Podcast: The Daily

On paper, the election in Wisconsin on Tuesday is about who should control the state’s highest court. In reality, it has become a referendum on Elon Musk, his agenda in Washington and his willingness to flood American politics with his money.

Reid J. Epstein, who has been covering this campaign for The Times, explains why it has become the local election that everyone is watching.

Immigration arrests are taking place at universities across the country. The story of three Columbia students helps explain what’s happening, and why.

Hamed Aleaziz, who covers immigration policy, lays out what their cases reveal about the latest immigration crackdown — and about this administration’s views on free speech.

Troy Merritt, a pilot for a major U.S. airline, returned from his 30th birthday trip in Croatia in October 2022 — sailing on a catamaran, eating great food, socializing with friends — and cried. This wasn’t back-to-work blues but collapsed-on-the-floor, full-body-shaking misery. When he wasn’t crying, he slept.

“I’ve got to find a therapist,” he told himself. And he did, quickly. If that therapist didn’t write down “depression,” Merritt would be OK. He could still fly planes, keep his job — as long as he wasn’t diagnosed with a mental illness.

Merritt, like all pilots, knew that if he was formally diagnosed with a mental-health condition, he might never fly a plane again.

The former Fox News and current YouTube host on her professional evolution, conservative media and why she endorsed Trump.

What does the continuing fallout from the Signal text security breach tell us about President Trump’s cabinet’s approach to blame and accountability?

The Times journalists Michael Barbaro, Eric Schmitt, Julian E. Barnes and Maggie Haberman sit down to make sense of the latest week.

For the past three decades, the U.S. government has released documents related to the assassination of John F. Kennedy with an overriding goal of dispelling conspiracy theories.

Julian E. Barnes, who covers the U.S. intelligence agencies, explains why President Trump’s motivations behind releasing the latest batch are far more complicated.

This week, top Trump officials inadvertently shared secret U.S. military plans with a prominent journalist after mistakenly adding him to a group chat.

The journalist, Jeffrey Goldberg, who is editor in chief at The Atlantic, discusses what he was thinking as he read the messages and what he makes of the fallout.

As President Trump set out to systematically eliminate or intimidate those who stood in his way — inspectors general, judges, law firms — the news media loomed as one of his most stubborn obstacles. Or so it seemed.

Jim Rutenberg, a writer at large for The New York Times, explains how Mr. Trump is circumventing and undermining the fourth estate in a way no president before him ever has.

In recent weeks, the Trump administration has put the American university system on notice.

It has pressed for changes, opened investigations — and in some cases withheld critical funds.

Alan Blinder, who covers education in America, explains how schools are responding to the pressure and what it might mean for the future of higher education.

Sometime in the 1850s or ’60s, at a terrible moment in U.S. history, a strange man seemed to sprout, out of nowhere, into the rocky landscape between New York City and Hartford, Conn. The word “strange” hardly captures his strangeness. He was rough and hairy, and he wandered around on back roads, sleeping in caves. Above all, he refused to explain himself. As one newspaper put it: “He is a mystery, and a very greasy and ill-odored one.” Other papers referred to him as “the animal” or (just throwing up their hands) “this uncouth and unkempt ‘What is it?’”

But the strangest thing about the stranger was his suit.

The clinical psychologist explains the foundations of egocentric parental behavior, the impact it has on their children and the freedom of saying “no.”

As President Trump has rolled out his economic agenda, the assumption has been that he would quickly scale back his most aggressive policies once they began to scare consumers and the financial markets. But that assumption turned out to be wrong.

Ben Casselman, who covers economics, and Maggie Haberman, who covers the White House, explain why Mr. Trump’s economic plan may be backfiring and why he doesn’t seem to mind.

Five years ago, at the urging of federal officials, much of the United States locked down to stop the spread of Covid. Over time, the action polarized the country and changed the relationship between many Americans and their government.

Michael Barbaro speaks to Stephen Macedo and Frances Lee, two prominent political scientists who dispute the effectiveness of the lockdowns, to find out what they think will be required when the next pandemic strikes.

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President Trump’s showdown with the courts reached a new milestone on Tuesday, when he called for a federal judge to be impeached and the chief justice of the Supreme Court publicly scolded the president in response.

Luke Broadwater, who covers the White House for The Times, discusses the deportation case at the center of the confrontation — and whether the constitutional crisis that many have feared has now arrived.

After engaging in a campaign of retribution against his enemies within the federal government, President Trump is turning to those outside of it.

Michael S. Schmidt, an investigative reporter for The New York Times, explains what that retribution has looked like for a single law firm — and the impact it has had on the entire legal profession.

Warning: This episode contains strong language.

Over the past few days, a routine debate over government funding has exploded into an angry showdown over the Democrats’ identity in the Trump era, and whether their current leadership is right for the moment.

Catie Edmondson, who covers Congress, and Shane Goldmacher, who covers national politics, discuss a weekend that rocked the Democratic Party.

The Senate minority leader discusses the backlash to his vote on the Republican spending bill, how he sees his role within the party and his new book.

In just a few weeks, the Trump administration has taken a hard line with allies such as Mexico and Canada. Now, a trade war is on the horizon with Europe.

Mark Landler, the London bureau chief of The New York Times, explains how a fracturing alliance with Europe could affect global political dynamics.

A gloves-off trade war with the United States is uniting Canadians against their southern neighbor.

Matina Stevis-Gridneff, the Canada bureau chief for The New York Times, explains how the dispute is shifting the country’s politics, culture and place on the global stage.

A measles outbreak continues to spread in Texas. More than 200 people have been infected. One child has died. And health experts are now concerned that low vaccination rates will make it harder to contain.

Teddy Rosenbluth, a health reporter at The New York Times, explains the rapid outbreak — and asks whether the government’s response will signal a turning point in how America views public heath.