” and for her support of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, which aims to end military occupation by exerting economic pressure on Israel. She has been called antisemitic for her criticism of Israeli policies, and has become a favored quarry of Fox News.

But, as Ali explains, Tlaib’s arrival on the national stage coincided with an opening, albeit a small one, within the Democratic Party to challenge the United States’ Israel policy. At the same time that the left has gained a legible footing on the national stage, the Palestinian cause has become a significant part of the politics of the American left. And so Tlaib, a democratic socialist more outspoken on domestic issues than she is on the Palestinian cause, has found herself at the center of this turn.

Tlaib stands up for many causes — but what, exactly, does she represent?

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

Ending the war in Ukraine very much depends on how and when President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia allows it to end.

In an interview for his podcast “The Ezra Klein Show,” the opinion columnist Ezra Klein spoke with one of the world’s leading experts on Mr. Putin, Fiona Hill, a foreign policy adviser for three United States presidents.

Today, we run the discussion between Ms. Hill and Ezra Klein about how Mr. Putin is approaching this moment, and the right and wrong ways for the West to engage him. 

Guest: Fiona Hill, a senior fellow at the Center on the United States and Europe at the Brookings Institution.

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Background reading: 

• Here’s a guide to the roots of the Ukraine war.
• About two-thirds of Ukraine’s population of 44 million people lived in cities before Russia’s invasion began. Now, many urban areas are in the cross hairs of war. What cities is Russia targeting?

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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. 

It has been two weeks since the beginning of the war in Ukraine and Russia’s high-tech army of nearly 200,000 soldiers have not taken control of any major cities, except the southern port of Kherson. 

The state of the war is eerily stalled and the Russians’ answer has been to encircle cities and, from a distance, bomb what they can’t control. 

Today, we hear dispatches on two cities in Ukraine’s south that are surrounded and under attack. 

Guest: Michael Schwirtz, an investigative reporter for The New York Times; and Valerie Hopkins, a Moscow correspondent for The Times, currently in Ukraine.

Background reading: 

•  Two weeks after the invasion began, tens of thousands of Ukrainians are without food, water or power. The Russians are increasingly resorting to indiscriminate shelling to help their forces advance.
• The southern city of Mariupol is under a relentless barrage — there is no heat or electricity and little communication with the outside world. 

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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. 

On Tuesday morning, President Biden took to the podium at the White House to deliver a solemn and provocative speech. As punishment for waging war on Ukraine, he announced,  the United States would cut off Russian oil imports.

Mr. Biden said the move would require some sacrifice, but would be for the greater good.

How much will the ban hurt Russia, and American consumers?

Guest: Clifford Krauss, a national energy business correspondent for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• Mr. Biden banned oil imports from Russia, calling it a “blow to Putin’s war machine.”
• The ban could have meaningful consequences for the U.S. economy, pushing up prices at the gas pump when inflation is already rapid. 

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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. 

Since the start of the war in Ukraine, no single figure has antagonized President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia as effectively or persistently as President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine. His defiant videos and speeches have inspired the West into action and, by his own account, made him a target for Russian assassins. 

What is it about the comedian-turned-president and his rise to power that poses such a unique threat to Mr. Putin?

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

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Background reading: 

• How Volodymyr Zelensky rallied Ukrainians, and the world, against Putin.

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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. 

This episode contains strong language. 

In response to Russia’s increasingly brutal campaign against Ukrainian towns and cities, an estimated 1.5 million people — most of them women and children — have fled Ukraine over the past 10 days. It’s the fastest displacement of people in Europe since World War II.

While evacuating the capital city of Kyiv for Lviv in the west, a seven-hour journey that took two days and nights, the Daily host Sabrina Tavernise traveled alongside some of those fleeing the conflict.

Background reading: 

• With most Ukrainian 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 fleeing refugees and for men and supplies headed to the front lines.

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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. 

It was a perplexing event, with little in the way of legal closure. Seven years on from a fatal biker shootout in 2015, Mark Binelli explores the details of the event — which started as a brawl between rival “outlaw” motorcycle clubs, the Cossacks and the Bandidos, at a restaurant in Waco, West Texas, which left nine dead and 20 wounded — and the investigation that followed.

The article delves into the methodology of the case’s main investigator, Paul Looney, and a trial-preparation specialist, Roxanne Avery, as well as the event’s cultural significance, described by The New York Times as “what appears to be the largest roundup and mass arrest of bikers in recent American history.”

The aftermath of the deadly brawl, which was preceded by rumblings of an escalating feud, has been the subject of protracted interest: Despite the arrests of 177 bikers — all of whom, regardless of the evidence, were subject to identical felony charges and million-dollar bonds — no one has been convicted.

Binelli explains the root causes of the tensions between the Bandidos and the Cossacks, relays the details of the incident, and considers why it has been so hard to bring the perpetrators to justice.

This story was written by Mark Binelli 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.

After winning his House seat in the 2018 midterm elections, Representative Dan Crenshaw, a Republican of Texas, seemed to have found a sweet spot between full-blown Trumpism and the anti-Trump wing of the party.

But after Jan. 6, and ahead of this year’s midterms, more extreme factions of the Republican Party have cast him less as a vision for the future and more as a symbol of what needs snuffing out.

The once-in-a-decade redistricting process gives those factions a structural advantage. On the ground in Texas, we explore the impact of redistricting and speak to Mr. Crenshaw about the state of his party.

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

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Background reading: 

• Competitive districts are disappearing in Texas and beyond. Consider the case of a once-rising Republican star, Dan Crenshaw, in the Houston suburbs.

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After invading, Russia’s military was expected to sweep through Ukraine within a few days, quickly seizing the capital, Kyiv, and installing a pro-Moscow government.

It hasn’t worked out that way.

Now, with Russia’s advance stalling, there are signs that President Vladimir V. Putin is ready to wage a much darker, grimmer campaign.

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

Background reading: 

• After days of miscalculation about Ukraine’s resolve to fight, Russian forces are turning toward an old pattern of opening fire on cities and mounting sieges.
• Plagued by poor morale as well as fuel and food shortages, some Russian troops in Ukraine have surrendered en masse or sabotaged their own vehicles to avoid fighting, a Pentagon official said.

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As Russian forces bombard Ukraine’s cities and strike civilian areas with increasingly powerful weapons, the European Union has adopted the largest package of sanctions ever imposed on a single country.

The 27-nation bloc overcame a reputation for internal division to agree on the penalties — but will they be enough to help bring the war to an end?

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

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Background reading: 

• As sanctions batter the economy, Russians face the anxieties of a costly war.
• From culture to commerce, sports to travel, the world is shunning Russia to protest the invasion.

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This episode contains strong language.

As the Russian assault has intensified, the government in Ukraine has enacted martial law, requiring men to stay in the country and either join the fight or face the prospect of conscription.

We tell the story of three of those men: Eugene, an I.T. worker from the northeastern city of Kharkiv; Tyhran, an animator who attempted to cross the border into Poland; and Andrew, who signed up for the territorial defense force two weeks ago.

Guests: Clare Toeniskoetter, a senior producer for The Daily; and Lynsea Garrison, a senior international producer for The Daily. 

Background reading: 

• “Everybody in our country needs to defend”: Civilian volunteers and paramilitary groups are taking the fight to the Russian Army in Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital.
• Photographers and videographers around Ukraine have captured a populace struggling with uncertainty and fear.

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This episode contains strong language.

Over the weekend, the battle for Ukraine arrived at the capital, Kyiv, as Russian forces attempted to advance.

Would the Russian military quickly overrun the city? Or would Ukrainians, despite being outgunned, somehow find a way to defend their capital?

Guest: Sabrina Tavernise, a national correspondent for The New York Times, reporting from Kyiv.

Background reading: 

• Ukraine agreed to talks with Russia, but the fighting still rages.
• The roots of the Ukraine war: Here’s a guide to what’s at stake for Russia, the U.S. and NATO.

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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. 

Ronen Bergman and Mark Mazzetti investigate Pegasus, an Israeli spying tool that was acquired for use by the F.B.I., and which the United States government is now trying to ban.

Pegasus is used globally. For nearly a decade, NSO, an Israeli firm, had been selling this surveillance software on a subscription basis to law-enforcement and intelligence agencies around the world, promising to consistently and reliably crack the encrypted communications of any iPhone or Android smartphone.

The software has helped the authorities capture drug lords, thwart terrorist plots, fight organized crime, and, in one case, take down a global child-abuse ring, identifying suspects in more than 40 countries. But it has been prone to abuses of power: The Mexican government deployed Pegasus against journalists and political dissidents; and it was used to intercept communications with Jamal Khashoggi, a columnist for The Washington Post, whom Saudi operatives killed and dismembered in Istanbul in 2018.

Cyberweapons are here to stay — but their legacy is still to be determined.

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

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is the biggest in Europe since World War II.

With the full-scale assault entering its second day on Friday, Ukrainians are coming to terms with the reality that the unthinkable has actually happened.

We explore the significance of this moment and speak to Ukrainians on the ground. 

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

Background reading: 

• Russia continued its attack on Ukraine early Friday, one day after it invaded the country by land, sea and air, killing more than 100 Ukrainian soldiers and civilians.
• Europe faces a new refugee crisis, and harsh economic penalties meant to punish Russia are expected to reverberate worldwide. Here’s what might happen next in the Ukraine crisis.

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

After months of escalating tensions, President Vladimir V. Putin took to state television on Thursday to declare the start of a “special military operation” in Ukraine.

In the prelude to the invasion and as Russian troops launched their attacks, we spoke to our colleagues on the ground as they hunkered down to cover the fighting.

Guest: Sabrina Tavernise, a national correspondent for The New York Times; Anton Troianovski, the Moscow bureau chief for The Times and Michael Schwirtz, an investigative reporter for The Times. 

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Background reading: 

• Areas across Ukraine were under attack on Thursday morning. President Biden condemned Russia’s actions, saying that he would speak to the American people later in the day.
• Why did Russia invade? Here’s what to know about the Ukraine crisis.

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At 10 p.m. in Moscow on Monday night, Russian state television interrupted its regular programming to air an address from President Vladimir V. Putin about the Ukraine crisis.

We look back on what Mr. Putin’s hourlong speech — remarkable for his overt display of emotion and grievance — revealed about his rationale for invading.

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

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Background reading: 

• Mr. Putin’s speech sounded like a call to war, the culmination of a propaganda barrage orchestrated by Russian state media in recent days.
• The United States and its allies swiftly imposed economic sanctions on Russia for what President Biden denounced as the beginning of an “invasion of Ukraine.”

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This episode contains strong language.

On Monday night, as tensions deepened between Russia and Ukraine, President Vladimir V. Putin sent troops into two regions in eastern Ukraine where separatist forces are friendly to Moscow.

With dispatches from our reporters on the ground, we analyze why the crisis has deteriorated in the past few days and whether the orders are a precursor to a wider war.

Guest: Valerie Hopkins, a correspondent based in Moscow for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• The moves by Mr. Putin were his most blatant yet in a confrontation with the West that threatens to escalate into the biggest military action in Europe since World War II.
• In a speech to Russians on Monday, Mr. Putin buoyed his case for the invasion of rebel territories by arguing that the idea of Ukraine statehood was a fiction.
• Here’s what to know about the Russia-Ukraine crisis.

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As hospitals in the United States battled another coronavirus wave in the past few months, another crisis was steadily growing more acute: a shortage of nurses.

We speak to some of the “forgotten warriors” of the nursing profession, at Pascagoula Hospital in Mississippi, to find out what life is like on the front line of the pandemic.

Guest: Andrew Jacobs, a global health reporter for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• The exodus of medical workers during the pandemic has been especially brutal for the small, nonprofit safety-net hospitals where millions of Americans seek care.

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Since the beginning of the standoff with Moscow over Ukraine, President Biden has been clear that he will not allow American troops to come into direct combat with Russians.

Why has the U.S., a country that has intervened all over the world in various contexts, taken that powerful option off the table?

Guest: David E. Sanger, a White House and national security correspondent for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• While recent Russian rhetoric has stoked hopes of a diplomatic solution, U.S. and NATO officials have accused Moscow of further building up troops.
• President Biden’s opposition to sending U.S. forces into Ukraine reflects the mood of a war-wary Washington, as well as concerns about Russia’s nuclear arsenal.
• Here’s a guide to the causes behind the Ukraine crisis and where it might be headed.

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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. 

Canada has employed strict restrictions in its efforts to fight the coronavirus pandemic. But unlike in the United States, such measures have received very little pushback or politicization — until recently.

Truckers protesting a vaccine mandate have occupied the nation’s capital, Ottawa, for three weeks, leading Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to declare a state of national emergency.

We ask how Canada got to this point, and hear what the protest is like on the ground. 

Guest: Catherine Porter, the Toronto bureau chief for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• The trucker protests seem to challenge the cherished image that Canadians are moderate, rule-following and just plain nice. But was that really a myth all along?
• The fractious coalition behind Canada’s protests include former law enforcement officers, military veterans and conservative organizers. 

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Officials in the United States say that Russia could invade Ukraine as early as this week, which raises the question: Should an attack come, how will the Ukrainian people respond? 

The answer may be complicated. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, there has been a real push and pull between Russia and the West inside Ukraine. 

We hear about how Ukrainians are viewing the threat. 

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

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Background reading: 

• A trip along the Dnieper River explores what it means to be Ukrainian at a moment of extreme peril, as the country debates Russia’s place in its past, and its future.

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As the N.F.L. season comes to a close, we’re looking at a class-action lawsuit that Brian Flores, a former head coach of the Miami Dolphins, has filed against the league.

At the heart of the case is the Rooney Rule, a policy the league implemented two decades ago that has since been adopted across corporate America.

We explore the lawsuit and the Rooney Rule, and we hear from Cyrus Mehri, a civil rights lawyer who helped create the policy.

Guest: Ken Belson, a reporter covering the N.F.L. for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• Brian Flores has sued the N.F.L. and its 32 teams alleging that they discriminated against him and other Black coaches in their hiring practices.
• After Mr. Flores’s lawsuit and a cycle in which only two nonwhite head coaches were hired, the Rooney Rule, the N.F.L.’s biggest diversity initiative, is facing new scrutiny.
• Those close to Mr. Flores say his lawsuit is in keeping with the sense of moral rectitude instilled in him by his mother as he grew up in a Brooklyn housing project.

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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. 

There’s a working theory for the origins of Covid-19. It goes like this: Somewhere in an open-air market in Wuhan, China, a new coronavirus, growing inside an animal, first made the jump to a human. But what happens when diseases spread in the other direction?

Sonia Shah, a science journalist, explores the dangers of “spillback,” or “reverse zoonosis”: when humans infect non-humans with disease. Using the history of diseases spreading through mink farms in the United States and Europe as a focus, Shah considers the implications of spillback, and how we might minimize its future impact.

Shah considers how spillback can ignite epidemics in wild species, including endangered ones, and can ravage whole ecosystems. More worryingly, she describes how it can establish new wildlife reservoirs that shift the pathogens’ evolutionary trajectory, unleashing novel variants that can fuel new, dangerous waves of disease in humans.

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

A mysterious letter detailing a supposed plot by Islamic extremists to take over schools shocked Britain in 2014. But who wrote it? From Serial Productions and The New York Times, “The Trojan Horse Affair” is a mystery told in eight parts. Here’s the first. Find the series wherever you get your podcasts.

Joe Rogan, a comedian and host of the hit podcast, “The Joe Rogan Experience,” has come under scrutiny in recent weeks for promoting Covid-19 misinformation. Spotify, which owns exclusive rights to Mr. Rogan’s show, has been criticized as the platform for the misinformation.

Neil Young and Joni Mitchell removed their music from Spotify in protest. Now, a compilation of video clips of Mr. Rogan using a racial slur on past episodes has surfaced, drawing more outrage.

