Last week, for the first time in U.S. history, federal regulators approved the sale of a birth control pill without a prescription.

Pam Belluck, a health and science correspondent for The Times, explains why, after decades of brutal battles over contraception, this decision played out so differently.

Guest: Pam Belluck, a health and science correspondent for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• The F.D.A. approved a birth control pill to be sold without a prescription for the first time in the United States, a milestone that could significantly expand access to contraception.
• Here’s how women reacted to the news.

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To refine their popular technology, new artificial intelligence platforms like Chat-GPT are gobbling up the work of authors, poets, comedians and actors — without their consent.

Sheera Frenkel, a technology correspondent for The Times, explains why a rebellion is brewing.

Guest: Sheera Frenkel, a technology correspondent for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• Fed up with A.I. companies consuming online content without consent, fan fiction writers, actors, social media companies and news organizations are among those rebelling.
• The comedian and actress Sarah Silverman has joined two lawsuits accusing the companies of training A.I. models using her writing without permission.

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When China suddenly dismantled its lockdowns and other Covid precautions last December, officials in Beijing and many investors expected the economy to spring back to life. It hasn’t worked out that way.

Daisuke Wakabayashi, an Asia business correspondent for The Times, explains why China’s economic rebound hit a wall, and what it says about the country’s next chapter.

Guest: Daisuke Wakabayashi, an Asia business correspondent for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• Policymakers and investors expected China’s economy to rev up again after Beijing abruptly dropped Covid precautions, but recent data shows alarming signs of a slowdown.
• Nanchang’s skyscrapers represented urban transformation, but the city added apartments faster than its population grew. The result: vacant homes and offices.

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Some years ago, a psychiatrist named Wendy Dean read an article about a physician who died by suicide. Such deaths were distressingly common, she discovered. The suicide rate among doctors appeared to be even higher than the rate among active military members, a notion that startled Dean, who was then working as an administrator at a U.S. Army medical research center in Maryland. Dean started asking the physicians she knew how they felt about their jobs, and many of them confided that they were struggling. Some complained that they didn’t have enough time to talk to their patients because they were too busy filling out electronic medical records. Others bemoaned having to fight with insurers about whether a person with a serious illness would be preapproved for medication.

The doctors Dean surveyed were deeply committed to the medical profession. But many of them were frustrated and unhappy, she sensed, not because they were burned out from working too hard but because the health care system made it so difficult to care for their patients.

By the time the journalist Eyal Press met Dean, the distress among medical professionals had reached alarming levels. Professional organizations like National Nurses United, the largest group of registered nurses in the country, had begun referring to “moral injury” and “moral distress” in pamphlets and news releases. Mona Masood, a psychiatrist who established a support line for doctors shortly after the coronavirus pandemic began, recalls being struck by how clinicians reacted when she mentioned the term. “I remember all these physicians were like, Wow, that is what I was looking for,” she says. “This is it.”

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Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, the second Black justice to sit on the court after Thurgood Marshall, has spent years opposing affirmative action. When the high court struck down the policy last month, Justice Thomas was one of the most influential figures behind the ruling.

Abbie VanSickle, who covers the Supreme Court for The Times, explains the impact affirmative action has had on Justice Thomas’s life and how he helped to bring about its demise.

Guest: Abbie VanSickle, a Supreme Court correspondent for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• A look at Justice Thomas’s path to the Supreme Court.
• Here’s what the justices have said in the past about affirmative action.

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Two weeks ago, the United States Supreme Court struck down affirmative action, declaring that the race-conscious admissions programs at Harvard and the University of North Carolina were unlawful.

Today, three people whose lives were changed by affirmative action discuss the complicated feelings they have about the policy.

Guest: Sabrina Tavernise, a co-host of The Daily.

Background reading: 

• For many of the Black, Hispanic and Native Americans whose lives were shaped by affirmative action, the moment has prompted a personal reckoning with its legacy.
• In earlier decisions, the court had endorsed taking account of race as one factor among many to promote educational diversity.

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 Tens of millions of Americans changed jobs over the past two years, a rare moment of worker power as employees demanded higher pay, and as employers, short on staff, often gave it to them.

The tidal wave of quitting became known as the “great resignation.” Now, as the phenomenon seems to have fizzled out, the Times economic writer Ben Casselman discusses whether there have been any lasting benefits for American workers.

Guest: Ben Casselman, an economy correspondent for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• The furious pace of job-switching in recent years has led to big gains for low-wage workers. But the pendulum could be swinging back toward employers.
• Last year, the Times opinion writer Paul Krugman questioned the great resignation narrative.

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For months, President Biden has been wrestling with one of the most vexing questions in the war in Ukraine: whether to risk letting Ukrainian forces run out of the artillery rounds they desperately need to fight Russia, or agree to ship them cluster munitions — widely banned weapons known to cause grievous injury to civilians, especially children. On Friday, the Biden administration announced that it would send the weapons, which have been outlawed by many of Washington's closest allies.

David E. Sanger, a White House and national security correspondent for The New York Times, tells the story behind the president’s contentious decision.

Guest: David E. Sanger, a White House and national security correspondent for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• With Ukraine burning through stockpiles of conventional artillery, Mr. Biden concluded that he had little choice but to provide the weapons.
• Read The New York Times Editorial Board’s piece on “the flawed moral logic of sending cluster munitions to Ukraine.”

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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 Last week, Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, released Threads, a social media platform to compete with Twitter. In just 16 hours, Threads was downloaded more than 30 million times.

Mike Isaac, who covers tech companies and Silicon Valley for The Times, explains how Twitter became so vulnerable and discusses the challenges Meta faces to create a less toxic alternative.

Guest: Mike Isaac, a technology correspondent for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• Threads is on pace to exceed 100 million users within two months, a feat achieved only by ChatGPT.
• Here’s what to know about Threads and how it differs from Twitter.

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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The wave of scandals that would engulf Spain began with a police raid on a wooded property outside Madrid. It was Nov. 3, 2017, and the target was José Manuel Villarejo Pérez, a former government spy. Villarejo’s name had been circulating in the Spanish press for years. He was rumored to have had powerful friends and to have kept dirt on them all. The impressive variety of allegations against him — forgery, bribery, extortion, influence peddling — had earned him the nickname “king of the sewers.”

For many decades, Villarejo’s face had been known to almost no one. He was, after all, a spy — and not just any spy, but one who had started his career in the secret police of the Spanish dictator Francisco Franco. In those years, he would dress in overalls from Telefónica, the national telephone company, as he conducted surveillance operations in the mountains, and on several occasions he even wore a priest’s collar in order to infiltrate the Basque separatist group ETA. More recently, Villarejo had taken to simply introducing himself as a lawyer who ran a private-investigation firm, offering those he met to dig up compromising material on their enemies. His formal connection to the government was increasingly ambiguous. Of all of the identities he assumed over the years, this was perhaps the most powerful one. It made him rich through the hefty fees he charged, and it opened a door into the worlds of business tycoons, government ministers, aristocrats, judges, newspaper editors and arms traffickers — all of whose trust he gained, all of whose private words he taped.

Villarejo was handcuffed and taken to Madrid. But as he sat in jail awaiting trial, the question left hanging over Spain was this: What happens to a country’s secrets when they have all been recorded by one man? And what happens when that man finds himself suddenly backed into a corner?

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

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