The Sunday Read: ‘What Alice Munro Knew’
12 January 2025 - 1 hour 1 min“My life has gone rosy, again,” Alice Munro told a friend in a buoyant letter of March 1975. For Munro, who was then emerging as one of her generation’s leading writers, the previous few years had been blighted by heartbreak and upheaval: a painful separation from her husband of two decades; a retreat from British Columbia back to her native Ontario; a series of brief but bruising love affairs, in which, it seems, Munro could never quite make out the writing on the wall. “This time it’s real,” she wrote, speaking of a new romantic partner, Gerald Fremlin, the emphasis acknowledging that her friend had heard these words before. “He’s 50, free, a good man if I ever saw one, tough and gentle li...
Series Episodes
One Reporter’s Life-Altering Psychedelic Trip
The first time Robert Draper heard about the psychedelic drug ibogaine, it was from an unlikely source: the retired U.S. senator Kyrsten Sinema. As a political reporter for The New York Times, Draper often talks to figures like Ms. Sinema. But on this occasion, he said, she wanted to tell him about how she had tried ibogaine, which is illegal in the United States. She’d become such a believer in the drug that she was pushing her home state of Arizona to fund clinical trials for veterans with combat-related trauma. Draper found that Ms. Sinema wasn’t the only politician to take up the cause. Rick Perry, the former Texas governor, Republican presidential candidate and Trump energy secretary, has also advocated for research into ibogaine in recent years and taken the drug himself. In 2025, because of Mr. Perry’s efforts, Texas became the first state to dedicate public funds to ibogaine research with veterans. Recent studies of ibogaine at Stanford University and elsewhere suggest that it might prove effective in treating post-traumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injuries, addiction and a range of other conditions. As Draper reported on ibogaine’s transformative effects on others, he wondered: Could it help him, too? Today, on “The Sunday Daily,” Natalie Kitroeff talks to Robert Draper about what drew him to travel to Mexico to try ibogaine, and how his trip changed his life.
41 mins
12 April Finished
'The Interview': Lena Dunham Is Still Trying to Figure Out Why People Hated Her So Much
The writer, actor and lightning rod is not done sharing yet.
1 hour 3 mins
11 April Finished
The Miracle Unfolding in Mississippi Schools
Since 2013, performance on national tests in Mississippi has skyrocketed, while scores in blue states have lagged. What is it doing right?
31 mins
10 April Finished
Unmasking the Creator of Bitcoin
Bitcoin’s inventor has hidden behind the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto for 17 years. A New York Times investigation may have found him.
53 mins
9 April Finished
A Cease-Fire in Iran
explicitA deal came shortly before President Trump’s deadline for Tehran to fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz or face devastation.
26 mins
8 April Finished
A Daring Rescue Behind Enemy Lines
Over the weekend, the U.S. military pulled off a risky mission to save an injured airman whose fighter jet had been shot down in Iran. Eric Schmitt, who covers national security for The New York Times, explains how Washington pulled it off.
21 mins
7 April Finished