We look into the scandal engulfing the streaming platform and its most popular podcast host.

Guest: Kevin Roose, a technology columnist for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• Kevin explains why the challenges presented by this scandal aren’t going away.
• Listen to this episode of Popcast to delve deeper into the thorny questions raised about Spotify’s role as a platform.

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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. 

One by one, blue states across the United States have been rolling back their Covid-19 restrictions, going against C.D.C. guidelines that are still backed by the White House.

Why are governors in states like California, Illinois and New York taking those actions? And what do they say about the shifting politics of the pandemic?

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

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Background reading: 

• Democratic governors have been easing Covid rules in a loosely coordinated effort that is the result of months of public-health planning, back-channel discussions and political focus groups.
• The Biden administration said that federal masking guidance would not change for now, but officials are seeking advice from health experts on the way forward.

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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. 

Birds Aren’t Real, a conspiracy theory with an apparently absurd premise, has become surprisingly popular in the past few years.

But its followers were in on the joke: The movement’s aim was to poke fun at misinformation … by creating misinformation.

Has it been successful?

Guest: Taylor Lorenz, a former technology reporter for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• Among the outlandish claims of the Birds Aren’t Real movement: Our feathered friends are really U.S. government drones used to spy on Americans.

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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. 

If Russia invades Ukraine, it would be the largest and potentially deadliest military action in Europe since World War II.

So why is there so much division between the U.S. and its European allies over how seriously to take the threat?

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

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Background reading: 

• Biden administration officials told lawmakers that a large-scale Russian invasion could kill as many as 50,000 civilians and prompt a refugee crisis in Europe.
• U.S. and European leaders say that they are “absolutely united.” But are they?

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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. 

This episode contains depictions of violence

Almost two years ago, a shocking nine-minute video was released showing a Minneapolis police officer, Derek Chauvin, fatally kneeling on the neck of George Floyd.

Mr. Chauvin is now serving a long sentence for murder.

A few weeks ago, a trial began in the case of the three other officers who were on the scene that day. They are charged with violating Mr. Floyd’s civil rights during the arrest that caused his death.

Guest: Kim Barker, an enterprise reporter for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• The three former officers are accused of failing to intervene when they saw Mr. Chauvin using excessive force against Mr. Floyd.
• The case centers on a crucial issue in American policing: the duty of officers to act against colleagues when they witness misconduct.

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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. 

If you didn’t think poker and artificial intelligence could be bedfellows, think again. Keith Romer delves into the history of man’s pursuit of the perfect game of poker, and explains how the use of A.I. is altering how it is played: individuals using an algorithmic “solver program” to analyze potential weaknesses about themselves and their opponents, thus gaining an advantage.

While it feels futuristic, this desire to optimize poker isn’t new.

Are these new generations of A.I. tools merely a continuation of a longer pattern of technological innovation in poker, or does it mark an irreversible structural shift? One thing’s for certain: The stakes are high.

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

Reporters from The Times are joining athletes from around the world as they descend on Beijing for the 2022 Winter Olympics, where they are encountering the strictest and most wide-ranging health requirements ever attempted at an Olympic Games.

China’s leader, Xi Jinping, has made it his goal to keep the coronavirus out of the country as much as possible, and these requirements are an extension of his “zero Covid” strategy.

We ask what exactly is the zero-Covid strategy, and how long can it last? And we explore what life is like inside China’s Olympic superbubble.

Guest: Amy Qin, an international correspondent for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• Robots, swabs and a big gamble: One Times correspondent details what life is like inside Beijing’s Olympic bubble.
• China holds the line on “zero Covid,” but some wonder for how long.

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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 recent ISIS attack on a prison in northeastern Syria became the biggest confrontation between the terrorist group and the United States and its allied forces since 2019. The attack raises a question: Could the Islamic State group be on the cusp of a resurgence? 

We explore what the attack means, why the prison was so vulnerable in the first place and what has become of the thousands of fighters and families left behind after the fall of the Caliphate. 

Guest: Jane Arraf, the Baghdad bureau chief for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• The Islamic State may no longer be able to control territory, but the attack on a prison in northeastern Syria has shown that it can still pull off opportunistic military operations.

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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. 

Since the storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, a clearer picture has emerged of the steps that President Donald J. Trump and his allies took to try to keep him in power and overturn the 2020 election.

One of the biggest questions, however, has been how far was Mr. Trump willing to go in using the apparatus of the federal government to stay in power?

The Times has uncovered that in the weeks after Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory, Mr. Trump considered using the levers of the federal government to seize voting machines in swing states.

What exactly did Mr. Trump do, and will this revelation tip the scales of the congressional effort to hold him legally accountable?

Guest: Michael S. Schmidt, a Washington correspondent covering national security and federal investigations for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• New accounts show that Mr. Trump was more directly involved than previously known in plans developed by outside advisers to use national security agencies to seek evidence of fraud.
• The House Jan. 6 committee will look into efforts by Mr. Trump’s outside advisers to create a legal basis for national security agencies to help reverse his defeat in 2020, and it will investigate his involvement in those proposals. 

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

Inflation in the United States has been getting worse. In December, prices were up 7 percent from the previous year — the fastest rise in 40 years. 

Americans feel terrible about the economy, imperiling the Democratic Party’s chances of holding on to power in Washington in this year’s midterm elections.

While disruption caused by the pandemic is a key cause of higher prices — a situation that predates the Biden administration — a question remains: How much have the Democrats’ own policies contributed to the problem?

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

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Background reading: 

• Prices in the United States are rising rapidly, wages are growing and consumers are glum as a fraught economic moment poses big challenges for policymakers.
• President Biden is suffering in the polls as high inflation saps confidence in the economy, even as growth comes in strong.

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

America, it seems, might be at a turning point in how we think about and respond to the pandemic. Yet, the U.S., at this moment, is still in the midst of crisis — thousands of people are in hospital and dying every day.

In the second part of our exploration of the state of the pandemic, we speak with Dr. Anthony Fauci about the conditions under which we could learn to live with the virus and what the next stage of the pandemic looks like. 

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Background reading: 

• Dr. Anthony Fauci has cautioned against overconfidence but says the U.S. Omicron wave looks like it’s “going in the right direction” and that coronavirus cases could fall to manageable levels in the coming months.

For more information on today’s episode, visit 

nytimes.com/thedaily

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

Today, Maggie Jones explores the overlooked topic of geriatric sex. Profiling older couples for whom it is still important, she considers the obstacles and joys of having sex over the age of 70, and the way society has begun to talk more openly about it in recent years.

As bodies change, Jones writes, good sex in old age often requires reimagining and expanding: a conscious inclusion of more touching, kissing, erotic massage, oral sex and sex toys. Along with pleasure, other benefits are linked to sex: a stronger immune system, improved cognitive function, cardiovascular health in women and lower odds of prostate cancer, along with improved sleep, stress reduction and a cultivation of emotional intimacy.

The subset of older people who are having lots of sex well into their 80s could help shape those conversations and policies, while doctors can also do their part by attending to individuals’ physiological impediments to sex. Many sex experts expect more open conversations and policies related to their senior sex lives in the years to come.

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

During the pandemic, the price of beef shot up. Wholesale beef prices increased more than 40 percent — more than 70 percent for certain cuts of steak. 

The conventional wisdom was that price increases simply reflected the chaos that the coronavirus had caused in the supply chain. But there’s evidence that they were in fact a reflection of a more fundamental change in the meatpacking business.

We speak to ranchers about the consolidation of the industry and explore what it can show us about a transformation in the American economy — one much bigger than beef. 

Guest: Peter S. Goodman, a global economics correspondent for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• Despite record beef prices, ranchers aren’t cashing in — the result of years of consolidation. 

For more information on today’s episode, visit 

nytimes.com/thedaily

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

On Wednesday, it was revealed that Justice Stephen Breyer, the senior member of the Supreme Court’s liberal wing, will retire from the bench. 

Democrats, and many on the left, will have breathed a sigh of relief. His decision has given President Biden the chance to nominate a successor while Democrats control the Senate. 

We take a look at the legacy of Justice Breyer’s time on the court, why he chose to retire now and how President Biden might decide on his successor. 

Guest: Adam Liptak, a Supreme Court reporter 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: 

• Justice Breyer has announced that he will retire from the Supreme Court bench upon the confirmation of his successor.
• President Joe Biden and his legal team have spent a year preparing for this moment: the chance to make good on his pledge to name the first Black woman to the Supreme Court. 

For more information on today’s episode, visit 

nytimes.com/thedaily

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

It appears that the United States may be at a turning point in the pandemic. The contagiousness of the Omicron variant has many people resigned to the fact that they probably will be infected; this variant is, relative to its predecessors and in most cases, milder; and there is universal vaccine access for those old enough to receive a shot. 

So, The Times commissioned a poll of 4,400 Americans to discover how they are thinking about the pandemic and gauge how, and when, we might pivot to living with the virus. 

We explore the results of this poll — and the divides in opinion by age, vaccination status and politics. 

Guest: David Leonhardt, a senior writer for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• The two Covid Americas: You can read David Leonhardt’s analysis of a poll about attitudes toward the pandemic here. 

For more information on today’s episode, visit 

nytimes.com/thedaily

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

When allegations first emerged in November about parties held at 10 Downing Street, the residence and offices of the British prime minister, during a strict Covid lockdown, Prime Minister Boris Johnson waved them away. 

Yet in the weeks since, the scandal has only grown, with public outrage building as more instances and details of lockdown parties at Downing Street have emerged.

Some voters in Britain have long been willing to overlook the foibles of Mr. Johnson’s character, but this is a scandal that poses an existential threat to his leadership. 

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

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Background reading: 

• Boris Johnson’s future is in doubt after two humiliating apologies about parties while the country was under Covid restrictions. Here’s a guide to how he could be forced out, or fight on.
• Mr. Johnson, long famed for brushing off accusations of distortion or outright lying that seemed to only bolster his image as an incorrigible scamp, suddenly faces potential political death over the very charge to which he had seemed immune.

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. 

Marieke Vervoort was a champion Paralympic athlete from Belgium. In 2016, Vervoort, who had a progressive disease, announced her retirement from professional sports and spoke of her desire to undergo euthanasia.

Today, we hear Vervoort’s story from Lynsey Addario, a photojournalist who documented the end of her life.

“In most of my experiences covering Iraq and Afghanistan and Democratic Republic of Congo and Darfur, I’m photographing people who are trying not to die,” Lynsey said. “Marieke was the first person I had really met who wanted to die.”

Guest: Lynsey Addario, a photojournalist who spent three years with Marieke Vervoort.

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Background reading: 

• Knowing she had the legal right to die helped Marieke Vervoort live her life. It propelled her to medals at the Paralympics. But she could never get away from the pain.
• Lynsey Addario spent nearly three years photographing Vervoort as she prepared to die by choice. It became one of the most emotional assignments — and friendships — of her life.

For more information on today’s episode, visit 

nytimes.com/thedaily

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

What is “disgust”? Molly Young, a journalist with The New York Times, considers the evolutionary and social uses of this “universal aspect of life” to identify the impact of disgust in its physical, psychological and linguistic manifestations.

Young explains the different forms of disgust, analyzing how the reactions they elicit play out in the body and mind, and why it is in many ways cultural. She explains how disgust shapes our behavior, technology, relationships and even political leanings. It’s behind everyday purity rites; the reason we use toilet paper, wash our hands and hold cutlery; it has shadowed the rules that have governed emotion in every culture throughout time.

Charles Darwin, the scholar William Ian Miller, the research psychologist Paul Rozin and the philosopher Aurel Kolnai, among the many others who felt compelled, Young explained, to investigate this most primal emotion.

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

Novak Djokovic, the world No. 1 player in men’s tennis, had a lot at stake going into this year’s Australian Open. A win there would have made him the most decorated male tennis player in history. 

But he arrived in the country without having had a Covid-19 vaccination, flying in the face of Australia’s rules, and after a court battle he was ultimately deported.

In Australia, the “Djokovic affair” has become about a lot more than athletes and vaccines — it has prompted conversations about the country’s aggressive border policy, isolationism and treatment of migrants. 

Guest: Damien Cave, the Australia bureau chief for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• Prime Minister Scott Morrison latched on to the Djokovic case. But with an election looming, it’s not clear that it was a political winner.
• Novak Djokovic lost his bid to stay in Australia to a government determined to make him a symbol of unvaccinated celebrity entitlement; to an immigration law that gives godlike authority to border enforcement; and to a public outcry, in a nation of rule followers.

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

Microsoft announced this week that it was acquiring Activision Blizzard, the maker of video games such as Call of Duty and Candy Crush, in a deal valued at nearly $70 billion.

Microsoft, the owner of Xbox, said the acquisition was a step toward gaining a foothold in the metaverse.

But what exactly is the metaverse? And why are some of the biggest companies in the world spending billions of dollars to get involved?

Guest: Kevin Roose, a technology columnist 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: 

• Does the metaverse even exist? Here’s what you need to know.
• Video games are not merely entertainment anymore. They have become weapons that today’s technology titans wield to try to shape our future.
• The deal for Activision Blizzard would be Microsoft’s biggest ever, and one that places a major bet that people will be spending more and more time in the digital world.

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

It’s a big week in the Senate for voting rights. Democrats have two bills that include measures to bolster and protect elections.

But the bills are almost certain to fail.

Why has it proved almost impossible to pass legislation so integral to the agenda of President Biden and the Democrats?

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

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Background reading: 

• Here’s what to know about voting rights and the battle over elections.
• Democrats’ bid to force through a bill intended to offset state voting restrictions appeared destined to fall to a Republican filibuster.

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, Azmat Khan, an investigative reporter for The Times Magazine, told us the story of Basim Razzo, whose entire family was killed in a U.S.-led airstrike in Iraq. His story helped reveal how American air wars were resulting in a staggering number of civilian deaths.

Analyzing thousands of pages of U.S. military reports and investigating in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, Azmat was able to gain a better understanding of why this was happening.

Azmat Khan, an investigative reporter for The Times Magazine.

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Background reading: 

• The promise was a war waged by all-seeing drones and precision bombs. But Pentagon documents show flawed intelligence, faulty targeting, years of civilian deaths — and scant accountability.
• A trove of internal documents, combined with extensive reporting across the Middle East, reveals the tragic, disastrous failures of the U.S. military’s long-distance approach to warfare.

For more information on today’s episode, visit 

nytimes.com/thedaily

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

Elizabeth Weil, the author of today’s Sunday Read, writes that, in her marriage, there was a silent third spouse: California.

“The state was dramatic and a handful,” Weil writes. “But she was gorgeous, and she brought into our lives, through the natural world, all the treasure and magic we’d need.”

However, for Weil, there is internal conflict living in a state where wildfires have become the norm. She describes living through a discontinuity in which previously held logic fails to stand up to reality.

Today, Weil analyzes the sources of California’s crisis — from the impact of colonization and the systemic erasure of Indigenous practices to the significant loss of fire-management practices and critical dryness caused by global warming.

In California, as in much of the world, climate anxiety and climate futurism coalesce into trans-apocalyptic pessimism. But, in spite of the doom, Weil suggests the situation is not completely devoid of hope.

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

Sidney Poitier, who was Hollywood’s first Black matinee idol and who helped open the door for Black actors in the film industry, died last week. He was 94.

For Wesley Morris, a Times culture critic, it is Mr. Poitier — not John Wayne, Cary Grant or Marilyn Monroe — who is the greatest American movie star.

“His legacy is so much wider and deeper than the art itself,” Wesley said. “This man has managed to affect what we see, how we relate to people, who we think we are, who we should aspire to be. And if that’s not a sign of greatness, I don’t know what is.”

Guest: Wesley Morris, a critic at large for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• “The greatest American movie star is Sidney Poitier. You mean the greatest Black movie star? I don’t. Am I being controversial? Confrontational? Contrarian? No. I’m simply telling the truth.” Read Wesley’s tribute to Mr. Poitier.
• Sidney Poitier, who paved the way for Black actors in film, died last week at 94. 

