The Daily

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 Times.

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, videos of the encounter were released. Guest: Rick Rojas, the Southern bureau chief for The New York Times.

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 deforestation reaches 20 to 25 percent of the original area, “flying rivers” — rain clouds that recycle the forest’s own moisture five or six times — will weaken enough that a rainforest simply will not be able to survive in most of the Amazon Basin. Instead it will collapse into scrubby savanna, possibly in a matter of decades. Losing the Amazon, one of the most biodiverse ecosystems on Earth, would be catastrophic for the tens of thousands of species that make their home there. What scientists are most concerned about, though, is the potential for this regional, ecological tipping point to produce knock-on effects in the global climate.

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 change. Guest: Cora Engelbrecht, an international reporter for The New York Times.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 the room from the short, haunting observations of its proprietor, Steven J. Orfield, of Orfield Laboratories. “You’ll hear your heart beating,” Orfield was quoted as saying. And, “In the anechoic chamber, you become the sound.” Much of the lore about the chamber’s propensity for mind-annihilation centers on the concept of blood sounds. Hearing the movement of blood through the body is supposedly something like an absolute taboo, akin to witnessing the fabrication of Chicken McNuggets — an ordeal after which placid existence is irreparably shattered. Despite this, Caity Weaver, a writer for The New York Times Magazine, wanted to give the chamber a go.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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 much uncertainty and an invigorated anti-abortion movement, large organizations and most clinicians are loath to gamble. But some providers think that the end of Roe v. Wade calls for doctors to take bold action.

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.

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.

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 York Times.

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.

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.

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 of seats is thought to have landed in dense foliage, cushioning the impact. Juliane was the sole survivor of the crash. LANSA Flight 508 was the deadliest lightning-strike disaster in aviation history. In the 50 years since the crash, Juliane moved to Germany, earned a Ph.D. in biology, became an eminent zoologist, got married — and, after her father’s death, took over as director of Panguana and the primary organizer of expeditions to the refuge.

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 The New York Times.

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.

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.

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.

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 to Kirill who was hiding to avoid being served his papers. Since then, Kirill decided to flee Russia to avoid the draft. Today, Sabrina Tavernise checks in with Kirill about what’s happened since he left his country.

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. In May, the United States was stunned by the leak of a Supreme Court draft opinion that previewed the end of Roe v. Wade. After, we spoke to people on both sides of the abortion issue. Today, we revisit conversations with two women, an anti-abortion activist and an abortion provider, and discuss how their lives have changed since the end of the constitutional right to abortion.

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. In July, NASA released new images captured from a point in space one million miles from Earth. Ancient galaxies carpeting the sky like jewels on black velvet. Fledgling stars shining out from deep within cumulus clouds of interstellar dust. Today, we return to our episode about the moment when the James Webb Space Telescope, the largest space observatory ever built, sent its first images back to Earth — and explore what the telescope has discovered since then in its long journey across the universe. Guest: Kenneth Chang, a science reporter for The New York Times.

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 year, we explored the story of Christian Smalls and Derrick Palmer, two Amazon workers at a warehouse in New York City, who had embarked on an improbable attempt to create the company’s first union and succeeded. Today, we return to their story and learn about the current state of their organizing effort. 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.

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. This year, in response to Russia’s increasingly brutal campaign against Ukrainian towns and cities, millions of people — most of them women and children — fled Ukraine. It was the fastest displacement of people in Europe since World War II. Today, we return to the beginning of the invasion and reporting from our host Sabrina Tavernise, who traveled alongside some of those fleeing the conflict.

During his time as a restaurant critic for The Times, Pete Wells has become both feared and revered in the world of dining — crowning those at the top and dethroning those whose time has passed. But when the pandemic arrived, handing out stars to fancy restaurants made no sense anymore. A fundamental change was needed. Guest: Pete Wells, a restaurant critic for The New York Times.

