The Daily

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.

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...

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. Kolker writes...

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 people’s idea of a pandemic nightmare — was especially perilous...

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 for The New York Times.

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.

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...

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.

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 professionals, as well as authors, Ms...

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.