Category: 3-SometimeCommentary

The Israeli military said on Monday that it had received the 20 remaining living hostages released by Hamas under the terms of the cease-fire deal.

Rachel Abrams speaks to families of those hostages, and to other Israelis, about the long-anticipated moment, and Isabel Kershner, a Times reporter who covers Israel and Palestine, discusses why the hostages have been such a crucial factor in efforts to end the war.

Guest: Isabel Kershner, a reporter for The New York Times in Jerusalem, covering Israeli and Palestinian affairs.

Background reading: 

• Read live coverage of the hostages’ return and prisoner swap.
• Why now? The lost chances to reach a hostage deal, and a cease-fire, months ago.

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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Of the 7,000 languages estimated to exist, half will have disappeared by the end of this century. That’s the stark warning from the Director of the Endangered Languages Archive, Mandana Seyfeddinipur. The evolution of languages, and their rise and fall, is part of human history, but the speed at which this is happening today is unprecedented. Mandana will be appearing at the inaugural Voiced: The Festival for Endangered Languages at the Barbican in October.

A sense of loss also runs through Sverker Sörlin’s love letter to snow. The professor of Environmental History in Stockholm writes about the infinite variety of water formulations, frozen in air, in ‘Snö: A History’ (translated by Elizabeth DeNoma), and his fears about the vanishing white landscapes of his youth.

In the Arctic the transformation from frozen desert into an international waterway is gathering pace. Klaus Dodds is Professor of Geopolitics at Royal Holloway, University of London and with co-author Mia Bennett sets out the fight and the future of the Arctic in ‘Unfrozen’. While territorial contest and resource exploitation is causing tensions within the region, there is also potential for new ways of working, from Indigenous governance to subsea technologies.

Producer: Katy Hickman Assistant Producer: Natalia Fernandez

Congratulations are not usually in order for someone who has been forced into hiding, someone whose children are scattered across continents for their safety, someone whose supporters are sitting in prison cells for the crime of believing in democracy. 

But our guest today, María Corina Machado, just won the Nobel Peace Prize—joining the ranks of Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King Jr., and the Dalai Lama, to name a few. 

On Friday, the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded their 2025 Peace Price to the Venezuelan opposition leader for her tireless work “promoting democratic rights,” describing her as “a woman who keeps the flame of democracy burning amid a growing darkness.” She is Venezuela’s first-ever Nobel Peace Prize winner. 

Machado’s story, as Jonathan Jakubowicz wrote in The Free Press, “is a political thriller come to life. A 58-year old industrial engineer and former member of parliament, she spent two decades as the most relentless opponent of Hugo Chávez and his successor, Nicolás Maduro.” That thriller came to a head on July 28, 2024, when Edmundo González, Machado’s stand-in candidate, swept Venezuela’s elections with over 90 percent of the vote. But Maduro, Venezuela’s longtime dictator, claimed victory anyway and seized power. Since then, Machado has been living in hiding, her location undisclosed even to most of her allies, as the regime has arrested hundreds of political prisoners and issued a warrant for her arrest. 

Machado has been nicknamed Venezuela’s “Iron Lady,” the same moniker given to Margaret Thatcher, who happens to be her personal hero. She represents what may be the most significant challenge to authoritarian socialism in Latin America, and we couldn’t be more thrilled to have her here today.

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Broadway represents some of the best and most exciting of what American theater has to offer. But for many people, it’s inaccessible. Whether because of geography, cost or other considerations, most people will never sit in a Broadway theater and experience a play or a musical in person.

For years, cast recordings have offered a way to experience Broadway shows at a remove. And now, in the streaming era, some Broadway shows are making themselves available to be watched remotely, in movie theaters and on television. Distance and expense aren’t the impediments they once were to culture lovers looking to experience world-class theater.

In this episode, Gilbert Cruz talks with Jesse Green and Elisabeth Vincentelli, two of The New York Times’s culture writers, about new ways to experience some of the joys of theater from the comfort of your own home.

 

On Today’s Episode:

Jesse Green is a Culture correspondent, focusing primarily on the fine arts, including theater, classical music and art.

Elisabeth Vincentelli writes about culture for The Times.

 

Background Reading:

Want to Listen to Musical Cast Albums? Our Top 10 Desert Island Picks

Theater to Stream: Mark Rylance in ‘Twelfth Night,’ and More

Times Theater Fans on Their Favorite Musical Cast Albums

 

Photo Illustration by The New York Times; Inset: Disney+

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As Bexar County voters prepare to cast ballots on a posibble venue tax increase for a proposed downtown home for The Spurs, SA Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones takes listeners' questions.array(3) { [0]=> string(20) "https://www.tpr.org/" [1]=> string(0) "" [2]=> string(1) "0" }

On Nov. 4, Texans will decide on 17 proposed amendments to the Texas Constitution, the largest batch since 2003. The measures span a wide range of issues: property tax relief, judicial reforms, funding for education and water, parental rights, and stricter voting eligibility rules. Proposition 16 is labeled “Voting for Citizens Only.”array(3) { [0]=> string(20) "https://www.tpr.org/" [1]=> string(0) "" [2]=> string(1) "0" }

Mike previews the new Supreme Court term: Colorado’s conversion-therapy ban, transgender athlete cases out of Idaho and West Virginia, a Louisiana Voting Rights Act fight, and a Rastafarian grooming claim, then dials in the panic meter on the “shadow docket”: what it is, why Trump’s emergency-order wins look so lopsided, and where concern beats catastrophizing. From the vault, law professor Stephen Vladeck explains how the Court’s stealth rulings amass power, and why explanations matter.

Produced by Corey Wara

Production Coordinator Ashley Khan

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President Donald Trump threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act this week.

He continues to clash with state and municipal authorities over the limits of his abilities to send Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents into American cities.

Meanwhile, Republicans in Congress are eyeing their Democratic counterparts, looking for someone from the opposition to join them in voting for a bill that would reopen the government, more than a week into a shutdown.

Former FBI Director James Comey was arraigned this week, pleading not guilty on Wednesday to charges that he lied to Congress, and saying he would move to have a court dismiss the case.

Meanwhile, the first phase of a peace deal between Israel and Hamas was agreed to this week. But questions remain over how both parties will move forward with the details of the agreement.

Despite a friendly summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and President Donald Trump in Alaska in August, the Russian government is claiming that any headway made during that meeting has largely been undone.

And after just 28 days, Sébastien Lecornu’s time as France’s prime minister came to an end this week. He’s President Macron’s fifth government leader to head for the exit in less than two years.

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