A few weeks ago, when President Pedro Castillo of Peru attempted an illegal power grab and ended up in jail, the response was unexpected: Thousands of protesters took to the streets to support him, and some died. Why does such a divisive leader have such fierce backing? And what does the upheaval in Peru tell us about the way the political winds are blowing in South America? Guest: Julie Turkewitz, the Andes bureau chief for The New York Times.

This episode contains descriptions of violence. At the end of every year, The New York Times Magazine devotes an issue to remembering those who have died in the past year. This year’s focus is gun violence, which is now the leading cause of death for American children, and the short lives that ended far too soon because of it. Today, we remember three of them: Lavonte’e Williams, Elijah Gomez and Shiway Barry.

Every step of the way, the congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol has been groundbreaking. As it wraps up its work, the panel referred former President Donald J. Trump to the Justice Department and accused him of four crimes, including inciting insurrection. The referrals do not carry legal weight or compel any action by the Justice Department, but they were a major escalation. Here’s what happened during the committee’s final public meeting. Guest: Luke Broadwater, a Congressional reporter for The New York Times.

For weeks, much of the globe has been riveted by the highs and lows of the World Cup in Qatar. On Sunday, the soccer tournament culminated in a win for Argentina and its star, Lionel Messi, against France. Here’s how the thrill of the game eclipsed the tournament’s tainted beginnings, and what that might reveal about the future. Guest: Rory Smith, the chief soccer correspondent for The New York Times.

“On his first night at the Brooklyn homeless shelter, Tin Chin met his best friend.” So begins an unforgettable story of deceit and friendship, and the loneliness of starting life anew in a foreign country. The journalist Sam Dolnick traces how two men came to find themselves in the homeless shelter, and how their shared backgrounds meant they became fast friends. But the story, as all good stories often do, quickly takes an unexpected turn.

This episode contains strong language.In the past few weeks, a major breakthrough in the world of artificial intelligence — ChatGPT — has put extraordinary powers in the hands of anyone with access to the internet. Released by OpenAI, a San Francisco-based company, ChatGPT can write essays, come up with scripts for TV shows, answer math questions and even write code. Guest: Kevin Roose, a technology columnist for The New York Times and host of the Times podcast “Hard Fork.”

This fall, as Russia’s losses mounted in Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin announced a draft. Almost immediately, hundreds of thousands of men fled the country, though many more stayed. Valerie Hopkins, an international correspondent for The Times, spoke to Russians at a draft office in Moscow to gauge how they felt about going to war and who they blame for the fighting. Guest: Valerie Hopkins, an international correspondent covering the war in Ukraine for The New York Times.

When the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade this year, it appeared to be an unvarnished victory for the anti-abortion movement. But as the year draws to a close, the realities of a post-Roe America are turning out differently than anyone predicted. Guest: Kate Zernike, a national correspondent for The New York Times.

Three thousand security officers fanned out across Germany this past week, raiding 150 homes, arresting 25 people and putting more than 50 others under investigation for plotting to overthrow the national government in Berlin. The target of the counterterrorism operation, one of the biggest that postwar Germany has seen, was a movement known as the Reichsbürger, or citizens of the Reich. What does the Reichsbürger plot reveal about the depth of right-wing extremism in the country? Guest: Katrin Bennhold, the Berlin bureau chief for The New York Times.

Companies like Meta and Twitter have said that they will be cutting jobs. Google and Amazon have announced that they are putting a freeze on any new hiring. Are tech layoffs a sign of things to come across other sectors? Is this the opening bell for the bad news on the economy that many have been bracing for? Guest: Jeanna Smialek, a correspondent covering the Federal Reserve and economy for The New York Times.

Shortly after the war in Ukraine began, terrified civilians from across the country made their way to their cities’ main train stations. The stations became scenes of great panic, with people jostling to be admitted onto the crowded trains. Compartments were filled 10 times their intended capacity, and people were packed shoulder to shoulder, unable to sit down. Images from these moments captured the beginning of the largest refugee crisis in Europe since World War II. In this extensively reported article, Sarah A. Topol explores the history and cultural significance of Ukraine’s railways, and their crucial importance within the war effort.

