On Wednesday, residents in Montana saw a mysterious object — a balloon — hovering and bobbing around in the skies. The enigma brought Americans out to squint at the heavens, caused a diplomatic visit to be canceled and opened a political debate. How did a balloon end up kindling such tension between Washington and Beijing? Guest: Edward Wong , a diplomatic correspondent for The New York Times. Background reading: The Chinese balloon drifted for seven days across the United States. Here’s a timel...
Feb 06, 2023•26 min•Transcript available on Metacast Going out to dinner with Juan Tamariz in Madrid is a little like accompanying a cartoon character on a journey to the real world. As Shuja Haider, the author of today’s Sunday Read, walked with him on side streets off the city center’s main drag, the Calle Gran Vía, heads turned left and right. Mr. Tamariz, 80, has been a professional magician for 52 years, and in that time, he has managed the singular feat of becoming both a household name in his home country and a living legend in magic everyw...
Feb 05, 2023•37 min•Transcript available on Metacast The Biden administration said this week that it would end the public health emergency for Covid, a sign that federal officials believe that the pandemic has moved into a new, less dire phase. The move carries both symbolic weight and real-world consequences for millions of Americans. Guest: Apoorva Mandavilli , a science and global health reporter for The New York Times. Background reading: The end of the public health emergency, planned for May, will bring about a complex set of policy changes ...
Feb 03, 2023•20 min•Transcript available on Metacast For the past 50 years, the race to become the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee has been shaped by the where the contest begins: Iowa. But that process could soon be overhauled. In a coming meeting of the Democratic National Committee, South Carolina — a state that is more representative of the party and, possibly, of the country — could take over the key role of going first. Guest: Adam Nagourney , a West Coast cultural affairs correspondent for The New York Times. Background reading: Pre...
Feb 02, 2023•26 min•Transcript available on Metacast The typical sales price of an existing family home in the United States in December: 372,700. The number of layoffs in the tech sector since the beginning of the year: 76,000. The number by which consumer spending fell in December: 0.2 percent. The increase in the cost of the same kind of carton of eggs bought by an editor on “The Daily” a year apart: 251 percent. What do these numbers tell us about the state of the country’s economy? Guest: Ben Casselman , an economics and business reporter for...
Feb 01, 2023•23 min•Transcript available on Metacast In the United States, 40 million people in seven states depend on water provided by the Colorado River. After 20 years of drought, the situation is dire and the river is at risk of becoming a “deadpool,” a condition in which there is not enough water to pass through the dams. The states were supposed to come up with a deal to cut their usage by Tuesday. Now, the federal government may have to step in and make a difficult decision. Guest: Christopher Flavelle , a climate reporter for The New York...
Jan 31, 2023•24 min•Transcript available on Metacast This episode contains descriptions of violence and strong language. Tyre Nichols was a 29-year-old Black man who lived in Memphis. His mother described him as living a simple and pleasant life. He worked for FedEx, loved to skateboard, was an amateur photographer and had a 4-year-old son. On the evening of Jan. 7, after a traffic stop, Mr. Nichols was violently beaten by the police, sustaining severe injuries. He died on Jan. 10. For weeks, what exactly had happened was unclear. This weekend, vi...
Jan 30, 2023•31 min•Transcript available on Metacast In the past half-century, 17 percent of the Amazon — an area larger than Texas — has been converted to croplands or cattle pasture. Less forest means less recycled rain, less vapor to cool the air, less of a canopy to shield against sunlight. Under drier, hotter conditions, even the lushest of Amazonian trees will shed leaves to save water, inhibiting photosynthesis — a feedback loop that is only exacerbated by global warming. According to the Brazilian Earth system scientist Carlos Nobre, if de...
Jan 29, 2023•58 min•Transcript available on Metacast This episode contains descriptions of violence and injury. In September, protests began in Iran over the death of a young woman, Mahsa Amini, at the hands of the government. The demonstrations have since intensified, as has the government’s response, with thousands arrested and a terrifying campaign of public executions underway. Today, Iranians who have taken part in the demonstrations tell us — in their own words — why they are willing to brave such severe punishments to help bring about chang...
Jan 27, 2023•35 min•Transcript available on Metacast Recent advice from the American Academy of Pediatrics has recommended a bold approach to treating the millions of children in the United States who are affected by obesity. Counseling, drug treatment and even surgery should be considered, the group says. The guidelines are a response to a deeper understanding of what obesity is — and what to do about it. Guest: Gina Kolata , a medical reporter for The New York Times. Background reading: The new guidelines have underscored how complicated childho...
