A.O. Scott started as a film critic at The New York Times in January of 2000. Next month he will move to the Book Review as a critic at large. After 23 years as a film critic, Mr. Scott discusses why he is done with the movies, and what his decision reveals about the new realities of American cinema. Guest: A.O. Scott, a longtime film critic for The New York Times. Background reading: A.O. Scott conducts his own exit interview as he moves to a new post after more than two decades of reviewing films. A.O. Scott’s review of “65.” For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

Barney Frank was one of the people most responsible for overhauling financial regulation after the 2008 economic crisis. After retiring from Congress, he supported a change to his own law that would benefit midsize banks, and joined the board of such a bank. Last week, that bank failed. David Enrich called Mr. Frank and asked him to explain. Guest: David Enrich, the business investigations editor at The New York Times. Background reading: Officials with Signature and Silicon Valley banks, which regulators seized in recent days, had called for looser financial requirements for midsize banks. Here’s why people are worried about banks. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

As Xi Jinping, China’s leader, meets with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia in Moscow this week, Chinese officials have been presenting his trip as a mission of peace. But American and European officials are watching for something else altogether — whether Mr. Xi will add fuel to the full-scale war that Mr. Putin began more than a year ago. Edward Wong explains what Mr. Xi is really up to, and why it’s making people wonder whether a new Cold War is underway. Guest: Edward Wong, a diplomatic correspondent for The New York Times. Background reading: Chinese officials say Xi Jinping’s trip to Moscow is a peace mission. But U.S. and European officials say he aims to bolster Vladimir Putin. Here’s what to know on Xi’s second day of meetings in Russia. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

TikTok, the app known for short videos of lip syncing, dancing and bread baking, is one of the most popular platforms in the country, used by one out of every three Americans. In recent weeks, the Biden administration has threatened to ban it over concerns that it poses a threat to national security. Guest: Sapna Maheshwari, a business reporter for The New York Times. Background reading: TikTok’s owner, ByteDance, is being investigated over possible spying on journalists. Why countries are trying to ban TikTok. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

As an American, Sam Anderson knows what it feels like to arrive at a theme park. “The totalizing consumerist embrace,” he writes. “The blunt-force, world-warping, escapist delight.” He has known theme parks with entrances like “international borders” and ticket prices like “mortgage payments.” Mr. Anderson has been to Disney World, which he describes as “an alternate reality that basically occupies its own tax zone.” In November, when Ghibli Park finally opened, Mr. Anderson made sure to get himself there. The park is a tribute to the legendary Studio Ghibli, first started by the animator Hayao Miyazaki in 1985, out of desperation, when he and his co-founders, Isao Takahata and Toshio Suzuki, couldn’t find a studio willing to put out their work. Miyazaki is detail-obsessed. He agonizes over his children’s cartoons as if he were Michelangelo painting the Sistine Chapel, insisting that, although few viewers will be conscious of all this work, every viewer will feel it. And we do. Those tiny touches, adding up across the length of a film, anchor his fantasies in the actual world. And so, after many years, and much traveling — at long last — Mr. Anderson found himself stepping into the wonders of Ghibli Park. His first impression was not awe or majesty or surrender or consumerist bliss. It was confusion. This story was recorded by Audm. To hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android.

In the past week, as spooked customers frantically withdrew $42 billion from Silicon Valley Bank, the U.S. government stepped in to craft a rescue operation for the failed lender. But efforts to contain the crisis have met resistance, and the fallout of the collapse has already spread to other regional banks, whose stocks have plummeted. Guest: Emily Flitter, a finance correspondent for The New York Times. Background reading: The stunning demise of Silicon Valley Bank has spurred soul-searching about how large and regional banks are overseen. Here’s what to know about the bank’s collapse. 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 strong language Millions of people have taken to the streets in France to protest a government effort to raise the retirement age to 64, from 62, bringing the country more in line with its European neighbors. Today, as Parliament holds a key vote on the proposal, we look into why the issue has hit such a nerve in French society. Guest: Roger Cohen, the Paris bureau chief for The New York Times. Background reading: After large protests, all eyes were on the French Parliament on Thursday as it prepared to vote on the measure to increase the retirement age by two years. Here are some of the reasons so many people in France are protesting the proposals. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

