As the coronavirus tore through the world in 2020, and the United States confronted a shortage of tests designed to detect the illness, then-President Donald Trump secretly sent coveted tests to Russian President Vladimir Putin for his personal use. washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/… Putin accepted the supplies but took pains to prevent political fallout.

He cautioned Trump not to reveal that he had dispatched the scarce medical equipment to Moscow, according to “War,” a new book by Washington Post associate editor Bob Woodward. washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/…

Mark Robinson, the firebrand Republican nominee for governor in North Carolina, has for years made comments downplaying and making light of sexual assault and domestic violence. wapo.st/3KQffZ6 A review of Robinson’s social media posts over the past decade shows that he frequently questioned the credibility of women who aired allegations of sexual assault against prominent men, including Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby and now-U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh. wapo.st/3KQffZ6

Exclusive: A Washington Post investigation has found that over the past two decades, hundreds of law enforcement officers in the United States have sexually abused children while officials at every level of the criminal justice system have failed to protect kids, punish abusers and prevent additional crimes. wapo.st/3XiNgZC The Post conducted an exclusive analysis of the nation’s most comprehensive database of police crimes.

From 2005 through 2022, reporters identified at least 1,800 state and local law enforcement officers who were charged with crimes involving child sexual abuse. wapo.st/3XiNgZC

Exclusive: For decades, Catholic priests raped or molested Native American children who were taken from their homes by the U.S. government and forced to live at remote boarding schools, a Post investigation found. wapo.st/3yB2VZT At least 122 priests, sisters and brothers assigned to 22 boarding schools since the 1890s were later accused of sexually abusing Native American children under their care, The Post found. wapo.st/3yB2VZT

Exclusive: A group of billionaires and business titans working to shape U.S. public opinion of the war in Gaza privately pressed New York City’s Mayor Eric Adams (D) last month to send police to disperse pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University. wapo.st/4apUvBO Business executives including Kind snack company founder Daniel Lubetzky, hedge fund manager Daniel Loeb, billionaire Len Blavatnik and real estate investor Joseph Sitt held a Zoom video call with Mayor Eric Adams (D) a log of chat messages shows. wapo.st/4apUvBO

Emily Franciose’s love of the backcountry drew her to boarding school in the Swiss Alps.

Then a mountain fell apart beneath her skis — and left her parents seeking answers. wapo.st/3UqR3SH Emily had been on skis since she was 2, had attended avalanche safety courses and traveled with a first-aid kit.

She arrived at Ecole d’Humanité — which had a backcountry program with ski tours at least once a week in the Swiss Alps — in August 2022, one day after turning 18. wapo.st/3UqR3SH

As Donald Trump faces dwindling options to pay off a massive fine imposed as a result of losing a fraud case in New York, financial experts say filing for bankruptcy would provide one clear way out of his financial jam.

But Trump is not considering that approach, partially out of concern that it could damage his campaign to recapture the White House, according to four people close to the former president. wapo.st/3TLvfAX Even though bankruptcy could alleviate Trump’s immediate cash crunch, it also carries risks for a candidate who has marketed himself as a winning businessman — and whose greatest appeal to voters, some advisers say, is his financial success. wapo.st/3TLvfAX

Four major nonprofits that rose to prominence during the coronavirus pandemic by capitalizing on the spread of medical misinformation collectively gained more than $118 million between 2020 and 2022, a Post analysis shows. wapo.st/49CX18x The money enabled the organizations to deepen their influence in statehouses, courtrooms and communities across the country.

Children’s Health Defense, an anti-vaccine group founded by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., received $23.5 million in contributions, grants and other revenue in 2022 alone, allowing it to expand its state-based lobbying operations to cover half the country. wapo.st/49CX18x

Frozen embryos created through in vitro fertilization (IVF) are people, Alabama’s Supreme Court ruled last week, opening up a new front in the national debate over reproductive rights.

Here's what you need to know: wapo.st/3uQrJLX IVF, a treatment for many types of infertility, is an assisted reproductive technology that involves multiple steps. Patients self-administer hormone injections to stimulate egg production, and medical staff retrieve mature eggs from ovaries, place them in petri dishes and fertilize them with sperm.

The multiple fertilized eggs, or embryos, can be transferred to the uterus for an immediate attempt at pregnancy, or frozen for the future. wapo.st/3uQrJLX

Exclusive: Over the last five years, more than 2,000 people have wandered away from assisted-living and dementia-care units or been left unattended outside, according to an exhaustive search by The Washington Post.

Nearly 100 people died — though the exact number is unknowable because no one is counting. wapo.st/47iqF0R Patients with memory problems walk away from assisted-living facilities just about every day in America, a pattern of neglect by an industry that charges families an average of $6,000 a month for the explicit promise of safeguarding their loved ones. wapo.st/47iqF0R

On the stage of the Theatre Lab in downtown D.C., five women shared their stories of motherhood. But the monologues would go beyond labor pains, late-night feedings and raising boys.

