Post Reports

Why prosecutors decided not to charge Minneapolis police officer Mark Hanneman in the killing of Amir Locke. Plus, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson gets confirmed to the Supreme Court. Read more:On Wednesday, prosecutors announced they would not be filing charges against a Minneapolis police officer in the killing of Amir Locke during a predawn no-knock raid in February. In a statement on Wednesday, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison and Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman said they could not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Officer Mark Hanneman, who fatally shot 22-year-old Locke, had violated the state’s use-of-deadly-force statute. Reporter Holly Bailey unpacks the decision not to charge Hanneman, and explains how it has deepened the distrust between the Minneapolis police and the community it is intended to serve. Plus, on Thursday, the Senate confirmed Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to serve on the Supreme Court. She is expected to be sworn in this summer when Justice Stephen G. Breyer retires.Enjoy our podcast? Help us win a 2022 Webby award by casting your votes here and here. We are nominated for best news and politics individual episode, and best business individual episode. 

Caroline Kitchener, a National politics reporter for The Washington Post, dives into the critical landscape of abortion access in Oklahoma. She reveals the state's recent legislation that classifies abortion as a felony, impacting countless women and clinics. Kitchener shares powerful stories from patients navigating emotional and legal hurdles while seeking care. The discussion includes the influx of those traveling from Texas due to strict laws, as well as the intense preparations by clinics facing dramatic changes in the law. It's a gripping exploration of fear, hope, and resilience.

How Facebook’s parent company Meta paid one of the biggest Republican consulting firms in the country to orchestrate a nationwide PR campaign against TikTok. And, where we stand with booster shots and covid antivirals.Read more:Meta, Facebook’s parent company, is paying the Republican consulting group Targeted Victory to try to turn the American public against TikTok. They’ve done everything from placing op-eds in major regional news outlets to promoting dubious stories about alleged TikTok trends that are harming kids. Drew Harwell reports on why Facebook is targeting TikTok.And, an update from science reporter Carolyn Johnson on efforts to get another booster to older adults and expand access to covid antiviral medicines.

On today’s episode of Post Reports, grim scenes from the Ukrainian suburb of Bucha renew calls for investigations into alleged Russian war crimes. Read more:On Saturday, Ukrainian forces and journalists found mass graves in Bucha, a suburb northwest of Kyiv, after Russian forces withdrew from the region. Bucha Mayor Anatoly Fedoruk told The Post that about 270 residents had been buried in two graves. He estimated that 40 bodies were left on the street. On today’s episode of Post Reports, foreign correspondent Isabelle Khurshudyan reports on the discovery of these civilians’ bodies, and what it has sparked: international condemnation, calls for an investigation into possible Russian war crimes and vows that sanctions are coming.

Jessica Montanaro, an ICU nurse from New York City, shares her harrowing experiences on the front lines of the pandemic. Now battling COVID herself, she discusses the emotional and physical toll on healthcare workers while stressing the critical staffing shortages her profession faces. Montanaro reflects on the challenges of returning to work just days after another illness, her journey of resilience, and the necessity of advocacy for nurses and patients alike. Her insights reveal the human side of healthcare amidst continued uncertainty.

Russia announced earlier this week it would scale back its offensive around Kyiv. We take you in and around the capital city to see whether that’s true. Plus, how videos of impromptu concerts around Ukraine have become the soundtrack of hope in the face of war. Read more:On Tuesday, Moscow announced that it would “drastically reduce” its military assault around Kyiv. But U.S. officials are leery of Russia’s promise to shift away from the capital city. Post foreign correspondent Siobhan O’Grady has been in Kyiv since the start of the war. She tells us that Russia doesn’t seem to be telling the truth based on accounts from the city and its surrounding areas, and explains how life in Kyiv has changed since the start of the war. Plus, how videos shared online of musicbeing made in the face of war have become a soundtrack of hope in the midst of despair.

How Peloton became a victim of its own success, and what the parasocial relationship with its instructors tells us about our relationships to ourselves. Plus, what happens when two cosmonauts and an astronaut return to earth.Read more:Peloton saw a meteoric rise at the start of the pandemic. But as normal life has resumed, sales of the stationary bike have plummeted and the company has been plunged into crisis. Business reporter Aaron Gregg explains. And writer Anne Helen Petersen, author of the newsletter Culture Study, talks about the general obsession with Peloton and its instructors — and what those relationships might reveal about ourselves and our connection with others. Plus, a dispatch from the International Space Station: An American astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts safely returned back to earth Wednesday after a historic mission. But there’s a conflict brewing over U.S.-Russia relations in space, and the future of the ISS is at stake.

On today’s episode of Post Reports, we bring you the latest news from Istanbul, where Russian and Ukrainian delegates are negotiating a de-escalation of the war. Read more:After a day of talks in Istanbul, Russian and Ukrainian negotiators have laid out their terms for a potential end to the war.Moscow has said it would “drastically reduce” military activity near Kyiv and Chernihiv “to increase mutual trust and create the necessary conditions for further negotiations.” Kyiv has proposed that countries such as Israel, Turkey and France “guarantee” Ukraine’s security in the future, in exchange for Kyiv’s neutrality and pledge not to host foreign military bases or forces — in other words, Kyiv would make a promise to not seek NATO membership.Reporter Shane Harris describes the state of negotiations, and what a path to the end of the war could look like.

As more and more states move to restrict abortion rights, and the Supreme Court weighs whether to overturn Roe v. Wade, we look at how clinics in blue states are preparing for an influx of patients from across state lines. Read more:On today’s episode of Post Reports, national politics reporter Caroline Kitchener takes us inside a clinic on the Illinois side of the Illinois-Missouri border, where abortion providers are working to build a blue-state abortion refuge for patients from across the South and Midwest. Many of the more conservative states surrounding Illinois are moving to restrict abortion access as the Supreme Court considers whether to limit or overturn the protections of Roe v. Wade.The Post is tracking legislation that aims to restrict abortion across the country — 15-week bans, Texas-style bans, trigger laws and abortion pill bans — as well as what’s happening in the Democratic-dominated states moving to protect access to abortion.

On today’s Post Reports, what we can learn from texts between President Donald Trump’s top aide and the wife of a Supreme Court justice. Plus, why protesters in the Caribbean have not been charmed by William and Kate’s royal “charm offensive.”  Read more:In text messages obtained by The Washington Post and CBS News, Virginia Thomas — a conservative activist and the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas — repeatedly pressed White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to keep up the relentless effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election, calling Joe Biden’s victory “the greatest Heist of our History.”The messages, 29 in all, reveal an extraordinary pipeline between Virginia Thomas, who goes by Ginni, and President Donald Trump’s top aide at a time when Trump and his allies were vowing to go to the Supreme Court in an effort to negate the election’s results. Despite these ties, Justice Thomas chose not to recuse himself in a case deciding whether the former president could block the committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol from obtaining certain records, including these text messages between Ginni Thomas and Meadows. On today’s episode of Post Reports, CBS’s Robert Costa tells us about the process of reporting out this story with The Post’s Bob Woodward and shares the questions he’ll be asking next. Critics say Ginni Thomas’s activism is a Supreme Court conflict. Under court rules, only her husband can decide whether that’s true. Michael Kranish reports on the criticism that Justice Thomas has exploited a hole in the court’s rules to ignore the conflict of interest created by his wife’s activism.Plus, Karla Adam explains why Britain’s Prince William and his wife, Catherine, have been met with anti-colonial protests and demands for reparations on their first official overseas visit together since the start of the pandemic.