Jan 26, 2023•23 min•Transcript available on Metacast Nonprofit hospitals — which make up around half of hospitals in the United States — were founded to help the poor. But a Times investigation has revealed that many have deviated from those charitable roots, behaving like for-profit companies, sometimes to the detriment of the health of patients. Guest: Jessica Silver-Greenberg , an investigative business reporter for The New York Times. Background reading: With the help of a consulting firm, the Providence hospital system trained staff members t...
Jan 25, 2023•32 min•Transcript available on Metacast Over the weekend, F.B.I. agents found classified documents at President Biden’s residence in Wilmington, Del., after conducting a 13-hour search. The search — at the invitation of Mr. Biden’s lawyers — resulted in the latest in a series of discoveries that has already led to a special counsel investigation. What miscalculations have Mr. Biden and his team make throughout this ordeal? Guest: Michael D. Shear , a White House correspondent for The New York Times. Background reading: Inside the deci...
Jan 24, 2023•25 min•Transcript available on Metacast In the past decade or more, votes over increasing the U.S. debt ceiling have increasingly been used as a political tool. That has led to intense showdowns in 2011, 2013 and, now, 2023. This year, both sides of the argument are dug in and Republicans appear more willing to go over the cliff than in the past. What does this year’s showdown look like and how, exactly, did the United States’ debt balloon to $31 trillion? Guest: Jim Tankersley , a White House correspondent for The New York Times. Bac...
Jan 23, 2023•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast In a room in a modest concrete building in a leafy Minneapolis neighborhood is silence exceeding the bounds of human perception. Technically an “anechoic chamber,” the room is the quietest place on the planet — according to some. What happens to people inside the windowless steel room is the subject of wild and terrible speculation. Public fascination with it exploded 10 years ago, with an article on The Daily Mail’s website. The article left readers to extrapolate their own conclusions about th...
Jan 22, 2023•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast With mountains, intense mud, fast-running rivers and thick rainforest, the Darién Gap, a strip of terrain connecting South and Central America, is one of the most dangerous places on the planet. Over the past few years, there has been an enormous increase in the number of migrants passing through the perilous zone in the hopes of getting to the United States. Today, we hear the story of one family that’s risking everything to make it across. Guest: Julie Turkewitz , the Andes bureau chief for Th...
Jan 20, 2023•38 min•Transcript available on Metacast Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, the United States and allies have held back from sending Kyiv their most potent arms. Over the past few weeks, that has started to change. Guest: Eric Schmitt , a national security correspondent for The New York Times. Background reading: Ukraine has a narrow window of time to retake more territory ahead of an expected Russian spring offensive. The Biden administration is considering the argument that Kyiv needs the power to strike Crimea , the Ukrainia...
Jan 19, 2023•31 min•Transcript available on Metacast With little warning or regulation, companies are increasingly using facial recognition technology on their customers — as a security measure, they say. But what happens when the systems are actually being used to punish the companies’ enemies? Guest: Kashmir Hill , a technology reporter for The New York Times. Background reading: Madison Square Garden Entertainment, the owner of the arena, has put lawyers who represent people suing it on an “exclusion list” to keep them out of concerts and sport...
Jan 18, 2023•24 min•Transcript available on Metacast For nearly three years, China had one of the lowest coronavirus death rates in the world, thanks to its strict yet effective “zero Covid” approach. But last month, the government suddenly abandoned the policy. Since then, there have been millions of coronavirus cases across the country. Guest: Alexandra Stevenson , the Shanghai bureau chief for The New York Times. Background reading: After micromanaging the coronavirus strategy for nearly three years, China’s leader, Xi Jinping, has suddenly lef...
Jan 17, 2023•24 min•Transcript available on Metacast In states where abortion is severely limited or illegal, clinicians face imminent prosecution if they continue to provide abortions. What is much less clear is what happens if providers in blue states offer telemedicine abortions to women in states where that’s against the law. These clinicians, too, could be arrested or sued or lose their medical licenses. To protect themselves, they may have to give up traveling to certain parts of the country — and it’s still no guarantee. In the face of so m...
Jan 15, 2023•56 min•Transcript available on Metacast The Justice Department is scrutinizing how both former President Donald J. Trump and President Biden came to have classified records after they left office. Attorney General Merrick B. Garland appointed a special counsel after the discovery of two batches of classified documents from Mr. Biden’s time as vice president. How are the two cases similar, how are they different and what might that mean for both? Guest: Glenn Thrush , a Washington correspondent for The New York Times. Background readin...
