Post Reports

How aborition in the movies changed the way Americans think about reproductive rights. And a dispatch from Queen Elizabeth II’s jubilee celebrations in London.

Read more:

As we wait to hear how the Supreme Court rules on abortion access in America, we’ve been reflecting on what has and hasn’t change since Roe. v Wade was decided almost 50 years ago. Ann Hornaday, The Washington Post’s film critic, looked at how the film industry has portrayed abortion since the landmark ruling in 1973. After watching movies like “Dirty Dancing,” “Juno,” “Knocked Up” and “Obvious Child,” Hornaday says she noticed a “strange evolution,” in how Hollywood’s depiction of abortion has changed over time.

This week marks Queen Elizabeth II’s 70th year on the throne. The Platinum Jubilee celebrations are taking place all across the United Kingdom. Karla Adam, a correspondent based in London, reports on what this anniversary signifies for the future of the British monarchy. 

Today on Post Reports, we bring you to the frontline of the war in Ukraine, as Russian forces encircle Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region. Plus, a teenager coming of age in the war finds purpose in helping fellow displaced Ukrainians. 

Read more:

Nearly 100 days into the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Ukrainian forces have suffered significant setbacks: President Volodomyr Zelensky says Russia has now taken 20 percent of his country. 

Foreign correspondent Siobhan O’Grady brings us into the trenches of the eastern Donbas region, where Russia has focused its military advancements. Ukrainian battalions are digging trenches, desperate to turn the tide of war. 

Later in the show, we meet 16-year-old Anna Melnyk, whose life changed overnight when her family was forced to flee their home in Kyiv and head west for the transit city of Lviv. 

Now Anna –– who volunteers as a guide for the displaced at a train station in Lviv –– is undergoing a drastic transformation alongside other Ukrainian teens, who are trading high school concerns for work that will shape the kind of nation they will inherit once the fighting ends.

“She said it makes her feel like she's doing something for her country. That it's a role for her,” says reporter Hannah Allam. “She’s not 18. She can't enlist in the military and then take up arms. She’s not even old enough to drive. So, this was something she could do.” 

More than a week later, what we know and don’t know about how a gunman carried out a massacre at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Tex. — and why the timeline from authorities keeps changing.

Read more:

In the days since a shooter killed 19 children and two teachers at Robb Elementary School, new and horrifying details about the timeline of events keep emerging. We now know that the gunman was able to walk into the school unimpeded. We know that children called 911 from within classrooms pleading for help. But we still don’t know exactly why it took so long for authorities to stop the gunman. 

Silvia Foster-Frau reports on what happened during a devastating 90-minute window.

As hurricane season hits, we examine what happens when Black communities seem to be last in line for disaster planning in Texas.

Read more:

Communities more likely to be hit by hurricanes are bracing themselves for a rough summer, as hurricane season begins June 1. But in Kashmere Gardens, a predominantly Black neighborhood in Houston, residents are still trying to repair the damage to homes from a hurricane that hit five years ago. 

As Tracy Jan tells producer Bishop Sand, that’s because money to address that damage — and to prevent further destruction — has been hard to come by. According to an investigation by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Texas directed federal grants toward Whiter and wealthier areas — leaving places like Kashmere Gardens out to dry. 

Today on “Post Reports,” the fourth episode of “Broken Doors,” about the minutes between approval for a no-knock warrant and a deadly raid.  

Read more:

“Broken Doors” is a new investigative podcast series hosted by Jenn Abelson and Nicole Dungca about how no-knock warrants are deployed in the U.S. justice system — and the consequences for communities when accountability is flawed at every level. 

In the fourth episode of this series, we head to Port Allen, La.

On July 25, 2019, a Black man was killed during a no-knock raid on a motel room in Louisiana. His fiancee was also inside. An investigation into what led up to the fatal shooting reveals the speed with which it happened — and raises questions about electronic warrants, a relatively new technology being adopted by law enforcement agencies across the country.

The full series is out now wherever you get your podcasts. You can email the “Broken Doors” team with any tips or feedback at [email protected].