On one level, the case brought before the Supreme Court is about gerrymandering. But on a broader level, it’s about a theory that would completely reorient the relationship between the federal and state governments and upset the ordinary checks and balances. Guest: Adam Liptak, a correspondent covering the Supreme Court for The New York Times.

This episode contains descriptions of distressing scenes. Haiti is unraveling. Gangs control much of the capital, thousands have been displaced and hundreds more are dead. In recent weeks, the government has taken the extraordinary step of asking for an armed intervention from abroad. What is it like on the ground, and what does the request mean for Haitians? Guest: Natalie Kitroeff, the bureau chief for Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean for The New York Times.

This episode contains strong language. In the contentious debate over who controls what happens in America’s schools, a new battleground has emerged: library books. This is the story of what happened when parents in one town in New Jersey tried to remove a handful of books that they said were explicit and sexually inappropriate — and the battle that ensued. Guest: Alexandra Alter, a reporter covering publishing and the literary world for The New York Times.

Georgia voters are heading to the polls for the final battle of the 2022 midterms — the runoff election between Senator Raphael Warnock, a Democrat, and his Republican opponent, Herschel Walker. Both parties have their own challenges: Republicans have a candidate quality issue in Mr. Walker, and Democrats are concerned about the turnout of their voter coalition. One side, though, already seems resigned to losing. Guest: Maya King, a politics reporter covering the South for The New York Times.

For months, the war in Ukraine was about territory as both sides fought to control areas in the country’s south and east. In recent weeks, the war has taken a new turn. Mounting attacks on civilian infrastructure have left people across Ukraine without power, heat and sometimes water as the snow begins to fall. Guest: Marc Santora, the International News Editor for The New York Times.

Jon Mooallem met with the director Noah Baumbach to discuss his latest film, an adaptation of Don DeLillo’s 1985 novel “White Noise.” The pair explore the recent chain of personal and public events in Baumbach’s life, including the toll of the coronavirus pandemic and the death of his father, and how this “routine trauma” has affected his work, and why it prompted him to create a discombobulated, “elevated reality” for his film in the vein of David Lynch, the Coen brothers and Spike Lee.

Last month at COP27, the U.N. climate change conference, a yearslong campaign ended in an agreement. The rich nations of the world — the ones primarily responsible for the emissions that have caused climate change — agreed to pay into a fund to help poorer nations that bear the brunt of its effects. In the background, however, an even more meaningful plan was taking shape, led by the tiny island nation of Barbados. Guest: David Gelles, a climate correspondent for The New York Times.

In a landmark verdict, a jury convicted Stewart Rhodes, leader of the Oath Keepers, a right-wing militia, of sedition for his role in the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol. The charge he faced, seditious conspiracy, is one that can be traced to the American Civil War. How did federal prosecutors make their case, and what does the verdict tell us about just how organized the attack really was? Guest: Alan Feuer, a reporter covering courts and criminal justice for The New York Times.

Over the weekend, protests against China’s strict coronavirus restrictions ricocheted across the country in a rare case of nationwide civil unrest. It was the most extensive series of protests since the pro-democracy movement in Tiananmen Square in 1989. This is what these demonstrations look and feel like, and what they mean for President Xi Jinping and his quest for “zero Covid.” Guest: Vivian Wang, a China correspondent for The New York Times.

For the past few months, Jodi Kantor and Jo Becker, investigative reporters for The New York Times, have looked into a secretive, yearslong effort by an anti-abortion activist to influence the justices of the Supreme Court. This is the story of the Rev. Rob Schenck, the man who led that effort. Guest: Jodi Kantor, an investigative reporter for The New York Times.