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

As the highly infectious Omicron variant surged, a high-stakes battle played out between Mayor Lori Lightfoot of Chicago and the city’s teachers’ union about how to keep schools open and safe.

We chart this battle on the ground in Chicago, speaking with teachers, parents and students about the standoff.

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Background reading: 

• The deal between the city and the teachers’ union included provisions for additional testing and metrics that would close schools with major virus outbreaks
• As millions of U.S. students headed back to their desks, the coronavirus testing that was supposed to help keep classrooms open safely was itself being tested. In much of the country, things are not going well.

For more information on today’s episode, visit 

nytimes.com/thedaily

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

The diplomatic talks in Geneva this week are of a kind not seen in a long time: an effort to defuse the possibility of a major war in Europe.

President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has amassed military equipment and personnel on the border with Ukraine.

President Biden has warned that there will be consequences if Mr. Putin decides to invade, but what can Washington do to impel the Kremlin to back down?

Guest: David E. Sanger, a White House and national security correspondent for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• Russia and the United States expressed some optimism after negotiations in Geneva, but they did not break an impasse over Moscow’s demand that Ukraine never become a member of NATO.
• Can the West stop Russia from invading Ukraine? Here’s a guide to what’s at stake.

For more information on today’s episode, visit 

nytimes.com/thedaily

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

 The Omicron variant of the coronavirus has a reputation for causing mild illness, yet it’s fueling a staggering rise in hospitalizations across the country. 

In some of the early hot spots for the variant, emergency rooms are filling up, hospitals are being flooded with new patients and there aren’t enough staff to care for all of them. 

We explore why the Omicron surge is leading to hospitalizations and hear from doctors about what they are seeing, and why this surge feels different from the ones that came before. 

Guest: Emily Anthes, a reporter covering science and health for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• Covid hospitalizations are surging, though severe cases are a smaller share of the total than in previous waves. With staff shortages, some hospitals are still in crisis.
• In the cities where Omicron first drove a rapid rise in Covid cases, serious outcomes including I.C.U. stays and deaths are following case curves upward.

For more information on today’s episode, visit 

nytimes.com/thedaily

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

This year’s Golden Globes ceremony was muted. Instead of a celebrity-filled evening, broadcast on NBC, the results were live tweeted from a room in the Beverly Hilton. 

It was the culmination of years of controversy for the awards and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the organization behind them. 

Who are the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and how did one of the biggest awards shows get to this point?

Guest: Kyle Buchanan, a pop culture reporter and the awards season columnist for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• With the Hollywood Foreign Press Association mired in controversy, the 2022 awards ceremony was devoid of stars or cameras. Winners were announced via Twitter, and social media had a field day.
• Last year, the association, seen as colorful, generally harmless and not necessarily journalistically productive, faced a lawsuit and questions about its voting group.

For more information on today’s episode, visit 

nytimes.com/thedaily

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

In her new book, “The Myth of Closure: Ambiguous Loss in a Time of Pandemic and Change,” Pauline Boss considers what it means to reach “emotional closure” in a state of unnamable grief.

Hard to define, these grievances have been granted a new name: ambiguous loss. The death of a loved one, missing relatives, giving a child up for adoption, a lost friend — Boss teases out how one can mourn something that cannot always be described.

The pandemic has been rife with “ambiguous loss,” Boss argues. Milestones missed; friendships and romantic liaisons cooled; families prevented from bidding farewell to dying loved ones because of stringent hospital rules. A sense of “frozen grief” pervades great swathes of the global community. Boss believes that by rethinking and lending language to the nature of loss, we might get closer to understanding it.

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

After the election on Nov. 3, 2020, President J. Donald Trump and his allies tested the limits of the U.S. election system, launching pressure and legal campaigns in competitive states to have votes overturned — all the while exposing the system’s precariousness.

Although the efforts weren’t successful, they appear to have been only the beginning of a wider attack on American elections. In the final part of our Jan. 6 coverage, we explore the threats to democracy that may come to bear in the next election. 

Guest: Alexander Burns, a national political correspondent for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• The fight over American democracy and the fragility of good faith: Times political journalists talk about the Republicans’ push to restrict voting and seize control over elections, and how Democrats are responding.
• Here are four takeaways from the anniversary of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

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 aftermath of the 2020 election, Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming was the only Republican leader calling on President Donald Trump to move on from his efforts to overturn the results. Then, after the storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6, she gave a full-throated condemnation of what had happened and the rhetoric that facilitated it. 

A year later, while many of her party have backed down from criticizing the former president, she has remained steadfast — a conviction that’s cost her leadership position.

In the second part of our look at the legacy of the Capitol riot, we speak to Ms. Cheney about that day and its aftermath, the work of the Jan. 6 commission and the future of the Republican Party. 

Guest: Representative Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming and former No. 3 Republican in the House of Representatives. 

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Background reading: 

• The Jan. 6, 2021, assault has shaken the foundations of the Capitol, a symbol of American strength and unity, transforming how lawmakers view their surroundings and one another.
• A year after the Capitol riot, Donald Trump’s continued hold on the Republican Party shows, once again, that the former president can outlast almost any outrage cycle.

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

Who exactly joined the mob that, almost a year ago, on Jan. 6, breached the walls of the U.S. Capitol in a bid to halt the certification of President Biden’s election victory?

Members of far-right extremist groups were present but so too were also doctors, lawyers, substitute teachers and church deacons, many of whom had previously been nonpolitical. 

The question of why they were at the Capitol that day is hard to answer, but some of the most useful clues come from three F.B.I. interviews that have been released to the public.

Today, in the first of a three-part look at what happened on Jan. 6 and what it tells us about the state of American democracy, using voice actors, we bring one of those interviews to life — that of Robert Reeder, a father and delivery driver from suburban Maryland. 

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

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Background reading: 

• In recent weeks, with the anniversary of the riot looming, a few dozen investigators and members of Congress are rushing to dissect what led to the worst attack on the Capitol in centuries.
• A visual investigation into how a presidential rally turned into a Capitol rampage.

For more information on today’s episode, visit 

nytimes.com/thedaily

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

About a decade ago, companies began offering pregnant women tests that promised to detect rare genetic disorders in their fetuses.

The tests initially looked for Down syndrome and worked well, but later tests for rarer conditions did not. An investigation has found that the grave predictions made by those newer tests are usually incorrect.

We look at why the tests are so wrong and what can be done about it.

Guest: Sarah Kliff, an investigative reporter for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• In just over a decade, prenatal tests have gone from laboratory experiments to an industry that serves more than a third of the pregnant women in America. The grave predictions of rare genetic disorders made by newer tests, however, are usually wrong.

For more information on today’s episode, visit 

nytimes.com/thedaily

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

The Omicron variant is fueling record-breaking cases across the world and disrupting life. But it may not present as great a danger of hospitalization and severe illness as earlier variants. We explore why this is and what it means for the next stage of the pandemic.

Guest: Carl Zimmer, a science writer and author of the “Matter” column for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• New studies are providing the first indication of why the Omicron variant causes milder disease than previous versions of the coronavirus: It spares the lungs.
• The decision by U.S. health officials to shorten isolation periods for many infected with the coronavirus has drawn both tempered support and intense opposition from scientists.
• The growing consensus in nations with Omicron that the virus is moving too fast to catch is tempered by early evidence that the variant causes milder symptoms.

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.

With most natural disasters, the devastation is immediately apparent. But when a winter storm hit Texas, some of the damage was a lot less visible.

The stories of Iris Cantu, Suzanne Mitchell and Tumaini Criss showed the depth of the destruction.

Their lives were upended. The storm in February left their homes barely habitable, with collapsed ceilings and destroyed belongings, and it disrupted their children’s learning.

While the state investigated widespread blackouts from the storm, looking for accountability, the three women grappled with a more pressing question: How am I going to move forward with my life?

Today, we return to their stories.

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

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Background reading: 

• As the freak winter storm raged, historically marginalized communities were among the first to face power outages.

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.

The Good Shepherd Nursing Home in West Virginia lifted its coronavirus lockdown in February.

For months, residents had been confined to their rooms, unable to mix. But with everybody vaccinated, it was time to see one another again, albeit with rules on social distancing and mask wearing still in place.

There was Mass in the chapel, lunch in the dining room (decked out in Valentine’s Day decorations) and a favorite activity: the penny auction. Top prize? A tub of cheese puffs.

In March, we shared the home’s some of the relief and joy about the tiptoe back to normalcy. Today, we return to the home to see how life has changed.

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

Sign up here to get The Daily in your inbox each morning. And for an exclusive look at how the biggest stories on our show come together, subscribe to our newsletter. 

Background reading: 

• The happiness inside the Good Shepherd Nursing Home, after a nearly a year in lockdown.

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.

Dogecoin started out as a kind of inside joke in the world of cryptocurrency. However, earlier this year, it quickly became, for some, a very serious path to wealth.

Today, we return to the unlikely story of a 33-year-old who bought the cryptocurrency and became a millionaire in the process, to see what he has lost or gained in the time since.

Guest: Kevin Roose, a technology columnist for The New York Times. 

Sign up here to get The Daily in your inbox each morning. And for an exclusive look at how the biggest stories on our show come together, subscribe to our newsletter. 

Background reading: 

• Glauber Contessoto went looking for something that could change his fortunes overnight. He found it in a joke cryptocurrency.

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.

When Officer Harry Dunn reported for work at the Capitol on the morning of Jan. 6, he expected a day of relatively normal protests.

At noon, the mood shifted. He received calls over his radio that the demonstrations were becoming violent. When he took up position on the west side of the Capitol, he said he realized just how dangerous the situation had become.

Inside the building, after the walls were breached, Officer Dunn found a chaotic scene — one in which officers were overwhelmed and the waves of rioters seemed endless. He also encountered racism from the pro-Trump mob, as did many of his Black co-workers.

We hear from Officer Dunn about what happened that day from his perspective.

Guest: Officer Harry Dunn, a Capitol Police officer who was on duty during the storming of the Capitol.

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Background reading:

• “Black officers fought a different battle” on Jan. 6, Officer Harry Dunn said. Here is what he saw and heard when rioters, including white supremacists, stormed the Capitol.

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.

Bartenders, sous chefs, wait staff — back in August, managers in the U.S. hospitality industry were struggling to fill a range of roles at their establishments.

One owner of a gourmet burger restaurant in Houston said that before the pandemic, a job opening could easily get 100 applicants — but that was no longer the case; applications were in the single digits. “I had never seen it like this before in my career,” he told us. “I’ve been doing this for over 25 years.”

Managers blamed pandemic unemployment benefits for the dearth of job seekers. Employees said that the pandemic had opened their eyes to the realities of work.

Today, we return to the country’s labor shortage to find out why so many Americans have left their jobs, and whether the people we spoke to back in August are working again.

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Background reading: 

• Why is it so hard to hire right now? Experts weigh in on what’s going on in the labor market — and what companies can do to attract workers.
• The sharp rebound in hiring, especially in service industries, is widening opportunities and prompting employers to compete on pay.

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

A year that started with the mass introduction of Covid vaccines and the astonishing scenes of rioting at the Capitol is ending with concern about new virus variants and fears about the effects of a warming climate.

As we approach the end of the year, we listen back to more of the events that defined 2021.

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Background reading: 

• In a volatile year again dominated by politics and the pandemic, “The Daily” sought out personal stories. Here’s a look back on the episodes that our team can’t forget.

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

By the end of last year, if you needed a coronavirus test, you could get one. But when vaccines arrived, focus shifted.

Many of the vaccinated felt like they didn’t need tests and demand took a nosedive. Testing sites were closed or converted into vaccination sites. And Abbott Laboratories, a major test manufacturer, wound up destroying millions.

However, with the surge of the new Omicron variant, which is less susceptible to vaccines, demand for testing is back — and it is outstripping supply.

Guest: Sheryl Gay Stolberg, a Washington correspondent, covering health policy for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• President Biden came into office vowing to make coronavirus testing cheap and accessible, but matching supply with demand has been a persistent problem.

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

Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia was always going to be the last Democrat to get on board with President Biden’s $2.2 trillion climate, social spending and tax bill. But the White House was confident that a compromise could be reached.

On Sunday, that confidence was shattered: In an interview on Fox News, Mr. Manchin essentially declared that he could not support the bill as written, and he indicated that he was done negotiating all together.

Where does this leave Mr. Biden’s signature domestic policy goal?

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

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Background reading: 

• Mr. Manchin said on Sunday that he could not support the president’s signature bill, dooming his party’s drive to pass its marquee domestic policy legislation as written.
• Mr. Biden and his top aides have tried to salvage hopes of passing their domestic agenda, acknowledging that their only path forward is to repair a broken relationship with Mr. Manchin.

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 references to suicide and abuse that may be upsetting to some listeners.

A few months ago, we told the story of N, a teenager in Afghanistan whose family was trying to force her to marry a member of the Taliban. Her identity has been concealed for her safety.

N resisted, and her father and brother beat her, leading her to attempt suicide. Then she escaped.

This is what happened after she fled her family’s home.

Suicide Prevention Helplines: If you are having thoughts of suicide or are concerned that someone you know may be having those thoughts, in the United States call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255 (TALK) or go to SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for a list of additional resources. Go here for resources outside the United States.

Guest: Lynsea Garrison, a senior international producer for The Daily, spoke with N, a young woman whose life changed drastically after the fall of Kabul.

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Background reading: 

• Listen to part one of this story.
• Against all predictions, the Taliban took the Afghan capital in a matter of hours. This is the story of how it happened and what came after, by a reporter and photographer who witnessed it all.

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

Nearly a decade after the devastation of Hurricane Sandy, which destroyed piers and damaged riverside social housing projects, residents of Lower Manhattan are still vulnerable to floods.

Michael Kimmelman, The Times’s architecture critic, explores the nine-year effort to redesign Lower Manhattan in the wake of the hurricane, and the design and planning challenges that have made progress incremental. He goes inside a fight over how to protect the neighborhood in the future — revealing why renewal in the face of climate disaster is so complicated.

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

The Headway initiative is funded through grants from the Ford Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF), with Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors serving as a fiscal sponsor. The Woodcock Foundation is a funder of Headway’s public square.

The New York Times works with philanthropic organizations that share its belief that editorial independence is crucial to the power and value of its journalism. Funders have no control over the selection, focus of stories or the editing process and do not review stories before publication. The Times retains full editorial control of the Headway initiative.

The Omicron variant of the coronavirus is incredibly contagious — it is able to infect people with even greater frequency than the Delta variant, and it is skilled at evading the immune system’s defenses. Much is still unknown about the new variant, and scientists are racing to understand its threat. But amid the uncertainty, there’s good news about a prospective new virus treatment: A pill by Pfizer is effective in reducing people’s risk of hospitalization or death from Covid-19.

We explore these two developments and what they could mean for the next phase of the pandemic.

Guest: Carl Zimmer, a science writer and author of the “Matter” column for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• An Omicron surge is likely. Here’s what to expect.
• Pfizer announced that its Covid pill was found to stave off severe disease in a key clinical trial and that it is likely to work against the highly mutated Omicron variant of the virus.

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

Anti-abortion activists across the country are optimistic that they might be on the cusp of achieving a long-held goal of the movement: overturning Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that extended federal protections for abortion.

But many abortion rights activists are hopeful, too. They are watching closely to see whether the Food and Drug Administration will roll back restrictions on one medication, transforming abortion access across the country. Today, we explore the future of America’s abortion fight.

Guest: Pam Belluck, a health and science writer for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• Who gets abortions in America? Here’s what we know.
• During the pandemic, health care providers can send abortion medication by mail. Will the courts allow that to continue?