Just as the mothers remembered how they brought each of their children into the world, they would tell an audience how their sons left.
One was 13, shot by a 12-year-old after a night of playing games at a Dave & Busters. The oldest was 29, shot 22 times. The youngest was 8, killed by a stray bullet while eating dinner and playing video games on one of his favorite nights, Taco Tuesday. wapo.st/3Gi4nRE

The full effects of the AR-15's catastrophic force in mass killings are rarely seen in public.

To assess the extent of the destruction, The Post examined thousands of photos and videos and identified parallels across 11 mass shootings between 2012 and 2023. The graphic pictures and personal accounts in this story may be disturbing.
This story includes never-before-released pictures that were taken by law enforcement after two shootings.

Those photos show the blood and destruction that remain from the scene of an AR-15 shooting. They do not show bodies or human remains. wapo.st/3G45LHk

AI image generators like Stable Diffusion and DALL-E amplify stereotypes in gender, race and beyond — despite efforts to detoxify the data fueling these results.

Grabbed from the internet, these troves can be toxic — rife with pornography, misogyny, violence and bigotry.
Stability AI, maker of the popular image generator Stable Diffusion XL, told The Post it had made a big investment in reducing bias in its latest model, which was released in July.

But these efforts haven’t stopped it from defaulting to cartoonish tropes. wapo.st/3FJpPi2

The man who killed five and wounded eight at a Louisville bank had been undergoing therapy and considered suicide — but faced no hurdles in purchasing a rifle days before the attack. Some survivors and victims’ families are planning to sue the gunmaker. wapo.st/45XxLa1 While few details have emerged publicly about what motivated Connor Sturgeon to kill, interviews with survivors, victims’ families and Sturgeon’s parents reveal frustration, sorrow and anger over how easy it had been for someone with apparent mental health problems to obtain a semiautomatic rifle built for mass violence.

One year after billionaire Elon Musk bought Twitter, now named X, for $44 billion to revive its business and make it less “woke,” the site’s business outlook appears dire, losing users, advertisers and revenue.

wapo.st/3SjwvuO
The number of people actively tweeting has dropped by more than 30 percent, according to previously unreported data obtained by The Washington Post. wapo.st/3SjwvuO

Israel manages most of the electricity that powers Gaza. After closing its borders to the strip, it turned off the territory’s power lines in response to the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas, the militant group that controls Gaza.

The impact was almost immediate. wapo.st/3tPUVlB The Gaza Strip has plunged into darkness since Israel announced a “complete siege” of the enclave on Oct. 9.

Palestinians enduring the relentless bombings night after night are doing so in darkness. wapo.st/3tPUVlB

Decisions made in Washington, D.C. — choices heavily influenced by the food industry — have allowed Kraft Heinz’s signature  Lunchables to be served to students for the first time this school year.

Here’s why that matters. wapo.st/3rVkZuU
Ultra-processed meals contain additives for flavor, texture and shelf life.

But the company has altered two of its products to qualify to be served to nearly 30 million children under the rules of the federally subsidized National School Lunch Program. wapo.st/3rVkZuU

“It took me a while to understand what was happening, and then I was really scared.”

Before the turn of the century, there were only a handful of documented cases of pediatric fatty liver disease. Today, millions are affected, including an estimated 5 to 10 percent of all U.S. children  — making it about as common as asthma.
When doctors told Carmen Hurtado that her 8-year-old was sick with a condition known as fatty liver disease, her first reaction was not fear. It was confusion.

Other than putting on some weight the previous year, nothing appeared wrong with Dani. wapo.st/3RJwwI5

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s BJP party and its Hindu nationalist allies have perfected using social media to spread inflammatory, often false and bigoted material on an industrial scale, earning both envy and condemnation beyond India’s borders. washingtonpost.com/world/2023/09/… In rare and extensive interviews, BJP staffers said the party quietly collaborates with content creators who run "third-party" or "troll" pages that create incendiary posts designed to go viral on WhatsApp and fire up the party's base. washingtonpost.com/world/2023/09/…

To live in Texas is to live surrounded by guns.

Each morning, people strap guns inside suits, boots, bras and bellyband holsters that render them invisible. They stash firearms in purses and tool boxes and even take guns to protests at the state Capitol. wapo.st/3tfaJxH Neighbors tuck guns into bedside tables, cars and trucks. They take guns fishing, to church, the park, the pool and the gym. The convention center even hosts gun shows where shoppers peruse AR-15’s and high-capacity magazines outlawed in other states.

Texans have purchased about 5.8 million firearms since 2020, more than any other state, according to a Washington Post estimate based on federal background checks.

The food, beverage and dietary supplement industries are paying dozens of registered dietitians that collectively have millions of social media followers to help sell products and deliver industry-friendly messages on Instagram and TikTok, according to an analysis by The Washington Post and The Examination (@examinationnews).
As the World Health Organization raised questions this summer about the risks of a popular artificial sweetener, a new hashtag began spreading on the social media accounts of health professionals: #safetyofaspartame.

wapo.st/3LiGUCP