

Post Reports
The Washington Post
Post Reports is the daily podcast from The Washington Post. Unparalleled reporting. Expert insight. Clear analysis. Everything you’ve come to expect from the newsroom of The Post, for your ears. Martine Powers and Elahe Izadi are your hosts, asking the questions you didn’t know you wanted answered. Published weekdays around 5 p.m. Eastern time.
Episodes
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Dec 14, 2020 • 23min
Immigration under Trump
Looking back at four years of Trump’s immigration policies. Plus, setting egg-spectations for Britain’s pubs under covid.Read more:In 2015, Donald Trump ran on the promise to overhaul immigration — a vow he made good on as soon as he was sworn in. Immigration reporter Maria Sacchetti takes us through all the steps President Trump took to change the U.S. immigration system, from banning travel from some Muslim-majority countries to separating families, and the potentially lasting change in tone and rhetoric around immigration.Adam Taylor explains the debate over coronavirus rules that is entangling Britain’s politics: Is a scotch egg a substantial meal?Black country music star Charley Pride died Saturday at the age of 86. Listen to a past episode of Post Reports about the Black roots of country music.Subscribe to The Washington Post: postreports.com/offer

Dec 11, 2020 • 32min
Policing mental health crises
What can go wrong when police are the ones responding to mental health crises. And grieving virtually during the pandemic.Read more:The final moments of Stacy Kenny’s life are captured on a recorded 911 call. Kenny, who had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, begs an emergency operator to explain why she’s been pulled over. The officers – Springfield Sgt. Rick A. Lewis and Officer Kraig Akins – smash the windows on her car. They Taser her twice, punch her in the face more than a dozen times and try to pull her out by her hair. She is unarmed and restrained by her locked seatbelt.Her life ends – as does the call – when she tries to flee by driving away with one of the officers still inside the car. He shoots her in the head.In 2019, her death in Springfield, Ore., was one of 1,324 fatal shootings by police over the past six years that involved someone police said was in the throes of a mental health crisis. Investigative reporter Kimberly Kindy breaks down why such fatal shootings of people in mental health crises are on the rise in small and mid-sized cities – and what those left to live with loss, like Stacy’s parents, Barbara and Chris Kenny, hope police departments will change about how they respond to mental-health-related calls.The pandemic has changed the way we process grief. Animator Kolin Pope and audio editor Ted Muldoon bring us a meditation on Zoom funerals. Subscribe to The Washington Post: https://postreports.com/offer

Dec 10, 2020 • 29min
A supply chain that could end the pandemic
When the first coronavirus vaccine is approved for emergency use, officials across the country will embark on a finely orchestrated, high-stakes process to distribute and administer doses. Meet the people inside the supply chain that could end the pandemic.Read more:Once you have a vaccine, you have to get it to the masses. That’s the hard part. A vaccine manufacturer. A shipper. A state health official. A dry-ice guy. Host Martine Powers and producer Linah Mohammad take us inside the supply chain and speak to the people responsible for making the life-saving vaccine program work. In this episode, we explore how each part of the chain is preparing — from approval and manufacturing, to climate-controlled delivery reliant on dry ice, to how stores are readying themselves for the first shipment. Learn about the potential kinks that may show up in the chain and what it takes to overcome those hurdles. What you need to know about the coronavirus vaccine, and what to watch this week. Subscribe to The Washington Post: https://postreports.com/offer

Dec 9, 2020 • 26min
Bridging the vaccine’s trust gap
Can companies require employees to be vaccinated? What community leaders and health officials are doing to sell Black Americans on the coronavirus vaccine. And a second life for Halloween skeletons. Read more:Can your employer require you to get vaccinated? Reporter Jena McGregor breaks it down.Many Black Americans are not sold on the coronavirus vaccine, citing a long history of medical mistreatment and continuing inequities in modern-day health care as reasons not to trust the medical establishment. Lola Fadulu reports on the efforts to bring people around to the vaccine.Don’t take down your Halloween decorations just yet. Arts and culture reporter Maura Judkis explains how giant skeletons are being repurposed for Christmas. What you need to know about the vaccines in development.Subscribe to The Washington Post: https://postreports.com/offer

