The Daily - Every Eight Minutes: Uber’s Alarming Sexual Violence Problem

For years, Uber has said it is one of the safest ways to travel. But a New York Times investigation found that the company has been contending with a major problem: Hundreds of thousands of people reported that they were sexually assaulted or harassed during Uber rides.

Emily Steel, who broke the story, discusses what executives knew about the problem and how they failed to take certain steps that were supposed to make riders safer.

Guest: Emily Steel, an investigative reporter for the business desk of The New York Times.

Background reading: 

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

Photo: Amy Osborne/The New York Times

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The Book Review - This Reporter Can Tell Us What Nuclear Apocalypse Looks Like

Imagine, if you will, that for unknown reasons North Korea has just launched a nuclear bomb at the United States. What happens next?

The journalist Annie Jacobsen has imagined exactly that, and spent more than a decade interviewing dozens of experts while mastering the voluminous literature on the subject — some of it declassified only in recent years — for her 2024 book “Nuclear War: A Scenario,” which walks readers through the 72 minutes from launch to global annihilation. In the Book Review last year, Barry Gewen said the book was “gripping,” and declared it essential reading “if you want to understand the complex and disturbing details that go into a civilization-destroying decision.”

This week, Jacobsen visits the podcast to talk about her book and why she wrote it, as well as offering some hope that catastrophe can be avoided. “I wanted to write a book that showed in absolutely appalling detail how horrific nuclear war would be,” she tells the host Gilbert Cruz. “And so when people say to me either ‘I could barely read your book, but I had to read it.’ or ‘I had to read it in one sitting, I was terrified, I was horrified,’ I believe I did my job.”

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The Daily - Trump Said Family Separations Would End. They’re Happening Again.

During President Trump’s first term, the intentional separation of migrant child from their parents shocked the country and persuaded Mr. Trump to say he would end the practice for good.

Hamed Aleaziz, who covers immigration policy for The Times, has found that in Mr. Trump’s second term, the practice has returned.

Guest: Hamed Aleaziz, who covers the Department of Homeland Security and immigration policy in the United States for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

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

Photo: Victor J. Blue for The New York Times

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The Daily - More Money Was Supposed to Help Poor Kids. So Why Didn’t It?

For many, the logic seemed unassailable: Giving poor families money would measurably improve the lives of their children. And so a few years ago, social scientists set out to test whether that assumption was right.

The results of the experiment have shocked them.

Guest: Jason DeParle, a Times reporter who covers poverty in the United States.

Background reading: 

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

Photo: Andrew Seng for The New York Times

Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

The Daily - The Most Closely Watched Trump Firing in Washington

For many Americans, the government’s monthly jobs number was a pretty dull statistic — until a few days ago, when President Trump angrily fired the person responsible for producing it, the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Now, from Washington to Wall Street, many people are wondering whether you can still trust federal statistics if the president is willing to just get rid of people who give him facts he doesn’t like.

On this episode, Ben Casselman joins The Daily to discuss how the government’s economic data suddenly turned into a national drama.

Guest: Ben Casselman, the chief economics correspondent for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

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

Photo: Haiyun Jiang/The New York Times

Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

The Daily - Trump’s Texas Power Grab

In a dramatic act of protest on Sunday, Democratic members of the Texas House of Representatives began to flee the state. It is a last-ditch attempt to stop President Trump and Texas Republicans from adopting an aggressively redrawn congressional map that would eliminate Democratic seats — and could help lock in a Republican majority in next year’s elections.

Shane Goldmacher, a Times political correspondent, explains this new chapter in the era of unvarnished partisan warfare.

Guest: Shane Goldmacher, a political correspondent for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

  • The redrawn map, unveiled by Texas Republicans and pushed by Mr. Trump, puts areas of Houston, Dallas and San Antonio that have incumbent Democrats into districts that would now favor Republicans.
     
  • We’re leaving Texas to fight for Texans,” Gene Wu, a state representative from Houston and the chair of the Democratic caucus in the Texas House, said in a statement Sunday.

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The Daily - ‘Modern Love’: How to Stop Asking ‘Are You Mad at Me?’

“Am I in trouble?” “Am I secretly bad?” These are questions Meg Josephson, a therapist and author, grew up asking herself. She was constantly trying to anticipate other people’s needs, worried that she was letting other people down. And it wasn’t until she found herself standing in the aisle of a Bed Bath & Beyond, trying to remember her favorite color, that she realized her desire to please everyone was eroding her sense of self.

On this episode of Modern Love, Josephson talks about how that realization led her to confront her tumultuous childhood, and what it took to stop “people pleasing.” She then reads the Modern Love essay “My Three Years as a Beloved Daughter” by Erin Brown, about a woman who found a type of love in her best friend’s parents that she had never experienced before, and what that taught her about her own parents.

Josephson’s book, “Are You Mad At Me?,” is available Aug. 5, 2025.

Find new episodes of Modern Love every Wednesday. Follow the show wherever you get your podcasts: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | YouTube | iHeartRadio

Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

The Book Review - It’s Still Summer. Let’s Talk Road Trip Books.

Summer is the season for road trips, and also for road trip stories. Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road” may be the most famous example in American literature — but there are lots of other great road trip books, so this week the Book Review’s staff critics Dwight Garner, Alexandra Jacobs and Jennifer Szalai presented readers with a list of 18 of their favorites. On this episode of the podcast they chat with host Gilbert Cruz about the project, their picks and the top-down, wind blown, carefree appeal of the road trip narrative as a genre.

Books discussed in this episode:

“On the Road,” by Jack Kerouac

“Sing, Unburied, Sing,” by Jesmyn Ward

“Lost Children Archive,” by Valeria Luiselli

“I Am Homeless if This Is Not My Home,” by Lorrie Moore

“Tramps Like Us," by Joe Westmoreland

“Driving Mr. Albert,” by Michael Paterniti

“Gypsy: A Memoir," by Gypsy Rose Lee

“The Dog of the South,” by Charles Portis

“All Fours,” by Miranda July

“Hearts,” by Hilma Wolitzer

“The Pigeon Tunnel: Stories From My Life,” by John le Carré

“Machine Dreams,” by Jayne Anne Phillips

“Lonesome Dove,” by Larry McMurtry

“Lolita,” by Vladimir Nabokov

“The Grapes of Wrath,” by John Steinbeck

“The Price of Salt,” by Patricia Highsmith

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The Daily - What Many Israelis Don’t Want to See

As the images of starving Palestinian children continue to come out of Gaza and aid groups have confirmed a rising number of deaths from malnutrition, there has been a new round of international outrage, including from Israel’s own allies.

Emmanuelle Elbaz-Phelps, an independent Israeli journalist, discusses whether any of the outcry is resonating with Israeli society.

Guest: Emmanuelle Elbaz-Phelps, an Israeli journalist.

Background reading: 

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

Photo: Ohad Zwigenberg/Associated Press

Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

The Daily - A ‘Dagger in the Heart’ of Climate Change Regulation

After rolling back a slew of regulations aimed at reversing climate change, and pulling funding for the scientists who monitor it, the Trump administration is now taking its boldest action yet.

It’s eliminating the scientific finding at the heart of the government’s ability to fight climate change in the first place.

Lisa Friedman, who covers climate policy, discusses the history of the finding, what it did and what happens once it’s gone.

Guest: Lisa Friedman, a reporter covering climate policy and politics at The New York Times.

Background reading: 

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

Photo: Ulysse Bellier/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.