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

The economic situation in Afghanistan is perilous. Banks have run out of cash. In some areas, Afghans are selling their belongings in ad hoc flea markets. Parents wait around hospitals and clinics in the hopes of getting treatment for severely malnourished children.

We hear about what the unfolding crisis looks like on the ground, why the economy has deteriorated so quickly, and what role the United States has played.

Guest: Christina Goldbaum, a correspondent for The New York Times, based in Kabul.

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Background reading: 

• An estimated 22.8 million people — more than half of Afghanistan’s population — are expected to face potentially life-threatening food insecurity this winter. Many are already on the brink of catastrophe.

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, a group of men stormed the presidential compound in Haiti and assassinated the country’s president, Jovenel Moïse. Months later, the case remains unresolved.

Investigating the killing, the Times journalist Maria Abi-Habib found that Mr. Moïse had begun compiling a list of powerful Haitian businessmen and political figures involved in an intricate drug trafficking network.

Guest: Maria Abi-Habib, bureau chief for Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• Mr. Moïse took a number of steps to fight drug and arms smugglers. Some officials now fear he was killed 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. 

The Steele Dossier — compiled by Christopher Steele, a British former spy — was born out of opposition research on Donald J. Trump, then a presidential candidate, and his supposed links to Russia.

The document, full of salacious allegations, captured and cleaved America. But now, a main source of the dossier’s findings — Igor Danchenko, a Russian analyst — has been charged with lying to federal investigators.

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

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Background reading: 

• Mr. Trump and his backers say revelations about the Steele dossier show the Russia investigation was a “hoax.” That is not what the facts indicate.

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

In Memphis, as in America, the benefits of homeownership have not accrued equally across race.

Housing policy in the United States has leaned heavily on homeownership as a driver of household wealth since the middle of the last century, and, for many white Americans, property ownership has indeed yielded significant wealth. But Black families have largely been left behind, either unable to buy in the first place or hampered by risks that come with owning property.

Homeownership’s limitations are especially apparent in Black neighborhoods. Owner-occupied homes in predominantly African American neighborhoods are worth, on average, half as much as those in neighborhoods with no Black residents, according to a 2018 Brookings Institution and Gallup report that examined metropolitan areas.

For neighborhoods like Orange Mound in southeast Memphis, the solutions cannot come fast enough.

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

In November, Peng Shuai — one of China’s most popular tennis stars — took to Chinese social media to accuse Zhang Gaoli, who was a member of China’s seven-member ruling committee, of sexually assaulting her.

Within minutes, Chinese censors had taken down Ms. Peng’s post, and, for weeks, no one sees or hears from her.

We look at Ms. Peng’s story and what China’s attempts to censor her have meant for the sports industry.  

Guest: Matthew Futterman, a sports reporter for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• Chinese propaganda officials have tried to shape the global discussion of the tennis player Peng Shuai’s #MeToo accusations, but their top-down strategy has largely stumbled.
• The WTA has suspended its future tournaments in China and Hong Kong, as questions linger over Ms. Peng. What major sports are still in China amid the scandal?

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 about suicide deaths and strong language. 

A few years ago, a website about suicide appeared. On it, not only do people talk about wanting to die, but they share, at great length, how they are going to do it.

Times reporters were able to identify 45 people who killed themselves after spending time on the site, several of whom were minors. The true number is likely to be higher.

We go inside the Times investigation into the website, and ask how and why it is still allowed to operate.

If you are having thoughts of suicide or are concerned that someone you know may be having those thoughts, in the United States call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255 (TALK) or go to SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for a list of additional resources. Go here for resources outside the United States.

Guest: Megan Twohey, an investigative reporter for The New York Times; and Gabriel J.X. Dance, deputy investigations editor for The Times.

Background reading: 

• The Times investigation found that the suicide website had the trappings of social media, a young audience and explicit content that others don’t allow.

Sign up here to get The Daily in your inbox each morning. And for an exclusive look at how the biggest stories on our show come together, 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. 

The Russian military is on the move toward the border with Ukraine, with American intelligence suggesting that Moscow is preparing for an offensive involving some 175,000 troops.

Could the moves herald a full-scale invasion? And if so, what is driving President Vladimir V. Putin’s brinkmanship over Russia’s southwestern neighbor?

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

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Background reading: 

• There are tactical reasons for Russia’s threatening an invasion of Ukraine, but the real cause may lie in the Kremlin’s fixation with righting what it sees as a historical injustice.
• After eight years in the trenches, Ukrainian soldiers are resigned to the possibility that the Russian military, which dwarfs their own in power and wealth, will come sooner or later.
• In a tense meeting with Mr. Putin, President Biden said that a Russian invasion of Ukraine would result in heavy economic penalties.

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, after a shooting at Oxford High School in the suburbs of Detroit that left four teenagers dead, local prosecutors decided on a novel legal strategy that would extend criminal culpability beyond the 15-year-old accused of carrying out the attack. But could that strategy become a national model?

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

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Background reading: 

• Prosecutors say James and Jennifer Crumbley, the parents of the 15-year-old accused of killing four classmates, failed to act on troubling signs. The parents pleaded not guilty to involuntary manslaughter charges.
• After a manhunt and an arraignment, scrutiny of them has intensified.

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 self-harm and alleged sexual abuse.

When Jeffrey Epstein died by suicide in a federal jail, dozens of his alleged victims lost their chance to bring him to justice.

But the trial of his associate, Ghislaine Maxwell, on charges that she recruited, groomed and ultimately helped Mr. Epstein abuse young girls, may offer an opportunity to obtain a degree of reckoning.

We look into how Mr. Epstein was allowed to die, and ask whether justice is still possible for his accusers.

Guest: Benjamin Weiser, a reporter covering the Manhattan federal courts for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• Testimony at Ms. Maxwell’s sex-trafficking trial revealed a key question in the case: Were Ms. Maxwell and Mr. Epstein partners, or partners in crime?
• During the second day of the trial, a woman accused Ms. Maxwell of befriending her when she was a 14-year-old girl, only to join in the sexual abuse that followed

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

In her book, “My Body,” Emily Ratajkowski reflects on her fraught relationship with the huge number of photographs of her body that have come to define her life and career.

Some essays recount the author’s hustle as a young model who often found herself in troubling situations with powerful men; another is written as a long, venomous reply to an email from a photographer who has bragged of discovering her. Throughout, Ratajkowski is hoping to set the record straight: She is neither victim nor stooge, neither a cynical collaborator in the male agenda, as her critics have argued, nor some pop-feminist empoweree, as she herself once supposed.

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

Stephen Sondheim died last week at his home in Roxbury, Conn. He was 91.

For six decades, Mr. Sondheim, a composer-lyricist whose works include “Sweeney Todd” and “Into the Woods,” transformed musical theater into an art form as rich, complex and contradictory as life itself.

“For me, the loss that we see pouring out of Twitter right now and everywhere you look as people write about their memories of Sondheim is for that person who says yes, devoting yourself to writing or to dancing or to singing or to composing — or whatever it is — is a worthwhile life,” Jesse Green, The Times’s chief theater critic, said in today’s episode. “And there really is no one who says that as strongly in his life and in his work as Sondheim does.”

Today, we chart Mr. Sondheim’s career, influence and legacy. 

Guest: Jesse Green, the chief theater critic for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• With a childlike sense of discovery, Stephen Sondheim found the language to convey the beauty in harsh complexity.
• Mr. Sondheim was theater’s most revered and influential composer-lyricist of the last half of the 20th century, and he was the driving force behind some of Broadway’s most beloved and celebrated shows.

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

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court heard a case that was a frontal challenge to Roe v. Wade, the nearly 50-year-old decision that established a constitutional right to abortion.

The case in front of the justices was about a Mississippi law that bans abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

For the state to win, the court, which now has a conservative majority, would have to do real damage to the central tenet of the Roe ruling.

We explore the arguments presented in this case and how the justices on either side of the political spectrum responded to them. 

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

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Background reading: 

• After oral arguments, the Supreme Court seemed poised to uphold the Mississippi abortion law. Whether it will overrule Roe v. Wade remains unclear.
• Here’s what to know about the Mississippi law.

For more information on today’s episode, visit 

nytimes.com/thedaily

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

Amazon is constantly hiring. Data has shown that the company has had a turnover rate of about 150 percent a year.

For the founder, Jeff Bezos, worker retention was not important, and the company built systems that didn’t require skilled workers or extensive training — it could hire and lose people all of the time.

Amazon has been able to replenish its work force, but the pandemic has exposed the vulnerabilities of this approach.

We explore what the labor shortage has meant for Amazon and the people who work there. 

Guest: Karen Weise, a technology correspondent, based in Seattle for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• Each year, hundreds of thousands of workers churn through Amazon’s vast mechanism that hires, monitors, disciplines and fires. Amid the pandemic, the already strained system lurched.

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

The story of the Omicron variant began a week ago, when researchers in southern Africa detected a version of the coronavirus that carried 50 mutations. 

When scientists look at coronavirus mutations, they worry about three things: Is the new variant more contagious? Is it going to cause people to get sicker? And how will the vaccines work against it? 

We explore when we will get the answers to these three questions, and look at the discovery of the variant and the international response to it. 

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

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Background reading: 

• South African scientists have said that while they need more data to be sure, existing treatments and precautions seem to be effective against the Omicron variant.
• Mutations can work together to make a virus more fearsome, but they can also cancel one another out. This phenomenon, called epistasis, is why scientists are reluctant to speculate on Omicron.
• Almost two years into the pandemic, finger-pointing, lack of coordination, sparse information and fear are once again influencing policy.

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. 

Heading into deliberations in the trial of the three white men in Georgia accused of chasing down and killing Ahmaud Arbery, an unarmed Black man, it was not clear which way the jurors were leaning. 

In the end, the mostly white jury found all three men guilty of murder. We look at the prosecution’s decision not to make race a central tenet of their case, and how the verdict was reached. 

Guest: Richard Fausset, a correspondent based in Atlanta. 

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Background reading: 

• How a prosecutor addressed a mostly white jury and won a conviction in the Ahmaud Arbery case.
• “It’s good to see racism lose”: The murder convictions were praised by many. 

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 landslide re-election in 2019, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s control over India seemed impossible to challenge.

But a yearlong farmers’ protest against agricultural overhauls has done just that, forcing the Indian prime minister to back down.

How did the protesters succeed?

Guest: Emily Schmall, a South Asia correspondent for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• The protesters received foreign and domestic financial support, kept their camps organized and looked for ways to be seen while trying to avoid violence.
• How a bungled response to Covid and a struggling economy have hurt the governing party’s standing in India.

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 1950s and ’60s, the Tremé neighborhood of New Orleans, one of the oldest African-American neighborhoods in the United States, was a vibrant community.

But the construction of the Claiborne Expressway in the 1960s gutted the area.

The Biden administration has said that the trillion-dollar infrastructure package will address such historical wrongs.

How might that be achieved?

Guest: Audra D.S. Burch, a national correspondent for The New York Times. 

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Background reading: 

• Generations of New Orleans residents have dreamed of the day when the Claiborne Expressway might be removed. President Biden’s $1.2 trillion infrastructure package could eventually make that possible.

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.

On Aug. 25, 2020, Kyle Rittenhouse, a teenager, shot three men, two of them fatally, during street protests in Kenosha, Wis., over the shooting of a Black man by a white police officer.

Mr. Rittenhouse’s trial, which began on Nov. 1, revolved around a central question: Did his actions constitute self-defense under Wisconsin law?

Last week, a jury decided that they did, finding him not guilty on every count against him.

We look at key moments from the trial and at how the verdict was reached.

Guest: Julie Bosman, the Chicago bureau chief of The New York Times. 

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Background reading: 

• Mr. Rittenhouse’s acquittal pointed to the wide berth given to defendants who say they acted out of fear.
• The trial highlighted the deep division over gun rights 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. 

As the novel coronavirus spread and much of the world moved toward isolation, dream researchers began rushing to design studies and set up surveys that might allow them to access some of the most isolated places of all, the dreamscapes unfolding inside individual brains. The first thing almost everyone noticed was that for many people, their dream worlds seemed suddenly larger and more intense.

One study of more than 1,000 Italians living through strict lockdown found that some 60 percent were sleeping badly — before the pandemic, only a third of Italians reported trouble sleeping — and they were also remembering more of their dreams than during normal times and reporting that those dreams felt unusually real and emotional and bizarre.

Even social media sites, researchers found, were full of people surprised at how much more active and vivid their dream lives had become. “Is it just me?” many of them asked. It was not.

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

For three decades, President Aleksandr Lukashenko of Belarus, a former Soviet nation in Eastern Europe, ruled with an iron fist. But pressure has mounted on him in the past year and a half. After a contested election in 2020, the European Union enacted sanctions and refused to recognize his leadership.

In the hopes of bringing the bloc to the negotiating table, Mr. Lukashenko has engineered a migrant crisis on the Poland-Belarus border, where thousands from the Middle East, Africa and Asia have converged.

What are the conditions like for those at the border, and will Mr. Lukashenko’s political gamble reap his desired results? 

Guests: Monika Pronczuk, a reporter covering the European Union for The New York Times; and Anton Troianovski, the Moscow bureau chief for The New York Times. 

Sign up here to get The Daily in your inbox each morning. And for an exclusive look at how the biggest stories on our show come together, subscribe to our newsletter. 

Background reading: 

• Poland massed thousands of troops on its border with Belarus to keep out Middle Eastern migrants who have set up camp there, as Western officials accuse Belarus’s leader of intentionally trying to create a new migrant crisis in Europe.
• Belarusian authorities on Thursday cleared the encampments at the main border crossing into Poland, removing for the moment a major flashpoint that has raised tensions across the continent.

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. economy is doing better than many had anticipated. Some 80 percent of jobs lost during the pandemic have been regained, and people are making, and spending, more.

But Americans seem to feel terrible about the financial outlook.

Why the gap between reality and perception?

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

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Background reading: 

• American consumers express worry about inflation and are pessimistic about the direction of the country in general. But none of that is keeping them from spending.

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 Bucks County, Pa., what started out as a group of frustrated parents pushing for schools to reopen devolved over the course of a year and half into partisan disputes about America’s most divisive cultural issues.

But those arguments have caused many to overlook a central role of the Central Bucks School District’s board: providing quality education.

In Part 2 of our series on school board wars in the U.S., we look beyond the fighting and examine the pandemic’s harsh effects on teachers and pupils.

Guest: Campbell Robertson, a national correspondent for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• Republicans are heading into the 2022 midterm elections aiming to capitalize on the frustrations of suburban parents still reeling from the devastating fallout of pandemic-era schooling.
• The F.B.I. has begun to track threats against school administrators, teachers and board members to assess the extent of the problem.

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 new battleground has emerged in American politics: school boards. In these meetings, parents increasingly engage in heated — sometimes violent — fights over hot-button issues such as mask mandates and critical race theory.

Suddenly, the question of who sits on a school board has become a question about which version of America will prevail.

We visit the school board meeting in Central Bucks, Pa., an important county in national politics, where the meetings have been particularly wild.

Guest: Campbell Robertson, a national correspondent for The New York Times. 

Sign up here to get The Daily in your inbox each morning. And for an exclusive look at how the biggest stories on our show come together, subscribe to our newsletter. 

Background reading: 

• Since the spring, a steady tide of school board members across the country have nervously come forward with accounts of threats they have received from enraged local parents.
• Republicans are heading into the 2022 midterm elections with what they believe will be a highly effective political strategy capitalizing on the frustrations of suburban parents still reeling from the devastating fallout of pandemic-era schooling.

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 March 2019, workers inside an Air Force combat operations center in Qatar watched as an American F-15 attack jet dropped a large bomb into a group of women and children in Syria.

Assessing the damage, the workers found that there had been around 70 casualties, and a lawyer decided that it was a potential war crime.

We look at how the system that was designed to bring the airstrike to light, ended up keeping it hidden.