The World Cup, the biggest single sporting event on the planet, began earlier this month. By the time the tournament finishes, half the global population is expected to have watched. The 2022 World Cup has also been the focus of over a decade of controversy because of its unlikely host: the tiny, energy-rich country of Qatar. How did such a small nation come to host the tournament, and at what cost? Guest: Tariq Panja, a sports business reporter for The New York Times.

Being tasked with the turkey on Thanksgiving can be a high-pressure, high-stakes job. Two Times writers share what they’ve learned. Kim Severson takes listeners on a journey through some of the turkey-cooking gimmicks that have been recommended to Americans over the decades, and J. Kenji López-Alt talks about his foolproof method for roasting a bird. Guest: Kim Severson, a food correspondent for The New York Times; and J. Kenji López-Alt, a food columnist for The Times.

This winter, three major respiratory viruses — respiratory syncytial virus or R.S.V., the flu and the coronavirus — are poised to collide in the United States in what some health officials are calling a “tripledemic.” What does this collision have to do with our response to the coronavirus pandemic, and why are children so far the worst affected?

Donald J. Trump is running for president again. Donald J. Trump is back on Twitter again. And now a special prosecutor has been appointed to investigate Donald J. Trump again. In the saga of the Trump investigations, there seem to be recurring rhythms and patterns. Here’s what to know about the latest developments.

Across the world, developed nations have locked themselves into unsustainable, energy-intensive lifestyles. As environmental collapse threatens, the journalist Noah Gallagher Shannon explores the lessons in sustainability that can be learned from looking “at smaller, perhaps even less prosperous nations” such as Uruguay. “The task of shrinking our societal footprint is the most urgent problem of our era — and perhaps the most intractable,” writes Shannon, who explains that the problem of reducing our footprints further “isn’t that we don’t have models of sustainable living; it’s that few exist without poverty.” Tracing Uruguay’s sustainability, Shannon shows how a relatively small population size and concentration (about half of the country’s 3.5 million people live in Montevideo, the capital) had long provided the country with a collective sense of purpose. He also shows how in such a tight-knit country, the inequalities reach a rapid boil, quoting a slogan of a Marxist-Leninist group called the Tupamaros: “Everybody dances or nobody dances.” Looking for answers to both a structural and existential problem, Shannon questions what it would take to achieve energy independence.

The midterm elections have left both parties in a moment of reflection. For Republicans, it’s time to make a choice about Trumpism, but one that may no longer be theirs to make. For Democrats, it’s about how much of their future is inherently tied to the G.O.P.

Earlier this year, much of the crypto industry imploded, taking with it billions of dollars. From that crash, one company and its charismatic founder emerged as the industry’s savior. Last week, that company collapsed. Who is Sam Bankman-Fried, how did he become the face of crypto, and why did so many believe in him? Guest: David Yaffe-Bellany, a reporter covering cryptocurrencies and fintech for The New York Times.

This week, Israel swore in a new Parliament, paving the way back to power for former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, even as he is on trial for corruption. Now, the country is on the cusp of its most right-wing government in history. Who and what forces are behind these events in Israeli politics? Guest: Patrick Kingsley, the Jerusalem bureau chief for The New York Times.

Divided government appears poised to return to Washington. In the midterm elections, the Republicans seem likely to manage to eke out a majority in the House, but they will have a historically small margin of control. The Republican majority will be very conservative, made up of longtime members — some of whom have drifted more to the right — and a small but influential group of hard-right Republicans who are quite allied with former President Donald J. Trump and helped lead the effort to try to overturn the 2020 election. What can we expect from this new Republican-controlled House? Guest: Julie Davis, congressional editor for The New York Times.

Days after voters rejected his vision for the country in the midterms, former President Donald J. Trump is expected to announce a third run for president. Despite the poor results for candidates he backed, why are Republican leaders powerless to stop him? Guest: Maggie Haberman, a White House correspondent for The New York Times.

