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 languageMillions 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.