Post Reports

After the murder of George Floyd, reporters Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa spent months learning everything they could about Floyd’s life. The story they reveal in a new book shows how systemic racism shaped and shortened it. 

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“He's everywhere — but he's not here. He's on somebody's wall. He's on somebody's billboard. … He's in a newspaper, but he's not here. He's here in spirit. But he's not here.”

In the summer of 2020, after George Floyd was murdered, he became a symbol and a rallying cry. But what was missing in our understanding was the man himself — a figure who was complicated, full of ambition, shaped by his family and his community and centuries of systemic racism. 

The Washington Post set out to better understand who Floyd really was and reported a series of stories about George Floyd’s America. We made a podcast based on this reporting, “The Life of George Floyd,” which we’re playing today for you in full. But two of the reporters on that project still had questions. 

Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa have now written a book that delves deeper into Floyd’s life — what he was like as a father, a boyfriend, a classmate, an athlete, how ambitious he was. And how those ambitions were hobbled by systemic racism. They learned about things that happened to Floyd’s family, hundreds of years before he was born, that shaped everything that would happen to him later. 

If you’d like to read an excerpt of Robert and Tolu’s book, you can find that here: How George Floyd Spent His Final Hours.

A year ago today, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law Texas Senate Bill 8, also known as the Texas Heartbeat Act. The law bans abortion after about six weeks of pregnancy — before many people even know they’re pregnant. It also employed a novel legal strategy that empowered ordinary people to enforce the law by suing anyone who may have helped facilitate the abortion.

Many observers thought the law would be blocked from taking effect or overturned after passing. That didn’t happen. The Supreme Court had three opportunities to consider the law and didn’t, signaling that the court could be open to overturning Roe v. Wade. 

In the recent uproar over the leaked Supreme Court draft opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, it’s been easy to forget about the impact and significance of Texas’s law. But a year later the law still stands in the state, blocking abortions after about six weeks. 

Today on Post Reports, on the anniversary of the Texas abortion ban, national political reporter Caroline Kitchener brings us the story of the activist who helped to craft the law, the doctor who tried to challenge it, and the lessons both sides have taken away from its success.

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Caroline Kitchener examines whether a national abortion ban is possible in a post-Roe world. 

You can also read her profile of Dr. Alan Braid. 

Today on Post Reports, an estimated 1.5 million retirees have reentered the U.S. labor market over the past year. What’s bringing them back?

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Millions of Americans who retired during the pandemic are returning to the workforce.

Many are being lured back to work by more flexible, hybrid work arrangements and declining concerns over covid. And, yes, some of it is also being driven by high inflation. But there’s good news, too: Ageism might be less of a problem for older workers. Companies are scrambling to find experienced, reliable people to fill all these open jobs. And suddenly, the AARP set is looking pretty good.

Finland and Sweden are applying for NATO membership, ending decades-long policies of military neutrality. We take a look at what this means for global security. Plus, why some NATO leaders are worried about Vladimir Putin being humiliated in Ukraine.

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Finland and Sweden’s leaders announced in recent days that they would be seeking membership in NATO, the military alliance among the United States, Canada and many European countries. Sweden and Finland historically have remained neutral to avoid conflict — but the war in Ukraine and their geographical proximity to Russia pushed them to reassess. National security reporter Shane Harris discusses how this move changes the security landscape and the possible consequences if Russia loses the war. 

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.