The Era of Erdoğan, Tension in the Korean Peninsula, Simplifying the Tax System

Coming up on today’s show:

• Following months of buildup and growing international concern, the Turkish people headed to the polls on Sunday and voted by a slim majority to consolidate power under President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Patrick Kingsley, a correspondent in Turkey for our partners at The New York Times, discusses what the results mean going forward. 

• Turkey continues to arrest, detain, and disappear thousands of dissidents who pose a challenge to President Erdoğan’s rule. For a look at Turkey’s human rights crisis, The Takeaway turns to Şebnem Korur Fincanci, president of the Human Rights Foundation of Turkey who is facing terror-related charges for taking part in a free speech campaign, and Dr. Vincent Iacopino, the medical director at Physicians for Human Rights.

• On Sunday, Vice President Mike Pence arrived in Seoul, South Korea, hours after North Korea carried out a failed missile launch. Jean Lee, a global fellow at the Wilson Center and former AP bureau chief for the Korean Peninsula, joins The Takeaway to examine the escalating tension between the United States and North Korea. 

• This week, the Retro Report documentary team looks into the history of the lobotomy, and how it led to the much-improved psychiatric neurosurgery of today. Producer Barbara Dury explains that the lobotomy was billed as a miracle cure for mental illness, but instead left patients and families devastated. 

• On Friday, an Arkansas judge halted the scheduled executions of seven death row inmates. The executions were supposed to be carried out over the next 11 days because the state’s supply of the controversial drug Medazolin is set to expire at the end of the month. Sarah Whites-Koditschek, a reporter for Arkansas Public Media, has the details. 

• Americans will spend more than six billion hours preparing to pay their taxes this year. Why is the U.S. tax filing process so costly and so time consuming? T.R. Reid, author of the book “A Fine Mess: A Global Quest for a Simpler, Fairer, and More Efficient Tax System,” explores how the United States could streamline the tax filing process. 

• The latest installment of The Takeaway’s “Uncomfortable Truths” series brings listeners to Minneapolis, Minnesota. Residents Jessica Shryack and Tiffany Wilson-Worsley explain how their friendship developed across racial lines, and how they broke down cultural perceptions about black and white women.