Podcast: The Daily

Hallmark Christmas movies are corny, predictable and just what our critic needed to embrace the holiday spirit. The story of how a big-city culture critic, Amanda Hess, found love where she least expected it — in the monotony of Hallmark’s Christmas movies.

How President Biden could transform women’s rights and rescue his legacy with just a ring. Dozens of congressional Democrats have a simple pitch to President Biden: with a single phone call he can revolutionize women’s rights and salvage his damaged legacy. Annie Karni, a congressional correspondent at The New York Times, discusses whether that plan is possible and, if so, whether Mr. Biden would try.

His wife was spiraling into insomnia, and his children were afraid to go to school, so Jaime Cachua sought out the person he trusted most in a crisis. He sat at his kitchen table in rural Georgia across from his father-in-law, Sky Atkins, the family patriarch. Jaime, 33, hadn’t seen his own father since he was 10 months old, when he left Mexico in a car seat bound for the United States.

“We have to prepare for the worst-case scenario,” Jaime told him. “There’s a chance we could lose everything.”

Jaime muted the football game on TV and began to explain his new reality as an undocumented immigrant after the election of Donald Trump, who had won the presidency in part by promising to deport more than 11 million people living in the country illegally.

“I’m going to be straight with you,” Sky told Jaime. “I voted for Trump. I believe in a lot of what he says.”

“I figured as much,” Jaime said. “You and just about everyone else around here.”

“It’s about protecting our rights as a sovereign country,” Sky said. “We need to shut down the infiltration on the border. It’s not about you.”

“It is about me,” Jaime said. “That’s the thing I don’t understand.”

The star of “The Chosen” discusses his early struggles in Hollywood, fans who conflate him with his character and how his own faith informs his work.

Weeks before his inauguration, President-elect Donald J. Trump is pushing the federal government toward a shutdown, corporate titans are flocking to Mar-a-Lago to gain his favor and a major media company has capitulated to Trump’s legal strategy of suing those who cross him.

The Times journalists Michael Barbaro, Maggie Haberman, Catie Edmondson and Andrew Ross Sorkin try to make sense of it all.

Guest:

Maggie Haberman, a senior political correspondent for The New York Times.
Catie Edmondson, a congressional correspondent for The New York Times.
Andrew Ross Sorkin, a columnist and the founder and editor-at-large of DealBook.

Since Donald J. Trump won the 2024 election, cryptocurrency has surged to its highest level ever.

David Yaffe-Bellany, a technology reporter for The Times, explains how a small, renegade industry that began as a challenge to the financial system ended up on top of it.

Guest: David Yaffe-Bellany, a technology reporter for The New York Times.

Warning: This episode contains graphic descriptions of sexual violence.

After months of testimony, verdicts are expected as soon as this week in a rape trial that has both horrified and captivated the people of France.

Catherine Porter, who has covered the trial, discusses the woman at the center of the case and how, with a single decision, she has turned the power dynamics of the #MeToo era on their head.

Guest: Catherine Porter, an international correspondent for The New York Times based in Paris.

Warning: This episode contains descriptions of torture and death. It also contains audio of death and grief.

Under Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian government set up a vast network of prisons and torture chambers that swallowed up tens of thousands of people. For years, those perceived as enemies of the regime would disappear into the system, and their families would have no idea what happened to them.

Christina Goldbaum, who has covered the events in Syria, takes us inside one of those prisons and tells the story of one man who survived to tell the tale.

Guest: Christina Goldbaum, the Afghanistan and Pakistan bureau chief for The New York Times.

Warning: this episode contains strong language.

Over the past few weeks, the resistance of a single Republican senator, Joni Ernst of Iowa, had threatened to derail Donald J. Trump’s choice of Pete Hegseth to run the Department of Defense.

Karoun Demirjian, who covers Congress for The Times, and Jonathan Swan, who covers politics, discuss how Mr. Trump and his allies ensured that Ms. Ernst’s resistance went away.

Guest:

Karoun Demirjian, who covers Congress for The New York Times, with a focus on national security.
Jonathan Swan, a Times reporter covering politics and Donald J. Trump’s presidential campaign.

“You couldn’t have made this movie three years ago,” said Robert Zemeckis, the director of “Here.”