On the first nationwide test of American students since the pandemic, scores plummeted to levels not seen in 20 years. The results show how challenging it was to keep students on track during the pandemic. What do the scores tell us about remote learning, who lost the most ground academically, and what can schools do to help students recover? Guest: Sarah Mervosh, a national reporter for The New York Times.

Sandra Plantz, an administrator at Gallia County Local Schools for more than 20 years, oversees areas as diverse as Title I reading remediation and federal grants for all seven of the district’s schools. In recent years, though, she has leaned in hard on a role that is overlooked in many districts: homeless liaison. Ms. Plantz’s district, in rural Ohio, serves an area that doesn’t offer much in the way of a safety net beyond the local churches. The county has no family homeless shelters, and those with no place to go sometimes end up sleeping in the parking lot of the Walmart or at the hospital emergency room. Homeless students have the worst educational outcomes of any group, the lowest attendance, the lowest scores on standardized tests, the lowest graduation rates. They all face the same cruel paradox: Students who do not have a stable place to live are unable to attend school regularly, and failing to graduate from high school is the single greatest risk factor for future homelessness.

This week’s elections have been startlingly close. Control of both chambers of Congress remain up in the air. Historically, the president’s party is blown away in midterms. And the Democrats were further hampered this time round by President Biden’s unpopularity. Considering the headwinds, how did they do so well? Guest: Nate Cohn, chief political analyst for The New York Times.

In the early hours of Wednesday, control of both the House and Senate remained uncertain. Going into the midterms, some analysts expected a repudiation of the Democrats and a surge of Republican victories. But this “red wave” did not materialize. Today, we try to make sense of the surprising results. Guest: Astead W. Herndon, a national political reporter for The New York Times.

Over the last decade, Wisconsin has become an extreme experiment in single-party rule. Republican officials have redrawn the state’s election districts and rewritten laws to ensure their domination of the state’s legislature. In Tuesday’s elections, those officials are asking voters for the final lever of power: control over the entire system of voting. Guest: Reid J. Epstein, a reporter covering elections and campaigns for The New York Times.

For the Democrats to hold on to power in Washington, they have to do what President Biden did in Pennsylvania two years ago: Break the Republican Party’s grip on the white working-class vote, once the core of the Democratic base. In tomorrow’s midterm election, no race better encapsulates that challenge than the Pennsylvania Senate candidacy of John Fetterman. Is the plan working or is this crucial group of voters now a lost cause for the Democrats? Guest: Shane Goldmacher, a national political reporter for The New York Times.

The phenomenon of babies stolen from hospitals in Spain, once shrouded in secrecy, is now being spoken about. The thefts happened during the end of the regime of Francisco Franco, the right-wing dictator who ruled the country until 1975, and even today the disappearances remain a subject of mystery and debate among scholars. According to the birth mothers, nuns who worked in maternity wards took the infants shortly after they were delivered and told the women, who were often unwed or poor, that their children were stillborn. But the babies were not dead: They had been sold, discreetly, to well-off Catholic parents, many of whom could not have families of their own. Under piles of forged papers, the adoptive families buried the secret of the crime they committed. The children who were taken were known in Spain simply as the “stolen babies.” No one knows exactly how many were kidnapped, but estimates suggest tens of thousands. Nicholas Casey relates Ana Belén Pintado’s discovery, after the deaths of her parents, that she was a “stolen baby,” and considers the web of culpability and the tricky question of blame, as Spain reckons with its past.

This moment in politics will be defined by shifts at the grass-roots level. It wasn’t long ago that Democrats used to brag about the coalition they had built — full of young people, minority voters and college-educated women. Today, we talk to members of the Democratic base, many of whom no longer see a clear path forward for the party. “The Run-Up” is a new politics podcast from The New York Times. Leading up to the 2022 midterms, we’ll be sharing the latest episode here every Saturday. You can search for “The Run-Up” wherever you get your podcasts. Visit nytimes.com/therunup for more.

