The Daily

After a series of deadly mass shootings in the United States, the National Rifle Association and some Republican leaders and conservatives are pointing to mental illness. This approach raises a question: How can the mental health system stop gun violence when mental illness is so rarely the cause of it? We revisit a conversation from 2018 with a psychiatrist who is wrestling with that challenge. G...

In calling for Republicans to pass gun safety measures like expanded background checks, Democrats point to polls that show most Americans support the idea.  They aren’t wrong about the polling. In fact, some polls show that over 90 percent of Americans support expanded checks.  Polling, however, does not tell the whole story.  Guest: Nate Cohn , a domestic correspondent for The Upshot at The New Y...

This episode contains strong language and details of a sexual assault accusation. Since a jury ruled in favor of Johnny Depp in his defamation case against his ex-wife Amber Heard, there has been impassioned debate about what exactly the outcome means for the #MeToo movement. It raises the question: If people being accused of sexual assault can potentially win defamation cases in court, what does...

We cannot escape our bodies. So how do we reconcile them with who we really are? Sam Anderson, a staff writer, considers this particular conundrum of the human condition by recounting his lifelong struggle to maintain a healthy weight: his teenage triumph over the “legendary snacker” he was in middle school, the slow creep of the pounds in early adulthood, and the pandemic’s expansive effect on hi...

In 1791, enslaved Haitians did the seemingly impossible. They ousted their French masters and created the first free Black nation in the Americas. But France made Haitians pay for that freedom. A team of reporters from The New York Times looked at the extent and effect of the ensuing payments. Guest: Catherine Porter , the Toronto bureau chief for The New York Times. Want more from The Daily? For...

As a proportion of its population, California has one of the lowest rates of gun deaths in the United States — 8.5 per 100,000 people, compared with 13.7 nationally. How did the state get that way? Guest: Shawn Hubler , a California correspondent for The New York Times. Want more from The Daily? For one big idea on the news each week from our team, subscribe to our newsletter .  Background reading...

This episode contains strong language. Gemma Lopez, 10, watched a movie in class that day. Jacob Albarado, a Border Patrol officer, was getting his hair cut when he heard there was a gunman at his daughter’s school, where his wife is a teacher. Ricardo Garcia, a hospital groundskeeper, can still hear the screaming of parents in the emergency room. These are some of the stories of those who lived t...

After the shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, the explanation for how the police acted kept shifting. Now, a clearer picture has emerged. Guest: J. David Goodman , the Houston bureau chief for The New York Times. Want more from The Daily? For one big idea on the news each week from our team, subscribe to our newsletter .  Background reading:  A timeline from the state police raise...

A dire lack of baby formula in the United States in the past few weeks has been blamed on production deficiencies such as the small number of manufacturers and an inflexible supply chain. But Christina Jewett, an investigative reporter at The Times, has traced it back further, to deadly bacteria whose detection set off a chain of events that ultimately led to the shortage. Guest: Christina Jewett,...

In Pennsylvania, a candidate falsely claiming election fraud in 2020 prevailed in a crowded Republican primary for governor. But in Georgia, two incumbents — the governor and the secretary of state — beat back challenges from “stop the steal” opponents. Is re-litigating the 2020 election a vote winner for Republicans? Or is it increasingly becoming a losing issue? Guest: Reid J. Epstein , a politi...

This episode covers incidents of mass violence. At least 21 people, including 19 children, were killed when a gunman opened fire at the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, on Tuesday morning. It was the deadliest school shooting in the United States since the 2012 attack on the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. For some of the Sandy Hook parents, news of yet another school massac...

For decades, the U.S. has walked a careful line when it comes to Taiwan — vowing to protect the island from China, without saying exactly how far it would go to do that. On Monday, that appeared to change. Guest: David E. Sanger , a White House and national security correspondent for The New York Times. Want more from The Daily? For one big idea on the news each week from our team, subscribe to ou...

Three months since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, one of the biggest surprises has been the inability of the Russian military to achieve some of its basic goals. One clear example: A failed attempt to cross the Donets river in eastern Ukraine earlier this month left hundreds of Russian soldiers dead. Its aftermath is raising doubts in Russia, even among the military’s most ardent supporters. Guest:...

Chronic pain is one of the leading causes of long-term disability in the world. By some measures, 50 million Americans live with chronic pain, in part because the power of medicine to relieve it remains inadequate. Helen Ouyang, a physician and contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine, explores the potentially groundbreaking use of virtual reality in the alleviation of acute pain, as we...

Throughout the pandemic, long Covid — symptoms that occur after the initial coronavirus infection — has remained something of a medical mystery. Now, amid the latest surge of infections, a series of major studies are shedding light on the condition. Guest: Pam Belluck , a health and science reporter for The New York Times. Want more from The Daily? For one big idea on the news each week from our t...

In the post-Trump era, some red states have moved aggressively to rebuke the Biden administration at the local level and signal to voters what a Republican-led country might look like. In Texas, immigration is a key battleground. Today, we speak to Hunter Schuler, a member of the National Guards, about why Gov. Greg Abbott has sent him and thousands of other security officers to the U.S.-Mexico bo...

For the past two months, a group of Ukrainian fighters has been holed up in the Azovstal steel plant in the city of Mariupol, mounting a last stand against Russian forces in a critical part of eastern Ukraine. On Monday, Ukraine finally surrendered the plant. After the end of the determined resistance at Azovstal, we hear from Leonid Kuznetsov, a 25 year-old soldier who had been stationed inside....

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...

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 ori...

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 id...

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 gu...

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. Want more from The Daily? For one big idea on th...

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 clin...

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...

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 su...