The Year in Wisdom

In a major new campaign poll from The New York Times and Siena College, former President Donald J. Trump leads President Biden in five of the six battleground states likeliest to decide the 2024 presidential race. Widespread discontent with the state of the country and growing doubts about Biden’s ability to perform his job as president threaten to unravel the diverse coalition that elected him in 2020.Nate Cohn, The Times’s chief political analyst, explains why the results are less a reflection of Trump’s growing strength than they are of Biden’s growing weaknesses.Guest: Nate Cohn, The New York Times’s chief political analyst.Background reading: In the Times/Siena poll, voters in battleground states said they trusted Mr. Trump over Mr. Biden on the economy, foreign policy and immigration.Here are detailed tables from the poll.Less engaged voters are Biden’s biggest problem.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.

6 Nov 202329min

The beginning of the story was strangely familiar, like the opening scene in a shopworn police procedural: A woman runs screaming down a street in Oak Beach, a secluded gated community on Long Island’s South Shore, only to vanish, it seems, into thin air. It was almost dawn on May 1, 2010. Hours earlier, Shannan Gilbert traveled from New Jersey to see a man who had hired her as an escort from a Craigslist ad. By the time the police arrived, she was gone. They talked to the neighbors, the john and her driver and came up with nothing. A few days later, they ordered a flyover of the area and, again, saw no sign of her. Then they essentially threw up their hands. She went into the ocean, they decided, either hysterical or on drugs.None of this made the news, not at first. A missing sex worker rarely does. Not even when another woman advertising on Craigslist, Megan Waterman, was reported missing a month later.This was, quite obviously, a serial-killer case. The only person not saying as much was the Suffolk County police commissioner, Richard Dormer. “I don’t want anyone to think we have a Jack the Ripper running around Suffolk County with blood dripping from a knife,” he said in a frenzied news conference. In fact, they had something almost exactly like that. All eyes were on the Suffolk Police now — wondering who killed these women, if they would ever find Gilbert and what it would take to solve the mystery.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.

5 Nov 202354min

As the Israeli-Palestinian conflict enters its darkest chapter in decades, both sides are evoking the same foundational moment in their past: the events of 1948.David K. Shipler, a former Jerusalem bureau chief for The New York Times and the author of a Pulitzer Prize-winning book about the conflict, discusses the meaning and reality of what happened that year.Guest: David K. Shipler, author of “Arab and Jew: Wounded Spirits in a Promised Land.”Background reading: Recent violence in an Israeli town carries bitter echoes of the past for Palestinians.From the archive: Israel declares independence on May 14, 1948.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.

3 Nov 202343min

The mass shooting in Maine last week, which killed 18 people, was the country’s deadliest of the year. It may have also been one of the most avoidable.More than five months earlier, the Army Reserve and a Maine sheriff’s department had been made aware of a reservist’s deteriorating mental health. Just six weeks before the killings, he had punched a friend and said he was going to carry out a shooting spree.Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs, a national reporter for The Times, explains why so many warnings failed to stop the shooting.Guest: Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs, a national correspondent for The New York Times.Background reading: The Army Reserve and a Maine sheriff’s department knew of a reservist’s deteriorating mental health five months before America’s deadliest mass shooting this year.Here’s what we know about the shootings in Maine.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.

2 Nov 202324min

In late September, one of the world’s most intractable conflicts ended suddenly and brutally when Azerbaijan seized the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh and tens of thousands of ethnic Armenians fled their homes.Andrew Higgins, the New York Times bureau chief for East and Central Europe, explains how the conflict started, why it lasted for more than 30 years, and what its end can tell us about the nature of seemingly unsolvable disputes.Guest: Andrew Higgins, the East and Central Europe bureau chief for The New York Times.Background reading: After decades of wars and tense stalemates, almost no one saw it coming: Azerbaijan seized Nagorno-Karabakh from Armenian control seemingly overnight.The military offensive prompted an exodus to Armenia.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.

1 Nov 202334min

A wave of strikes that has paralyzed the auto industry came to an end on Monday, when the last of the three big car manufacturers, General Motors, reached a deal with the United Automobile Workers union.Neal E. Boudette, who covers the auto industry for The Times, discusses the historic deal and why it was such a big win for workers.Guest: Neal E. Boudette, an auto industry correspondent for The New York Times.Background reading: Autoworkers scored big wins in new contracts with carmakers, the most generous in decades.The U.A.W. said it aims to organize nonunion plants.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.

31 Okt 202322min

Over the weekend, the Israeli military appears to have begun an invasion of the Gaza Strip, with tanks rolling into the enclave and Israeli soldiers fighting Hamas inside. But the operation remains shrouded in secrecy, and Israel is revealing little about its actions.Raja Abdulrahim, a Middle East correspondent for The Times, and Patrick Kingsley, the Jerusalem bureau chief, discuss the latest escalation in the war.Guests: Raja Abdulrahim, a Middle East correspondent for The New York Times, based in Jerusalem, and Patrick Kingsley, the Jerusalem bureau chief for The New York Times.Background reading: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the Israel-Hamas war had entered its “second stage.”As Israeli troops began pressing into Gaza, officials avoided calling the operation an invasion.Here is the latest on the war.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.

30 Okt 202323min

On Oct. 19, 2021, Armando Linares López was writing up notes from an interview when his cellphone buzzed with an unknown number. Linares, 49 and stocky with black hair that was just starting to show gray streaks, ran an online news site in a small Mexican city called Zitácuaro. He knew his beat so intimately that calls from unfamiliar phone numbers were rare.But the man on the other end spoke in a way that was instantly familiar. Linares had come to know that pitched, menacing tone from years of run-ins with every kind of Mexican gangster.“This is Commander Eagle,” the voice said. “I’m from the Jalisco New Generation Cartel.”Zitácuaro, in the hills of the state of Michoacán, had for years mostly been known for its fertile avocado orchards and the pine-oak forest where tourists came to see the annual arrival of the monarch butterflies. But its central location had made it increasingly attractive to the drug trade. Farmers grew marijuana and opium poppy, the source of heroin, in nearby mountains, and in recent years international drug cartels had been using Michoacán as a way station for methamphetamine and fentanyl shipments. Linares’s rise as a journalist coincided with the drug boom, and he watched its devastating effects on Zitácuaro: severed heads dumped in front of a car dealership, business owners kidnapped for ransom and a government that seemed unwilling or unable to do anything about it.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.

29 Okt 202354min