Guest: Dave Philipps, a national correspondent covering the military for The New York Times. 

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Background reading: 

• The military never conducted an independent investigation into a 2019 bombing on the last bastion of the Islamic State, despite concerns about a secretive commando force.

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

In 1980, when few Americans knew the meaning of toro and omakase, the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, the founder of the Unification Church, spoke to dozens of his followers in the Grand Ballroom of the New Yorker Hotel.

It was said Moon could see the future, visit you in dreams and speak with the spirit world, where Jesus and Buddha, Moses and Washington, caliphs and emperors and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and even God himself would all proclaim his greatness.

“You,” Moon later recalled telling his followers in the ballroom, “are the pioneers of the fishing business — the seafood business. Go forward, pioneer the way and bring back prosperity.” They did. Today a business they grew and shaped is arguably America’s only nationwide fresh-seafood company of any kind. It specializes in sushi, and its name is True World Foods.

One of Moon’s daughters, In Jin Moon, once asked in a sermon whether their movement really made a difference. “In an incredible way, we did,” she said: Her father created True World Foods. “When he initiated that project,” she went on, “nobody knew what sushi was or what eating raw fish was about.” Her father, she concluded, “got the world to love sushi.”

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

Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, described the current status of the pandemic in the United States as a “mixed bag” that is leaning more toward the positive than the negative.

But, he said, there is still more work to do.

In our conversation, he weighs in on vaccine mandates, booster shots and the end of the pandemic.

Guest: Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading expert on infectious diseases. 

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Background reading: 

• In a turnaround, the Food and Drug Administration is expected to grant Pfizer’s request to expand booster shot eligibility to all adults before the winter holiday season.
• This week, the Biden administration argued that the federal government had all the power it needed to require large employers to mandate vaccination of their workers against the virus — or to require those who refuse the shots to wear masks and submit to weekly testing.

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 the coronavirus hit the United States, the nation’s public health officials were in the front line, monitoring cases and calibrating rules to combat the spread.

From the start, however, there has been resistance. A Times investigation found that 100 new laws have since been passed that wrest power from public health officials.

What is the effect of those laws, and how might they affect the response to a future pandemic?

Guest: Mike Baker, the Seattle bureau chief for The New York Times. 

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Background reading: 

• State and local public health departments have endured not only the public’s fury, but also widespread staff defections, burnout, firings, unpredictable funding and a significant erosion in their authority to impose the health orders that were critical to America’s early response to the pandemic.

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 past year, a record 2,000 migrants from Africa have drowned trying to reach Spain.

Many of these migrants make the journey in rickety vessels, not much bigger than canoes, that often don’t stand up to strong currents.

What happens, then, when their bodies wash ashore?

This is the story of Martín Zamora, a 61-year-old father of seven, who has committed himself to returning the bodies of drowned migrants to their families. 

Guest: Nicholas Casey, the Madrid bureau chief for The New York Times. 

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Background reading: 

• Martín Zamora, the owner of a funeral parlor near Gibraltar, has found an unusual line of business among the relatives of migrants who drown trying to reach Europe: He collects the bodies of those who don’t make it to Spain alive. Read this article in Spanish here.

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 bipartisan win for President Biden, Democrats and Republicans have passed a trillion-dollar infrastructure plan. Now comes the difficult part — trying to win approval for a $2 trillion social spending bill.

For more moderate Democrats in swing districts, the vote will be among the toughest of the Biden era — and one that some fear could cost them their seats in next year’s midterms.

To gauge their concerns, we speak to one such lawmaker, Representative Abigail Spanberger of Virginia.

Guest: Representative Abigail Spanberger, Democrat of Virginia.

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Background reading: 

• After the Democrats’ poor performance in last week’s elections, Ms. Spanberger was critical of Mr. Biden’s sweeping agenda. “Nobody elected him to be F.D.R., they elected him to be normal and stop the chaos,” she said.

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. Supreme Court is gearing up to rule on an area of the law that it has been silent on for over a decade: the Second Amendment.

The case under consideration will help decide whether the right to bear arms extends beyond the home and into the streets.

The implications of the decision could be enormous. A quarter of the U.S. population lives in states whose laws might be affected.

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

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Background reading: 

• A New York law, which imposes strict limits on carrying guns in public, faced a skeptical reception from the Supreme Court last week. Their questions suggest that the law is unlikely to survive.

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

Like many other Americans, Jamie Lauren Keiles, the author of this week’s Sunday Read, bought their first motorcycle during the coronavirus pandemic.

“I thought I was just purchasing a mode of transportation — a way to get around without riding the train,” they wrote. “But after some time on the street with other riders, I started to suspect I’d signed up for a lot more.”

Jamie was aware of biker culture, but had decided that these tropes — choppers, leather jackets — “were all but contentless by now, mere tchotchkes on the wall in the T.G.I. Fridays of American individualism.”

However, Jamie was shocked to discover that not only did this strain of biker culture still exist, but that they existed within it. So, curious about what remained vital at its heart, Jamie set out for the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally.

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 strong language and scenes of violence.

Last summer, as the country reeled from the murder of George Floyd, another Black man, Jacob Blake, was shot by police in Kenosha, Wis. People took to the streets in Kenosha in protest and were soon met by civilians in militia gear — a confrontation that turned violent.

On the third night of protests, a white teenager shot and killed two people, and maimed a third. The gunman, Kyle Rittenhouse, became a symbol of the moment, called a terrorist by the left and a patriot by the right. Now, he’s on trial for those shootings.

Guest: Julie Bosman, the Chicago bureau chief of The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• Here are some of the takeaways from the trial so far.
• These are the events that led to Mr. Rittenhouse, now 18, standing trial in the fatal shootings of two men and the wounding of another in Kenosha, Wis.

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

On a major night of elections across the United States on Tuesday, the Republican Glenn Youngkin claimed an unexpected victory over his Democratic opponent, Terry McAuliffe, to win the governor’s race in Virginia.

As the night went on, it became clear that the contest in Virginia was not a singular event — Republicans were doing well in several unlikely places.

What do the results tell us about the current direction of American politics?

Guest: Alexander Burns, a national political correspondent for The New York Times. 

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Background reading: 

• Reeling from a barrage of unexpected losses, an array of Democrats have pleaded with President Biden and his party’s lawmakers to address the quality-of-life issues that plagued their candidates in Tuesday’s elections.

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 giant conference hall in Glasgow, leaders from around the world have gathered for the Conference of Parties to the United Nations Climate Change Convention, or COP26. This is the 26th such session.

Many say this may be the last chance to avoid climate disaster. Will anything change this time?

Guest: Somini Sengupta, the international climate reporter for The New York Times. 

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Background reading: 

• The opening day of the COP26 summit was heavy on dire warnings and light on substantive proposals.
• We have a live briefing from the conference, where the focus is now turning to behind-the-scenes talks and how to finance the different proposals to combat climate change.

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

Inflation in the United States is rising at its fastest rate so far this century. At 4 percent, according to one index, it is double the Federal Reserve’s target.

We look at why prices are on the rise and at the tense political moment they have created.

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

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Background reading: 

• Supply chain disruptions, a worker shortage and pain at the gasoline pump have made inflation an economic and political problem for the White House.
• Pressure is on the Federal Reserve and the Biden administration as they try to calibrate policy during a tumultuous period.

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 scenes of violence. 

Over the past five years, police officers in the United States have killed more than 400 unarmed drivers or passengers — a rate of more than one a week, a Times investigation has found.

Why are such cases so common, and why is the problem so hard to fix?

Guest: David D. Kirkpatrick, a national correspondent for The New York Times. 

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Background reading: 

• Officers, trained to presume danger, can react with outsize aggression during traffic stops — sometimes with fatal consequences.

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 past decade, the waters around Cape Cod have become host to one of the densest seasonal concentrations of adult white sharks in the world. Acoustic tagging data suggest the animals trickle into the region during lengthening days in May, increase in abundance throughout summer, peak in October and mostly depart by Thanksgiving.

To conservationists, the annual returns are a success story, but the phenomenon carries unusual public-safety implications.

Unlike many places where adult white sharks congregate, which tend to be remote islands, the sharks’ summer residency in New England overlaps with tourist season at one of the Northeast’s most-coveted recreational areas.

What will it take to keep people safe?

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

President Biden and Democratic leaders say they have an agreement on a historic social spending bill that they have spent months negotiating. But liberals in Congress demanded assurances that the package would survive before they would agree to an immediate vote on a separate $1 trillion infrastructure bill. Today, we explore why compromise remains a work in progress.

Guest: Emily Cochrane, a correspondent based in Washington.

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Background reading: 

• Congressional Democrats’ decision to delay a vote on the infrastructure bill left Mr. Biden empty-handed as he departed for Europe, where he had hoped to point to progress on both measures as proof that American democracy still works.

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 coming days, a trial will begin to determine whether the fatal shooting of Amaud Arbery, an unarmed Black man, by two armed white men is considered murder under Georgia state law. Today, we explore why that may be a difficult case for prosecutors to make.

Guest: Richard Fausset, a correspondent based in Atlanta who writes about the American South.

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Background reading: 

• Here’s a look at the major moments between Mr. Arbery’s killing in a Georgia suburb and the trial of three men charged with murder.
• A year after his killing in Georgia, Mr. Arbery’s death has sparked a bipartisan effort to remake the state’s 158-year-old citizen’s arrest law. But a potentially divisive trial awaits.

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

As congressional Democrats dramatically scale back the most ambitious social spending bill since the 1960s, they’re placing much of the blame on moderates who have demanded changes.

One senator, Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, has played an outsized role in shaping the bill — but has remained quiet about why. Today, we explore what brought her to this moment.

Guest: Reid J. Epstein, who covers campaigns and elections for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• How Senator Kyrsten Sinema has undergone a political metamorphosis.
• Progressive activists have adopted more aggressive tactics against Ms. Sinema and other centrist holdouts as they have blocked aspects of President Biden’s agenda.

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

When Democrats first set out to expand the social safety net, they envisioned a piece of legislation as transformational as what the party has achieved in the 1960s. In the process, they hoped that they’d win back the working-class voters the party had since lost.

But now that they’re on the brink of reaching a deal, the question is whether the enormous cuts and compromises they’ve made will make it impossible to fulfill either ambition.

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

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Background reading: 

• As Democrats ponder cutting a $3.5 trillion social safety net bill down to perhaps $2 trillion, a proposal to limit programs to the poor has rekindled a debate on the meaning of government itself.

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

Every once in a while a company grows so big and messy that governments fear what would happen to the broader economy if it were to fail. In China, Evergrande, a sprawling real estate developer, is that company.

Evergrande has the distinction of being the world’s most debt-saddled property developer and has been on life support for months. A steady drumbeat of bad news in recent weeks has accelerated what many experts warn is inevitable: failure.

But will the government let the company fail? And what would happen if it did?

Guest: Alexandra Stevenson, a business correspondent based in Hong Kong covering Chinese corporate giants.

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Background reading: 

• The property giant’s success mirrored the country’s transformation from an agrarian economy to one that embraced capitalism. Its struggles offer a glimpse of a new financial future.
• Evergrande isn’t the only Chinese real estate developer in trouble — another, Fantasia Holdings Group, recently missed a key payment to foreign bondholders, heightening the persistent fears of a coming crisis in China’s real estate sector.

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

On June 24, 2015, Dawn Dorland, an essayist and aspiring novelist, did perhaps the kindest, most consequential thing she might ever do in her life. She donated one of her kidneys — and elected to do it in a slightly unusual and particularly altruistic way. As a so-called nondirected donation, her kidney was not meant for anyone in particular, but for a recipient who may otherwise have no other living donor.

Several weeks before the surgery, Ms. Dorland decided to share her truth with others. She started a private Facebook group, inviting family and friends, including some fellow writers from GrubStreet, the Boston writing center where she had spent many years learning her craft.

After her surgery, she posted something to her group: a heartfelt letter she’d written to the final recipient of the surgical chain, whoever they may be. Ms. Dorland noticed some people she’d invited into the group hadn’t seemed to react to any of her posts. On July 20, she wrote an email to one of them: a writer named Sonya Larson.

A year later, Ms. Dorland learned that Ms. Larson had written a story about a woman who received a kidney. Ms. Larson told Ms. Dorland that it was “partially inspired” by how her imagination took off after learning of Ms. Dorland’s donation.

Art often draws inspiration from life — but what happens when it’s your life?

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

Before the Arab Spring, Seif al-Islam el-Qaddafi, the second son of the Libyan dictator Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, was establishing himself as a serious figure internationally. Then, the Arab Spring came to Libya.

His father and brothers were killed and Seif himself was captured by rebels and taken to the western mountains of Libya.

For years, rumors have surrounded the fate of Seif. Now he has re-emerged, touting political ambitions, but where has he been and what has he learned?

Guest: Robert F. Worth, a contributor to The New York Times Magazine. 

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Background reading: 

• In his first meeting with a foreign journalist in a decade, Seif al-Islam Qaddafi described his years in captivity — and hinted at a bid for Libya’s presidency.

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

Chicago is in the midst of a crime wave — but there is also a question about whether police officers will show up for work.

That’s because of a showdown between the mayor, Lori Lightfoot, and the police union over a coronavirus vaccine mandate.

Some 30,000 city workers are subject to the mandate, but no group has expressed more discontent than the police.

Guest: Julie Bosman, the Chicago bureau chief for The New York Times. 

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Background reading: 

• The clash over coronavirus shots in Chicago intensified last week, when the city filed a complaint against the police union.
• Across the United States, there is friction between city governments and law enforcement unions over vaccinations. 

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

The Clean Electricity Program has been at the heart of President Biden’s climate agenda since he took office.

But passage was always going to come down to a single senator: Joe Manchin of West Virginia.

With Mr. Manchin’s support now extremely unlikely, where does that leave American climate policy?

Guest: Coral Davenport, a correspondent covering energy and environmental policy for The New York Times. 

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Background reading: 

• Senator Joe Manchin, a Democrat from coal-rich West Virginia, has told the White House that he is firmly against one of the most powerful parts of President Biden’s climate agenda.
• Faced with the likely demise of the program, the White House and outraged lawmakers are scrambling to find alternatives.

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

Colin Powell, who in four decades of public service helped shape U.S. national security, died on Monday. He was 84.

Despite a stellar career, Mr. Powell had expressed a fear that he would be remembered for a single event: his role in leading his country to war in Iraq.

We look back on the achievements and setbacks of a trailblazing life. 

Guest: Robert Draper, writer for The New York Times Magazine and author of “To Start a War: How the Bush Administration Took America into Iraq.”

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Background reading: 

• Colin Powell was emblematic of the ability of minorities to use the military as a ladder of opportunity — one that eventually led him to the highest levels of government. He died of complications of Covid-19, his family said.

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

In 2020, Virginia epitomized the way in which Democrats took the White House and Congress — by turning moderate and swing counties.

But President Biden’s poll numbers have been waning, and in the coming race for governor, Republicans see an opportunity.

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

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Background reading: 

• Republicans in Virginia are saying what their nominee for governor, Glenn Youngkin, will not: The governor’s race is a proxy for Donald Trump’s grievances.
• Though Virginia is getting bluer, the former governor Terry McAuliffe is straining to motivate Democratic voters for his comeback attempt.
• After months of closed classrooms and lost learning time, Republicans are making schools the focus of their final push.

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 Hirshhorn Museum told Laurie Anderson that it wanted to put on a big, lavish retrospective of her work, she said no.

For one thing, she was busy and has been for roughly 50 years. Over the course of her incessant career, Ms. Anderson has done just about everything a creative person can do. She helped design an Olympics opening ceremony, served as the official artist in residence for NASA, made an opera out of “Moby-Dick” and played a concert for dogs at the Sydney Opera House. And she is still going.

On top of all this, Ms. Anderson had philosophical qualms about a retrospective. She is 74, which seems like a very normal age to stop and look back, and yet she seems determined, at all times, to keep moving forward.

