AitN: July 13, 2020

Kyle Merber ’12 was profiled in The New York Times on July 10. The elite runner, who was training to qualify for the 1,500-meter race in the Tokyo Olympics, has decided to change his event to either the 5,000- or 10,000-meter race after coronavirus canceled the 2020 Olympics. From the article: “‘I decided to do something really new,’ he said. ‘I think the biggest thing is I got excited to train again. Maybe what I’d been doing for so long had gotten stale.’”

Playwright Katori Hall ’03 is featured in the July 10 Grub Street Diet, a regular series from Grub Street in which a well-known personality writes about what they ate for a week. “Katori Hall Learned How to Burn in the Kitchen” shows what Hall orders and cooks for the week as she enjoys meals with her family.

Emily Tamkin ’12 was profiled in a July 8 article in the Jewish Insider covering the release of her debut novel, The Influence Of Soros: Politics, Power, and the Struggle for an Open Society, which examines the life of billionaire philanthropist George Soros.

Following Hamilton’s release on streaming platform Disney+, The New York Times investigated the show’s historical accuracy in the July 6 article “‘Hamilton’ and the Historical Record: Frequently Asked Questions.” Ankeet Ball ’16 is cited for research into Alexander Hamilton CC 1778’s views on slavery, conducted as part of the Columbia & Slavery Research Project. From the article: “But the evidence [of Hamilton owning slaves] is ambiguous. Ankeet Ball ... noted an 1804 letter from Angelica Schuyler regretting that Elizabeth and Alexander did not have any enslaved servants to help them with a party. Ball, echoing many other scholars, pointed out that Hamilton, however much he may have hated slavery, acquiesced to it. ‘Hamilton ultimately accepted protecting slavery in the Constitution to solidify the union of the North and the South, which was crucial to the financial growth that Hamilton envisioned,’ Ball wrote.”

Duchesne Drew ’89 was interviewed in Mpls.St.Paul Magazine soon after his appointment as Minnesota Public Radio’s president. “How Angela Davis and Duchesne Drew Became a Local Media Power Couple” highlights how Drew and his wife became what the June 28 article calls “the most interesting power couple in Twin Cities media.”