With an unpopular president and soaring inflation, Democrats knew they had an uphill battle in the midterms. But the fall of Roe v. Wade seemed to offer the party a way of energizing voters and holding ground. And one place where that hope could live or die is Michigan. Guest: Lisa Lerer, a national political correspondent for The New York Times.

For decades, many universities have used race as a factor when deciding which students to admit. In the past, the Supreme Court has backed that practice, called affirmative action, in the interest of creating a diverse student body. This week, however, the majority-conservative court is considering a case that may change affirmative action forever. Guest: Adam Liptak, a correspondent covering the Supreme Court for The New York Times.

Early on Friday, an intruder broke into the San Francisco home of Nancy Pelosi and bludgeoned Ms. Pelosi’s husband, Paul, with a hammer. The shocking attack underlined fears about the growing number of threats against members of Congress and the woeful lack of security around those lawmakers. Guest: Catie Edmondson, a congressional correspondent for The New York Times.

It was long awaited, and some doubted that it would ever come to pass, but last week, the tech billionaire Elon Musk officially took over Twitter. The platform was once the place of underdogs, a public square that allowed users to challenge the moneyed and powerful. Is that about to change? Guest: Kevin Roose, a technology columnist for The New York Times, and co-host of the Times podcast “Hard Fork.”

Four years ago, Xi Jinping set himself up to become China’s leader indefinitely. At last week’s Communist Party congress in Beijing, he stepped into that role, making a notable sweep of the country’s other top leaders and placing even greater focus on national security. Guest: Chris Buckley, chief China correspondent for The New York Times.

For Sam Anderson, a staff writer, traveling with animals can lead to enlightening experience. In this essay for The New York Times Magazine, Mr. Anderson explores what he has learned from a lifetime of voyaging with animals, and what it means to connect with another creature: bridging spiritual, physical and even temporal distances, and reaching into “something like evolutionary time.” “An animal voyage,” Mr. Anderson writes, “is special because it requires us to make many journeys all at once.”

This moment in politics will be defined by shifts at the grass-roots level. Today, we talk to conservative voters about the forces animating the midterm elections for them — and what Washington can learn from the people. What do you think of “The Run-Up” so far? Please take our listener survey at nytimes.com/therunupsurvey. “The Run-Up” is a new politics podcast from The New York Times. Leading up to the 2022 midterms, we’ll be sharing the latest episode here every Saturday. If you want to hear episodes when they first drop on Thursdays, you can search for “The Run-Up” wherever you get your podcasts. Visit nytimes.com/therunup for more.

Voters in Brazil on Sunday will choose between two larger-than-life, populist candidates in a presidential race that is widely seen as the nation’s — and Latin America’s — most important election in decades. Who are the candidates, and why is the future of Brazilian democracy also on the ballot? Guest: Jack Nicas, the Brazil bureau chief for The New York Times.

As Democratic Party leaders assessed their vulnerabilities in this year’s midterm elections, the one state they did not worry about was New York. That — it turns out — was a mistake. Despite being a blue state through and through, and a place President Donald J. Trump lost by 23 points two years ago, the red tide of this moment is lapping at New York’s shores. Why is New York up for grabs? Guest: Nicholas Fandos, a Metro reporter for The New York Times.

A few days ago, when the House committee investigating Jan. 6 issued a subpoena to former President Donald J. Trump, it raised a legal question: Can Congress compel a former president to testify? The committee’s move, while dramatic, is not without precedent. What do presidential subpoenas of the past teach us about the moment we’re in, and about what the former president might do next? Guest: Luke Broadwater, a congressional reporter for The New York Times.

In the early days of its war on Ukraine, Russia cut off gas supplied to most of Europe, plunging the continent into the most severe energy crisis in decades. Soaring prices have put some European leaders on the defensive over their support of Ukraine in the war as they navigate economic crises and bubbling unrest at home. Guest: Matina Stevis-Gridneff, the Brussels bureau chief for The New York Times.

