The Daily Folgen

Stephen Sondheim died last week at his home in Roxbury, Conn. He was 91.For six decades, Mr. Sondheim, a composer-lyricist whose works include “Sweeney Todd” and “Into the Woods,” transformed musical theater into an art form as rich, complex and contradictory as life itself.“For me, the loss that we see pouring out of Twitter right now and everywhere you look as people write about their memories of Sondheim is for that person who says yes, devoting yourself to writing or to dancing or to singing or to composing — or whatever it is — is a worthwhile life,” Jesse Green, The Times’s chief theater critic, said in today’s episode. “And there really is no one who says that as strongly in his life and in his work as Sondheim does.”Today, we chart Mr. Sondheim’s career, influence and legacy. Guest: Jesse Green, the chief theater critic for The New York Times.Sign up here to get The Daily in your inbox each morning. And for an exclusive look at how the biggest stories on our show come together, subscribe to our newsletter. Background reading: With a childlike sense of discovery, Stephen Sondheim found the language to convey the beauty in harsh complexity.Mr. Sondheim was theater’s most revered and influential composer-lyricist of the last half of the 20th century, and he was the driving force behind some of Broadway’s most beloved and celebrated shows.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. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court heard a case that was a frontal challenge to Roe v. Wade, the nearly 50-year-old decision that established a constitutional right to abortion.The case in front of the justices was about a Mississippi law that bans abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.For the state to win, the court, which now has a conservative majority, would have to do real damage to the central tenet of the Roe ruling.We explore the arguments presented in this case and how the justices on either side of the political spectrum responded to them. Guest: Adam Liptak, a reporter covering the Supreme Court for The New York Times.Sign up here to get The Daily in your inbox each morning. And for an exclusive look at how the biggest stories on our show come together, subscribe to our newsletter. Background reading: After oral arguments, the Supreme Court seemed poised to uphold the Mississippi abortion law. Whether it will overrule Roe v. Wade remains unclear.Here’s what to know about the Mississippi law.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. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Amazon is constantly hiring. Data has shown that the company has had a turnover rate of about 150 percent a year.For the founder, Jeff Bezos, worker retention was not important, and the company built systems that didn’t require skilled workers or extensive training — it could hire and lose people all of the time.Amazon has been able to replenish its work force, but the pandemic has exposed the vulnerabilities of this approach.We explore what the labor shortage has meant for Amazon and the people who work there. Guest: Karen Weise, a technology correspondent, based in Seattle for The New York Times.Sign up here to get The Daily in your inbox each morning. And for an exclusive look at how the biggest stories on our show come together, subscribe to our newsletter. Background reading: Each year, hundreds of thousands of workers churn through Amazon’s vast mechanism that hires, monitors, disciplines and fires. Amid the pandemic, the already strained system lurched.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. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.