Post Reports

Today on “Post Reports,” personal finance columnist Michelle Singletary offers up some of her time-tested, conventional financial wisdom.At every age and stage of life, we’re faced with making tough financial decisions. Am I ready to buy a house? Should I start saving for retirement? And what the heck is FICA? For nearly 30 years, Michelle has answered these questions for Washington Post readers. Now, she has compiled her most frequently asked questions in a new project, Michelle Singletary’s money milestones for every age. 

HTML SHOW NOTES:It’s time to rethink our friendships. Research shows that strong friendships are essential to a healthy life.Read more:Have you ever neglected your friendships for romantic love? It may be time to rethink your priorities. A growing body of research shows that friends are essential to a healthy life. Cultivating strong friendships may be just as important for our well-being as healthy eating habits or a good night’s sleep. Platonic love may even be more important than romantic love. People with strong friendships tend to have better mental health, and there may be benefits to our physical health, as well. Large social networks lower our risk of premature death more than exercise or dieting alone, research found. Teddy Amenabar reports for the Well+Being section at The Washington Post and walks us through these findings and offers advice for how to maintain our friendships. 

Who is George Santos, and why does it seem as though everyone on Capitol Hill is talking about him? Today, we have the story of the embattled lawmaker and why some voters in his district want him removed from his seat.Read more:Freshman Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) has an interesting biography, littered with untruths. He claimed he had worked for Goldman Sachs and Citigroup. He said the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks claimed his mother’s life. And he mentioned that four of his employees died in the 2016 Pulse nightclub massacre. These were just a few of the claims Santos made that were discovered to be fabrications.Post reporter Camila DeChalus spent time with Santos’s constituents in New York’s 3rd Congressional District. Some voters said they wanted him gone from his seat in the House. DeChalus breaks down how that might — or might not — happen.

Today on “Post Reports,” we cover the latest news from the war in Ukraine – and talk about why Putin is increasingly isolated, even among Russia’s elite. Over the weekend, a Russian missile struck a nine-floor apartment complex in central Ukraine. The timing, on a weekend afternoon, meant many people were at home at the time of the strike. Dozens of people were killed. The move seems to signal a new level of desperation from Russia – and reporter Catherine Belton says Russian President Vladimir Putin is increasingly isolated as the war grinds on, from the West but also his own allies among Russia’s elite.  Putin on Tuesday used new government data to paint a surprisingly rosy picture of Russia’s economy. “The actual dynamics of the economy turned out to be better than many expert forecasts,” he said during a virtual meeting on the economy.“It's not really clear what he's talking about because no one really knows what actually the ruble’s value is anymore. It’s being artificially set by the central bank,” Belton says.Today on “Post Reports,” we dive into Catherine’s reporting on the gulf emerging between Putin and some of Russia’s elite – leaving the leader increasingly friendless and increasingly paranoid. 

As California works through the devastating consequences of catastrophic flooding, today on “Post Reports” we look back at another climate disaster and ask if survivors can find healing on the very land that holds the scars of climate change.Read more:From deadly flooding to destructive wildfires, Californians have been coping with the perils of climate change for years. More than four years after the Camp Fire destroyed the town of Paradise, one study on the fire’s aftermath said survivors experienced PTSD at rates on par with veterans of war. Research increasingly shows that victims of climate change disasters are left with deep psychological wounds — from anxiety after hurricanes to surges in suicide during heat waves — that the nation’s disaster response agencies are ill-prepared to treat.But in the burned and battered forests near Paradise, a small program run by California State University at Chico is using nature therapy walks to help fire survivors recover.Today on “Post Reports,” climate reporter Sarah Kaplan explains how the program is testing a fraught premise: that the site of survivors’ worst memories can become a source of solace.

