The Daily

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

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

We explore som...

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

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

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

Background reading: 

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

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

Guest: Matthieu Aikins, a writer based in Afghanistan for The New York Times and the author of “Th...

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

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

Earlier versions of the Inflation Reduction Act targeted carried interest. But the loophole has survived. Senator Kyrsten Sinema, Democrat of A...

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

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

The article outlines how Mr. Souki rose from being a Los Angeles restaurant owner to becoming the co-founder a...

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

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

Background reading: 

This episode contains strong language and descriptions of an abortion.

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

Today, we speak to Tara Wicker and Lakeesha Harris, two women in Louisiana whose lives led them to very different positions i...

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

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

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

Backgroun...

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

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

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

Background reading: 

This episode contains descriptions of distressing scenes. 

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

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

Guest: Elizabeth Williamson, a fe...

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

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

It was a case of mistaken identity that developed into “a slow-motion game of hot potato between the police, the courts, the jails and the hospitals,” Mr. K...

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

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

This episode contains mention of sexual assault. 

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

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

Guest: Mitch Smith, a correspondent covering the Midwest and the Great Plains ...

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

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

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

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

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

Who was al-Zawahri, and what does his death mean for Afghanistan’s relationship with the United States and for the threa...

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

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

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

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

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

Interviewing more than 50 current and former book profess...

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

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

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

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To fight historic levels of inflation, the Federal Reserve this week, once again, raised interest rates, its most powerful weapon against rising prices.

The move was intended to slow demand, but there was also a psychological factor: If consumers become convinced that inflation is a permanent feature of the economy, that might become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Guest: Jeanna Smialek, a correspondent covering the Federal Reserve and t...