Jan 13, 2023•21 min•Transcript available on Metacast For weeks, a string of major storms have hit California, causing extreme flooding. While it might seem as if rain should have a silver lining for a state stuck in a historic drought, the reality is far more complicated. Today, how California’s water management in the past has made today’s flooding worse and why it represents a missed opportunity for the future of the state’s water crisis. Guest: Christopher Flavelle , a climate reporter for The New York Times. Background reading: In the wake of ...
Jan 12, 2023•27 min•Transcript available on Metacast After Jair Bolsonaro lost October’s Brazilian presidential election to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, many believed that the threat of violence from the defeated leader’s supporters would recede. They were wrong. Mr. Bolsonaro had spent years sewing doubt and undermining Brazil’s election system, and last week, thousands of rioters stormed Brazil’s Congress, Supreme Court and presidential offices. What happened — and how did Brazil get here? Guest: Jack Nicas , the Brazil bureau chief for The New Yo...
Jan 11, 2023•31 min•Transcript available on Metacast Air travel was a mess over the holidays — in the last 10 days of December, 30,000 flights were canceled. While every airline was affected, one stood out: Southwest, which over the past few decades has transformed how Americans fly, melted down. In the last 10 days of the year, it canceled as many flights as it had done in the previous 10 months. So what went wrong? Guest: Niraj Chokshi , a business reporter for The New York Times. Background reading: Southwest’s crisis shows what can go wrong wh...
Jan 10, 2023•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast Representative Kevin McCarthy’s bid to become speaker of the House turned into a rolling disaster last week, played out over five long days and 15 rounds of voting. Today, the inside story of how it went so wrong — and what he was forced to give up in order to finally win. Guest: Catie Edmondson , a congressional correspondent for The New York Times. Background reading: Mr. McCarthy’s slog to the speakership ended with a remarkably public show of intraparty strife during a history-making overnig...
Jan 09, 2023•35 min•Transcript available on Metacast On Christmas Eve in 1971, Juliane Diller, then 17, and her mother boarded a flight in Lima, Peru. She was headed for Panguana, a biological research station in the belly of the Amazon, where for three years she had lived, on and off, with her mother, Maria, and her father, Hans-Wilhelm Koepcke, both zoologists. About 25 minutes after takeoff, the plane flew into a thunderstorm, was struck by lightning and broke apart. Strapped to her seat, Juliane fell some 10,000 feet, nearly two miles. Her row...
Jan 08, 2023•24 min•Transcript available on Metacast The current level of biodiversity loss is extraordinary in human history: The global rate of species extinction is at least tens to hundreds of times higher than the average over the past 10 million years. At the end of 2022, countries around the world came together in Montreal for an agreement akin to the Paris climate accord to tackle the biodiversity crisis. Here’s more on the effort and how it seeks to confront the problem. Guest: Catrin Einhorn , who reports on biodiversity and climate for ...
Jan 06, 2023•26 min•Transcript available on Metacast George Santos, the Republican representative-elect from New York, ran for office and won his seat in part on an inspiring personal story. But when Times reporters started looking into his background, they made some astonishing revelations: Almost all of Mr. Santos’s story was fake. Guests: Michael Gold , a reporter covering New York for The New York Times. Grace Ashford , a reporter covering New York politics for The Times. Background reading: Mr. Santos said that he was the “embodiment of the A...
Jan 05, 2023•29 min•Transcript available on Metacast This episode contains strong language and descriptions of violence. When Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began, many believed the country’s army would quickly crush the Ukrainian forces. Instead, Russian military failures have defined the war. Today, we hear from Russian soldiers, and explore why a military superpower keeps making the same mistakes and why, despite it all, its soldiers keep going back to fight. Guest: Michael Schwirtz , an investigative reporter for The New York Times. B...
Jan 04, 2023•26 min•Transcript available on Metacast This episode contains strong language. Republicans are set to take control of the House of Representatives for the first time in four years. The transition is shaping up to be chaotic. Today, the 118th Congress will gather for the first time in the Capitol, yet there is still a question mark over who is going to be the Republican speaker of the House. Why is there still a fight over leadership? Guest: Catie Edmondson , a congressional correspondent for The New York Times. Background reading: Rep...
Jan 03, 2023•33 min•Transcript available on Metacast This week, The Daily is revisiting some of our favorite episodes of the year and checking in on what has happened in the time since they first ran. Kirill, 24, worked at a nonprofit for homeless people in the Moscow region. He does not support the policies of President Vladimir V. Putin and is vehemently against the invasion of Ukraine. After suffering setbacks in the war, Mr. Putin announced a military draft in September. Kirill was among those called up. In September, Sabrina Tavernise spoke t...
Dec 30, 2022•35 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
