Warning: This episode mentions suicide.

In March, the U.S. government sent more than 200 Venezuelan men to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador. Over four months, the men said they endured physical, mental and sexual abuse.

Julie Turkewitz, the Andes bureau chief at The New York Times, interviewed 40 of these prisoners. She explains what she found out about this part of President Trump’s program of mass deportation.

Guest: Julie Turkewitz, the Andes bureau chief for The New York Times, based in Bogotá, Colombia.

Background reading: 

• “You are all terrorists”: four months in a Salvadoran prison.

Photo: Adriana Loureiro Fernandez for The New York Times

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

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

The first week of December at The New York Times is known as “Cookie Week.” Every day, for seven days, our cooking team highlights a new holiday cookie recipe. This year’s batch features flavors that aren’t necessarily traditional holiday ones — or even, for that matter, flavors. Instead, they draw inspiration from family night at the movies, drinks like Vietnamese Coffee, and perhaps most surprisingly, an Italian deli meat.

In this edition of the Sunday Special, Gilbert Cruz talks with Melissa Clark and Vaughn Vreeland from New York Times Cooking about this year’s cookies, and they answer questions from readers about how to navigate cooking and baking during the holidays.

Background Reading:

These 7 Cookies Will Be the Life of Every Party

Melissa Clark is a food reporter and columnist for The Times.

Vaughn Vreeland is a supervising video producer for NYT Cooking and writes the “Bake Time” newsletter.

Audio produced by Tina Antolini and Alex Barron with Kate LoPresti. Edited by Wendy Dorr. Engineered by Rowan Niemisto. Original music by Daniel Powell and Diane Wong. 

Photo credit: Rachel Vanni for The New York Times. 

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

The actress and director says the world of filmmaking needs a “full system break.”

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Warning: This episode contains strong language and mentions of suicide.

Over the past year, the federal government has taken a series of actions widely seen as attacks on the First Amendment.

Greg Lukianoff, the head of a legal defense group called the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, speaks to Natalie Kitroeff about what free speech really means and why both the left and the right end up betraying it.

Guest: Greg Lukianoff, the president and chief executive of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.

Background reading: 

• Read Mr. Lukianoff’s guest essay for New York Times Opinion from September.

Photo: Moriah Ratner for The New York Times

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

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

President Trump on Tuesday delivered blatantly xenophobic public remarks, which included attacking Somali immigrants in Minnesota and calling them “garbage.”

Ernesto Londoño, a reporter based in Minnesota, explains how Somalis became the president’s latest target in his effort to reshape America’s relationship to its immigrant communities.

Guest: Ernesto Londoño, a reporter for The New York Times based in Minnesota.

Background reading: 

• Mr. Trump called Somalis “garbage” that he doesn’t want in the country.
• A new ICE operation is said to target Somali migrants in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minn.
• Here’s how fraud swamped Minnesota’s social services system on Gov. Tim Walz’s watch.

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

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

The holiday season is here, which means it’s the time to think of great gifts for everyone on your list. While it can feel like a daunting task to choose thoughtful, personalized presents, we’ve got a fix for you: books.

On this edition of The Sunday Special, Gilbert is joined by Joumana Khatib and Sadie Stein, editors at the Book Review, for a conversation about the best books to give your family and friends. Joumana and Sadie will share what excited them most this year and also provide recommendations for giftees in very specific categories.

