The Daily The New York Times

This episode contains descriptions of distressing scenes.

In a landmark ruling, a jury in Texas ordered Alex Jones, America’s most prominent conspiracy theorist, to pay millions of dollars to the parents of a boy killed at Sandy Hook for the damage caused by his lies about the mass shooting.

What is the significance of the trial, and will it do anything to change the world of lies and misinformation?

Guest: Elizabeth Williamson, a feature writer based in the Washington bureau of The New York Times.

The more he insisted that his name was Joshua, the more delusional he came to be seen.

Journalist Robert Kolker tells us the remarkable story of Joshua Spriestersbach, a homeless man who wound up serving more than two years in a Honolulu jail for crimes committed by someone else.

It was a case of mistaken identity that developed into “a slow-motion game of hot potato between the police, the courts, the jails and the hospitals,” Mr. Kolker writes. He delves into how homelessness and mental illness shaped Mr. Spriestersbach’s adult life, two factors that led him into a situation in which he had little control — a bureaucratic wormhole that commandeered and consumed two and a half years of his life.

Charles Falls Jr., known as Chillie, loves to take cruises. But Covid, as it has done for so many, left him marooned at home in Virginia.
As he told Cristal Duhaime, a producer at the Times podcast First Person, as soon as restrictions eased, he eagerly planned a return to the waves. But for Chillie, who suffers from prostate cancer, resuming his beloved travels — particularly aboard the cramped quarters of a cruise ship, most people’s idea of a pandemic nightmare — was especially perilous.

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

This episode contains mention of sexual assault.

Kansas this week became the first U.S. state since the fall of Roe v. Wade to put the question of abortion directly to the electorate.

The result was resounding. Voters chose overwhelmingly to preserve abortion rights, an outcome that could have important political reverberations for the rest of the country.

Guest: Mitch Smith, a correspondent covering the Midwest and the Great Plains for The New York Times.

Democrats are meddling in Republican primaries this year to an unusual degree, attempting to elevate extremist candidates who they think will be easy to defeat in midterms in the fall.

Nowhere has that strategy been more divisive than in the election for a House seat in Michigan.

Guest: Jonathan Weisman, a congressional correspondent for The New York Times.

On Monday, President Biden announced that the United States had killed Ayman al-Zawahri in a drone strike in Afghanistan.

Al-Zawahri was the leader of Al Qaeda. A long time number two to Osama bin Laden and the intellectual spine of the terrorist group, he assumed power after bin Laden was killed by U.S. in 2011.

Who was al-Zawahri, and what does his death mean for Afghanistan’s relationship with the United States and for the threat of global terrorism?

Guest: Eric Schmitt, a senior correspondent covering national security for The New York Times.