This episode contains strong language. Hundreds of candidates on the ballot in November still deny that President Biden won in 2020 — a level of denialism that is fueling harassment and threats toward election workers. Few have experienced those attacks as viscerally as election workers in Arizona. Today, we speak with the top election official in the state’s largest county. Guest: Stephen Richer, the recorder of Maricopa County in Arizona.

Yiyun Li has garnered legions of fans with her unsparing prose, writing extensively about her own struggles with depression and suicidality. Her latest novel, “The Book of Goose,” is no different, sharing the same quality that has made Ms. Li something of a beacon to those suffering beneath unbearable emotional weight. Alexandra Kleeman, also a novelist, meets Ms. Li to discover the secrets of her charm, her experience of growing up in China and her writing process.

How a 12-year project to lock in political power in Wisconsin could culminate in this year’s midterms – and provide a glimpse into where the rest of the country is headed. “The Run-Up” is a new politics podcast from The New York Times. Leading up to the 2022 midterms, we’ll be sharing the latest episode here every Saturday. If you want to hear episodes when they first drop on Thursdays, you can search for “The Run-Up” wherever you get your podcasts. Visit nytimes.com/therunup for more.

Prime Minister Liz Truss of Britain has resigned after only 44 days in office. Hers is the shortest premiership in the country’s history. What led to her downfall, and why has Britain entered a period of such profound political dysfunction? Guest: Mark Landler, the London bureau chief for The New York Times.

After a summer of news that favored Democrats and with just two weeks until the midterms, a major new poll from The Times has found that swing voters are suddenly turning to the Republicans. The Times’s Nate Cohn explains what is behind the trend and what it could mean for Election Day. Guest: Nate Cohn, the chief political analyst for The New York Times.

This episode contains strong language.A leaked audio recording of Latino lawmakers in Los Angeles making racist comments has created a political firestorm and brought demands for resignations. But not only has the uproar forced the authorities to reckon with what officials say behind closed doors, it has also raised a sharp issue: Why is a city with so many Latino constituents represented by so few of them? Guest: Shawn Hubler, a California correspondent for The New York Times.

Since Hurricane Ian devastated southwestern Florida last month, residents have filed a record number of insurance claims for the damage caused by the storm. Today, Chris Flavelle, a climate reporter for The Times, discusses whether the insurance companies can survive. And if they can’t, what will the effect be on Florida’s housing market, the cornerstone of its economy? Guest: Christopher Flavelle, a climate reporter for The New York Times.

Herschel Walker, the former football star who is running for the Senate, is, according to the Times political reporter Maya King, a “demigod in Georgia sports and in Georgia culture.” The midterm election in that state is crucial — it could determine whether Democrats keep control of the Senate. Mr. Walker’s candidacy, however, has been tainted by a slew of stories about his character, including claims that he paid for an abortion for a former girlfriend despite publicly opposing the procedure. Guest: Maya King, a politics reporter covering the South for The New York Times.

In July 2020, Stephanie Long, the school superintendent in Leland, Mich., wrote a heartfelt letter to her students and their families after George Floyd’s murder by Minneapolis police officers. Haunted by the images she’d seen in the media, she wrote: “Why be in a position of leadership,” she asked herself, “and not lead?” “All people of color,” Ms. Long typed, “need us to stand with them to clearly state that we condemn acts of systematic and systemic racism and intolerance.” She envisioned profound pedagogical changes in her school; she imagined creating illuminating discussions within classrooms and searching, transformative conversations in the community beyond. She hit send. A degree of support came in reply. A letter of praise signed by 200 Leland alumni was published in a peninsula newspaper. But angry emails, phone calls and letters poured in from within the district and, because Long’s message made the local news and spread over the internet, from across the country. They labeled her “a disgrace,” “a Marxist,” “a traitor.” Daniel Bergner, a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine, wrote about what happened when a superintendent in northern Michigan raised the issue of systemic racism.

