Post Reports

Franke spoke out during the spring student protests on the Columbia University campus. She had watched as mostly Republican lawmakers grilled the presidents of MIT, the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard on live television. Soon after, the latter two women resigned — followed months later by Columbia’s Minouche Shafik . Franke read about professors at colleges in other states, from Arizona to...

Trump’s extraordinary news conference on the plane crash near Reagan National Airport, his administration’s freeze and unfreeze of all federal funds, and the Senate hearings for three more of his controversial Cabinet picks. Senior political reporter Aaron Blake talks through another chaotic week of political news with Congress reporter Liz Goodwin and White House economics reporter Jeff Stein. Th...

“It was probably out in the middle of the river. I just saw a fireball, and then it was gone.” Today on “Post Reports,” unpacking a deadly collision in the nation’s capital. Read more: On Wednesday night, an American Airlines plane and an Army Black Hawk helicopter collided in midair near Reagan National Airport. Both aircraft crashed into the Potomac River in Washington.  D.C. officials beli...

The stock market plummeted this week after a Chinese company showed it could do more with less. Today, we talk about the new AI chatbot DeepSeek, and why people are freaking out about it – from Silicon Valley to Wall Street to Washington. Read more: For two years, American artificial intelligence companies looked unstoppable. Then came DeepSeek.  Today on Post Reports, we talk to tech policy...

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s selection has raised red flags among medical experts and public health officials, especially because of his stance on vaccines. Health reporter Lauren Weber and data reporter Caitlin Gilbert examined hundreds of appearances that RFK Jr. has made to understand the extent of his disparaging claims about vaccines.  Today on “Post Reports,” Weber discusses what they exclus...

Over the weekend, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials received instructions from the White House to ramp up deportations, from a few hundred per day to at least 1,200. This came after President Donald Trump expressed disappointment with the results of his mass deportation campaign so far, according to people with knowledge of the briefings. The orders significantly increase the chan...

Ahead of President Donald Trump’s inauguration, scores of career diplomats at the State Department were asked by Trump aides to resign.  Trump campaigned on dismantling what he has called the “deep state” of federal bureaucrats, who he views as lacking loyalty to him and undermining his agenda. The forced departures were seen as confirmation of this plan – and a step toward changing the tone...

Senior political reporter Aaron Blake talks with senior White House reporter Isaac Arnsdorf and national political reporter Marianne LeVine about how Trump’s executive actions are already having a tangible impact . They also talk about how Trump’s pardon of Jan. 6 rioters was met with a muted response from several prominent Republicans.  Today’s show was produced by Laura Benshoff. It was edi...

Historically, many women dropped out of the labor force because of family obligations. Today, women are working longer — in some cases because they feel like they’ve finally hit their stride in their careers. In other cases, they feel they can’t afford to retire.  Hannah Ziegler is a business reporter for The Post, and she talks to host Martine Powers about this Big Shift as the workforce bec...

On Wednesday, Rupert Murdoch’s British media group agreed to pay “substantial damages” and apologized to Prince Harry as part of a settlement agreement over claims that the paper illegally intruded into the prince’s life . Harry is one of many celebrities and politicians who have sued Murdoch’s papers for illegally obtaining private information – the claims stretch back to 2011, when it was first...

It’s not over for TikTok. Or is it? Today on “Post Reports,” why the app went dark in the United States, how it came back and who controls its fate.  Read more: Last week, the Supreme Court upheld a federal law banning TikTok in the United States unless its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, sold to an American buyer.  On Sunday, the popular video-sharing app went dark, only to come back...

Crowds of Trump supporters in Washington were supposed to watch the inauguration on the National Mall. But when plans changed last-minute because of freezing temperatures, the president’s fans crowded instead into indoor space at Capital One Arena and nearby bars. At the same time, Trump was getting sworn in at the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol, flanked by tech billionaires and members of his propos...

In this special episode of “Post Reports,” columnist Petula Dvorak reads her first installment of The Post’s revealing history column, Retropolis.  James Buchanan barely won the presidency. The nation was roiling in the debate over slavery. So when Buchanan became gravely ill before his inaugural address, it wasn’t a stretch to suspect an assassination attempt. The presidential entourage all...