The film stars Tom Hanks and Robin Wright, and is based on a 2014 graphic novel that takes place in a single spot in the world over several centuries. The story mostly takes place in a suburban New Jersey living room. It skips back and forth through time, but focuses on a baby-boomer couple — played by Hanks and Wright — at various stages of their lives, from age 18 into their 80s.

Before A.I. software, Zemeckis could have had multiple actors play each character, but the audience might have gotten lost trying to keep track. Conventional makeup could have taken a decade off Hanks, who is now 68, but not half a century. The issue with C.G.I. is time and money. Persuading us that we’re watching Hanks and Wright in their 20s would have required hundreds of visual effects artists, tens of millions of dollars and months of postproduction work. A.I. software, though, changed all that accounting.

The guidebook writer and television personality reflects on his cancer diagnosis, social media’s corrosive effect on tourism and the transformative power of travel.

A new study has found that nearly three-quarters of American adults are now obese or overweight, and there’s growing concern — among politicians, scientists and consumers — about one potential culprit: ultraprocessed foods.

Guest: Alice Callahan, a nutrition and health reporter for The New York Times, discusses how these foods came to be such a big part of what we eat, and why that’s so hard to change.

An alarming new hack by China has penetrated the nerve center of the United States: its telephone network.

David E. Sanger, the White House and national security correspondent for The New York Times, discusses what the scope of the attack tells us about China’s growing power.

Guest: David E. Sanger, the White House and national security correspondent for The New York Times.

Background reading:

The chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee said hackers listened to phone calls and read texts by exploiting aging equipment and seams in the networks that connect systems.
Emerging details of Chinese hack have left U.S. officials increasingly concerned.

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

On Sunday, after a fire that many feared would destroy it, and a swift renovation that defied all predictions, the Cathedral of Notre-Dame reopened to the public.

Michael Kimmelman, the chief architecture critic at The Times, tells the story of the miracle on the Seine.

Guest: Michael Kimmelman, the architecture critic of The New York Times and the founder and editor-at-large of Headway.

Last week, the chief executive of UnitedHealthcare was shot and killed in Manhattan. A five-day search for the gunman ensued.

On Monday, a 26-year-old suspect, Luigi Mangione, was arrested in Pennsylvania after an employee at a McDonald’s recognized him and called the police.

Dionne Searcey, who covers wealth and corporations, and Maria Cramer, a crime reporter in New York City, break down what we know about the suspect, and what the case has revealed about many Americans’ contempt for insurance companies.

Guest:

Dionne Searcey, a reporter for The New York Times writing about how the choices made by people and corporations affect the future of our planet.
Maria Cramer, a reporter for The New York Times covering the New York Police Department and crime in the city and surrounding areas.

Syria has been controlled by one family for more than half a century who ruled by repression, devastation and violence.

But about two weeks ago, the regime began to falter, and then over the course of one night, it collapsed.

Carlotta Gall, a senior correspondent for The New York Times, discusses the fall of Bashar al-Assad and what comes next.

Guest: Carlotta Gall, a senior correspondent for The New York Times, focusing on the human aspect of wars and civil strife.

Warning: this episode contains strong language.
In Austin, Texas, a local businessman has undertaken one of the nation’s biggest and boldest efforts to confront the crisis of chronic homelessness.

Lucy Tompkins, a national reporter for The Times, takes us inside the multimillion-dollar experiment, to understand its promise and peril.

Guest: Lucy Tompkins, who reports on national news for The New York Times.

Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have called the federal bureaucracy an “existential threat to our republic.” Now, President-elect Donald J. Trump is empowering them to drastically shrink it, by whatever means necessary. David A. Fahrenthold, an investigative reporter for The New York Times, discusses their plans — and what it would look like if they were actually carried out.

The host of the “Call Her Daddy” podcast and founder of the Unwell Network discusses her interview with Vice President Kamala Harris ahead of the 2024 election, her podcast’s journey from chatting about sex advice to delving into more serious subjects and how the Unwell Network’s fan merchandise became a eight-figure business.

“I don’t care if people consider me a journalist or a podcaster, or just a girl that talks online every week.”

The Academy Award-winning actress discusses her lifelong quest for connection, humanity’s innate goodness and the point of being alive.