This story was written by Sam Anderson 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, businesses of all sizes have faced delays, product shortages and rising costs linked to disruptions in the global supply chain. Consumers have been confronted with an experience rare in modern times: no stock available, and no idea when it will come in.

Our correspondent, Peter Goodman, went to one of the largest ports in the United States to witness the crisis up close. In this episode, he explains why this economic havoc might not be temporary — and could require a substantial refashioning of the world’s shipping infrastructure.

Guest: Peter Goodman, a global economics correspondent for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• An enduring traffic jam at the Port of Savannah reveals why the chaos in global shipping is likely to persist.
• This week, President Biden announced that major ports and companies, including Walmart, UPS and FedEx, would expand their working hours as his administration struggles to relieve growing backlogs in the global supply chains.

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.

A Times investigation has uncovered extraordinary levels of violence and lawlessness inside Rikers, New York City’s main jail complex. In this episode, we hear about one man’s recent experience there and ask why detainees in some buildings now have near-total control over entire units.

Guest: Jan Ransom, an investigative reporter for The Times focusing on criminal justice issues, spoke with Richard Brown, a man detained at Rikers.

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Background reading: 

• Here’s more reporting on how a staffing emergency has disrupted basic functions of the jail system, giving detainees at the Rikers Island jail complex free rein inside.
• Now, amid the chaos, women and transgender people are expected to be transferred.

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 a suicide attempt.

When the Taliban took over Afghanistan in August, our producer started making calls. With the help of colleagues, she contacted women in different cities and towns to find out how their lives had changed and what they were experiencing.

Then she heard from N, whose identity has been concealed for her safety.

This is the story of how one 18-year-old woman’s life has been transformed under Taliban rule.

Guest: Lynsea Garrison, a senior international producer for The Daily, spoke with N, a young woman whose life changed drastically after the fall of Kabul.

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Background reading: 

• “When we think about our future, we can’t see anything.” This is what some Afghan girls said when they were asked about life under the Taliban.
• Four Afghan women who sought refuge in the United States talk about their lives now and everything they gave up.

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

Many Americans pay more for child care than they do for their mortgages, even though the wages for those who provide the care are among the lowest in the United States.

Democrats see the issue as a fundamental market failure and are pushing a plan to bridge the gap with federal subsidies.

We went to Greensboro, N.C., to try to understand how big the problem is and to ask whether it is the job of the federal government to solve.

Guest: Jason DeParle, a senior writer for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• Democrats are moving to bring in the most significant expansion of the U.S. social safety net since the war on poverty in the 1960s, introducing legislation that would touch virtually every American’s life, from cradle to grave.
• Some fear the plan would raise taxes and create additional red tape on private services. Here’s more information about what the bill proposes.

For more information on today’s episode, visit 

nytimes.com/thedaily

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

An enormous infusion of money and effort will be needed to prepare the United States for the changes wrought by the climate crisis.

We visited towns in North Carolina that have been regularly hit by floods to confront a heartbreaking question: How does a community decide whether its homes are worth saving?

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

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Background reading: 

• For the first time, there is bipartisan acknowledgement — through actions, if not words — that the United States is unprepared for global warming and will need huge amounts of cash to cope.
• Homeowners in the Outer Banks of North Carolina are facing a tax increase of almost 50 percent to protect their homes. Is this the future of coastal towns?

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 past decade, Eric Coomer has helped make Dominion Voting Systems one of the largest providers of voting machines and software in the United States.

He was accustomed to working long days during the postelection certification process, but November 2020 was different.

President Trump was demanding recounts. His allies had spent months stoking fears of election fraud. And then, on Nov. 8, Sidney Powell, a lawyer representing the Trump campaign, appeared on Fox News and claimed, without evidence, that Dominion had an algorithm that switched votes from Trump to Joe Biden.

This is the story of how the 2020 election upended Mr. Coomer’s life.

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

The C.I.A. sent a short but explosive message last week to all of its stations and bases around the world.

The cable, which said dozens of sources had been arrested, killed or turned against the United States, highlights the struggle the agency is having as it works to recruit spies around the world. How did this deterioration occur?

Guest: Julian E. Barnes, a national security reporter for The New York Times. 

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Background reading: 

• Counterintelligence officials said in a top secret cable to all stations and bases around the world that too many of the people it recruits from other countries to spy for the U.S. are being lost.

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

The coronavirus seems to be in retreat in the United States, with the number of cases across the country down about 25 percent compared with a couple of weeks ago. Hospitalizations and deaths are also falling.

So, what stage are we in with the pandemic? And how will developments such as a new antiviral treatment and the availability of booster shots affect things?

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

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Background reading: 

• The authorization for booster shots applies to groups of people in the United States fully vaccinated with the Pfizer vaccine, but about 45 percent of the country’s fully inoculated people received Moderna or Johnson & Johnson doses.
• Merck said it would seek authorization for molnupiravir, an antiviral pill that the company says is effective against Covid. Experts said such treatments could be a powerful tool against the virus.
• Despite a fall in new cases, hospitalizations and deaths, public health officials said the pandemic remained a potent threat.

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 testimony of Frances Haugen on Tuesday was an eagerly awaited event.

Last month, Ms. Haugen, a former Facebook product manager, leaked internal company documents to The Wall Street Journal that exposed the social media giant’s inner workings.

How will Ms. Haugen’s insights shape the future of internet regulation?

Guest: Sheera Frenkel, a technology reporter for The New York Times. 

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Background reading: 

• Ms. Haugen told how Facebook deliberately made efforts to keep users — including children — hooked to its service.
• Here are other key takeaways from her testimony.

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

The latest term of the U.S. Supreme Court will include blockbuster cases on two of the most contentious topics in American life: abortion and gun rights.

The cases come at a time when the court has a majority of Republican appointees and as it battles accusations of politicization.

Why is the public perception of the court so important? And how deeply could the coming rulings affect the fabric of American society?

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

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Background reading: 

• The Supreme Court’s highly charged docket will test the leadership of Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., who has said that he prefers to guide the court toward consensus and incrementalism.

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

Ivermectin is a drug that emerged in the 1970s, used mainly for deworming horses and other livestock.

But during the pandemic, it has been falsely lauded in some corners as a kind of miracle cure for the coronavirus.

What is fueling the demand for a drug that the medical establishment has begged people not to take?

Guest: Emma Goldberg, a writer for The New York Times. 

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Background reading: 

• Public health warnings against using the anti-parasitic ivermectin as a treatment for Covid-19 appear to have made little progress in stemming its popularity in parts of the United States.
• Veterinarians, ranchers and farmers say they are struggling with the effects of the surging demand for the drug.

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, the author of today’s Sunday Read, had a bad pandemic.

“I began having my own personal hard time,” he writes. “The details aren’t important. Let’s just say, I felt as if I were moldering in place.”

Then, The New York Times Magazine offered him the opportunity to fly somewhere for its travel issue — at that point he had spent 17 months parenting two demanding children. So, he asked: “What if I drove to Spokane?” Jon had been curious about it for years.

Spokane, Wash., is the birthplace of Father’s Day, the hometown of Bing Crosby and a city with a sequence of wide, rocky waterfalls pouring through its center like a Cubist boulevard.

“I also knew that Spokane was a city with a history of minor-league baseball that stretched back more than a hundred years,” Jon writes. “A minor-league game felt like a manageable, belated step into the mid-pandemic lifestyle that people were calling post-pandemic life.”

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.

This episode contains strong language.

A month ago, Texas adopted a divisive law which effectively banned abortions in the state. Despite a number of legal challenges, the law has survived and is having an impact across state lines. 

Trust Women is abortion clinic in Oklahoma just three hours north of Dallas — one of the closest clinics Texas women can go to. 

On the day the Texas law came into effect, “it was like a light had been flipped,” said one of the workers who staffs the clinic’s phone lines. “We had everyone’s line lit up for almost eight hours straight.” 

We visit Trust Women and speak to workers and patients about the real-world impact of the most restrictive abortion law in the country. 

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Background reading: 

• The new Texas law prohibits abortions after about six weeks, a very early stage of pregnancy. Many women are now traveling out of state for the procedure.

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

The first year of a Congress is usually the best time for a president to put forward any sort of ambitious policy. For President Biden, whose control of Congress is fragile, the urgency is particularly intense.

But now members of his own party are threatening to block one big part of his agenda — his $1 trillion infrastructure plan — in the name of protecting an even bigger part.

We speak to Representative Pramila Jayapal of Washington State, the chairwoman of the  Progressive Caucus, about why she is willing to vote no on the infrastructure bill.

Guest: Emily Cochrane, a correspondent covering Congress for The New York Times; and Representative Pramila Jayapal, the chairwoman of the Progressive Caucus.  

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Background reading: 

• Democrats prepared legislation on Wednesday to avert a government shutdown, but they were desperately trying to salvage President Biden’s domestic agenda as conservative-leaning holdouts dug in against an ambitious $3.5 trillion bill that carries many of the party’s top priorities.

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

Britney Spears is one of the biggest celebrities on the planet — she makes millions of dollars performing, selling perfumes and appearing on television. At the same time, however, her life is heavily controlled by a conservatorship, which she has been living under for 13 years. 

Soon, a court will decide whether to remove Mr. Spears as conservator or terminate the conservatorship altogether. 

We explore the details of Ms. Spears’s conservatorship, the security apparatus that has surrounded it and its future. 

Guest: Liz Day, a reporter and supervising producer for the documentary television show, “The New York Times Presents.” 

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Background reading: 

• A former employee of the security team hired by Ms. Spears’s father gave the most detailed account yet of the singer’s life under 13 years of conservatorship.

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.

Brig. Gen. Khoshal Sadat, a former Afghan deputy minister for security, has held some of the highest ranks in the Afghan security forces and government. 

From the moment Afghanistan fell to the Taliban, the United States has put much of the blame of Afghan security forces — a force that President Biden said gave up without a fight.

“The reality is that we’re not cowards,” said General Sadat. “We did not lay our arms, we would not lay our arms based on military pressure.”

We speak to General Sadat about growing up under the Taliban, his career in the military and the future of Afghanistan. 

Guest: Brig. Gen. Khoshal Sadat, a former Afghan deputy minister for security.

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Background reading: 

• When General Sadat became the highest-ranking police official in Afghanistan, he tried to overhaul the country’s police with the American way of war. Read a profile of him 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. 

Increasing numbers of Haitian migrants have been traveling to the border town of Del Rio, Texas, recently, in the hope of entering the United States.

Border Patrol took action — in some cases, sending the migrants back to Haiti; in others, taking them into custody or releasing them as they await trial.

Why did so many thousands of Haitians come to the border in the first place? And what was behind the Biden administration’s reaction?

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

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Background reading: 

• The U.S. is flying migrants back to Haiti and other countries as President Biden struggles to manage an immigration system already buckling under record migration.
• Haitians who lived abroad for years have been returned to a country that they barely recognize — often, they say, without a hearing.

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

Throughout 2020, multiple strangers came at Monthanus Ratanapakdee seemingly out of nowhere. An old man yelled at her in Golden Gate Park — something about a virus and going back to her country. When she discussed these incidents, her father would ask, “Is it really that bad?”

Her father, Vicha Ratanapakdee, 84, was a lifelong Buddhist, the kind of person who embraced the world with open arms. During the coronavirus pandemic, he usually left the house before 8 a.m. and made it back before his grandsons started their Zoom classes.

This year, on the morning of Jan. 28, he headed out. A surveillance video captured what happened next. A tall figure suddenly darts across a street and slams into a much smaller one; the smaller figure crumples onto the pavement and doesn’t get back up.

Mr. Ratanapakdee's death helped awaken the nation to a rise in anti-Asian violence. For his grieving family, the reckoning hasn’t gone far enough.

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

After 16 years in power, Angela Merkel, the chancellor of Germany, is walking out of office one of the most popular politicians in the country.

In those years, Ms. Merkel has not only served as the leader of Germany, but also as a leader of Europe, facing down huge challenges — such as the eurozone and the refugee crises — all while providing a sense of stability.

As Germans head to the polls this weekend, the question is: who can lead Germany and Europe at a time when the world faces no fewer crises?

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

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Background reading: 

• The race to replace Chancellor Angela Merkel after 16 years in office is the tightest in years. But the two leading candidates are anything but exciting, and that’s how Germans like it.
• Olaf Scholz, a Social Democrat who is modeling himself as the candidate of continuity, has a fair shot at being Germany’s next chancellor.

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

New York, like many other states, is enmeshed in the process of redrawing legislative districts.

The outcome of the reconfiguring could be crucial in determining which party takes control of the House of Representatives next year.

Clearly aware of the stakes, New York Democrats are considering a tactic that is usually a preserve of the Republican Party: gerrymandering.

Guest: Nicholas Fandos, a political correspondent for The New York Times. 

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Background reading: 

• A bipartisan commission will examine two competing proposals for the redistricting of New York State. The failure to compromise may pave the way for Democrats to step in and knock out Republican congressional seats.

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

The recent U.S.-British deal to provide Australia with nuclear-powered submarines might look relatively inconsequential. But it signifies a close alliance between the three countries to face off against China.

It is also notable for another reason: It has greatly angered the French. Why?

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

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Background reading: 

• President Biden’s announcement of a deal to help Australia deploy nuclear-powered submarines has strained the Western alliance.
• The U.S. pact with Australia and Britain has put Europe closer to a question it has tried to avoid: Which side are you on?

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

When he visited the site of an American drone strike in Kabul, Matthieu Aikins, a Times journalist, knew something wasn’t adding up. He uncovered a story that was quite different from the one offered up by the United States military. 

We follow The Times’s investigation and how it forced the military to acknowledge that the drone attack was a mistake.

Guest: Matthieu Aikins, a writer based in Afghanistan for The New York Times. 

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Background reading: 

• U.S. officials said a Reaper drone followed a car for hours and then fired based on evidence it was carrying explosives for ISIS. But in-depth video analysis and interviews at the site cast doubt on that account.

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

Annie Correal, a reporter for The Times, has family in Indian Valley, in Northern California, roots which extend back to the 1950s.

This summer, as wildfires closed in on the area, she reported from her family’s property as they sought to fend off the flames — and investigated the divided opinions about what had caused the devastating blazes.

Guest: Annie Correal, a reporter covering New York City for The New York Times. 

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Background reading: 

• A beloved ranching community in Northern California faces destruction by America’s largest wildfire.

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

You have almost certainly heard Nicholas Britell’s music, even if you don’t know his name. More than any other contemporary composer, he appears to have the whole of music history at his command, shifting easily between vocabularies, often in the same film.

His most arresting scores tend to fuse both ends of his musical education. “Succession” is 18th-century court music married to heart-pounding beats; “Moonlight” chops and screws a classical piano-and-violin duet as if it’s a Three 6 Mafia track.

Britell’s C.V. reads like the setup for a comedy flick: a Harvard-educated, world-class pianist who studied psychology and once played in a moderately successful hip-hop band, who wound up managing portfolios on Wall Street.

That is until he started scoring movies, and quickly acquired Academy Award nominations.

“What I’ve found in the past,” said Jon Burlingame, a film-music historian, “is that people have found it impossible to incorporate such modern musical forms as hip-hop into dramatic underscore for films. When Nick did it in ‘Moonlight,’ I was frankly stunned. I didn’t think it was possible.”

This story was written by Jamie Fisher 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. 

“Six,” a revisionist feminist British pop musical about the wives of King Henry VIII, was shaping up to be a substantial hit on Broadway after finding success in London.

On its opening night, however, in March 2020, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced a shutdown of theater that would wind up lasting a year and a half.

We speak to the cast and crew of “Six” about the show’s path back to the stage and explore what it tells us about the trials of Broadway during the pandemic.

Guest: Michael Paulson, a theater reporter for The New York Times. 