When Georgia flipped blue in the 2020 election, it gave Democrats new hope for the future. Credit for that success goes to Stacey Abrams and the playbook she developed for the state. It cemented her role as a national celebrity, in politics and pop culture. But, unsurprisingly, that celebrity has also made her a target of Republicans, who say she’s a losing candidate. On today’s episode: the Stacey Abrams playbook, and why the Georgia governor’s race means more to Democrats than a single elected office. “The Run-Up” is a new politics podcast from The New York Times. Leading up to the 2022 midterms, we’ll be sharing the latest episode here every Saturday. If you want to hear episodes when they first drop on Thursdays, you can search for “The Run-Up” wherever you get your podcasts. Visit nytimes.com/therunup to learn more.

In 2019, Julia Longoria, then a Daily producer, traveled to Nashville to speak with Ella Maners and her mother, Katie Maners. Ella, 8 going on 9, was terrified of tornadoes and getting sick. So she did something that was even scarier than her fears: confront them at Fear Facers camp. We revisit her story and catch up with Ella, now 12 and in the fifth grade, who has since returned to the camp.

This episode contains mention of suicide. A year ago, Lynsea Garrison, a senior producer on The Daily, started telling the story of N, a teenager in Afghanistan. N’s family tried to force her to marry a member of the Taliban, but she resisted. When she tried to escape to the U.S., however, her case was rejected, so she had to remain in Kabul, fearful and in hiding. Here’s what happened next.

Just before the sun came up on Saturday on the Kerch Strait Bridge, a strategically and symbolically important link between Russia and the Crimean Peninsula, a bomb detonated, creating a giant fireball. But Ukrainian elation about the explosion quickly turned into concern about how Russia would respond. And in the days since, Moscow’s retaliation has been to pound Ukrainian cities with missiles in the most sweeping rocket assault since the start of the war.

To tackle its critical shortage of affordable housing, California has taken aim at a central tenet of the American dream: the single-family home. Telling the story of one such property, in San Diego, can teach us about the larger housing crisis and how we might solve it.

The search for intelligence beyond Earth has long entranced humans. According to Jon Gertner, a regular contributor to The New York Times Magazine, this search has been defined “by an assumption that extraterrestrials would have developed radio technologies akin to what humans have created.” However, Mr. Gertner writes, “rather than looking for direct calls to Earth, telescopes now sweep the sky, searching billions of frequencies simultaneously, for electronic signals whose origins can’t be explained by celestial phenomena.” What scientists are most excited about is the prospect of other planets’ civilizations being able to create the same “telltale chemical and electromagnetic signs,” or, as they are now called, “technosignatures.”

How the Republican grass roots got years ahead of a changing country, and whether the Democrats can catch up. “The Run-Up” is a new politics podcast from The New York Times. Leading up to the 2022 midterms, we’ll be sharing the latest episode here every Saturday. If you want to hear episodes when they first drop on Thursdays, you can search for “The Run-Up” wherever you get your podcasts. Visit nytimes.com/therunup to learn more.

If President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia follows through on his threats to use a nuclear weapon in Ukraine, he is likely to turn to a specific type. Tactical nuclear weapons have a fraction of the strength of the Hiroshima bomb and of the super bombs and city busters that people worried about during the Cold War. What exactly are these weapons, how did they develop and what would it mean if Mr. Putin resorted to them in the war in Ukraine? Guest: William J. Broad, a science reporter and senior writer for The New York Times.

In the struggle to control inflation, the Federal Reserve has raised interest rates five times already this year. But those efforts can be blunted if companies keep raising prices regardless. And one industry has illustrated that difficulty particularly starkly: the car market. Guest: Jeanna Smialek, a federal reserve and economy reporter for The New York Times.

A few weeks into this year’s monsoon season in Pakistan, it became clear that the rains were unlike anything the country had experienced in a long time. The resulting once-in-a-generation flood has marooned entire villages and killed 1,500 people, leaving a trail of destruction, starvation and disease. Guest: Christina Goldbaum, an Afghanistan and Pakistan correspondent for The New York Times.