Dec 8, 2020 • 27min
Biden’s unorthodox health team
President-elect Joe Biden’s names his administration’s top health officials. The toll the pandemic has taken on nursing home employees. And an inauguration unlike any other. Read more: Health reporter Amy Goldstein examines the president-elect’s picks for top health officials, including the unorthodox choice of California Attorney General Xavier Becerra for secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. The pandemic has taken a heavy toll on nursing home workers. “The problem is that there have been a number of nursing home employees who have either quit or fallen ill or died,” says business reporter Will Englund. “And in a business that has a traditional or a chronic problem with short staffing, that's gotten even much worse.”National political reporter Matt Viser on what you need to know about Joe Biden’s inauguration. Today is the 40th anniversary of John Lennon’s death. Listen to a previous episode, where arts reporters Geoff Edgers revisits his last album. Subscribe to The Washington Post: https://postreports.com/offer

Dec 7, 2020 • 28min
Lame-duck executions
Why the Justice Department is pushing executions before the inauguration. The secret centrist revolt that could mean a second stimulus. And, how a top official tasked with helping Americans through the pandemic could benefit from hundreds of evictions.Read more:Under the Trump administration, the Justice Department is pursuing several federal executions during a lame-duck period ahead of Joe Biden’s inauguration. Reporter Matt Zapotosky explains. Last week, a bipartisan group of lawmakers released a $908 billion relief proposal. But, as reporter Jeff Stein explains, not everyone is on board.Hundreds of families living on property owned in part by senior White House adviser Jared Kushner are facing eviction during a pandemic. Jonathon O’Connell reports on how the management company associated with Kushner is filing to remove tenants who are behind on rent by Dec. 31. Subscribe to The Washington Post: https://postreports.com/offer

Dec 4, 2020 • 30min
America’s deadliest serial killer
Reporter Hannah Knowles reveals a portrait of a fragmented and indifferent criminal justice system that for decades allowed the country’s deadliest serial killer to target those on the margins of society.Read more:America’s deadliest serial killer went undetected for decades. Between 1970 and 2005, he claims to have killed at least 93 people — nearly all women, many who remain unidentified.For months, a team of reporters at The Post has been investigating Samuel Little’s killings —of people who lived on the margins of society, whose murders police failed to connect and solve. Subscribe to The Washington Post: postreports.com/offer

Dec 3, 2020 • 25min
The battle between fear and boredom in El Paso
Pandemic fatigue permeates even the cities hit hardest by the virus: In El Paso the death toll is staggering, but the community is struggling to come together to fight it. Plus, how a group advising the CDC is deciding who should get vaccines first. Read more:El Paso was still grieving when the coronavirus arrived. Now, death has overwhelmed it. Arelis Hernández says the city pulled together after 23 people were killed in an attack at a Walmart last year, but El Paso is now struggling to summon solidarity as scores die of covid-19.How do you decide who gets a vaccine first? Health reporter Lena H. Sun explains the complicated factors the committee advising the CDC is weighing — including how to save the most lives, how to stop the spread of the coronavirus and how to make people confident enough in the vaccine to take it in the first place.Subscribe to The Washington Post: https://postreports.com/offer

Dec 2, 2020 • 30min
How to raise $170 million after an election
How President Trump might use the $170 million he’s raised to challenge election results. Infighting muddies the future of the Democratic Party. And, how the pandemic has complicated shared custody agreements.Read more:November was one of the president’s most successful fundraising months. Michelle Ye Hee Lee explains how Trump raised more than $170 million using appeals about false election claims, and where that money could go.Democrats expected a blue wave this election cycle. It didn’t happen. Now, two factions within the party are openly battling over why. Political reporter Sean Sullivan brings us inside the feud, and the scramble over the future of the Democratic Party.As we’ve discussed on the show, parenting during a pandemic is really difficult. Reporter Nia Decaille shares the experiences of divorced and separated couples, for whom the pandemic has complicated joint custody agreements.

Dec 1, 2020 • 32min
Why was Iran’s top nuclear scientist killed?
The debate is not whether Israel killed Iran’s top nuclear scientist, but why. How the “Q” conspiracy theory went from an American curiosity to a transnational mess. And, the people who have covid-19 symptoms for the long haul.Read more:In the hours after the brazen assassination of Iran’s top nuclear scientist, the question quickly shifted from “who” to “why.” Jerusalem bureau chief Steve Hendrix explains why Israel might have been motivated to strike now. Reporter Emily Rauhala explains the global appeal and dangerous adaptability of QAnon’s conspiracy theories. Kelsey Ables is a reporter and editorial aide with The Post. She has delved into the life of covid-19 long-haulers: people who have symptoms and effects from the virus well after two weeks. She spoke with one woman, Chimére Smith, about what she’s facing.