After six weeks, the contentious defamation trial between Johnny Depp and Amber Heard is set to wrap up Friday. Today on “Post Reports,” what happened in the courtroom and online, and why it matters.

Read more:

After six weeks of Johnny Depp and Amber Heard’s defamation trial, the jury is hearing closing arguments Friday.

Depp is suing Heard for $50 million over an op-ed she wrote in The Washington Post in 2018 in which she referred to herself as a public figure representing domestic abuse (Depp has denied all allegations of abuse). Heard countersued Depp for $100 million after his lawyer Adam Waldman called her accusations a hoax.

Despite the gravity of the allegations, the trial has garnered attention from all corners of the Internet — millions have tuned in to the live-streamed trial every day, analyzing and memeing every aspect of the trial. Entertainment reporter Emily Yahr has been covering the contentious trial in person and online, and discusses why so many people are obsessed with it and what that implies.

The NRA faces critics from all sides, with infighting among its executives and, after the Uvalde, Tex., school shooting, renewed pressure from gun control advocates. And then there are the radical gun groups that say the NRA hasn’t gone far enough.

Read more:

Tomorrow, the National Rifle Association will kick off its annual meeting. Just a few hours from the site of Tuesday’s school shooting, the convention will feature a 14-acre gun show and headliners including former president Donald Trump and Texas Gov. Gregg Abbott (R).

Post national political reporter Isaac Arnsdorf will be there to cover it. And he says the NRA’s place in the gun control landscape is shifting: Mired in internal battles and legal troubles, the organization now has to compete with a handful of even more adamant gun rights groups that are growing in popularity. Today, how the NRA navigates bad press in the wake of mass shootings, and how the American gun culture it helped create has evolved.

The deadliest school shooting in nearly a decade, and what’s changed in the years since the massacre in Newtown, Conn. 

Read more:

Washington Post reporter Arelis Hernández is on the ground in Uvalde as children and families try to make sense of the violence that tore through Robb Elementary School on Tuesday. 

According to a Post database,last year was the deadliest year for school shootings in America since at least 1999, the year of the Columbine massacre. This year is on track to be even worse – and the reasons for that aren’t entirely clear. John Woodrow Cox, who helped create The Post’s tracker, breaks down the massive, sometimes unseen impact of gun violence on American schoolchildren, and the tricky politics of gun control legislation.

Read an excerpt from John’s book, “Children Under Fire: An American Crisis.”

Today on Post Reports, what to know about monkeypox and how prepared the United States is for future pandemics. Plus, in New Orleans, the return of a beloved Mardi Gras tradition.

Read more:

What is monkeypox, and how concerned should we be about the virus? Cameron Wolfe, an infectious-disease expert at Duke University, explains what we know about the rare virus, now confirmed in the United States and Europe. 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued an alert late last week, urging doctors and health departments to be vigilant. Monkeypox, which can be passed to animals and humans, is usually found in Central and West Africa. But many of the recent cases cropping up in the United Kingdom, France and elsewhere suggest the virus may be spreading through the community. 

Plus, in New Orleans, the Mardi Gras Indians are back in a big way. 

On Tuesday Republican voters in Georgia will choose between candidates who supported Donald Trump’s claims that the election was stolen and those who did not. The results may say a lot about election integrity in 2022 — and the state of the GOP nationwide. 

Read more: 

In 2020, the fate of the presidency and which party would control the U.S. Senate hinged on what happened in Georgia. The state emerged as a contentious battleground, and it quickly drew the attention of President Donald Trump, who began to falsely claim that the elections in the state were manipulated. 

Nearly two years later, Trump’s influence over Georgia’s elections has not disappeared. In fact, several Republican candidates have declared their support for Trump’s false election claims, including challengers to the incumbent governor and secretary of state. And Trump’s sway has created a schism in the state’s Republican Party. 

Matthew Brown, who covers politics in the state, unpacks the dimensions of Georgia’s primaries and examines what could happen if an election denier enters office.