Benjamin B. Bolger has been to Harvard and Stanford and Yale. He has been to Columbia and Dartmouth and Oxford, and Cambridge, Brandeis and Brown. Over all, Bolger has 14 advanced degrees, plus an associate’s and a bachelor’s.

Against a backdrop of pervasive cynicism about the nature of higher education, it is tempting to dismiss a figure like Bolger as the wacky byproduct of an empty system. Then again, Bolger has run himself through that system, over and over and over again; it continues to take him in, and he continues to return to it for more.

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Air-conditioning has become both our answer to a warming planet and a major obstacle to actually confronting it.

Emily Badger, who covers cities and urban policy for The Times, explains the increasingly dangerous paradox of trying to control the temperature.

Guest: Emily Badger, who covers cities and urban policy for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• From 2017: How air-conditioning conquered America.
• Air-conditioning use will surge in a warming world, the U.N. has warned.

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

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In the weeks since a landmark Supreme Court ruling opened the door for cities and states to crack down on homeless encampments, California — the state with the largest homeless population — has taken some of the nation’s most sweeping actions against them.

Shawn Hubler, who covers California for The Times, discusses the race to clean up what has become one of the Democratic Party’s biggest vulnerabilities before Election Day.

Guest: Shawn Hubler, a reporter covering California for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• Gov. Gavin Newsom cleared homeless camps in L.A. county, where he wants more “urgency.”
• Mr. Newsom ordered California officials to remove homeless encampments.

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

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In a landmark antitrust ruling against Google last week, another case was at the heart of the story — one from the 1990s.

Steve Lohr, who covers technology and the economy for The Times, explains the influence of United States v. Microsoft and what lessons that case might hold for the future of Big Tech today.

Guest: Steve Lohr, who covers technology, the economy and work for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• How the Google antitrust ruling may influence tech competition.
• The ruling on Google’s search dominance was the first antitrust decision of the modern internet era in a case against a technology giant.

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

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New polls by The New York Times and Siena College find that Vice President Kamala Harris has transformed the 2024 presidential race and is now leading former President Donald J. Trump in three crucial battleground states.

Nate Cohn, the chief political analyst for The Times, explains why Ms. Harris is benefiting so much.

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

Background reading: 

• Ms. Harris leads Mr. Trump in three key states, according to new surveys by The Times and Siena College
• The polls show that the vice president has fundamentally changed the race.

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

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For much of the past year, Donald J. Trump and those around him were convinced that victory in the presidential race was all but certain. Now, everything has changed, after the decision by President Biden not to seek a second term.

Jonathan Swan, who covers the Trump campaign for The New York Times, discusses the former president’s struggle to adjust to his new opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris.

Guest: Jonathan Swan, who covers politics and Donald Trump’s presidential campaign for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• People around the former and would-be president see a candidate disoriented by his new opponent.
• At a news conference at Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump tried to wrestle back the public’s attention.

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

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Les Milne was a consultant anesthesiologist, and his wife, Joy, typically found that he came home smelling of anesthetics, antiseptics and blood. But he returned one August evening in 1982, shortly after his 32nd birthday, smelling of something new and distinctly unsavory, of some thick must. From then on, the odor never ceased, though neither Les nor almost anyone but his wife could detect it. For Joy, even a small shift in her husband’s aroma might have been cause for distress, but his scent now seemed to have changed fundamentally, as if replaced by that of someone else.

Les began to change in other ways, however, and soon the smell came to seem almost trivial. It was as if his personality had shifted. Les had rather suddenly become detached, ill-tempered, apathetic. It was not until much later that he would be diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. The scent Joy had noticed would become a possible solution for earlier diagnosis.

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More than 50 years after its inception, “breaking” — not “break dancing,” a term coined by the media and disdained by practitioners — will debut as an Olympic sport.

Jonathan Abrams, who writes about the intersection of sports and culture, explains how breaking’s big moment came about.

Guest: Jonathan Abrams, a Times reporter covering national culture news.

Background reading: 

• The Olympic battles in breaking will be a watershed moment for a dance form conceived and cultivated by Black and Hispanic youth in the Bronx during the 1970s.
• Breakers are grappling with hip-hop’s Olympic moment. Will their art translate into sport?

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

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