1A

"I run the nation's largest city. I have the largest school system, the largest police force — it's the most diverse place on Earth," Mayor de Blasio told us, when asked why he should be president.

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"We think of a guy like Charley Pride and one of the reasons he got so popular was because you couldn't see him," musician Dom Flemons told us. He said people would come to Pride's shows and then be upset when they saw he was black.

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"I am from Mexico City. Lila Downs is the only singer that I have followed for so many years. Thank you for giving your audience the chance to listen to this amazing artist. Viva Oaxaca," one listener tweeted.

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"My friends changed fairly dramatically when I quit drinking," journalist Jayne O'Donnell told us. "Go out and have a club soda and see if you still like the people you're with."

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The week began with mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton. On Wednesday, federal immigration officials arrested nearly 700 suspected undocumented workers at food plants in Mississippi. And Puerto Rico saw three different governors in a single week.

Around the world, India's government made a controversial move to revoke Kashmir's semi-autonomous status. The U.S. imposed new sanctions on Venezuela. And the United Arab Emirates announced it will pull its forces out of Yemen.

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"It is not an understatement to suggest Black studies as a standalone field has a lot to do with the work that Toni Morrison did at Random House," Howard University Prof. Dana Williams told us.

We spoke with Williams and Paula Giddings, professor emerita at Smith College, about Morrison's legacy as an author, editor and mentor.

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"You can't make some of these things up that we've seen," biologist Ian Bartoszek told us. "It almost reads out of a sci-fi novel."

We spoke with Bartoszek, Prof. Joel Trexler of Florida International University and Carrie Brown-Lima, director of the New York Invasive Species Research Institute about the threat invasive species present.

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"The FBI agents would tell us that when we give them voice, we bring them believers also," Poynter's Kelly McBride said of her time covering white supremacists. "Balancing that was very difficult as a journalist."

We discussed the media's coverage of white supremacy with McBride, Univision's Fernando Pizarro, Jane Coaston of Vox and NBC's Ben Collins.

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"We have no idea what the role of mental illness is," Vanderbilt professor Jonathan Metzl said about mass shootings. "And so it seems to me like a code word and a distraction and a deflection."

We spoke with Metzl, former FBI agent Michael German and The New York Times' Charlie Warzel about the response to a deadly weekend in El Paso and Dayton.

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In the U.S. this week, Democratic presidential hopefuls squared off in the second round of debates, a new California law requires President Trump to release his tax returns, and the ACLU said more than 900 children were separated from their immigrant parents in the year after a court restricted the practice.

Around the world, the U.S. sanctioned Iran's foreign minister, the Afghan peace process faced more challenges, and Ethiopians planted 350 million — yes, million — trees in a single day.

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