The Daily

“The Earth is round. Two plus two equals four. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris won the 2020 election for president and vice president of the United States.” So begins the 280-page complaint filed by Smartmatic, an election software company, against the Fox Corporation.

Smartmatic accuses the network of doing irreparable damage to the company’s business by allowing election conspiracy theorists to use Fox News as a megaphone for misinformation.

Today, we hear from Antonio Mugica, Smartmatic’s C.E.O., and the lawyer Erik Connelly about the $2.7 billion case.

Guest: Ben Smith, the media columnist for The New York Times. 

For an exclusive look at how the biggest stories on our show come together, subscribe to our newsletter. You can read the latest edition here.

Background reading: 

• In the latest volley in the dispute over disinformation in the presidential election, Rupert Murdoch’s Fox Corporation has been sued by Smartmatic, which accuses his cable networks of defamation and contributing to the fervor that led to the siege of the Capitol.
• In December, Ben Smith spoke with Mr. Mugica and Mr. Connelly about the claims being made against Smartmatic. Read the interview here.  

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

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Rumors had been swirling for days before Myanmar’s military launched a coup, taking back power and ousting the civilian leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.

Myanmar’s experiment with democracy, however flawed, now appears to be over.

Today, we examine the rise and fall of Aung San Suu Kyi.

Guest: Hannah Beech, The New York Times’s Southeast Asia bureau chief. 

For an exclusive look at how the biggest stories on our show come together, subscribe to our newsletter. You can read the latest edition here.

Background reading: 

• The coup returns Myanmar to full military rule after a short span of quasi-democracy. Here is what we know.
• Myanmar seemed to be building a peaceful transition to civilian governance. Instead, a personal struggle between military and civilian leaders brought it all down.
• Aung San Suu Kyi, once considered a shimmering icon of democracy, has lost her halo.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

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When her daughter Karen was kidnapped in 2014, Miriam Rodríguez knew the Zetas, a cartel that ran organized crime in her town of San Fernando, Mexico, were responsible.

From the hopelessness that her daughter may never return came resolve: She vowed to find all those responsible and bring them to justice.

One by one, Ms. Rodríguez tracked these people down through inventive, homespun detective methods.

Today, we share the story of her three-year campaign for justice.

Guest: Azam Ahmed, The New York Times’s bureau chief for Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean.

For an exclusive look at how the biggest stories on our show come together, subscribe to our newsletter. You can read the latest edition here.

Background reading: 

• Armed with a handgun, a fake ID card and disguises, Miriam Rodríguez was a one-woman detective squad, defying a system where criminal impunity often prevails. Read Azam's full story (also available in Spanish here).

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

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President Biden’s plans for curbing the most devastating impacts of a changing climate are ambitious.

His administration is not only planning a sharp U-turn from the previous White House — former President Donald Trump openly mocked the science behind human-caused climate change — but those aims go even further than the Obama administration’s.

Today, we look at the Biden administration’s environmental proposals, as well as the potential roadblocks and whether these changes can last.

Guest: Coral Davenport, an energy and environmental policy reporter for The New York Times. 

For an exclusive look at how the biggest stories on our show come together, subscribe to our newsletter. You can read the latest edition here.

Background reading: 

• President Biden, emphasizing job creation, has signed an array of directives that elevate climate change across every level of the federal government. But huge hurdles, some from within his own party, lie ahead.
• On taking office, Mr. Biden brought with him the largest team of climate change experts ever assembled in the White House.
• The Biden administration’s ambitions could mean big changes in America’s trade, foreign relations and even defense strategy.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

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This episode contains strong language.

GameStop can feel like a retailer from a bygone era. But last week, it was dragged back into the zeitgeist when it became the center of an online war between members of an irreverent Reddit subforum and hedge funds — one that left Wall Street billions of dollars out of pocket.

Today, we look at how and why the GameStop surge happened, as well as how it can be viewed as the story of our time.

Guests: Taylor Lorenz, a technology reporter covering internet culture for The New York Times; and Andrew Ross Sorkin, a financial columnist for The Times. 

For an exclusive look at how the biggest stories on our show come together, subscribe to our newsletter. You can read the latest edition here.