Three years after the start of Covid, the central mystery of the pandemic — how exactly it began — remains unsolved. But recently, the debate about the source of the coronavirus has re-emerged, this time in Congress. The Energy Department has concluded, with “low confidence,” that an accidental laboratory leak in China was most likely the origin, but politics are making it harder to find definitive answers. Guest: Benjamin Mueller, a health and science correspondent for The New York Times. Background reading: Republicans have pushed the lab leak theory, but they lack a “smoking gun.” What we know and don’t know about the origins of Covid. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

With federal regulators planning to take over the collapsed Silicon Valley Bank, a 40-year-old institution based in California, nearly $175 billion in customer deposits will be placed under the authorities’ control. The lender’s demise is the second-largest bank failure in U.S. history and the largest since the financial crisis in 2008. The debacle raised concerns that other banks could face problems, too. Guest: Emily Flitter, a finance correspondent for The New York Times. Background reading: A run on deposits brought Silicon Valley Bank’s failure. Here’s what to know about the fallout from the lender’s collapse. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

The principle behind E.S.G. is that investors should look beyond just whether a company can make a profit and take into account other factors, such as its environmental impact and action on social issues. But critics of that investment strategy, mostly Republicans, say that Wall Street has taken a sharp left turn, attacking what they term “woke capitalism.” Guest: David Gelles, a climate correspondent for The New York Times. Background reading: How did environmentally conscious investing became a target of conservatives? Republicans are likely to keep making E.S.G. a political punching bag. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

After Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February last year, Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany told Parliament that the attack was a Zeitenwende — a historic “turning point” for Europe and Germany. The risk of a large land war in Europe had previously been considered far-fetched, but recent years of Russian aggression have inspired fear in Germany and a 100-billion-euro fund to bolster its military. In Germany, skepticism of the merits of military strength has enabled a long post-Cold War process of disarmament. As a result, it is a historic anomaly in the heart of Europe — an economic leviathan but a military minnow. Now German leaders are vowing to transform the country into a military power capable of taking responsibility for Europe’s security. In Nienburg, a medieval town in Lower Saxony, civilians come to train for “homeland protection” units in the country’s reserves. The question is whether a hesitant German society can follow through on this paradigm shift. “I would say, many of them lean in the direction of being pacifists,” said Anne Katrin Meister, who is training at the base in Nienburg. “But you can only be a pacifist if you have this safe, ideal world. And we don’t have such a world.” This story was recorded by Audm. To hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android.

Almost immediately after taking power in December, Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right coalition in Isreal proposed a highly contentious overhaul of the Supreme Court. The court has long been seen as a crucial check and lone backstop on the government, and the plan has divided Israeli society, kindling fears of political violence and even civil war. Guest: Patrick Kingsley, the Jerusalem bureau chief for The New York Times. Background reading: Protesters restricted road access to Israel’s main airport hours before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu flew to Italy. Here’s what to know about the government’s proposals. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

Slaughterhouses, construction sites, factories. A Times investigation has found that migrant children have been thrust into jobs in some of the most demanding workplaces in the United States. How did this crisis in child labor develop? And now that it has been exposed, what is being done to tackle the problem? Guest: Hannah Dreier, an investigative reporter for The New York Times. Background reading: The shadow work force of migrant children extends across industries in every state, flouting labor laws that have been in place for nearly a century. As lawmakers clamor for action, federal and state enforcement agencies have begun a crackdown on companies that employ children. The Biden administration has announced a wide crackdown on the labor exploitation of migrant children around the United States. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

The sabotage in September of the Nord Stream pipelines carrying Russian gas to Europe has become one of the central mysteries of the war in Ukraine, prompting months of finger-pointing and guesswork. Now, new intelligence reporting has provided the first significant known lead about who was responsible. Guest: Julian E. Barnes, a national security correspondent for The New York Times. Background reading: Officials say there are still enormous gaps in what American spy agencies and their European partners know about the detonations. The Baltic seabed provided a nearly ideal crime scene. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

