Post Reports

Despite spending more per person on health care than any other nation, the United States has a crisis of premature deaths. The Post’s health team has been investigating why that is, and today we learn how politics, stress and chronic illness play a role. The United States was once on a track to reach an average life expectancy of 80, but after decades of progress, we’re falling further and further...

It was a historic scene: In a Manhattan courtroom Monday, former president Donald Trump took the stand in a civil trial that threatens his real estate empire. We break down the case, one of many court battles facing Trump as he runs for president again.  Read more: It has been more than a century since a former U.S. president has testified, under oath, as a defendant in a court trial. Th...

How tomorrow’s elections could show the political power behind abortion rights. Read more: On Tuesday, voters across the country will head to the polls for Election Day. And while the elections – and the issues on the ballots – cover a lot of ground, there’s one big theme running through the elections: abortion. In a state such as Ohio, abortion is explicitly on the ballot. Ohio voters will determ...

How does a revolution implode? Martine Powers traces the rise and fall of Maurice Bishop and the origin of the mystery left behind. Read more: Maurice Bishop was a charismatic leader who captured the imagination of many Grenadians. But the revolution he helped spark began to buckle under pressure within his party. Martine Powers tries to understand the life of Bishop and what propelled him into th...

Forty years ago, the body of a prime minister went missing. The Post’s Martine Powers asks: Who’s responsible? Read more: Every 19th of October, Grenadians mark a somber anniversary: the 1983 execution of the country’s former prime minister and revolutionary leader, Maurice Bishop, and others who died alongside him. The people of this Caribbean nation still have no closure 40 years later. The rema...

In 2017, Magdalena Hernández Pérez was separated from her children by the Trump-era family separation policy. Reunification would take nearly six years. The Post’s Kevin Sieff followed their story.   Read more: When Magdalena Hernández Pérez and her daughters crossed the U.S.-Mexico border in 2017 to request asylum, it would be the last time they would be together for years. Like thousands of...

For decades, Israel has been the number one recipient of U.S. foreign aid. As the conflict in Gaza intensifies, we explore that long history of support and what it says about America’s foreign policy.  Read more: Since Oct. 7, attacks by Hamas have prompted requests for millions of dollars in security aid from the United States to Israel . It’s the continuation of a long-established rela...

Late at night, in parts of Washington, a group of people and their small dogs walk the alleyways and trash bins hunting rats, in a city that’s filled with them. The Post’s Maura Judkis and Bishop Sand report on the hunt and what it says about our relationship with animals.  Read more: The Ratscallions hunt rats with terriers and small hounds in different parts of Washington . Linda Freeman, t...

Israel plunged Gaza into a communications blackout Friday that left more than 2 million people without cell service or internet access for almost two days. On Saturday, it began a major ground assault on territory, ushering in a new phase of the war.  Read more: In a televised address Saturday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the goals for the new phase of Israel’s war wit...

Taylor Swift’s 2023 Eras Tour is projected to rake in billions of dollars, becoming the highest grossing concert tour in history. But her economic impact doesn’t stop there. Today, we break down the economy (Taylor’s version).  Read more: Pop powerhouse Taylor Swift has been in the music business for nearly two decades. But 2023 is turning out to be her most remarkable – and highest-earning –...

More than 200 people were taken hostage by Hamas on Oct. 7, according to Israeli authorities. On today’s “Post Reports,” we hear about one family’s ordeal, and what the hostage crisis means for Israel’s possible ground invasion of Gaza. Read more: More than 200 people were taken hostage by Hamas on Oct. 7, according to Israeli authorities. Moshe Leimberg’s wife, Gabriela, and 17-year-old daughter,...

Correction: A previous version of this episode incorrectly stated where Rep. Tom Emmer is from. The audio has been updated to remove the error.  After three long, chaotic weeks, the nation finally has a new House speaker – U.S. Rep. Mike Johnson from Louisiana. So who is he? And how did Congress get here?  Read more: On Wednesday, 220 Republicans finally chose their new House leader: a congr...

What to know about the many guilty pleas rolling into the Georgia case charging former president Donald Trump and his allies with election interference.  Read more: The Fulton County Courthouse in Atlanta has become the epicenter of one of the most-watched criminal cases in the country right now, charging former President Donald Trump and his allies with interfering with Georgia’s 2020 electi...

A fast-rising number of people, including families, are approaching the U.S.-Mexico border. Many seek asylum. Now, President Biden wants Mexico to crack down on migrants, but Mexico is reaching its limits to do so. Read more: When President Barack Obama faced a steep rise in people migrating toward the southern U.S. border in 2014, he pressured Mexico to curb migration at its southern border with...

After seeking community and sisterhood in a sorority, Artemis Langford faced death threats and an attempt to kick her out because of her identity. This Deep Reads episode is part of a collection of occasional weekend stories from “Post Reports.”

Today, “Post Reports” goes back to school, to the cafeteria, where something has changed. Reporters Lenny Bernstein and Lauren Weber bring us the backstory of how ultra-processed foods ended up on lunch trays, amid growing concerns about child nutrition . When students in Robeson County, N.C., returned to school this fall, a new choice appeared on the lunch line: Lunchables. Kraft Heinz reformulat...

Why the House can’t elect a speaker to lead it. And the temporary solution some Republicans are proposing in the meantime.  Read more: For two weeks, the House of Representatives has had no speaker. After the ouster of Kevin McCarthy, Republicans tried to push a replacement through. First, there was Majority Leader Steve Scalise, and then a second choice emerged: firebrand Rep. Jim Jordan (R-...

The Post’s Gulf bureau chief Susannah George walks us through the growing humanitarian crisis in Gaza and the uncertainty for people on the ground there. Read more: It’s been nearly two weeks since Hamas militants attacked dozens of border communities in Israel, killing at least 1,400 people and taking 199 people back to Gaza as hostages, Israeli officials said.  In Gaza, roughly 3,000 people...

For months, saltwater from the Gulf of Mexico has crept up the Mississippi River, contaminating the area’s water supply and putting residents of Louisiana’s Plaquemines Parish on the front lines of a slowly unfolding environmental disaster.  Read more: For months now, saltwater from the Gulf of Mexico has crept as far as 70 miles up the Mississippi River, contaminating the area’s freshwater s...

Last year, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration declared Ozempic and Wegovy in shortage. That has given rise to an unprecedented parallel market for imitations of the drugs made by specialized pharmacies, while unregulated websites offer their own, cheaper versions. Read more: Many people who have used injectable diabetes drugs such as Ozempic and Wegovy for weight loss say they have been life-ch...

The Post’s Annie Gowen walks us through the immediate effects of climate change on India’s megacities and what the future looks like for residents of Kolkata facing record-breaking heat.  Read more: After three days of no power this April, the people of Kasia Bagan had had enough. Temperatures were reaching record highs, with no AC to help. Yet down the main lane of the neighborhood, the Ques...

Israel is still reeling from horrific terrorist attacks by Hamas – and now in Gaza, there’s nowhere to hide from airstrikes. Today on “Post Reports,” we talk to our colleagues in Israel and Gaza about what’s happening on the ground and what comes next.  Read more: Rubble and razed buildings are common in Gaza , including on Hazem Balousha’s street. Balousha, a Palestinian journalist repo...

Grenada’s Black revolutionary leader, Maurice Bishop, was executed in a coup in 1983, along with seven others. The whereabouts of their remains are unknown. Now, The Washington Post’s Martine Powers uncovers new answers about how the U.S. fits into this 40-year-old Caribbean mystery. “The Empty Grave of Comrade Bishop” is an investigative podcast that delves into the revolutionary history of Grena...

Correction: A previous version of this episode incorrectly stated when Interior Secretary Deb Haaland began her listening tour. Haaland started the listening tour last summer, and the tour has lasted for longer than one year The audio has been updated to remove the error. In a moment of reckoning, survivors of the U.S.-run Indian boarding schools are speaking out and trying to hold the U.S. g...

The Post’s Rachel Seigel takes us on an economic journey through the “urban doom loop” and explores this threat to midsize cities. Then, Teo Armus shows us a creative way we could try to avoid it.  Read more: According to Columbia economics professor Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh, cities across the country could be heading for an "urban doom loop" that starts with vacant office spaces and spreads th...