'The Interview': Arundhati Roy Knows Where America Is Headed

Welcome to the Sunday Special, running now through the end of the year. Every Sunday, Gilbert Cruz, the editor of The New York Times Book Review, will talk with a rotating cast of Times critics and culture and lifestyle reporters about “the fun stuff”— pop culture, movies, TV, music, fashion and more.On today’s inaugural episode, Gilbert sits down with Jon Caramanica, a pop music critic at The Times, and Madison Malone Kircher, an internet reporter at The Times, to recap their cultural highs and lows of this summer.

Over the past 24 hours, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been plunged into turmoil. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. tried to fire the agency’s director, Susan Monarez, igniting a standoff that prompted three other senior officials to resign. One of those officials, Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, explains why he chose to take a stand.

A curious news story emerged in New York last week. It involved the mayor’s race, a reporter from the news outlet The City and a bag of chips. Michael Forsythe, a reporter on the investigations team at The New York Times, explains how the episode fits into a larger story about how China has been attempting to influence American politics.

President Trump’s decision to try to fire a member of the Federal Reserve’s governing board is his most audacious attack yet on the independence of the central bank. Ben Casselman, chief economics correspondent for The New York Times, discusses why Mr. Trump’s route to controlling the Fed passes through the governor, an economics professor named Lisa Cook.

Seemingly overnight, Americans have become obsessed with pumping as much protein as possible into every drink, snack and meal. Elizabeth Dunn, a writer and contributor to The Times, explains the origins of this latest nutrition craze.