Kyiv Draped in Darkness and More: The Week in Narrated Articles

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/04/podcasts/ukraine-kyiv-yeezys-lindell.html

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This weekend, listen to a collection of narrated articles from around The New York Times, read aloud by the reporters who wrote them.

Written and narrated by Marc Santora

As night falls and darkness descends on Kyiv, the flashlights on smartphones begin to flicker on like fairy lights, leading the way home. Dogs wear glow sticks around their necks; flower merchants switch on headlamps to show off the vibrant colors of their lilacs and peonies; and children are outfitted in reflective clothing for safety.

The streets of Ukraine’s capital city, illuminated with nightlife only weeks ago, are now shrouded in darkness and shadows after sunset. That’s the result of the rolling power outages the country has put in place to prevent a complete collapse of the national energy grid, after repeated Russian bombardments.

Failing on the battlefield, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has stepped up his campaign to break the nation’s resolve by degrading daily life, with strikes aimed at disabling critical infrastructure like electric power.

Written and narrated by Vanessa Friedman

The Yeezys are disappearing. Off the shelves — and sites — of Adidas. Gone from Foot Locker. No longer displayed at Christie’s New York headquarters, where in early October the Nike Air Yeezy 1 prototypes that in 2021 were auctioned for $1.8 million sat in state awaiting another sale. (It was canceled.) As Kanye West’s corporate partnerships have evaporated after two weeks of antisemitic and anti-Black statements, his products, and especially his shoes, have likewise seemed to vanish from sight.

Yet on the resale sites StockX, Stadium Goods and GOAT, where sneakers are traded like commodities and collectibles, hundreds of pairs can still be found. And in the chat rooms on Discord and Reddit where sneakerheads gather, a debate is raging about what, exactly, the fall of Ye, as Mr. West is now known, means for the future of what was called “an alternative asset class,” or an investment that isn’t in stocks or bonds, by Cowen Equity Research in 2019.

Written and narrated by Peter S. Goodman

Just before 4 o’clock on a Tuesday morning, Marshawn Jackson rolls over in his bed at his home in Southern California and reaches for his iPhone. He clicks on an app used by truck drivers seeking assignments. The notification he absorbs is both familiar and disheartening: “No jobs available.”

The sudden disappearance of work is an unexpected turn for Mr. Jackson, 37, and the rest of Southern California’s so-called dray operators.

For much of the pandemic, as the worst public health crisis in a century tore at daily life, these drivers were inundated with work, but the same truck drivers who endured the worst of the Great Supply Chain Disruption are now suffering another affliction as the docks reverts to a semblance of normalcy.

Written by Alexandra Berzon, Charles Homans and Ken Bensinger | Narrated by Alexandra Berzon

American entrepreneurs have long mixed their business and political interests. But no one in recent memory has fused the two quite as completely as Mike Lindell, the chief executive of MyPillow Inc.

In less than two years, the infomercial pitchman has transformed his company into an engine of the election denial movement, using his personal wealth and advertising dollars to propel the falsehood that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald J. Trump.

In the process, Mr. Lindell has secured a platform for his conspiracy theories — and a devoted base of consumers culled from the believers.

Written and narrated by Foster Kamer

Fred Gibson, better known as Fred Again.., is a 29-year-old British songwriter, producer and multi-instrumentalist.

“Actual Life 3,” his third album, is the culmination of music that Gibson — a pop hitmaker for Ed Sheeran, BTS and the British grime star Stormzy — started releasing at the end of 2019, after his mentor Brian Eno urged him to forgo writing for others and prioritize his own work.

The result is lush electronica-rooted piano balladry, wistful nu-disco anthems and the occasional U.K. garage firestarter, all threaded with samples culled from the far reaches of YouTube, Instagram and his iPhone camera roll — a sonic bricolage of digitally documented lives.

The Times’s narrated articles are made by Tally Abecassis, Parin Behrooz, Anna Diamond, Sarah Diamond, Jack D’Isidoro, Aaron Esposito, Dan Farrell, Elena Hecht, Adrienne Hurst, Emma Kehlbeck, Tanya Pérez, Krish Seenivasan, Kate Winslett, John Woo and Tiana Young. Special thanks to Sam Dolnick, Ryan Wegner, Julia Simon and Desiree Ibekwe.