Michigan Water Woes, Gorsuch’s Church-State Take, Comics and Identity

Coming up on today’s show:

• How does the history between the U.S., China, North Korea, and South Korea inform the current moment of elevated political tension? Bruce Cumings, a history professor at the University of Chicago and author of “Korea’s Place in the Sun: A Modern History,” answers. 

• While Flint residents wait, Nestle extracts billions of dollars worth of groundwater from West Michigan, but it pays the state just $200 a year to do so. Now, the company wants to increase its pumping operation in the region. Liz Kirkwood, executive director of FLOW, a Great Lakes water law and policy center, has the details. 

• Former Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez reportedly committed suicide in prison early Wednesday morning. Prison officials in the Souza Baranowski Correctional Center in Shirley, Massachusetts, discovered Hernandez hanged in his cell. Michele Steele, a reporter for ESPN, reflects on Hernandez’s life and death. 

• Today, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the case of Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer, which tests the limits of religious freedom, and all eyes will be on newly-confirmed Justice Neil Gorsuch. Greg Stohr, Supreme Court reporter for Bloomberg News and co-host of Bloomberg Law, explains what you should expect. 

• Though Richard Glossip was sentenced to death in Oklahoma for the murder of a motel owner in 1997, he has maintained his innocence. Now, the new documentary from director Joe Berlinger, “Killing Richard Glossip,” investigates the case and the death penalty.

• The sixth edition in Marvel’s Black Panther series, co-authored by Ta Nehisi Coates and Rembert Browne, will be released today. Browne, a former writer for Grantland and New York Magazine, wrote the character of Kasper Cole, who uses the alias Black Panther, and joins The Takeaway to discuss the comic and his creative process.