As the race to be the Republican Party’s presidential candidate gets underway, one figure has emerged as a particularly powerful rival to Donald J. Trump. That person, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, has broken away from the pack by turning his state into a laboratory for a post-Trump version of conservatism. Guest: Patricia Mazzei, the Miami bureau chief for The New York Times. Background reading: Mr. DeSantis will soon get a chance to check off his wish list of proposals for Florida, including expanding gun rights. In his new book, “The Courage to Be Free,” Mr. DeSantis offers a template for governing. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

On Feb. 3, a nearly two-mile long freight train carrying hazardous materials derailed near East Palestine, Ohio, a town of about 4,700 people. The railroad company and local officials decided to do a chemical burn to neutralize the cargo, but as a giant plume of black smoke settled over the town, residents’ anger about the handling of the accident has intensified. Guest: Emily Cochrane, a national correspondent for The New York Times. Background reading: A bipartisan group of lawmakers has proposed that the Transportation Department impose stricter rules for freight rail. The derailment of a second train in Ohio — despite assurances that no hazardous materials had leaked — sharpened the questions about rail safety. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

Today, we’re taking some time out of our regularly scheduled programming to share the first episode of “The Coldest Case in Laramie.” In the new series from The Times and Serial, Kim Barker, a Times investigative reporter, digs into the 1985 murder of Shelli Wiley, a young woman who was a few years older than Kim when they both lived in Laramie, Wyoming. The long-unsolved case took a turn in 2016 when the police arrested someone for Shelli’s murder: a former officer named Fred Lamb. The evidence against him seemed solid, but prosecutors, confusingly, dropped the case. They’ve never refiled. How did a case that seemed this open-and-shut fall apart with such a whimper? To find answers, Kim heads back to Laramie and grapples with conflicting memories and dueling narratives. In episode one, Kim starts to call up Shelli’s family members to try to piece together what happened. To listen to all eight parts, visit nytimes.com/laramie.

As Russian troops pushed into Ukraine, children who were fleeing newly occupied territories were swept up. Many became part of a Russian effort to portray itself as a charitable savior. The children were placed in Russian families and paraded on television. The Times interviewed one child who was taken from Ukraine, a girl named Anya, who said she ached to return. Guest: Emma Bubola, a reporter for The New York Times based in London. Background reading: Using adoptions, Russia has turned Ukrainian children into spoils of war. The mayor of a Ukrainian city disappeared, but questions about his loyalty did not. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

In August, President Biden announced a loan cancellation plan that would erase an astonishing $400 billion in student debt — one of the most ambitious and expensive executive actions ever. Now, in a far-reaching case, the Supreme Court will decide whether the president is authorized to take such a big step. Guest: Adam Liptak, a Supreme Court correspondent for The New York Times. Background reading: The student loan case could redefine the limits of presidential power. Here’s how the arguments at the Supreme Court played out and what to expect in the coming days. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

In 2000, the F.D.A. approved the medication abortion drug mifepristone. Now a federal judge in Texas is set to rule on a case filed by anti-abortion groups urging the agency to revoke its approval of mifepristone and the other main drug used for medication abortion in the United States. Abortion via medication has become increasingly common and now accounts for more than half of the nation’s abortions. Plus, the Biden administration has started talking publicly about its intelligence when it comes to China, breaking with a long tradition of keeping U.S. secrets close to the chest. The secretary of state, the director of the C.I.A. and even the president himself have made statements on TV expressing concern over China’s plans to help Russia in the war in Ukraine. Guest: Pam Belluck, a health and science correspondent for The New York Times. Julian E. Barnes, a national security correspondent for The Times. Background reading: Twelve states have sued the F.D.A. seeking removal of special restrictions on abortion pills. The suit argues that rules applying to mifepristone unnecessarily limit patients’ access to medication abortion. Bolder intelligence disclosures are part of a larger effort to stymie the Kremlin’s offensive in Ukraine and align support for Kyiv’s war effort in allied countries. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.