The Daily

When a piece of an Alaska Airlines flight blew out into the sky in January, concern and scrutiny focused once more on the plane’s manufacturer, Boeing.

Sydney Ember, a business reporter for The Times, explains what has been learned about the incident and what the implications might be for Boeing.

Guest: Sydney Ember, a business reporter for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• The Alaska Airlines plane may have left the Boeing factory missing bolts, the National Transportation Safety Board said.
• Facing another Boeing crisis, the F.A.A. takes a harder line.

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.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The first death happened before the academic year began. In July 2021, an undergraduate student at Worcester Polytechnic Institute was reported dead. The administration sent a notice out over email, with the familiar, thoroughly vetted phrasing and appended resources. Katherine Foo, an assistant professor in the department of integrative and global studies, felt especially crushed by the news. She taught this student. He was Chinese, and she felt connected to the particular set of pressures he faced. She read through old, anonymous course evaluations, looking for any sign she might have missed. But she was unsure where to put her personal feelings about a loss suffered in this professional context.

The week before the academic year began, a second student died. A rising senior in the computer-science department who loved horticulture took his own life. This brought an intimation of disaster. One student suicide is a tragedy; two might be the beginning of a cluster. Some faculty members began to feel a tinge of dread when they stepped onto campus.

Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts is a tidy New England college campus with the high-saturation landscaping typical of well-funded institutions. The hedges are beautifully trimmed, the pathways are swept clean. Red-brick buildings from the 19th century fraternize with high glass facades and renovated interiors. But over a six-month period, the school was turned upside down by a spate of suicides.

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.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In December, the Colorado Supreme Court issued a bombshell ruling that said Donald Trump was ineligible to be on the state’s ballot for the Republican presidential primary, saying he was disqualified under the 14th Amendment of the Constitution because he had engaged in insurrection on Jan. 6.

The Supreme Court has taken on the case and on Thursday, the justices heard arguments for and against keeping Trump on the ballot.

Adam Liptak, who covers the Supreme Court for The Times, analyzes the arguments, the justices’ responses, and what they can tell us about the likely ruling in a case that could alter the course of this year’s race for president.

Guest: Adam Liptak, who covers the Supreme Court for The New York Times and writes Sidebar, a column on legal developments.

Background reading: 

• What Happens Next in Trump’s Supreme Court Case on His Eligibility
• A Ruling for Trump on Eligibility Could Doom His Bid for Immunity

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.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Warning: this episode contains strong language and descriptions of violence.

A few days ago, for the first time, an American jury convicted a parent for a mass shooting carried out by their child.

Lisa Miller, who has been following the case since its beginning, explains what the historic verdict really means.

Guest: Lisa Miller, a domestic correspondent for The New York Times

Background reading: 

• From New York Magazine: Will James and Jennifer Crumbley be Found Guilty for Their Son’s Mass Shooting?
• Mother of Michigan Gunman Found Guilty of Manslaughter
• A Mom’s Conviction Offers Prosecutors a New Tactic in Mass Shooting Cases

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.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

El Salvador has experienced a remarkable transformation. What had once been one of the most violent countries in the world has become incredibly safe.

Natalie Kitroeff, the New York Times bureau chief for Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean, discusses the cost of that transformation to the people of El Salvador, and the man at the center of it, the newly re-elected President Nayib Bukele.

Guest: Natalie Kitroeff, the New York Times bureau chief for Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean.

Background reading: 

• El Salvador Decimated Its Ruthless Gangs. But at What Cost?
• He Cracked Down on Gangs and Rights. Now He’s Set to Win a Landslide.

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.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Late last month, an explosive allegation that workers from a crucial U.N. relief agency in Gaza had taken part in the Oct. 7 attacks stunned the world and prompted major donors, including the United States, to suspend funding.
Patrick Kingsley, the Jerusalem bureau chief for The Times, explains what this could mean for the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and how it might complicate Israel’s strategy in the war.

Guest: Patrick Kingsley, the Jerusalem bureau chief for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• U.N. Agency for Palestinians Imperiled by Terrorism Charges
• The 8 Days That Roiled the U.N.’s Top Agency in Gaza
• UNRWA Set to Lose $65 Million, Documents Show

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.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

President Biden has struggled to sell Americans on the positive signs in the economy under his watch, despite figures that look good on paper. That could have important ramifications for his re-election hopes.

Nate Cohn, the chief political analyst for The Times, explains why, to understand the situation, it may help to look back at another election, 76 years ago.

Guest: Nate Cohn, the chief political analyst for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• Want to Understand 2024? Look at 1948.
• The Economy Looks Sunny, a Potential Gain for Biden.

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.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Of all the dozens of suspected thieves questioned by the detectives of the Train Burglary Task Force at the Los Angeles Police Department during the months they spent investigating the rise in theft from the city’s freight trains, one man stood out. What made him memorable wasn’t his criminality so much as his giddy enthusiasm for trespassing. That man, Victor Llamas, was a self-taught expert of the supply chain, a connoisseur of shipping containers. Even in custody, as the detectives interrogated him numerous times, after multiple arrests, in a windowless room in a police station in spring 2022, a kind of nostalgia would sweep over the man. “He said that was the best feeling he’d ever had, jumping on the train while it was moving,” Joe Chavez, who supervised the task force’s detectives, said. “It was euphoric for him.”

Some 20 million containers move through the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach every year, including about 35 percent of all the imports into the United States from Asia. Once these steel boxes leave the relative security of a ship at port, they are loaded onto trains and trucks — and then things start disappearing. The Los Angeles basin is the country’s undisputed capital of cargo theft, the region with the most reported incidents of stuff stolen from trains and trucks and those interstitial spaces in the supply chain, like rail yards, warehouses, truck stops and parking lots.

In the era of e-commerce, freight train robberies are going through a strange revival.

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.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The Democratic presidential nomination process begins tomorrow in South Carolina, and President Biden is running largely uncontested. But his campaign is expending significant resources in the race to try to reach a crucial part of his base: Black voters.

Maya King, a politics reporter at The Times, explains.

Guest: Maya King, a politics reporter for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• In South Carolina, Mr. Biden is trying to persuade Black voters to reject Trump.
• South Carolina was the home of Mr. Biden’s political resurrection in the primaries four years ago, and it is reaping the rewards.

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.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

For the past few weeks, Democrats and Republicans were closing in on a game-changing deal to secure the U.S.-Mexico border: a bipartisan compromise that’s unheard-of in contemporary Washington.

Karoun Demirjian, who covers Congress for The Times, explains why that deal is now falling apart.

Guest: Karoun Demirjian, a congressional correspondent for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• Divided Republicans coalesced behind a bit of legislative extortion: No Ukraine aid without a border crackdown. Then they split over how large a price to demand, imperiling both initiatives.
• Republicans and Democrats have agreed to try to reduce the number of migrants granted parole to stay in the United States, but cementing the compromise will take money and persuasion on both sides.

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.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.