Was Trump recorded using the N word? Plus North Korea’s most celebrated propagandist, the new power of poetry, and more.
Trump and the Tape: White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said she “can’t guarantee” that Donald Trump has never used the N word, after a tell-all book by the former Trump aide Omarosa Manigault-Newman alleged he had been recorded using the slur. While the Trump presidency has been marked by public fascination with purported secret recordings, Adam Serwer argues that Americans don’t need another tape to know who Trump really is.
Presidential Appeal: Republican congressional candidates have performed more poorly than expected in a series of recent elections—and that might be because the head of their party is better at articulating what he’s against than what he stands for. Yet for his supporters, Trump’s appeal may lie in something more nebulous than positive or negative positions. Alex Wagner describes how “Trumpism, like many forms of non-secular worship, makes its believers feel good.”
Arts and Audience: A new paperback collection of essays by the pianist Alfred Brendel makes sense of classical music for performers and lay listeners alike. And a diverse generation of poets, including Chen Chen, Aziza Barnes, and Layli Long Soldier, is changing the face of the art form—and making it newly relevant to thousands of readers.
— Rosa Inocencio Smith
Max Kim describes the day in 1967 when Oh Hyung Jae, a South Korean army captain, was summoned by a counterintelligence agent with news of his long-lost brother, Oh Young Jae:
Keep reading, as Kim tells the story of how Hyung Jae eventually pieced together his brother’s story—and learned that Young Jae had become North Korea’s most celebrated propagandist.
1. The first country in the world to require companies to offer paid leave for domestic-violence victims was ____________.
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2. Some of the earliest documented cases of parents being deported from the United States without their children took place during ____________.
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3. A 1908 obstetrics textbook recommended that pregnant women be separated from “____________.”
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Our partner site CityLab explores the cities of the future and investigates the biggest ideas and issues facing city dwellers around the world. Karim Doumar shares today’s top stories:
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