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Background reading: 

• Determined to reopen, Broadway’s crews are dusting off spotlights, dancers are relearning steps, and everyone is testing for the coronavirus as theater seeks to rebound from the devastating pandemic.
• “Six” is a poignant example of what is at stake as New York theater reopens. Last year, Michael Paulson wrote about the making of the musical. 

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

When Elizabeth Holmes founded Theranos, the blood testing start-up, she was held up as one of the next great tech innovators.

But her company collapsed, and she was accused of lying about how well Theranos’s technology worked. Now she is on trial on fraud charges.

The case against Ms. Holmes is being held up as a referendum on the “fake it till you make it” culture of Silicon Valley, but it’s also about so much more.

Guest: Erin Griffith, a reporter covering technology start-ups and venture capital for The New York Times. 

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Background reading: 

• The trial of Ms. Holmes will cap a saga of Silicon Valley ambition and deception.

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 major turn of events in Mexico, which has one of the largest Catholic populations in the world, its Supreme Court last week decriminalized abortions.

The Supreme Court ruling is a milestone for Mexico’s feminist movement. But change might not come quickly: Abortion law is mostly administered at the state level in Mexico, much of the country remains culturally conservative, and many Mexican medical workers are morally opposed to abortion.

In a country where polls indicate most people don’t believe that abortion should be legal, what effect will the ruling have in practice?

Guest: Natalie Kitroeff, a correspondent covering Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean for The New York Times. 

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Background reading: 

• The Supreme Court’s decision to decriminalize abortion set a legal precedent for the nation. But applying it to all of Mexico’s states will be a long path. Read this article in Spanish here.
• Abortion may no longer be a crime, but a battle looms over whether public hospitals will be required to offer the procedure. Read this article in Spanish here.

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 law has sought to restrain nursing homes from trying to control the behavior of dementia patients with antipsychotic drugs, which are known to have adverse health effects. 

An alarming rise in schizophrenia diagnoses suggests some homes have found a way to skirt the rules.

We hear the story of David Blakeney, a dementia sufferer whose health declined rapidly after he was placed in a South Carolina nursing home.

Guest: Katie Thomas, a reporter covering the business of health care for The New York Times. 

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Background reading: 

• A Times investigation into the widespread use of antipsychotic drugs in nursing homes. 

For more information on today’s episode, visit 

nytimes.com/thedaily

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

As recently as a month ago, President Biden appeared to be skeptical about imposing coronavirus vaccine mandates. Now that skepticism has given way to a suite of policies that aim to force the hands of the unvaccinated.

What has changed?

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

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Background reading: 

• President Biden’s new vaccination efforts reflects the continuing and evolving threat the coronavirus pandemic poses to the economic recovery.
• Will Mr. Biden’s measures turn back a surging pandemic? The answer: Yes, in the longer term.

For more information on today’s episode, visit 

nytimes.com/thedaily

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

Two planes hijacked by Al Qaeda pierced the north and south towers of the World Trade Center. A third slammed into the Pentagon in Arlington, Va. A fourth crashed in an open field outside Shanksville, Pa. All in less than 90 minutes.

What, exactly, do you remember? What stories do you tell when a casual conversation morphs into a therapy session? What stories do you keep to yourself? And what instantly transports you back to that deceptively sunny Tuesday morning?

In a study of more than 3,000 people, what distinguished the memories of Sept. 11, when compared with ordinary autobiographical memories, was the extreme confidence that people had developed in their altered remembrances.

Dan Barry, a longtime Times reporter, remembered “the acrid smell of loss drifting uptown through the newsroom’s open windows. The landfill. The funerals.” Today, he shares an essay about the effects of time on those memories.

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

On the internet, there are bizarre subcultures filled with conspiracy theorists — those who believe the coronavirus is a hoax or that the 2020 election was stolen, or even that Hillary Clinton is a shape-shifting lizard. It’s a way of thinking that can be traced back to the first real internet blockbuster, a 9/11 conspiracy documentary called “Loose Change.” Today, we explore the film’s impact.

Guest: Kevin Roose, a technology columnist for The New York Times. 

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Background reading: 

• Twenty years after 9/11, “Loose Change,” a landmark film for conspiracy theorists, still casts a shadow over our information landscape.

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.

Terry Albury joined the F.B.I. just before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, drawn in by the bureau’s work fighting child exploitation. His role quickly changed after 9/11 however, and he subsequently spent over a decade working in counterterrorism.

Around 2015, he began to deeply question his work. “This is not what I joined the F.B.I. to do,” he recalled thinking.

His doubts about the bureau’s workings led him to leak classified information to journalists. Today, we hear his story.

Guest: Janet Reitman, a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine. 

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Background reading: 

• Here’s Janet Reitman’s profile of Mr. Albury, the first F.B.I. special agent since Robert Hanssen in 2001 to be convicted under the Espionage Act.

For more information on today’s episode, visit 

nytimes.com/thedaily

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

This summer was supposed to be, in the words of President Biden, the “summer of freedom” from the coronavirus. What we saw instead was the summer of the Delta variant.

The surge driven by Delta — which has seen rises in cases, hospitalizations and deaths across the United States — has underlined that we are far from being done with the pandemic.

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

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Background reading: 

• The Delta variant retreated unexpectedly in Britain and India but has begun to rebound. The United States may take an even bumpier path, according to scientists.
• Here’s what we know about booster shots — why Americans may need them and when they should get them.

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 Taliban took over Kabul, Afghanistan’s capital, last month, many have wondered what kind of rulers they will be.

The memory of the Taliban of the 1990s — the public executions, the whippings in the streets and the harsh rules preventing women from leaving the house unaccompanied — has filled some with fear.

This time around, what will their rule mean for ordinary Afghans?

Guest: Matthieu Aikins, a writer based in Afghanistan for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• Since the fall of Kabul, Taliban officials have been scrambling to take up the functions of government.
• When the last of the American troops left Afghanistan, the Taliban celebrated victory. But the scenes of triumph were clouded by the prospect of famine and financial collapse.

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 way, the new Texas law that has effectively banned abortions after six weeks is typical — many other Republican-led states have sought to ban abortions after six, 10 or 15 weeks. 

But where federal courts have routinely struck down other anti-abortion laws, the Texas legislation has gone into effect with the Supreme Court’s blessing. 

How has this law survived so far, and where does it leave abortion providers in the state?

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

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Background reading: 

• A Texas law that prohibits most abortions after six weeks was drafted with the goal of frustrating efforts to challenge it in federal court.

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

After Hurricane Ida hit New Orleans, leaving destruction in its wake, comparisons with Hurricane Katrina were made.

There are, however, big differences between the two disasters — namely that the city, in the 16 years since Katrina, has heavily invested in flood defenses. But on the ground, there is little cause for celebration.

What has happened in the aftermath of Ida and what does the increasing frequency of climate extremes mean for a city like New Orleans?

Guest: Richard Fausset, a correspondent covering the American South for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• Hurricane veterans were stunned by Ida. “It’s never been as bad as it is this time,” said Jesse Touro, who was rescued from Jean Lafitte after riding out storms in town for the past 12 years.
• As hundreds of thousands of people in Louisiana faced the prospect of punishingly hot weeks ahead without electricity, officials have urged those who had fled before the onslaught of Hurricane Ida to stay away indefinitely as the long slog of recovery begins.

For more information on today’s episode, visit 

nytimes.com/thedaily

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

The closure of schools because of the pandemic and the advent of widespread virtual learning has impacted students of all ages — but particularly the youngest children.

Research suggests that the learning missed during this period could have lasting impacts.

What is the educational cost of pandemic learning and how are schools trying to get children back to class amid the Delta variant?

Guest: Dana Goldstein, a national education correspondent for The New York Times. 

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Background reading: 

• What was supposed to be a new, relatively normal year has become a politicized, bewildering experience for many parents, students and educators.

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 night, after a 20-year war that claimed 170,000 lives, cost over $2 trillion and did not defeat the Taliban, the United States completed its withdrawal from Afghanistan. 

As the last of the American forces left under the cover of darkness, there was celebratory gunfire from the Taliban. The moment of exit, a day earlier than expected, was both historic and anticlimactic.

We explore what happened in the last few hours and days of the American occupation, and look at what it leaves behind. 

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

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Background reading: 

• The last American flight from Afghanistan left behind a host of unfulfilled promises and anxious questions about the country’s fate.

For more information on today’s episode, visit 

nytimes.com/thedaily

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

Almost from the moment Gavin Newsom was elected governor of California, there were attempts to remove him from office. Initially, a recall election against him seemed highly unlikely — but the pandemic has changed things.

What is behind the recall effort against Mr. Newsom, and what happens next?

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

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Background reading: 

• Some 22 million ballots have begun landing in the mailboxes of California voters ahead of the Sept. 14 election. Here’s what to know about the recall election.
• Can Mr. Newsom keep his job? The recall vote is expected to come down to whether Democrats can mobilize enough of the state’s enormous base to counteract Republican enthusiasm for the governor’s ouster.

For more information on today’s episode, visit 

nytimes.com/thedaily

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

Jeanne Calment lived her entire life in the South of France. She filled her days with leisurely pursuits, enjoying a glass of port, a cigarette and some chocolate nearly every day. In 1997, Ms. Calment died. She was 122.

With medical and social advances mitigating diseases of old age and prolonging life, the number of exceptionally long-living people is increasing sharply. But no one is known to have matched, let alone surpassed, Ms. Calment’s record.

Longevity scientists hold a wide range of nuanced perspectives on the future of humanity. Some consider life span to be like a candle wick, burning for a limited time. While others view it as a supremely, maybe even infinitely elastic band.

As the eminent physicist Richard Feynman put it in a 1964 lecture, “There is nothing in biology yet found that indicates the inevitability of death.”

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

For days, many dreaded an attack on Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, as Western forces scrambled to evacuate tens of thousands of people from Afghanistan. On Thursday, those fears were realized — amid the large crowds outside the airport, terrorists carried out two suicide bombings. The attacks killed at least 60 people, including 13 United States service members.

ISIS-K, a branch of the Islamic State in Afghanistan, has claimed responsibility.

Will these attacks be the effective end of the U.S. evacuation effort and where does this leave the Afghanistan mission?

Guest: Matthieu Aikins, a writer based in Afghanistan for The New York Times. 

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Background reading: 

• The U.S. and its allies waged war for 20 years to try to defeat terrorists in Afghanistan. A double suicide bombing demonstrated that they remain a threat.
• A map of where the bombers struck at the airport in Kabul.
• President Biden said the evacuation of U.S. citizens and allies from Afghanistan would continue, even after the attacks. 

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 in the Biden administration, it rolled out a two-pronged migration plan: A reversal of the most punitive elements of Donald Trump’s policy and rooting out the causes of migration from Central America, namely corruption.

There is, however, a conflict at the heart of this approach. Calling out corrupt leaders could destabilize nations and encourage migration in the short term.

We explore the calculus of the Biden administration’s migration policy. 

Guest: Natalie Kitroeff, a correspondent covering Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• President Biden promised to attack corruption in Central America head on, but that goal has taken a back seat to cooperating on stopping migrants from the region.

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 fall of Kabul to the Taliban last week, everything and everyone has been focused on Hamid Karzai International Airport and the massive military operation to get thousands of Americans and Afghan allies out of the country.

It is a monumental challenge — one of the biggest and most complicated military operations the Pentagon has had to deal with in decades.

We explore these complexities and the challenges being faced by the U.S. as it attempts to evacuate the city. 

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

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Background reading: 

• The American withdrawal has coincided with a threat by the Taliban to stop Afghans from traveling to the airport, an ominous sign that the window may be slamming shut for thousands of people desperate to leave.
• The military has ramped up evacuations, increasing the number of flights out of Kabul, but questions remain about whether the military can sustain the pace as the deadline to end the operation draws near.

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, Mexico has been gripped by horrific violence as drug cartels battle each other and kill civilians. In the last 15 years alone, homicides have tripled. The violence, the Mexican government says, is fueled, in part, by American guns. 

Now Mexico is bringing a lawsuit against 10 gun manufacturers in a U.S. federal court, accusing them of knowingly facilitating the sale of guns to drug cartels in the country. 

How did the situation get to this point, and what arguments are being mounted by the Mexican government?

Guest: Natalie Kitroeff, a correspondent covering Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean for The New York Times. 

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Background reading: 

• For years, Mexican officials have complained that lax U.S. gun control was responsible for devastating bloodshed in Mexico. Earlier this month, they moved their campaign into American courts. 

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

As the number of coronavirus infections in the United States surges, and school districts begin to reopen for in-person learning, some parents are apprehensive and full of questions.

Recently, The Daily asked parents to send in their queries about children and Covid. We received about 600 responses.

With the help of Emily Anthes, a reporter who covers the coronavirus, we try to provide some answers.

Guest: Emily Anthes, a health and science reporter for The New York Times. 

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Background reading: 

• With the spread of the Delta variant of the coronavirus, classrooms are opening their doors to a different pandemic. Here is how to think about risk.
• What was supposed to be a new, relatively normal year has become a politicized, bewildering experience for many parents, students and educators.

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

In 2002, a survey revealed there were just 1.6 Sumatran tigers per 100 square kilometers in Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park, one of the last habitats for the critically endangered animal. In the fall of 2015, however, research suggested that the numbers had significantly improved: 2.8 tigers per 100 square kilometers.

When Matt Leggett, a newly hired senior adviser for the Wildlife Conservation Society, looked at the data sets, satellite maps and spatial distribution grids, he couldn’t help noticing the forest. It seemed to be getting smaller.

Matt wondered: Were the people looking at the same maps he was? Was he crazy? He was not crazy.

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

Two years ago, a multipart Times investigation highlighted an epidemic of child sexual abuse material which relied on platforms run by the world’s largest technology companies.

Last week, Apple revealed its solution — a suite of tools which includes an update to the iPhone’s operating system that allows for the scanning of photographs.

That solution, however, has ignited a firestorm over privacy in Silicon Valley.

Guest: Jack Nicas, a technology reporter for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• Are Apple’s new tools against child abuse bad for privacy? The backlash to the company’s efforts shows that in the debate between privacy and security, there are few easy answers.

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.

Weeks ago, as the Taliban undertook a major military offensive in Afghanistan, the U.S. accelerated its evacuation of Afghans who aided them and feared retribution. 

Many, however, remain in the country. 

“I hope we do right by these people, but I hope we do it quickly,” Andrew Vernon, said a former Marine who has sought help for an interpreter he worked with. “But I am fully prepared to be fully disappointed as well.”

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Background reading: 

• Through WhatsApp and Facebook messages, Afghans who served as interpreters are asking former colleagues in America to get them out as the Taliban close in.
• Many of those who worked alongside U.S. troops have waited years for visas to come to the United States. The speedy withdrawal of forces left most of them behind.

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, a major earthquake hit Haiti. It is the second crisis to befall the Caribbean nation is just over a month — its president was assassinated in July.

The earthquake’s aftermath has been dire, with little help getting through to those most affected. 

We hear what life has been like for Haitians reeling from the destruction. 

Guest: Maria Abi-Habib, the bureau chief for Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean for The New York Times. 

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Background reading: 

• The earthquake that struck Haiti on Saturday morning was stronger than the one that devastated the country in 2010. Here’s what to know about the quake.
• For many Haitians, their only source of aid throughout their lives has been the church. After the earthquake, many of those churches are in ruins.  

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 few days in Afghanistan have been chaotic as the Taliban retake control of the country.

The debacle can be traced to a number of assumptions that guided the execution of the U.S. withdrawal from the country after two decades of war.

How could those assumptions have proved so wrong, so quickly?

Guest: David E. Sanger, a White House and national security correspondent for The New York Times.

Sign up here to get The Daily in your inbox each morning. And for an exclusive look at how the biggest stories on our show come together, subscribe to our newsletter. 