Books mentioned in this episode:

“The Colony,” Annika Norlin
“Perfection,” Vincenzo Latronico
“Things: A Story of the 60s,” Georges Perec
“The Bee Sting,” Paul Murray
“The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny,” Kiran Desai
“The Director,” Daniel Kehlmann
“Playworld: A Novel,” Adam Ross
“A Marriage at Sea,” Sophie Elmhirst
“Entertaining is Fun!,” Dorothy Draper
“The Thursday Murder Club,” Richard Osman
“The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels,” Janice Hallett
“Roald Dahl’s Revolting Recipes,” Roald Dahl
“Mrs. Manders’ Cook Book,” Sarah Manders, edited by Rumer Godden
“Halleluja! The Welcome Table,” Maya Angelou
“The Pat Conroy Cookbook: Recipes of My Life,” Pat Conroy
“Les diners de Gala,” Salvador Dalí
“Diaghilev’s Empire: How the Ballets Russes Enthralled the World,” Rupert Christiansen
“Finishing the Hat and Look I Made a Hat,” Stephen Sondheim
“Tonight in Jungleland: The Making of Born to Run,” Peter Ames Carlin
“The Uncool: A Memoir,” Cameron Crowe
“The Gales of November,” John U. Bacon
“The Journals of Ralph Waldo Emerson,” Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Cats in Color,” Stevie Smith
“Archie and the Strict Baptists,” John Betjeman
“Stories 1,2,3,4,” Eugène Ionesco
“Trip: A Novel,” Amy Barrodale

On Today’s Episode:

Joumana Khatib is an editor at The New York Times Book Review.

Sadie Stein is an editor at The New York Times Book Review.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

“Wicked” was one of the biggest movies of 2024. It was culturally ubiquitous, a box office smash and an Oscar nominee for Best Picture. Now, a year later, “Wicked: For Good” arrives in theaters to finish the tale of the complicated friendship between Glinda the Good Witch and Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West. Can “Wicked: For Good” be the sensation that its predecessor was? Will it inject new life into a movie business that has suffered a historically bad business year? Will it satisfy the legions of “Wicked” fans who have been waiting to see their favorite musical brought to the big screen?

Gilbert Cruz is joined by Kyle Buchanan, a pop culture reporter for The New York Times who profiled the stars of “Wicked,” and Madison Malone Kircher, a reporter for the Styles desk and affirmed “Wicked” fanatic, to discuss what “Wicked: For Good” means for the movies.

On Today’s Episode

Madison Malone Kircher is a reporter covering internet culture for The Times.

Kyle Buchanan is a pop culture reporter and serves as The Projectionist, the awards season columnist for The New York Times.

Photo: Universal Pictures

Additional Reading

Ariana Grande Still Has Surprises in Store

There Have Been Dozens of “Wicked” Interviews. Why Did This One Go Viral?

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

There was once a time when documentaries could be found only on public television or in art-house cinemas. But today, documentaries are more popular and accessible than ever, with streaming services serving up true crime, celebrity documentaries, music documentaries and so much more.

On today’s Sunday Special, Gilbert is joined by The New York Times’s chief television critic, James Poniewozik, and Alissa Wilkinson, a Times film critic, to talk about the documentaries that are worth your viewing time.

On Today’s Episode:

James Poniewozik is the chief TV critic for The Times.

Alissa Wilkinson is a movie critic at The Times, and writes the Documentary Lens column.

Background Reading:

What ‘The American Revolution’ Says About Our Cultural Battles

‘Come See Me in the Good Light’: The Sweetness After a Terminal Diagnosis

Discussed on this episode:

“The American Revolution,” 2025, directed by Ken Burns, Sarah Botstein and David Schmidt

“The Alabama Solution,” 2025, directed by Andrew Jarecki and Charlotte Kaufman

“The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst,” 2015, directed by Andrew Jarecki

