Podcast: The Daily

When Daniel and Victoria Van Beuningen first toured their future home, a quiet villa in the Polish city of Wroclaw, it had been abandoned for years, its windows sealed up with bricks. But something about its overgrown garden spoke to them. They could imagine raising chickens there, planting tomatoes and cucumbers. They could make something beautiful out of it, they thought — a place where their children could run and play.

They moved in knowing very little about what happened at the villa before World War II, when Wroclaw, formerly Breslau, was still part of Germany.

The couple wanted to know more, and their inquiries eventually led to the Meinecke family in Heidelberg, Germany, elderly siblings who said they were born in the home. Over a long afternoon, they showed the couple pictures of the place from happier times before the war, but they also offered the Van Beuningens a surprising warning: The couple might find the remains of some German soldiers buried in the garden.

The creator and comedian discusses his penchant for self-reflection, how politics fits into his work and why he’s not interested in representing anyone but himself.

This week, we interviewed two people with leading roles in the rapidly escalating conflict between the Trump administration and American higher education.

Today, we speak with Christopher Rufo, who led the conservative critique of, and assault on, critical race theory and diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. Mr. Rufo’s vision and campaigning have helped inspire Trump’s wide-ranging crackdown on higher education.

Earlier, we talked with Christopher L. Eisgruber, the president of Princeton University, about the institution’s path forward in the face of drastic funding cuts, and his vow to protect academic freedom at all costs. You can listen to that conversation here.

After promising that tariffs against dozens of countries were here to stay, no matter how much they hurt businesses or the stock market, President Trump has abruptly reversed course.

But there’s an exception: his levies on China, which he said he would raise to 125 percent.

Jonathan Swan, who covers the White House, explains why the president changed his mind, and David Pierson, who covers China, discusses why Beijing won’t back down.

Over the past few weeks, some of the most prestigious universities in the country have faced a threat to their very existence.

President Trump has frozen billions of dollars in federal funds in an attempt to rid higher education of what he calls its woke ideology.

Rachel Abrams speaks to the president of Princeton University, Christopher L. Eisgruber, who has vowed that to fight.

On Monday, global stocks whipsawed over President Trump’s tariffs, a bear market briefly became official in the United States and tit-for-tat retaliation with China intensified.

As trillions of dollars in corporate value evaporates and Mr. Trump’s support in the business world is cracking, even Republican members of Congress are debating whether to take away the president’s power to wage a trade war.

Andrew Ross Sorkin, who covers business and policy, and Jonathan Swan, who covers the White House, talk through the tumultuous past few days on the stock market.

Over the past few weeks, President Trump has used executive orders to wage war on law firms, specifically targeting those whose lawyers have investigated or sued him, or represented his enemies in court.

Michael Barbaro speaks to Thomas Sipp, a lawyer who chose to quit after his firm, Skadden, negotiated a deal to placate the president.

“The force of his will is the thing I remember about him,” says Taffy Brodesser-Akner, who wrote a profile of Val Kilmer for The New York Times Magazine in May 2020. “He was sure he was going to come back to his exact former self. ”

The two met for an interview just as a lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic seemed all but certain to happen.

Mr. Kilmer, who was diagnosed with throat cancer in 2014 and had undergone a tracheotomy, was still performing. Mr. Brodesser-Akner credits him with providing “the first whiff of overarching hope and positivity that I’d witnessed in I couldn’t remember how many months.”

“What does somebody do when the thing that they are known for, which is being a superhero, which is being an action hero, which is being handsome, which is being this sort of picture of good health and vigor, what do you do next?” she said. “And a lot of people, they fade away. But that’s not how it went for Val. ”

Mr. Kilmer, who played classic roles such as Batman and Iceman in “Top Gun,” died on Tuesday in Los Angeles. He was 65.

The actor talks about his new film “The Friend,” his jerky past and what he doesn’t get about himself.

The reverberations from President Trump’s new global tariffs have rocked financial markets and world capitals. American stocks have plunged, and foreign leaders have issued forceful condemnations.

The Times journalists Michael Barbaro, Peter Goodman, Natalie Kitroeff and Jeanna Smialek sit down to try to make sense of Mr. Trump’s strategy and its consequences.

In a history-making day of tariffs, President Trump imposed charges of at least 10 percent on nearly all of America’s trading partners.

Ana Swanson, who covers trade for The Times, discusses who will be affected most and looks at how the levies effectively ended one era of global trade and began a new one.

A few days ago, one of the most ubiquitous live shows in the country, Shen Yun, began its latest run at Lincoln Center, drawing thousands of people to a performance that is colorful, acrobatic and — according to many of its performers — shockingly abusive.

Nicole Hong, one of the reporters behind a New York Times investigation of Shen Yun, discusses what that reporting has revealed about the secretive enterprise.

On paper, the election in Wisconsin on Tuesday is about who should control the state’s highest court. In reality, it has become a referendum on Elon Musk, his agenda in Washington and his willingness to flood American politics with his money.

Reid J. Epstein, who has been covering this campaign for The Times, explains why it has become the local election that everyone is watching.

Immigration arrests are taking place at universities across the country. The story of three Columbia students helps explain what’s happening, and why.

Hamed Aleaziz, who covers immigration policy, lays out what their cases reveal about the latest immigration crackdown — and about this administration’s views on free speech.

Troy Merritt, a pilot for a major U.S. airline, returned from his 30th birthday trip in Croatia in October 2022 — sailing on a catamaran, eating great food, socializing with friends — and cried. This wasn’t back-to-work blues but collapsed-on-the-floor, full-body-shaking misery. When he wasn’t crying, he slept.

“I’ve got to find a therapist,” he told himself. And he did, quickly. If that therapist didn’t write down “depression,” Merritt would be OK. He could still fly planes, keep his job — as long as he wasn’t diagnosed with a mental illness.

Merritt, like all pilots, knew that if he was formally diagnosed with a mental-health condition, he might never fly a plane again.

The former Fox News and current YouTube host on her professional evolution, conservative media and why she endorsed Trump.

What does the continuing fallout from the Signal text security breach tell us about President Trump’s cabinet’s approach to blame and accountability?

The Times journalists Michael Barbaro, Eric Schmitt, Julian E. Barnes and Maggie Haberman sit down to make sense of the latest week.

For the past three decades, the U.S. government has released documents related to the assassination of John F. Kennedy with an overriding goal of dispelling conspiracy theories.

Julian E. Barnes, who covers the U.S. intelligence agencies, explains why President Trump’s motivations behind releasing the latest batch are far more complicated.

This week, top Trump officials inadvertently shared secret U.S. military plans with a prominent journalist after mistakenly adding him to a group chat.

The journalist, Jeffrey Goldberg, who is editor in chief at The Atlantic, discusses what he was thinking as he read the messages and what he makes of the fallout.

As President Trump set out to systematically eliminate or intimidate those who stood in his way — inspectors general, judges, law firms — the news media loomed as one of his most stubborn obstacles. Or so it seemed.

Jim Rutenberg, a writer at large for The New York Times, explains how Mr. Trump is circumventing and undermining the fourth estate in a way no president before him ever has.