The Daily Folgen

According to Ludmila Savchuk, a former employee, every day at the Internet Research Agency was essentially the same.From an office complex in the Primorsky District of St. Petersburg, employees logged on to the internet via a proxy service and set about flooding Russia’s popular social networking sites with opinions handed to them by their bosses.The shadowy organization, which according to one employee filled 40 rooms, industrialized the art of “trolling.”On this week’s Sunday Read, Adrien Chen reports on trolling and the agency, and, eventually, becomes a victim of Russian misinformation himself.This story was written by Adrian Chen and recorded by Audm. To hear more audio stories from publishers like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android. 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.

“Nothing comes easily out here,” Terry Tempest Williams, a Utah-based writer, said of the American West. Her family was once almost taken by fire, and as a child of the West, she grew up with it.Our producer Bianca Giaever, who was working out of the West Coast when the wildfires started, woke up one day amid the smoke with the phrase “an obituary to the land” in her head. She called on Ms. Williams, a friend, to write one.“I will never write your obituary,” her poem reads. “Because even as you burn, you throw down seeds that will sprout and flower.”Guest: Bianca Giaever, a producer for The New York Times, speaks to the writer Terry Tempest Williams.For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily 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.

Iolani Grullon teaches dual-language kindergarten in Washington Heights in New York City, where she has worked for the last 15 years.She, like many colleagues, is leery about a return to in-person instruction amid reports of positive coronavirus cases in other schools. “I go through waves of anxiety and to being hopeful that it works out to just being worried,” she told our editor Lisa Chow.On top of mixed messaging from the city about the form teaching could take, her anxiety is compounded by a concern that she might bring the coronavirus home to her daughter, whose immune system is weaker as a result of an organ transplant.Today, we look at how one teacher’s concerns in the lead up to the first day back illustrates issues around New York City’s reopening of public schools. Guest: Lisa Chow, an audio editor for The New York Times, speaks to a kindergarten teacher in New York City. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily Background reading: New York City was scheduled to reopen public schools on Monday. Mayor Bill de Blasio this week delayed the start of in-person instruction.Nearly 40 percent of parents have opted to have their children learn fully remotely through at least the first few months of the school year. That number reflects the deep divide among the city’s families about how to approach in-person learning. 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.