Background reading: 

• An Afghan military that did not believe in itself and a U.S. effort that President Biden, and most Americans, no longer believed in brought an ignoble end to the United States’ longest war.
• A takeover of the whole of Afghanistan was all but absolute as the government collapsed and the U.S. rushed through a frenzied evacuation.

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. 

On Sunday, the president of Afghanistan fled the country; the Taliban seized control of Kabul, the capital; and the American-backed government collapsed.

One outspoken critic of the Taliban — a 33-year-old Kabul resident who asked that we refer to her by the initial R for fear of retaliation — shared her experiences as the insurgents closed in.

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Background reading: 

• Kabul fell to the Taliban far faster than many had imagined it would, leaving most Afghans with no way out.
• The Afghan military was built over 20 years. How did it collapse so quickly?

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

In 2019, Emily Bazelon, a staff writer for The New York Times Magazine, began communicating with Yutico Briley, an inmate at a prison in Jackson, La.

Mr. Briley first reached out to Ms. Bazelon after hearing her on the radio talking about “Charges,” her book on how prosecutors have historically used their power to increase incarceration.

At age 19, Mr. Briley was imprisoned and sentenced to 60 years without the possibility of parole, in part, for a robbery he said he did not commit.

Ms. Bazelon decided to become involved in his case in a way that she had never done before.

This story was written by Emily Bazelon 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. 
 

A major new United Nations scientific report has concluded that countries and corporations have delayed curbing fossil-fuel emissions for so long that we can no longer stop the impact of climate change from intensifying over the coming decades. In short, the climate crisis has arrived, and it’s going to get worse before it can get better.

In this episode, we explore the main takeaways from the report — including what needs to happen in the narrowing window of climate opportunity to avoid the most devastating outcomes.

Guest: Henry Fountain, a reporter covering climate for The New York Times

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Background reading: 

• Here are the key takeaways from the report, including how we know human influence has “unequivocally” warmed the planet.
• For the next 30 years or longer, there will be more, hotter heat waves, longer and more intense droughts, and more episodes of heavy downpours that result in flooding.

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

On Tuesday, the United States Senate approved a $1 trillion infrastructure bill — the largest single infusion of federal funds into infrastructure projects in more than a decade. It was a bipartisan vote, with 19 Republicans voting alongside the Democrats. 

Soon after, the Senate passed a more expansive budget plan  — this time along party lines. 

What do these two votes tell us about how Washington is working today?

Guest: Emily Cochrane, a reporter covering Congress for The New York Times. 

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Background reading: 

• Approval for the $1 trillion infrastructure bill came after months of negotiations and despite deficit concerns, reflecting an appetite in both parties for the long-awaited spending package.
• The blueprint for a $3.5 trillion budget, with scope to expand health care, provide free preschool and community college and fund climate change programs, passed along party lines and faces an arduous path ahead.

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

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York announced yesterday that he would resign from office, exactly one week after a searing report found that he sexually harassed 11 women.

What convinced him to step aside, how did the scandal bring about such a rapid and astonishing reversal of fortune for one of the nation’s best-known leaders, and what happens next?

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

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Background reading: 

• Last week, the release of a 165-page report by the New York State attorney general prompted multiple calls for Mr. Cuomo to resign, including from President Biden, a longtime ally of the governor.
• Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, will be sworn in to replace Mr. Cuomo, becoming the first woman in New York history to occupy the state’s top office.
• Read the transcript of Mr. Cuomo’s resignation speech, and follow the latest updates since his announcement.

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

The Taliban have made big moves in the last few days in their bid to take control of Afghanistan. 

This weekend, they seized several cities and suddenly claimed a lot of the north. On Monday, they took another provincial capital. 

What is the Taliban’s strategy, what will the United States do, and where does this leave the Afghan government?

Guest: Carlotta Gall, the Istanbul bureau chief for The New York Times. She previously reported from Afghanistan and Pakistan from 2001 to 2011. 

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Background reading: 

• The seizure of five Afghan capitals has amplified fears about the nation’s future after the U.S. withdrawal.
• What to know about the war in Afghanistan — how it started and how it is ending.

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

To ensure students’ safe return to in-person learning amid a surge in the Delta variant of the coronavirus, some school districts plan to institute mask mandates.

Yet that move isn’t necessarily straightforward — several of the country’s hardest-hit states have banned such mandates.

We look at how this conflict is playing out in Arkansas. 

Guest: Richard Fausset, a correspondent covering the American South for The New York Times. 

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Background reading: 

• Gov. Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas signed a law banning mask mandates early this year. Now, he wants to unravel it, reflecting a dilemma for Republican governors across the South, where the health crisis has deepened.
• School officials in Florida and Arizona say they intend to require students and teachers to wear masks in school, despite statewide bans on such policies.

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

For much of America’s history, a person with a disability had few civil rights related to their disability. That began to change when, in the 1980s, a group of lawmakers started to agitate for sweeping civil rights legislation.

The result of their efforts was the Americans With Disabilities Act, or A.D.A.

Albert Dytch, a 71-year-old man with muscular dystrophy, has filed more than 180 A.D.A. lawsuits in California. Is it profiteering — or justice?

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

Don, a 38-year-old single father from Pittsburgh, doesn’t want to be lumped into the “crazy anti-vax crowd.”

Jeannie, a middle school teacher, has never vaccinated her teenage son and says she won’t start now.

Lyndsey, from Florida, regrets having not had her late grandmother vaccinated against Covid-19.

With the Delta variant of the coronavirus raging, we hear from some Americans who have decided not to get vaccinated. 

Guest: Jan Hoffman, a reporter covering behavioral health and health law for The New York Time; and Sophie Kasakove, a reporting fellow for The Times’s National Desk. 

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Background reading: 

• Who are the unvaccinated in America? There’s no single answer.

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 harassment.

After accusations of sexual harassment against Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York surfaced early this year, an independent investigation was begun.

And while people around the governor — and his critics — expected the ensuing report to be bad, what came out this week was worse.

There have been widespread calls for Mr. Cuomo to resign, but will he go?

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

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Background reading: 

• Investigators into sexual harassment by Mr. Cuomo said they had corroborated the claims of 11 women who accused the governor of inappropriate behavior, including suggestive comments and instances of groping.
• A new account of sexual harassment by Mr. Cuomo from a state trooper bolsters a meticulous new report on his misdeeds — and how his inner circle allowed such conduct to fester.
• In the wake of the report, the New York governor has been met with consequential defections from core constituencies, including labor, white suburban lawmakers and Black political leaders.

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

Tunisia was supposed to be the success story of the Arab Spring — the only democracy to last in the decade since revolutions swept the region.

Recently, after mass protests, President Kais Saied appears to be taking the reins of power for himself.

What happened? We hear from Mr. Saied and citizens of Tunisia on the ground. 

Guest: Vivian Yee, the Cairo bureau chief for The New York Times. 

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Background reading: 

• Why is Tunisia’s promise of democracy struggling to bear fruit?
• In the days since their president staged a power grab, threatening their young democracy, many Tunisians are banking on the hope that things cannot get much worse.
• “Why do you think that, at 67, I would start a career as a dictator?” In a conversation with Vivian Yee, President Kais Saied vowed to preserve hard-fought rights.

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. 

Bartenders, sous chefs, wait staff — at the moment, managers in the U.S. hospitality industry are struggling to fill a range of roles at their establishments.

Managers blame pandemic unemployment benefits for the dearth of talent. Employees say that the pandemic has opened their eyes to the realities of work.

We spoke to workers and managers about why it has become so hard to get some staff back to work.

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Background reading: 

• Why is it so hard to hire right now? Experts weigh in on what’s going on in the labor market — and what companies can do to attract workers.
• The sharp rebound in hiring, especially in service industries, is widening opportunities and prompting employers to compete on pay.

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

Recent data from the C.D.C. has found that not only can vaccinated people get infected with the Delta variant of the coronavirus, though instances are rare, but they also can potentially spread the virus just as much as an unvaccinated person.

What are the practical implications of this new information?

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

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Background reading: 

• A recent report from the C.D.C. strongly suggested that fully immunized people with so-called breakthrough infections of the Delta variant can spread the virus to others just as readily as unvaccinated people.
• According to an internal C.D.C. presentation, the Delta variant is much more contagious, more likely to break through protections afforded by the vaccines and may cause more severe disease than other known versions of the virus.

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

Activists slammed the TV show “In the Dark” for casting a sighted actress in a blind lead role. But what if blindness is a performance of its own?

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

You’ve heard the 1619 podcast right here on The Daily. And we’ve covered the backlash to the 1619 Project and the battle over critical race theory that followed. In this interview, Ezra Klein, an Opinion columnist at The New York Times and host of The Ezra Klein Show, speaks with Nikole Hannah-Jones and Ta-Nehisi Coates about these skirmishes, and how they have gripped our national discourse. At the heart of the conversation in this episode is the question: How do we understand American history?

Each Tuesday and Friday for New York Times Opinion, Ezra Klein invites you into a conversation on something that matters. Subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. 

This episode contains mentions of sexual abuse.

Simone Biles, 24, showed up on the national stage at 16, when she competed in and won the national championships. She equally impressed at her first Olympics, in 2016 in Rio.

Going into the Tokyo Games this year, Ms. Biles — who is considered one of the greatest gymnasts of all time — was expected to win the all-around. So she shocked many this week when she pulled out of the competition.

What prompted her decision?

Guest: Juliet Macur, a sports reporter for The New York Times. 

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Background reading: 

• Ms. Biles was widely embraced as the latest elite athlete who had the courage to acknowledge her vulnerability. In pulling out of the Olympics, she rejected a long tradition of stoicism in sports.
• By withdrawing from competition citing concerns over her mental health, Ms. Biles showed that resisting expectations could be more powerful than persisting through them.

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, nuclear weapons did not figure prominently in China’s military planning. However, recent satellite images suggest that the country may be looking to quintuple its nuclear arsenal. 

Why is China changing strategy now?

Guest: David E. Sanger, a White House and national security correspondent for The New York Times. 

Sign up here to get The Daily in your inbox each morning. And for an exclusive look at how the biggest stories on our show come together, subscribe to our newsletter. 

Background reading: 

• Is China scrapping its “minimum deterrent” strategy and joining an arms race? Or is it merely looking to create a negotiating card?

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.

The first hearing of the special congressional committee on the Jan. 6 riots was an emotional affair, but it was not quite the investigation that was originally envisaged.

In January, lawmakers on both sides spoke of putting aside partisanship and organizing an investigation akin to the 9/11 commission, considered the gold standard of nonpartisan fact-finding.

Why did the commission fail and what is taking place instead?

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

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Background reading: 

• “A hit man sent them.” Police officers at the Capitol recounted the horrors of Jan. 6 on the first day of the House committee investigation into the event.
• In remarks before the hearing, Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the House minority leader, said Republicans wanted the focus of the inquiry to be on the lack of preparation for the violence and ways to prevent future attacks.

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 effort to raise America’s vaccination rate, some agencies and private organizations have turned to the last, and most controversial, weapon in the public health arsenal: vaccine mandates.

How have the federal government and the White House approached the issue?

Guest: Jennifer Steinhauer, a Washington reporter for The New York Times. 

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Background reading: 

• California and New York City will require vaccinations or tests for their employees, while the Department of Veterans Affairs said frontline health care workers must get vaccinated or face possible termination.
• With some health care workers still refusing to be immunized, medical centers around the country are requiring shots as cases climb once again.

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 couple of weeks, some Americans have reported a curious phenomenon: They have caught the coronavirus despite being vaccinated.

Vaccines are still doing their job by protecting against serious illness and hospitalization, but the frequency of so-called breakthrough infections has surprised experts.

How do such cases happen, and what risks do they pose?

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

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Background reading: 

• Breakthrough infections are still relatively uncommon, experts said, and those that cause serious illness, hospitalization or death even more so.
• While being fully inoculated protects against serious illness and hospitalization from Covid-19, no vaccine offers 100 percent protection, and vaccinated people may need to take a few more precautions. Here’s what you need 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. 

An activist investment firm won a shocking victory at Exxon Mobil. But can new directors really put the oil giant on a cleaner path?

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

Extreme weather across Europe, North America and Asia is highlighting a harsh reality of science and history: The world as a whole is neither prepared to slow down climate change nor live with it.

European officials are trying to change that. The European Commission, the E.U.’s executive arm, recently introduced ambitious legislation aimed at sharply cutting emissions to slow down climate change within the next decade, specifically by weaning one of the world’s biggest and most polluting economies off fossil fuels. But can it generate the political will to see it through?

Guest: Somini Sengupta, the international climate reporter for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• Our climate correspondent explains what you need to know about the implications of recent extreme weather events for rich countries.
• Want to learn more about the science behind climate change? Here are some answers to the big questions, like how we know we’re really in a climate crisis.

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

A promise of a well-paying assignment abroad for retired Colombian soldiers. A security company in Miami. An evangelical Haitian American pastor with lofty ideas. Trying to join the dots in the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse took us from the Caribbean to South America to Florida — and there are still plenty of questions.

Guest: Julie Turkewitz, the Andes bureau chief for The New York Times, and Frances Robles, a national and foreign correspondent for The Times based in Florida.

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Background reading: 

• Interviews with more than a dozen people suggest that the suspects had been working together for months — but to what end is still mysterious.
• One suspect was said to have claimed he was “sent by God” to help Haiti.

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

The Chinese government’s hacking of Microsoft was bold and brazen.

The Biden administration tried to orchestrate a muscular and coordinated response with Western allies. But while the U.S. has responded to cyberattacks from Russia with economic sanctions, when it comes to Beijing, the approach is more complicated.

Why does the U.S. take a different course with China?

Guest: David E. Sanger, a White House and national security correspondent for The New York Times.

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Background reading: 

• The Biden administration organized a broad group of allies to condemn Beijing for cyberattacks around the world but stopped short of taking concrete punitive steps.
• Over the past decade, China has transformed into a sophisticated and mature cyber threat to the U.S.

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

Is misinformation on Facebook an impediment to ending the pandemic?

President Biden even said that platforms like Facebook, by harboring skepticism about the shots, were killing people.

Facebook immediately rejected the criticism, but who is right?

Guest: Cecilia Kang, a correspondent covering technology and regulatory policy for The New York Times. 

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Background reading: 

• Mr. Biden’s blunt statement about Facebook capped weeks of frustration in the White House over the spread of vaccine disinformation on social media.
• In response, Facebook called on the administration to stop “finger-pointing.”

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

The rise of the Delta variant has prompted a thorny question: Do we need a booster dose of the vaccine for Covid-19? Vaccine makers think so, but regulators are yet to be convinced.

Principles are also at stake: Should richer countries be talking about administering extra doses when so many people around the world are yet to receive even a single shot?

Guest: Rebecca Robbins, a business reporter covering Covid-19 vaccines for The New York Times. 

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Background reading: 

• Although studies of a third dose are underway, experts agree that the vaccines are still working well. Here’s what to know about the potential booster dose.
• U.S. officials said that the decision to go ahead with a booster shot would depend partly on how many infections cause serious disease or hospitalization in vaccinated people.

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

It made headlines around the world: a New Jersey sandwich shop with a soaring stock price. Was it just speculation, or something stranger?

This story was written by Jesse Barron 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 accounts of physical and sexual abuse.

The residential school system was devised by the Canadian government under the auspices of education, but very little education took place. Instead, children were taken from their families in order to wipe out Indigenous languages and culture.

In 1959, when Garry Gottfriedson was 5, he was sent to one such school: Kamloops Indian Residential School.

On today’s episode, we hear his story and explore how Indigenous activists have agitated for accountability and redress from the federal government.

Guest: Ian Austen, a correspondent covering Canada for The New York Times. 

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Background reading: 

• Two gruesome discoveries of what Indigenous groups say are the remains of hundreds of children have strengthened the groups’ resolve to hold Canada accountable for a long-hidden brutal history.

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