Today, Post advice columnist Carolyn Hax offers some guidance to the splintered British royal family.Read more:Lately, there’s been a lot of news about the British royal family. There’s a Netflix documentary series about Harry and Meghan, and this week Harry released his new memoir, “Spare.” Both are packed with surprisingly intimate details about the lives of the former royals, including Harry taking magic mushrooms at a celebrity party as well as intentional palace leaks to the tabloids. From the outside, it seems like the royals have a lot of work to do to rebuild their relationships.That’s where Post columnist Carolyn Hax comes in. In today’s episode, Carolyn gives advice about a few key scenarios that are all about the royal family but could easily be relevant to many people’s lives.

What we know about the classified documents found in President Biden’s possession. How will a new special counsel investigation by the Justice Department work? And what are the similarities — and differences — with the investigation into former president Donald Trump’s handling of classified documents? Read more:Amid new revelations of classified documents in his possession after the vice presidency, President Biden now faces a special counsel investigation. In November, a small batch of classified documents were found at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement in downtown Washington, according to a CBS News report this week. The Post reported that the discovery involved about 10 classified documents.In a statement Thursday, Biden’s legal team said more classified documents were found — this time, in the locked garage of his Wilmington, Del., residence.Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Robert K. Hur, a former U.S. attorney, to handle the special counsel investigation. This comes as former president Donald Trump is also being investigated by a special counsel for retention of classified documents at his Florida home, Mar-a-Lago.Today on the show, White House reporter Matt Viser breaks down what this could mean for the Biden presidency and how this could impact his potential run against Trump in 2024.

What was behind the sudden halt to thousands of domestic flights yesterday morning? Today on Post Reports, a conversation with transportation reporter Lori Aratani about a highly unusual aviation system failure and the deeper flaws it exposed.  Read more: More than 4,600 flights arriving in and out of the U.S. faced unusual delays yesterday morning, as aviation staff sought answers to an unexpected overnight outage of its airspace alert system. Preliminary reviews traced the problem to a damaged database file, but the sweeping stoppage that ensued was something the United States hadn’t experienced since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. This mass grounding of flights also came shortly after a messy holiday travel period: failures at Southwest Airlines prompted more than 16,000 flight cancellations. Combined, the logjams and stoppages point to a deeper problem with America’s very fragile aviation system, explains The Post’s Lori Aratani. “This is just another sign of how we need to invest in infrastructure,” Aratani told Post Reports.

It came as a complete surprise. Last month, the Chinese government dropped most of its “zero covid” restrictions. Today on Post Reports, we find out what’s behind the shift and a massive covid outbreak that has since swept the country.Since the start of the pandemic, China has kept in place rigid policies in hopes of eliminating the spread of covid-19. That all changed last month, amid outbreaks of the highly transmissible omicron variant and in the wake of unprecedented protests. In a sudden shift, the government announced no more lockdowns, no more mandatory testing and, as of this week, no more cross-border travel restrictions. “I don't think people saw that coming,” said Lily Kuo, The Washington Post’s China Bureau Chief.But the situation is shrouded in mystery and concerns over a lack of information about the virus. While Chinese authorities report that cases are under control, behind the scenes footage, interviews with hospital and funeral staff, and satellite and forensic analysis from Kuo and her colleagues reveal a much different story. “We know that the health-care system is overwhelmed,” Kuo said. “We don’t know exactly how many deaths. And so it is hard to tell exactly how much of a crisis this is and how bad it will get.”READ MORE: China, engulfed in covid chaos, braces for Lunar New Year case spike.Everything you need to know about traveling to China. Restrictions on travelers from China mount as covid numbers there surge. Tracked, detained, vilified: How China throttled anti-covid protests.

President Biden promised a different approach to immigration than his predecessor, but he is still relying on some Trump-era tools. Today, a look at what Biden’s new strategy will mean for migrants and border communities. Read more:President Biden announced new immigration policies that would expand legal entry into the United States for thousands of migrants from Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Haiti, while continuing to rely upon a controversial Trump-era policy that would block access for others.  These changes came ahead of this week’s North American Leaders’ Summit, where Biden and his Canadian and Mexican counterparts are discussing immigration and other top issues.Arelis Hernandez, who covers the U.S. southern border and immigration, walks us through these new policies and how they would affect migrants and border communities.