NPR DAILY HEADLINES:The Singapore Summit; Interpreting Diplomacy; When Privilege Backfires 11JUN18

Daily Headlines Monday, June 11, 2018

FIRST UP: What you need to know now Trump said, Canada said: Fallout from the G-7 this weekend In a series of angry tweets from Air Force One after the Group of Seven meeting, President Trump instructed U.S. representatives to not endorse the G-7’s joint communique for “free, fair, and mutually beneficial trade” and called Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau — who said he planned to retaliate against recently announced U.S. tariffs — “very dishonest and weak.” Canadian leaders offered a measured and polite statement in response. Read more. All Things North Korea Ready or not, here we go: After months of negotiation, President Trump and Kim Jong Un arrived in Singapore on Sunday to meet face to face. On the table are talks of North Korea’s denuclearization and a potential peace treaty to officially end the Korean War. Both Trump and Kim — with their flair for “the drama and the dramatic,” as one expert said — are highly invested in the optics of the historic meeting, to take place Monday evening. Read more. Why was the citizenship question added to the 2020 census? Critics are concerned that the citizenship question was added because of political pressure from the Trump administration. Though Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross says the question addresses the need for more accurate citizenship data, the Justice Department released internal documents that show Ross overruled Census Bureau concerns — including about high costs and the quality of the data. See the documents.

IN THE NEWS: Digging deeper When every word truly matters: The pressures of being a high-stakes interpreter When former President George H.W. Bush negotiated an arms control treaty with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1990, interpreter Igor Korchilov said the word “verifying” in English instead of “verified” before quickly being corrected. The seemingly small word tense could’ve potentially changed the direction of the superpowers' conversation, and points to the high-stakes pressure of being an interpreter in global diplomacy. The best interpreters serve as both linguists and diplomats and intimately understand the politics behind the words. For example, for a 2000 meeting between then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and former North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, senior Korean language interpreter Tong Kim had to learn the jargon of arms control and perfected a North Korean accent. Ahead of Monday night’s unprecedented meeting between the U.S. and North Korea, President Trump presents his own challenges for interpreters, since he’s known to go off-script. BEFORE YOU GO Francesco Zorzi for NPR When privilege backfires: Kids in high-achieving, affluent communities are feeling the pressure to succeed, and experts say parents should learn to back off. A sigh of (temporary) relief for a New York pizza delivery man and his family after a federal judge halts his deportation. A high school valedictorian tried to speak about campus sexual assault, but her mic drop was intercepted. Turns out the Triple Crown hype was Justified.