Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2018

On the weekends, when Roy Gamboa was a little boy, his grandfather would wake him before dawn. He would pour some coffee into a bowl of rice, and that would be the boy’s breakfast. Roy knew better than to question anything; he sat quietly in his grandfather’s truck as they rumbled down the big hill from their village, Hågat, to Big Navy, as the U.S. Naval Base in Guam is known. They passed through the military gates, along a dirt road and onto the shore of a little cove, next to one of America’s deepest harbors, where skipjacks flipped out of the aquamarine water. The boy noodled with seashells as his grandfather cast. When his grandfather caught a fish, he would unhook it and throw it on the ground, and Roy would snatch it up and quickly stuff it, still wriggling, in the bag. If the fish weren’t biting at one spot, they packed up and moved to another. No one from the Navy ever stopped the old man and the young boy.Some mornings, his grandfather would take Roy back across the dirt road into the jungle to pick papayas, lemons and coconuts. He would thrash a course into the thicket to collect firewood from the slender trees — tangen tangen in CHamoru, the language of the Indigenous inhabitants of Guam, which Roy’s grandmothers and grandfathers were. They would cut the logs into quarters to dry, and stack them higher than Roy could even reach. Other mornings, the man and the boy went to the same spot to cut the grass, all the way from the cove’s blue waters to the ruins of an old cemetery. “Why are we the only ones cutting the grass here?” Roy would ask.“Boy, this was our land before the war,” his grandfather would reply, pointing to 40 acres running from the cemetery to the water to the jungle, over the road and back almost as far as their eyes could see. “We’re taking care of it because we hope, one day, in the future, our land will be returned to us.”Since then, Guam has become a strategic node in America’s designs in the Pacific. It is commonly referred to as “the tip of the spear” — a place from which the United States can project military might across Asia, an essential conduit to the first island chain of Japan, the Philippines and Taiwan and then on to China. As geopolitical tensions rise, Guam’s importance to American military planners only increases, and so does the risk to those who live there. In every iteration of war games between the United States and China run by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Beijing’s first strike on U.S. soil has been to bomb Guam.This story was recorded by Audm. To hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. 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.

30 Jul 20231h 43min

Some of the worst symptoms of menopause — including hot flashes, sleeplessness and pain during sex — have an established treatment. Why aren’t more women offered it?Susan Dominus, a writer for The New York Times Magazine, explains how menopause has been misunderstood both by doctors and society for years, and tells us what happened when her article about it went viral.Guest: Susan Dominus is a writer for The New York Times Magazine.Background reading: From The New York Times Magazine: Women have been misled about menopause.A selection of seven books to guide you through menopause.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 and Spotify. 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.

28 Jul 202332min

A major new study has revealed just how much elite colleges admissions in the U.S. systematically favor the rich and the superrich.David Leonhardt, a senior writer for The Times and The Morning, walks through the data and explains why the study is fueling calls to abandon longstanding practices like legacy admissions.Guest: David Leonhardt, a senior writer for The New York Times and The Morning.Background reading: From the Upshot: A study of elite college admissions data suggests being very rich is its own qualification.Here’s David Leonhardt’s article for The Morning discussing the results of the study.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 and Spotify. 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.

27 Jul 202338min

On Wednesday morning, Hunter Biden was scheduled to a guilty plea in a Delaware courtroom, marking the end of a yearslong federal investigation that many Republicans believed would put the president’s son in prison, and put an end to the Biden presidency.Michael Schmidt, who covers national security and federal investigations for The New York Times, explains why none of that has happened.Guest: Michael S. Schmidt, a Washington correspondent for The New York Times who covers national security and federal investigations.Background reading: Under an agreement with the Justice Department, Hunter Biden accepted probation for filing his taxes late.Republicans in Congress sought to block the plea deal, arguing that it had been tainted by political interference.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 and Spotify. 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.

26 Jul 202334min

When Russia invaded Ukraine, it put the global food supply at risk — until the two countries struck an unusual deal to keep shipments flowing. Last week, that deal fell apart.Marc Santora, who has been reporting from Ukraine since the beginning of the conflict, explains what the collapse of the agreement means for the war and why its impact will be felt by tens of millions of people across the world.Guest: Marc Santora, a Ukraine correspondent for The New York Times.Background reading: After Russia pulled out of the agreement allowing ships to carry grain past its Black Sea blockade, Ukraine accused Moscow of aiming strikes at food export infrastructure.Russia has hit the port city of Odesa repeatedly since withdrawing from the grain deal.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 and Spotify. 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.

25 Jul 202321min

For the past few months, a single senator — Tommy Tuberville — has blocked hundreds of promotions in the U.S. military.Karoun Demirjian, a congressional correspondent for The Times, explains what’s behind the senator’s blockade, and why military leaders say it’s becoming a threat to national security.Guest: Karoun Demirjian, a congressional correspondent for The New York Times.Background reading: Tuberville’s bid to reverse a Pentagon policy ensuring abortion access for service members has delayed the smooth transfer of power at the highest echelons of the armed forces.Here’s David Firestone of Times Opinion on Tuberville’s blockade.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 and Spotify. 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.

24 Jul 202324min

On the morning of Feb. 7, 2017, two electricians were working on a warning siren near the spillway of Oroville Dam, 60 miles north of Sacramento, when they heard an explosion. As they watched, a giant plume of water rose over their heads, and chunks of concrete began flying down the hillside toward the Feather River. The dam’s spillway, a concrete channel capable of moving millions of gallons of water out of the reservoir in seconds, was disintegrating in front of them. If it had to be taken out of service, a serious rainstorm, like the one that had been falling on Northern California for days, could cause the dam — the tallest in the United States — to fail.Kory Honea, the sheriff of Butte County, which includes the dam and the town it is named for, first heard that something was wrong from Dino Corbin, a local radio personality, who called him at his office: “Are you aware there’s a hole in the spillway?” Around the same time, one of the sheriff’s dispatchers received a confusing message from California’s Department of Water Resources, which owns the dam, saying it was conducting a “routine inspection” after reports of an incident.At the dam, department officials closed the gates at the top of the spillway to prevent any more of its concrete slabs from being lost in what an independent forensic report prepared after the incident described as “a sudden, explosive failure.” The flow of water stopped. The rain, however, didn’t.In the six years since the near-failure of the Oroville Dam, dam operators across the country have begun to reassess the structures under their control, looking for hidden weaknesses: the cracks in the spillway, the hillside that crumbles at the first sign of water. That work is necessary, but it may not be enough to prevent the next disaster. Bigger storms are on the way.This story was recorded by Audm. To hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. 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.

23 Jul 202354min

“Barbie” is premiering this weekend and is trying to pull off a seemingly impossible task: taking a doll best known for reinforcing conventional stereotypes of women and rebranding it as a symbol of feminism, all without coming off as a shameless ad for the doll’s maker, Mattel. Willa Paskin, a journalist and host of Slate’s Decoder Ring podcast, recounts her conversation with the film’s director, Greta Gerwig, about how she approached the challenge.Guest: Willa Paskin, Slate’s television critic and the host of Slate’s Decoder Ring podcast.Background reading: Mattel wanted a summer blockbuster to kick off its new wave of brand-extension movies. Greta Gerwig wanted the film to be a work of art.The reviews are in: Some critics viewed “Barbie” as satirically capitalistic, while others saw it as capitalistically satirical.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 and Spotify. 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.

21 Jul 202331min