Aaron Blake, senior political reporter and author of The Campaign Moment newsletter talks with national security reporter Abby Hauslohner and national politics reporter Hannah Knowles about the most heated exchanges that Trump’s picks for defense secretary and attorney general, Pete Hegseth and Pam Bondi, faced during their Senate confirmation hearings. They also talk about what to expect if the h...

After months of negotiations mediated by the United States, Egypt and Qatar, Israel and Hamas reached a ceasefire agreement. But its fate is already in doubt.  If the agreement takes effect as planned Sunday, an initial 42-day ceasefire would bring Gaza’s residents some relief from Israeli attacks that have killed more than 46,700 people there, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. The minis...

The 2024 election pushed some people to put down their phones more and tune out of the news. But author Catherine Price started thinking about breaking up with her phone years ago, after realizing she was focusing on it instead of her newborn daughter.  “Our devices and their apps are designed to fragment our attention, whether it is taking us out of our real-life experience and getting us to...

After two men brutally assaulted a security guard on a train platform in St. Louis, police detectives faced a daunting challenge: identifying the attackers. Police turned to facial recognition technology, feeding a blurry image from a small surveillance camera into the software. The software gave them the mugshot of a man who says he had nothing to do with the crime. Christopher Gatlin spent over...

Today, when disaster hits home. Weather editor Paulina Firozi and Brianna Sacks, an extreme weather and disaster reporter, are Post colleagues. We'll hear how they and others are grappling with the devastation in L.A.  Read more: When several wildfires began ripping through parts of Los Angeles County on Jan. 7, The Post’s Brianna Sacks, an extreme weather and disaster reporter, began documen...

Senior political reporter Aaron Blake talks with The Post’s White House editor, Naftali Bendavid, and national political reporter Maeve Reston about the politics of Trump’s sentencing in the New York hush money case. They also dig into how Trump is trying to pin the Los Angeles wildfires on Democrats and look ahead to next week ’s Senate confirmation hearing for Trump’s pick for defense secretary,...

After 10 years on the job, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced earlier this week that he is stepping down.  Today, The Washington Post’s Amanda Coletta and host Elahe Izadi break down Trudeau’s career, where this leaves Canadian politics and what this could mean for U.S.-Canada relations. Today’s show was produced by Ariel Plotnick with help from Sabby Robinson. It was edited by...

Early Tuesday, wildfires started burning across Los Angeles County. The scale of the destruction is massive; entire neighborhoods are in flames, with longtime businesses, schools and houses of worship burnt to the ground. Today, guest host Rachel Siegel speaks with extreme weather and natural disaster reporter Brianna Sacks about what Los Angeles looks like as the wildfires rage, and the struggle...

The country’s top doctor is calling for cancer risk warning labels on alcohol. On “Post Reports,” why, and what that could mean for you. Read more: Last week, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy said in an advisory that studies suggest alcohol is the third leading preventable cause of cancer, contributing to 100,000 cancer cases and 20,000 related deaths each year.  For that reason, he says hea...

On New Year’s Day in New Orleans, a man drove a pickup truck into a crowd of people, killing 14 and leaving many others injured. In the aftermath law enforcement found an Islamic State flag in the truck, and evidence that shows the man was inspired by the extremist group.  This wasn’t the only Islamic State-inspired incident in recent months. Today on “Post Reports,” guest host Rachel Siegel...

On Friday, Republicans once again selected Rep. Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) to be speaker of the House — but not before there was a little bit of drama. Earlier this week, President-elect Donald Trump took to social media to link the New Year’s Day vehicular attack in New Orleans to weak border policies, even though the attacker was an American citizen born in Texas. In the hours following, the mes...

Early in the morning on New Year’s Day, a man drove a truck into a crowd of people celebrating on Bourbon Street in New Orleans. In the hours since, law enforcement has discovered key details that point to a possible motive, including an Islamic State flag in the attacker’s car.  Guest host Rachel Siegel and Justice Department reporter Perry Stein break down what we know about the terrorist a...