Podcast: The Daily

For decades, breast augmentations have been one of the most popular cosmetic surgeries in the United States. But in recent years, a new trend has emerged: the breast reduction. Lisa Miller, who covers personal and cultural approaches to health for The Times, discusses why the procedure has become so common.

Warning: this episode contains strong language.
For the past two weeks, Lynsea Garrison of “The Daily” has been talking to people who were part of a movement, known as the resistance, that opposed Donald Trump’s first term as president.
With Mr. Trump preparing to again retake the White House, she asked those past protesters how they might react this time.
Background reading:
Was Mr. Trump’s election a setback for women? Even women do not agree.
Nonprofits have vowed a new resistance. Will donors pay up?
For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

President-elect Donald J. Trump has picked Representative Matt Gaetz to be his attorney general.

Robert Draper, who covers domestic politics for The Times, discusses what the nomination reveals about Mr. Trump’s promise for retribution and how far Republicans might be willing to go to help him get it.

Guest: Robert Draper, who covers domestic politics for The New York Times.

Nationwide, just over a million children, mostly girls, participate in cheer each year (some estimates are even higher), more than the number who play softball or lacrosse. And almost every part of that world is dominated by a single company: Varsity Spirit.

It’s hard to cheer at the youth, high school or collegiate level without putting money in the company’s pocket. Varsity operates summer camps where children learn to do stunts and perform; it hosts events where they compete; it sells pompoms they shake and uniforms they wear on the sidelines of high school and college football games.

Varsity’s market power has made the cheer world a paranoid place. In the reporting for this article, dozens of people spoke about the company in conspiratorial tones better suited to a spy thriller.

Dr. Ellen Wiebe has performed hundreds of medical aid in dying (or MAID) procedures and is one of Canada’s most prominent advocates for the practice. David Marchese had questions — medical, legal and philosophical — about when it makes sense for doctors to help people to die, and also about how MAID might shape our thinking on what, exactly, constitutes a good death.

The Democratic Party is sifting through the rubble of its sweeping election loss and trying to work out what went wrong.

In an interview, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont discusses his diagnosis and how to chart a path back to power.

Guest: Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont

Warning: this episode contains strong language.

In his first week as president-elect, Donald J. Trump moved at breakneck speed to fill out his cabinet with a set of loyalists who were both conventional and deeply unconventional, the U.S. Senate chose a leader who could complicate Trump’s agenda, and President Joe Biden welcomed Trump back to the White House.

Times Journalists Michael Barbaro, Julie Hirschfeld Davis, Peter Baker and Maggie Haberman, sat down to make sense of it all.

Guest:

Julie Hirschfeld Davis, who covers politics for The New York Times.
Peter Baker, the chief White House correspondent for The New York Times.
Maggie Haberman, a senior political correspondent for The New York Times.

After single-handedly remaking the auto industry, social media and the global space race, Elon Musk is now turning his attention, and personal fortune, to politics.

Over the past few months, he became one of the most influential figures in the race for president, and on Tuesday Donald J. Trump tapped him to help lead what the president-elect called the Department of Government Efficiency,

Kirsten Grind and Eric Lipton, investigative reporters for The Times, explain what exactly Musk wants from the new president, and why he is so well placed to get it.

Guest:

Kirsten Grind, an investigative business reporter at The New York Times.
Eric Lipton, an investigative reporter at The New York Times.

Last Tuesday, voters across the country approved measures to protect abortion rights, while rejecting the presidential candidate who claimed to champion those same rights.

Kate Zernike, who covers the issue for The Times, explains that gap and what it tells us about the new politics of abortion.

Guest: Kate Zernike, a national reporter at The New York Times, writing most recently about abortion.

Democrats, devastated by their sweeping losses in the election, are starting to sift through the wreckage of their defeat.

Political leaders from all corners of the Democratic coalition are pointing fingers, arguing over the party’s direction and wrestling with what it stands for.

Reid J. Epstein, who covers politics for The Times, discusses the reckoning inside the Democratic Party, and where it goes from here.

Guest: Reid J. Epstein, a reporter covering politics for The New York Times.

When Maggie Jones’s marriage collapsed after 23 years, she was devastated and overwhelmed. She was in her 50s, with two jobs, two teenage daughters and one dog. She didn’t consider dating. She had no time, no emotional energy. But then a year passed. One daughter was off at college, the other increasingly independent. After several more months went by, she started to feel a sliver of curiosity about what kind of men were out there and how it would feel to date again.

That meant online dating — the default mode not just for the young but also for people Ms. Jones’s age. Her only exposure had been watching her oldest daughter, home from college one summer, as she sat on her bed rapidly swiping through guy after guy — spending no more than a second or two on each.

Ms. Jones tells her story of online dating in later adulthood, and what she learned.

The former House Speaker reflects on Donald Trump’s victory, Kamala Harris’s candidacy and the future of the Democratic Party.

In the days since the election, Donald J. Trump has started preparing to retake the White House. Jonathan Swan, who covered Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign for The Times, and Maggie Haberman, a senior political correspondent, take us inside the campaign’s endgame.

As the fallout from the election settles, Americans are beginning to absorb, celebrate and mourn the coming of a second Trump presidency. Nate Cohn, chief political analyst for The Times, and Peter Baker, chief White House correspondent, discuss the voting blocks that Trump conquered and the legacy that he has redefined.

In the early hours of Wednesday morning, Donald J. Trump was elected president for a second time. Shortly before that call was made, the Times journalists Michael Barbaro, Nate Cohn, Lisa Lerer and Astead W. Herndon sat down to discuss the state of the election.

After two years of campaigning, more than a billion of dollars of advertising and a last-minute change to one of the nominees, the 2024 race for president is now in the hands of the American voters. Nate Cohn, the chief political analyst for The Times, gives a guide to understanding tonight’s election results.

By the time it’s over, this year’s race for president will have cost at least $3.5 billion. The single biggest expense will be campaign ads. Shane Goldmacher, a national political correspondent for The Times, discusses the story that each campaign has been using those ads to tell, 30 seconds at a time.

A sheriff’s deputy arrived at Nathan and Danielle Clark’s front door on the outskirts of Springfield, Ohio, in September with the latest memento of what their son’s death had become. “I’m sorry that I have to show you this,” she said and handed them a flier with a picture of Aiden, 11, smiling at the camera after his last baseball game. It was the same image the Clarks had chosen for his funeral program and then made into Christmas ornaments for his classmates, but this time the photograph was printed alongside threats and racial slurs.

“Killed by a Haitian invader,” the flier read. “They didn’t care about Aiden. They don’t care about you. They are pieces of human trash that deserve not your sympathy, but utter scorn. Give it to them … and then some.”

“They have no right to speak for him like this,” Danielle said. “It’s making me sick. There must be some way to stop it.”

This was the version of the country the Clarks and their two teenage children had encountered during the last year, ever since Aiden died in a school bus crash in August 2023 on the way to his first day of sixth grade. The crash was ruled an accident, caused by a legally registered Haitian immigrant who veered into the bus while driving without a valid license. But as the presidential campaign intensified, former President Donald Trump and his running mate, JD Vance, began to tell a different story.

The controversial philosopher discusses societal taboos, Thanksgiving turkeys and whether anyone is doing enough to make the world a better place.

On Tuesday night, as the voting ends and the counting begins, the election system itself will be on trial. Jim Rutenberg, a writer at large for The Times, explains how some local election officials entrusted with certifying ballots are preparing to reject the results and create chaos in the weeks ahead.