The Daily

Mahsa Amini, 22, traveled from her hometown in the province of Kurdistan to the Iranian capital, Tehran, this month. Emerging from the subway, she was arrested for failing to cover her hair modestly enough. Three days later, she was dead. The anger over Ms. Amini’s death has prompted days of rage, exhilaration and street battles across Iran, with women stripping off their head scarves — and even b...

During the pandemic, an enormous amount of money — about $5 trillion in total — was spent to help support the newly unemployed and to prop up the U.S. economy while it was forced into suspension. But the funds came with few strings and minimal oversight. The result: one of the largest frauds in American history, with billions of dollars stolen by thousands of people. Guest: David A. Fahrenthold, a...

The high poverty rate among children was long seen as an enduring fact of American life. But a recent analysis has shown that the number of young people growing up poor has fallen dramatically in the past few decades. The reasons for the improvement are complicated, but they have their roots in a network of programs and support shaped by years of political conflict and compromise. Guest: Jason DeP...

The concept of having a “body clock” is a familiar one, but less widespread is the awareness that our body contains several biological clocks. Understanding their whims and functions may help us optimize our lives and lead to better overall health, according to scientists. Every physiological system is represented by a clock, from the liver to the lungs, and each one is synced “to the central cloc...

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

Evangelicals make up about a quarter of the population in the United States and are part of the nation’s largest religious group. But lately the movement is in crisis. The biggest issue is church attendance. Many churches closed at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic and struggled to reopen while congregations thinned. But a smaller audience isn’t the only problem: Pastors are quitting, or a...

In a speech on Wednesday, President Vladimir V. Putin said that he would require hundreds of thousands more Russians to fight in Ukraine — and alarmed the West by once again raising the specter of nuclear force. The mobilization signals that Mr. Putin is turning the war from one of aggression to one of defense, offering clues about what the next phase of the fighting will involve. Guest: Anton Tro...

Last week, nearly 50 Venezuelan migrants showed up, without warning, on the wealthy island of Martha’s Vineyard. Their arrival was the culmination of a monthslong strategy by two of the United States’ most conservative governors to lay the issue of undocumented immigration at Democrats’ doorstep. How has this strategy played out and what has it meant for the migrants caught in the middle? Guest: M...

Adnan Syed was accused of the 1999 killing of his classmate and ex-girlfriend Hae Min Lee, whose body was found buried in a car park in Baltimore. He was convicted and sentenced to life in prison but has proclaimed his innocence for the last 23 years. Mr. Syed was the subject of the first season of the podcast “Serial,” which painstakingly examined his case and the evidence against him. Yesterday,...

The funeral of Queen Elizabeth today will be one of the most extraordinary public spectacles of the last several decades in Britain, accompanied by an outpouring of sadness, reverence and respect. But the end of the queen’s 70-year reign has also prompted long-delayed conversations about the future of the Commonwealth and of the four nations that make up the United Kingdom. Guest: Mark Landler , t...

“Nobody’s gonna know. They’re gonna know.” If you’ve been on TikTok in the past year, you’re most likely familiar with these two sentences, first drolly uttered in a post by TikTok creator Chris Gleason in 2020. The post has become a hit and has been viewed more than 14 million times. But the sound is more famous than the video. When uploading a video to TikTok, the creator has the option to make...

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

The adoption of electric cars has been hailed as an important step in curbing the use of fossil fuels and fighting climate change. There is a snag, however: such vehicles require around six times as many metals as their gasoline-powered counterparts. A giant storehouse of the necessary resources sits at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. But retrieving them may, in turn, badly damage the environment...

With the midterm elections a few weeks away, Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, forwarded a plan to save his party from the growing backlash over abortion. But the proposal — a federal ban on almost all terminations after 15 weeks — has served mostly to expose the division among Republicans about the issue. Guest: Lisa Lerer , a national political correspondent for The New York...

When President Biden canceled college debt last month, he left untouched the problem that created that debt: the soaring price of college. In the 1980s, the list price of undergraduate education at a private four-year institution could hit $20,000 a year. At some of these schools in the last couple of years, it has topped $80,000.  Why has a college education become increasingly costly, and why ha...

Over the weekend, Ukraine’s military stunned the world. After months of a kind of stalemate, its military took hundreds of miles of territory back from Russia — its biggest victory since the start of the war. How did the war reach this critical point, and what does Ukraine’s success mean for the future? Guest: Eric Schmitt , a correspondent covering national security for The New York Times. Backgr...

The U.S. Open crowned its winners this weekend. But for a lot of fans, this year’s competition was less about who won, and more about a player who wasn’t even involved in the final matches. Serena Williams, who announced last month that she’d be retiring from tennis after this year’s tournament, has made an indelible impact on her sport and left a legacy away from the court that has very little pr...

The Claremont Institute, a right-wing think tank in California, has in recent years become increasingly influential in Republican circles. In 2016, its goal was to turn Donald J. Trump into a legitimate candidate — and then it did . The journalist Elisabeth Zerofsky traces the origins of the divisive organization, explaining how it made the intellectual case for Trumpism but also how, with ties to...

The death of Queen Elizabeth II on Thursday brought to an end a remarkable reign that spanned seven decades, 15 prime ministers and 14 American presidents. During her time on the throne, which saw the crumbling of the British Empire and the buffeting of the royal family by scandals, Elizabeth’s courtly and reserved manner helped to shore up the monarchy and provided an unwavering constant for her...

As California watches the impact of rising temperatures devastate its environment with brutal heat waves and raging fires, the state is taking increasingly far-reaching steps to combat climate change. One of those measures — banning the sale of new gasoline-powered cars by 2035 — could prove a turning point for the transition to electric vehicles. Guest: Neal E. Boudette , an automotive correspond...

A counteroffensive by Ukrainian forces to try to drive Russian troops out of southern Ukraine has placed the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the biggest in Europe, directly in the path of the fighting. As the world scrambles to prevent a catastrophe, the plant’s workers find themselves in a dangerously precarious position. Guest: Marc Santora , an international news editor for The New York Times...

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

Today marks the unofficial start of the campaign for the midterm elections. This year’s midterms will be the first major referendum on the Biden era of government — and a test of how much voters want to reinstall the Trump wing of the Republican Party. On today’s episode, Astead W. Herndon, a political reporter and the host of our new podcast, “ The Run-Up ,” offers a guide to the campaign. He’ll...

 An influx of Fentanyl, a highly lethal synthetic narcotic, has aggravated the opioid crisis in the United States and prompted communities to scramble for ways to lower the skyrocketing rates of overdose deaths. In Vancouver, a Canadian city that has been at the forefront of innovative approaches to drug use, a novel and surprising tactic is being tried: It’s called “safer supply.” Guest: Stephani...

Few leaders have had as profound an effect on their time as Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union, who died this week at 91. It was not Mr. Gorbachev’s intention to liquidate the Soviet empire when he came to power in 1985. But after little more than six tumultuous years, he had lifted the Iron Curtain and presided over the dissolution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics...