Post Reports

Shane Harris, a national security reporter for The Washington Post, brings keen insights into Finland and Sweden's bold move to seek NATO membership, marking a departure from their long-standing military neutrality. He discusses the geopolitical shifts prompted by Russia's invasion of Ukraine and its implications for European security. The conversation also dives into the precarious nature of nuclear escalation under Putin's strategy, the evolving Ukrainian resilience, and how public perceptions within Russia are transforming amidst the conflict.

With key states holding primaries this week, we ask the big question for the 2022 midterms: Will Republicans take back control of Congress? And, the GOP lawmakers who have echoed the racist conspiracy theory used to justify the mass shooting in Buffalo.Read more:The 2022 midterms are ramping up. On Tuesday, voters in five states, including Pennsylvania and North Carolina, will vote in primary elections.Meanwhile, in races around the country, Republicans are pushing anti-immigrant sentiments that echo the “great replacement theory,” a racist conspiracy theory that motivated a mass shooter in Buffalo on Saturday.Congressional reporter Marianna Sotomayor breaks down Republican strategy and how Democrats might hold on to their slim majorities in Congress. Check out The Washington Post’s guide to the 2022 midterm elections.  

A few weeks ago, Martine Powers appeared on the Black culture podcast “For Colored Nerds” to discuss her love of period dramas and what does and doesn't work as these shows try to be more inclusive in their casting.To hear the rest of Martine’s discussion with Eric Eddings and Brittany Luse, check out “For Colored Nerds” wherever you get your podcasts, and listen to the episode “Black in Time.”

In the years before Roe v. Wade, the group known as Jane helped more than 11,000 Chicago women get abortions. We look back at the group and talk with one of its members as activists and health advocates mobilize in anticipation of the end of Roe.Read more:In the years before Roe v. Wade guaranteed the constitutional right to an abortion, a group of women banded together in Chicago to help others access the procedure illegally. Their fliers read things like: “Pregnant? Don’t want to be? Call Jane.” Jane became the group’s code name. They estimate that between 1969 and 1973 they helped around 11,000 women get abortions, and many members of the group learned to perform abortions themselves. Laura Kaplan was a member of Jane from 1971 to ’73 and wrote a book on the group’s history called “The Story of Jane: The Legendary Underground Feminist Abortion Service.” Today on the show, we talk to Laura about the dangers women faced before abortions were constitutionally protected, how the underground group evolved, and how she’s making sense of this moment as activists and health advocates mobilize in anticipation of the end of Roe.

For months, parents have been scrambling to feed their children amid a nationwide baby formula shortage. Today, why the supply is so short, and how parents are coping.Read more:Three-quarters of American parents with infants rely on baby formula. For many, it’s the only option to keep their babies alive and healthy. But since the winter, shortages have left caregivers scrambling to find enough food. Last week, supplies in stores were down more than 40 percent. Parenting editor Amy Joyce says the shortage is due to a combination of factors, including snarled supply chains and the closure of a major plant in Michigan where Abbott Nutrition produces Similac and other popular formula brands. In February, Abbott recalled some formula after several infants got sick — and two died. The company says it hasn’t found a link between its formula and the illnesses, but the Food and Drug Administration is still investigating. Today on “Post Reports,” we hear about parents dealing with a situation they never could have imagined.

A cache of more than 1.4 million newly released records exposes the inner workings of the nation’s largest opioid manufacturer. Today on “Post Reports,” we go inside the sales machine at Mallinckrodt.Read more:The largest manufacturer of opioids in the United States once cultivated a reliable stable of hundreds of doctors it could count on to write a steady stream of prescriptions for pain pills.But one left the United States for Pakistan months before he was indicted on federal drug conspiracy and money laundering charges. Another was barred from practicing medicine after several of his patients died of drug overdoses. Another tried to leave the country in the face of charges that he was operating illegal pill dispensing operations, or pill mills, in two states. He was arrested and sent to prison for eight years.These doctors were among 239 medical professionals ranked by Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals as its top prescribers of opioids during the height of the pain pill epidemic, in 2013. That year, more than 14,000 Americans died of prescription opioid overdoses.More than a quarter of those prescribers — 65 — were later convicted of crimes related to their medical practices, had their medical licenses suspended or revoked, or paid state or federal fines after being accused of wrongdoing, according to a Washington Post analysis of previously confidential Mallinckrodt documents and emails, along with criminal and civil background checks of the doctors. Between April and September of that year, Mallinckrodt’s sales representatives contacted those 239 prescribers more than 7,000 times.The documents, made public after years of litigation and bankruptcy proceedings, shed new light on how aggressively Mallinckrodt sought to increase its market share as the epidemic was raging.Meryl Kornfield and Scott Higham report. 

Nearly 1 million people in the United States have died of covid-19, and the toll is growing among vaccinated people as the virus gets harder and harder to dodge. Today on Post Reports, what we can learn from looking at vaccinated deaths.Read more:According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, vaccinated people made up a shocking 42 percent of covid deaths in January and February during the peak of the omicron surge, compared with 23 percent during delta’s surge in September. Vaccines are still highly effective at preventing illness and death. But as more and more highly contagious variants arise, it becomes harder for elderly people, the immunocompromised and those whose vaccines are wearing off to avoid infection.Health reporter Fenit Nirappil wanted to dispel the myth that only unvaccinated people are dying of covid — and he wanted to put names and faces to some of the hundreds of thousands of people who died this past winter. Today on Post Reports, a look at what happened during the winter surge, and what we can learn from it as the virus continues to mutate.

Today on “Post Reports,” the head of global health at the U.S. Agency for International Development, Atul Gawande, on the state of the pandemic and why global vaccination efforts are at risk. Read more:Today on the show, we hear from national health reporter Dan Diamond about his interview with  Atul Gawande, who leads global health at USAID and co-chairs the Biden administration’s covid-19 task force. He is also an endocrine surgeon, health-care researcher and writer. Gawande explains his efforts as a Biden administration official to slow the pandemic through global vaccination — and how funding for those efforts are at risk. “It isn't enough to just bring a bunch of vaccines on the tarmac and say, ‘Go,’” Gawande says. “We need to support their ability to maintain the cold chain, to have workers who can move out into the rural areas.” Gawande also talks about the state of public health abroad as the war in Ukraine continues.

Today on Post Reports, we go to Sierra Leone, where having a baby can mean risking your life. Read more:Today, we follow the story of Susan Lebbie. Lebbie is 17 and has just given birth to her son, Evan. Throughout her pregnancy she was terrified of facing the same fate as her mother, who died while giving birth to Susan. Susan’s fears are not unfounded: One in 20 women in Sierra Leone die as a result of pregnancy or childbirth, according to the latest United Nations estimate, most often from losing blood. The West African country consistently ranks as one of the deadliest places on Earth to have a baby. But practically every death is preventable. To be pregnant in Sierra Leone is to be at the mercy of resource-strapped institutions and the global trends shaping them. Survival is too often up to luck. West Africa bureau chief Danielle Paquette reports. 

In the ‘90s, Buffalo was ground zero for the battle over abortion rights. Today we revisit that time with media columnist Margaret Sullivan — who served as managing editor of the Buffalo News — and talk about how media has shaped the abortion debate.Read more: In 1998, in Buffalo, NY, OB/GYN Barnett Slepian was murdered in his own home by anti-abortion extremist, James Kopp. We hear from media columnist Margaret Sullivan about how she remembers this volatile time and how the media has influenced the abortion debate. Plus, journalist and author Eyal Press discusses the alarming attacks against his own father, a doctor who also provided abortions for patients in Buffalo.