The Sunday Read: ‘A Republican Election Clerk vs. Trump Die-Hards in a World of Lies’
14 July 2024 - 29 minsCindy Elgan glanced into the lobby of her office and saw a sheriff’s deputy waiting at the front counter. “Let’s start a video recording, just in case this goes sideways,” Elgan, 65, told one of her employees in the Esmeralda County clerk’s office. She had come to expect skepticism, conspiracy theories and even threats related to her job as an election administrator. She grabbed her annotated booklet of Nevada state laws, said a prayer for patience and walked into the lobby to confront the latest challenge to America’s electoral process.
The deputy was standing alongside a woman that Elgan recognized as Mary Jane Zakas, 77, a longtime elementary schoolteacher and a leader in the local Repub...
Series Episodes
Classical Music Is in Crisis. Gustavo Dudamel Is Here to Save It.
This week marks the start of the Gustavo Dudamel era in New York. The superstar conductor was just 28 when he became the musical director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 2009. A native of Venezuela and a product of its El Sistema musical training program, Dudamel quickly established himself not just as a great conductor, but also as a cultural force of nature. In his time in Los Angeles, he expanded the Philharmonic’s repertoire, created a successful youth outreach program, won prestigious awards and ingratiated himself with Hollywood elite. Now, after 17 years in Los Angeles, Dudamel is taking the helm at one of the world’s most famous and storied orchestras: the New York Philharmonic. It’s a job once held by Leonard Bernstein, and Dudamel is hoping to follow in Bernstein’s footsteps to make the Philharmonic and the music that it plays a bigger part of the pop culture landscape. On today’s episode, Joshua Barone, who covers classical music for The Times, discusses Dudamel, what he’s accomplished and the high hopes for his tenure with the New York Philharmonic.
42 mins
6 September Finished
The Intertwined Legacies of Gloria Steinem and Dolly Parton
Our writer discusses why, to her, the two icons are inescapably connected.
30 mins
4 September Finished
A.I. Is Outsmarting Its Creators
When OpenAI’s agents went rogue in July, they demonstrated ingenuity and drive beyond what many experts had imagined.
40 mins
3 September Finished
The Fight for the West Bank
We speak to a Palestinian American whose home has been encircled by extremist settlers.
28 mins
2 September Finished
How a Teenager Found Undiagnosed Brain Injuries in the Military
explicitNew York Times reporting found that rescue-boat crews in the Coast Guard showed signs of brain injuries from rough seas. A victim’s daughter helped bring the issue to light.
38 mins
1 September Finished
How Flock Cameras Took Over America
This summer, Fernando Alfonso, the Texas editor for The New York Times, got in a car with a man named Philip. They drove around the suburban streets of Dallas searching for traffic cameras — not for a red-light camera, or a speed-trap camera, but something new, an automatic license-plate reader made by a company called Flock. Law enforcement officials say these cameras are essential to fighting crime, but Phillip and people like him, who have located 100,000 flock cameras all over the country, see them as something else: the beginnings of a surveillance state. Today, Kashmir Hill, a technology and privacy writer at The New York Times, discusses the company behind the cameras and the mounting backlash.
29 mins
31 August Finished
