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A road trip with Sinéad O’Connor Aug 18, 2023

Show notes

When legendary musician Sinéad O’Connor died, arts reporter Geoff Edgers was crushed. He’d spent time with her in 2020 as she relaunched her career. Today on the show, we share moments from that time and Geoff’s reflections on her legacy.

Read Geoff’s essay about his road trip with Sinéad O’Connor and his profile from 2020.

A previous version of this episode incorrectly stated the year Sinéad O’Connor’s son Shane died. It was 2022, not 2020. The audio has been corrected.

If you or someone you know needs help, visit 988lifeline.org or call or text the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988.

Where does Maui go from here? Aug 17, 2023

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Last week, the worst wildfire in Hawaii’s history left blocks of charred wreckage and more than a hundred people dead. Now, while locals wait for news of loved ones, they’re also fighting to keep historic Lahaina in the hands of the Hawaiian people.

Hawaii has one of the most intense housing crunches in the country, with sky-high property values, soaring costs of living and a colonial history that is still felt across the islands. Nowhere was that crunch more visible than historic Lahaina, the former Hawaiian capital, where longtime residents fought to keep their ancestral homes out of the hands of developers.

That was all before a devastating fire ripped through west Maui, destroying thousands of homes and leveling neighborhoods. A little more than a week after the blaze, authorities are still sifting through the ash and accounting for the missing. Residents have banded together to fill gaps they say have been left by the state and federal disaster response. And they’re turning an eye to the future, amid fears that this disaster could drive longtime residents out of Maui.

How to help or donate to Hawaii residents displaced by Maui wildfires.

What Georgia's racketeering charges could mean for Trump Aug 16, 2023

Show notes

In the fourth indictment of former president Donald Trump, Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis alleges that Trump and 18 others participated in a criminal conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia.

To do so, Willis is hoping to use the same legal tactic federal prosecutors have traditionally used to prosecute mafia bosses.

“She's using a statute in Georgia called the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, which mirrors a federal law that was originally written to go after the mafia in New York City,” Washington Post national political correspondent Amy Gardner said. “And so basically what she's doing is accusing the former president, Donald Trump, of being the head of a criminal enterprise whose purpose was to steal the 2020 election.

Gardner joins Post Reports today to explain what makes Trump’s latest indictment unique, and the bar the district attorney will need to clear to secure a conviction.

'Brain desirable,' Part 2 Aug 15, 2023

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Who is Mary Sara, the Sami woman whose brain was taken for the Smithsonian’s “racial brain collection”? Today, we find her descendants. And we find out how the Smithsonian is addressing the dark legacy of its “bone doctor,” Ales Hrdlicka.

The brain of a Sami woman who died at a Seattle sanitarium in 1933. The cerebellum of an Indigenous Filipino who died at the 1904 World’s Fair. These are just two of the brains collected, seemingly without consent, by the Smithsonian’s first curator of its physical anthropology division, Ales Hrdlicka. They were part of the institution’s “racial brain collection.”

Now, a hundred years after this brain collection began, The Washington Post has pieced together the most extensive look at this work to date. In this second episode, we conclude our search for the descendants of Mary, the Sami woman whose brain was taken in 1933, and we hear from the Smithsonian about how it’s grappling with Hrdlicka’s troubling legacy.

If you haven’t listened to the first episode, make sure to listen to “Brain desirable,” Part 1.

'Brain desirable,' Part 1 Aug 14, 2023

Show notes

When Mary died in 1933, her brain was sent to a man named Ales Hrdlicka, the Smithsonian’s ‘bone doctor.’ Post reporters couldn’t find any records that Mary or her family consented to this. So what happened to Mary’s brain? And what is the extent of the Smithsonian’s “racial brain collection”?

The brain of a Sami woman who died at a Seattle sanitarium in 1933. The cerebellum of an indigenous Filipino who died at the 1904 World’s Fair. These are just two of the brains collected over the last century by the Smithsonian’s first curator of the physical anthropology division, Ales Hrdlicka.

Now, a hundred years after this brain collection began, The Washington Post has pieced together the most extensive look at this work to date. And over the next two days on Post Reports, we’re bringing you the details of this reporting and of Ales Hrdlicka’s troubling legacy. In this first episode, we find out the extent of the collection, and we begin the search for the descendants of Mary, the Sami woman whose brain was taken in 1933.

It was all a dream: Hip-hop turns 50 Aug 11, 2023

Show notes

Two turntables and a microphone. That was all DJ Kool Herc had 50 years ago when he planted the seeds of what would become hip-hop. Today, we’ll hear directly from some of the genre’s biggest stars about how hip-hop took over the world.

“Post Reports” audio engineer Sean Carter joins us today to share his reporting on hip-hop’s evolution over the past 50 years. Carter takes us backstage with some of hip-hop’s biggest names, like Rakim and the Lady of Rage, and speaks with the people who were there for some of hip-hop’s most pivotal moments.

Meet the hackers trying to make AI go rogue Aug 10, 2023

Show notes

Chatbots can be biased, deceptive or even dangerous. Today on “Post Reports,” we meet the hackers who are competing to figure out exactly how AI can go awry.

Will Oremus reports on technology for The Post, and recently that has meant writing a lot about AI and all the ways it could go wrong.

“Even the people who make this stuff, the creators of these technologies, are also out there warning, hey, this could be really bad,” Will says. “This could go wrong in very disturbing ways.”

The range of potential harms is vast. And today, we meet the hackers trying to make chatbots go haywire. In what organizers billed as the first public “red teaming” event for artificial intelligence language models, we see a preview of Def Con, the annual hacker convention in Las Vegas – and we learn more about AI’s pitfalls.

Avoiding the news? You’re not alone. Aug 09, 2023

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A new survey shows that more people are avoiding the news. Today on “Post Reports,” our media reporter Paul Farhi talks with Elahe Izadi about “news avoiders” – and how the media could respond to this growing trend.

Bad news seems to be constant these days. Thanks to our hand-held devices, that bad news can follow us everywhere. More and more, people who used to follow the news regularly are tuning it out.

This is bad news for an already struggling news industry. How can news organizations inform their audiences without overwhelming them? Today we talk about staying informed – and staying sane.

RFK Jr.’s politics of conspiracy Aug 08, 2023

Show notes

Today on “Post Reports,” the presidential campaign of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the impact his candidacy could have on the 2024 election — even if he doesn’t come close to winning.

Back in April, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced his candidacy for president of the United States. While he comes from a long line of famous politicians — including his father, onetime U.S. attorney general Bobby Kennedy, and his uncle, President John F. Kennedy, both of whom were assassinated — he has no political experience himself. Instead, after decades as an environmental lawyer, RFK Jr. has embraced misinformation about everything from vaccines to the 2004 election.

Today, national political reporter Michael Scherer walks us through RFK Jr.’s background, the conspiratorial thinking that shapes his campaign, and how he could upend the 2024 election.

The fading invincibility of U.S. women’s soccer Aug 07, 2023

Show notes

The USWNT is out of the World Cup at the earliest stage in the program’s history. Today on “Post Reports,” we talk to soccer reporter Steve Goff about what happened – and what it signals about the global evolution of women's soccer.

The U.S. women’s national soccer team went into the World Cup favored to win it all. Instead, they were knocked out before even making it to the quarterfinals.

But as The Post’s Emily Giambalvo wrote, “the team’s waning dominance says less about the United States and more about the global evolution of women’s soccer.”

Soccer reporter Steve Goff spoke to us from Melbourne, Australia, about the dramatic early exit for the USWNT – and what he’s watching for next in this World Cup.

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