Impromptu The Washington Post

The WNBA season began this week following a college tournament where the women were more popular than the men. Is this shift about more than Caitlin Clark and the fantastic players in basketball right now? Sports columnist Sally Jenkins joins Opinions columnists Theodore Johnson and Amanda Ripley to talk about what athletes have done for the women’s movement and whether the women’s game can avoid some of the pitfalls that have plagued men’s sports.

When asked about their religious affiliation, nearly 30 percent of Americans identify as “nones,” or “nothing in particular.” And over the past 25 years there’s been a steep decline in people belonging to any type of church, synagogue or mosque. But what is lost as people drift from religion? Is it at all responsible for today’s loneliness crisis?

Campus protests across the country have renewed Americans' attention on the Israel-Gaza war and are scrambling U.S. politics, particularly on the left. Senior Opinions Editor Amanda Katz speaks with columnists Dana Milbank and Shadi Hamid about how their views have evolved since Oct. 7, whether there’s a double standard on free speech, and what the protests could foreshadow for the upcoming presidential election, particularly among young people.

(Note: This episode was recorded Monday, April 29 and does not reference events that took place after)

The Supreme Court is set to decide to what extent former President Trump could be immune from prosecution for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election on Jan. 6, 2021, as his lawyers have claimed. Post Opinions columnists Charles Lane, Ruth Marcus and Jason Willick discuss the strategy and timing of these arguments and what we might expect the justices to decide in this showdown about the future boundaries of presidential authority.

Some women are retreating to stereotypical, retro gender roles that embrace the patriarchy. Known as “tradwives,” they are all over TikTok. We discuss how this trend exposes a continued struggle over equality for men and women in modern society.

America is entering a grueling presidential election season that’s also a rematch of the one from four years ago. Many Americans report feeling exhausted by politics and the news. So how do we stay engaged? What can journalists do to help?