Background reading: 

• GameStop shares have soared 1,700 percent as millions of small investors, egged on by social media, employ a classic Wall Street tactic to put the squeeze on Wall Street.
• A legion of young people — primarily male — have been pouring into digital trading floors for years, raised on social media and eager to teach themselves about stocks. These are the misfits shaking up Wall Street.
• It has been a weird time in the stock market, where a video game retailer has suddenly become the center of attention. Here are four things you need to know about the GameStop insanity. 

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily 

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

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“Smell is a startling superpower,” writes Brooke Jarvis, the author of today’s Sunday Read. “If you weren’t used to it, it would seem like witchcraft.”

For hundreds of years, smell has been disregarded. Most adults in a 2019 survey ranked it as the least important sense; and in a 2011 survey of young people, the majority said that their sense of smell was less valuable to them than their technological devices.

The coronavirus has precipitated a global reckoning with the sense. Smell, as many have found in the last year, is no big deal until it’s missing.

This story was written by Brooke Jarvis and recorded by Audm. To hear more audio stories from publishers like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

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This episode contains strong language. 

Inauguration Day was supposed to bring vindication for adherents of the pro-Trump conspiracy theory QAnon.

Instead, they watched as Joe Biden took the oath as the 46th president of the United States.

What happens to a conspiracy theory and its followers when they are proved wrong?

Guest: Kevin Roose, a technology columnist for The New York Times. 

For an exclusive look at how the biggest stories on our show come together, subscribe to our newsletter. You can read the latest edition here.

Background reading: 

• As Mr. Biden took office and Mr. Trump landed in Florida, with no mass arrests in sight, some QAnon believers struggled to harmonize the falsehoods with the inauguration on their TVs.
• Valerie Gilbert posts dozens of times a day in support of QAnon. Her story hints at how hard it will be to bring people like her back to reality.
• What is QAnon? Here is an explainer on the “big tent conspiracy theory.”

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily 

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

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As Democrats and Republicans haggled over how to share power in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, the minority leader, made one key demand: Do not touch the filibuster rule.

Today, we explore the mechanics and history of the rule and look ahead at its fate. 

Guest: Julie Hirschfeld Davis, the congressional editor for The New York Times. 

For an exclusive look at how the biggest stories on our show come together, subscribe to our newsletter. You can read the latest edition here.

Background reading: 

• The debate over the minority’s ability to filibuster legislation has foreshadowed a fraught landscape ahead over what Democrats should do if Republicans obstruct President Biden’s agenda.
• Mr. Biden doesn’t want to eliminate the filibuster, which can be an impediment to major legislation. Left-leaning Democrats disagree, but they’re holding back for now.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily 

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

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The number of new coronavirus cases in the United States is falling, but has the country turned a corner in the pandemic? And what kind of threats do the new variants pose to people and to the vaccine rollout?

Today, we discuss the latest in the quest to stamp out the pandemic.  

Guest: Donald G. McNeil Jr., a science and health reporter for The New York Times. 

For an exclusive look at how the biggest stories on our show come together, subscribe to our newsletter. You can read the latest edition here.

Background reading: 

• New daily cases are starting to slow, in what some health experts see as a turning point. But they warn of a bumpy vaccination rollout amid the emergence of more contagious variants.
• The C.D.C. has eased coronavirus vaccine rules: The agency now says people can switch authorized vaccines between the first and second doses, and also extend the interval between doses to six weeks.
• One year, 400,000 coronavirus deaths: a look at how the U.S. set itself up for failure.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily 

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

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This episode contains strong language.

In many instances while advising the Trump administration on the pandemic, Dr. Anthony Fauci was faced with a “difficult” situation. Yet he said he had never considered quitting.

What was it like working under President Donald J. Trump? We listen in on a candid conversation between Dr. Fauci and Donald G. McNeil Jr., the Times science and health reporter.

Guest: Donald G. McNeil Jr., a science and health reporter for The New York Times. 

For an exclusive look at how the biggest stories on our show come together, subscribe to our newsletter. You can read the latest edition here.

Background reading: 

• From denialism to death threats, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci described to Donald G. McNeil Jr. a fraught year as an adviser to President Donald J. Trump on the pandemic.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily 

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

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