“Making a Murderer,” 2015, directed by Laura Ricciardi and Moira Demos

“The Yogurt Shop Murders,” 2025, directed by Margaret Brown

“The Perfect Neighbor,” 2025, directed by Beet Gandbhir

“The Last Dance,” 2020, directed by Jason Hehir

“Copa 71,” 2023, directed by Rachel Ramsay and James Erkine

“Cheer,” 2020, created by Greg Whiteley

“Last Chance U,” 2016, directed by Greg Whiteley, Adam Ridley and Luke Lorentzen

“Pee-wee as Himself,” 2025, directed by Matt Wolf

“The Remarkable Life of Ibelin,” 2024, directed by Benjamin Ree

“Ladies & Gentlemen … 50 Years of SNL Music,” 2025, directed by Questlove

“Cameraperson,” 2016, directed by Kirsten Johnson

“An American Family,” 1973, created by Craig Gilbert

“Look Into My Eyes,” 2024, directed by Lana Wilson

“When We Were Kings,” 1996, directed by Leon Gast

Photo: Mike Doyle/American Revolution Film Project and Florentine Films

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

This year has been a banner year for video games, with an abundance of surprise releases and unexpected hits.

On this week’s Sunday Special, Gilbert Cruz talks with two fellow gamers — Zachary Small, a culture reporter, and Jason Bailey, an editor on The Times’s culture desk — about the state of the industry, the biggest releases and the games they loved playing in 2025. They also share their predictions for Game of the Year.

On Today’s Episode

Zachary Small is a culture reporter for The Times.

Jason M. Bailey is an editor on the culture desk, and oversees The Times’s video game coverage.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

The only thing Gilbert Cruz loves more than celebrating Halloween is watching scary movies. And between the classic horror franchises that span decades and the prestige original films of the current moment, he has seen hundreds of them.

On today’s episode, Gilbert puts his knowledge to use in conversation with his fellow horror aficionados Jason Zinoman and Erik Piepenburg. They comb through a century of spooks, frights and screams to crown the Top 10 franchises in cinema history.

Horror franchises discussed on this episode:

“A Nightmare on Elm Street”
“A Quiet Place”
“Alien”
“The Amityville Horror”
“Candyman”
“Child’s Play”
“The Conjuring”
“The Exorcist”
“The Evil Dead”
“Final Destination”
“Friday the 13th”
“Halloween”
The Hannibal Lecter films
“Hellraiser”
“The Hills Have Eyes”
“Insidious”
“Jaws”
“Night of the Living Dead”
“The Omen”
“Paranormal Activity”
“Phantasm”
“Poltergeist”
“Psycho”
“The Purge”
“The Ring”
“Saw”
“Scream”
“Terrifier”
“The Texas Chainsaw Massacre”
The Universal monster films
“V/H/S”
 

On Today’s Episode:

Jason Zinoman is a critic at large for The Times and the author of “Shock Value: How a Few Eccentric Outsiders Gave Us Nightmares, Conquered Hollywood, and Invented Modern Horror.”

Erik Piepenburg covers culture for The Times, and writes a monthly column about horror movies.

Additional Reading:

25 Jump Scares That Still Make Us Jump

Five Horror Movies to Stream Now

‘Good Boy’ Review: Sit. Stay. Scream.

Photo: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

On Friday, “Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere” will be released in theaters. Rather than chronicling Bruce’s entire life, the film focuses on the making of his stripped-down 1982 album “Nebraska” and on his concurrent mental health struggles.

This movie is the latest in a long history of musician biopics featuring stars like Bob Dylan, Loretta Lynn, Eminem and Elvis Presley. Hollywood clearly loves telling the stories of influential artists.

In this episode, Gilbert Cruz chats with Lindsay Zoladz, a pop music critic for The Times, and Joe Coscarelli, a Times culture reporter, about the tropes of the genre and their favorite films that break the mold.

On Today’s Episode:

Lindsay Zoladz, a pop music critic at The Times and the writer of The Amplifier newsletter.

Joe Coscarelli, a culture reporter at The Times and co-host of “Popcast.”

Additional Reading:

The Boss Finally Gets a Biopic, Just Not the One We Expected

He’s Ringo. And Nobody Else Is.

Why Music Movies Stink: ‘Back to Black’ + ‘The Idea of You’ Reactions

Joe Coscarelli’s “Bobby + Joanie” playlist

Photo: 20th Century Studios

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.