Post Reports

In the early 1980s, the Olympic Games were on the verge of dying out. After a string of disasters, the Games had become unaffordable, politically fraught, and faced serious security concerns. Then came the spectacular 1984 Summer Games in Los Angeles that reinvented the way the Olympics were run.

Guest host Ted Muldoon sits down with Les Carpenter, who covers the Olympics for The Post. They break down what changed in the 1984 Games and explore if 2024 could be another turning point.

Today’s show was produced and mixed by Ted Muldoon. It was edited by Renita Jablonski. Thanks to Matt Rennie.

Audio of the 1984 Olympic events courtesy of the ABC Sports Collection, managed by ESPN. Additional audio courtesy of AT&T Archives and History Center, RunnerSpace.com and Rocky Mountain PBS.

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The Senate is expected to pass a bipartisan bill that would force TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, to sell the platform or face a national ban. How did Congress finally achieve consensus on this?

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The Senate spent the day debating a bill that would provide billions of dollars in aid to Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan. But something else is also tucked into the bill: an ultimatum to TikTok’s Beijing-based parent company, ByteDance, to either sell the popular app or see it effectively banned in the United States.

Tech policy reporter Cristiano Lima-Strong says this is the latest attempt by Congress to force a sale of TikTok, which some lawmakers say poses a national security threat by putting the data of roughly 170 million Americans in the hands of the Chinese government. While a previous version of this bill had stalled in the Senate, this time the legislation is on the path to becoming law.

Cristiano joins Post Reports to break down the latest developments surrounding this bill as well as its potential consequences.

Today’s show was produced by Emma Talkoff, with help from Elana Gordon. It was mixed by Sean Carter and edited by Monica Campbell.

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Soon after the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting, in which 20 children and six adults were murdered, Infowars’ Alex Jones began to push the false idea that the tragedy was a hoax perpetrated by the U.S. government to promote gun restrictions. So a group of parents decided to sue Jones for defamation, and in 2022 they were awarded a $1.5 billion settlement.

This month, a bankruptcy judge ordered Jones to liquidate some of his personal assets to help cover the judgment. Jones was allowed to keep his controlling stake in the Infowars conspiracy site for now, but the site could be shut down within a matter of months.

Elahe Izadi sits down with media reporter Will Sommer to talk about Jones’s fall and what it could mean for the future of the misinformation landscape.

Today’s show was produced by Peter Bresnan. It was edited by Lucy Perkins and Reena Flores and mixed by Sean Carter.

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What happens when an entire fast-food restaurant staff quits? Today for our special series on “Quitters,” the story of a McDonald’s walkout, and what it can tell us about the labor market right now.

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In September, the entire staff of a McDonald’s in Bradford, Pa., walked out and quit their jobs. One of the staff members left a parting note for the customers, written in blue highlighter because he couldn’t find a pen: “Due to lack of pay, we all quit.”

“The signs are...kind of like primal screams,” says reporter Greg Jaffe. “It’s [the worker’s] chance to convey a message: We’re being mistreated. We’re tired of it. This corporation treats us badly, and doesn’t care about us.”

Today on Post Reports, we’re bringing you the second installment in “Quitters,” a three-part podcast series about a few of the millions of Americans who quit their jobs this year. Jaffe takes us inside the fast-food workers’ season of rebellion.

You can listen to the first part of the series here.

The newly unsealed search warrant for Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home lists potential crimes, including violating the Espionage Act. The Washington Post reported Thursday that the FBI was also looking for classified documents about nuclear weapons.

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On Friday afternoon, a judge unsealed the search warrant for the FBI’s search on former president Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home. The warrant revealed the FBI went there looking for evidence of crimes, including mishandling defense information and the destruction of records. The receipt of what the agents seized includes four sets of top-secret documents, and seven other sets of classified information.

But the day before, The Washington Post learned that classified documents related to nuclear weapons were among the items the FBI sought in the raid. Intelligence and national security reporter Shane Harris explains what type of information could be in these documents and why experts and the Justice Department are so concerned about it falling into the wrong hands.