Tom Colicchio, Ted Turner's Conservation Lands, Angela Merkel

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I'm Jane Pauley, and this is Sunday Morning. Thanksgiving may be over, but hopefully the idea of being thankful for all we have and appreciating the many good things in our lives will carry on long past this weekend. With that in mind, Lee Cowan will share a story about the legacy of an American entrepreneur and visionary that has the potential to make nature lovers among us give thanks for years to come. This Sunday after Thanksgiving, what can be one of the most chaotic travel days of the year, we thought we'd offer you some peace and quiet, courtesy of Ted Turner. It started out as a hunting and fishing thing and entertaining himself, but it's something way bigger than himself.

One of the largest private landowners in the country is putting out the welcome mat for guests to spend some downtime with nature, a restorative gift he hopes his lands can offer, ahead on Sunday morning. From child star to pop singer to celebrated actor and billionaire businesswoman, Selena Gomez has grown up before our eyes. Tracy Smith has our Sunday profile.

Oh, they have trivia on Thursday. Jesus, turn your brightness down. I feel like I just looked right into an eclipse. Selena Gomez has had the kind of success that most people can only dream about, but there were times when she dreamed about just getting by. Do you remember the times when it was tough to put food on the table?

Of course. My mom worked multiple jobs. She also was finishing high school when she was having me. Selena Gomez on her life, her loves, and her trailblazing new film later on Sunday morning. For some of us, the horrific murder of black teenager Emmett Till, which happened nearly 70 years ago, remains a turning point in American history. But for others, Jim Axelrod will tell us, Till's story is fading from memory. There are no signs, no plaques, nothing to acknowledge the awful significance of the place, and few who pass by each day have any idea. It's just a barn sitting on a farm in the absolute middle of nowhere. Inside the barn, where 14-year-old Emmett Till was murdered, igniting the civil rights movement, coming up on Sunday morning.

With some three million listeners each week, Elvis Duran is among America's most popular radio personalities. He looks back on some hits and misses with our Mo Rocca. Tony DeCopel finds out what's cooking with Top Chef's Tom Colicchio. Plus, former German Chancellor Angela Merkel on the world now and the world she left behind. A story from Steve Hartman, humor from Jim Gaffigan, and more, this first Sunday morning of December.

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Because whatever you're into, it's on Prime. Once upon a time, Ted Turner was headline news. As brash and famous as any tycoon anywhere. Now, as Lee Cowan explains, he's letting his land help shape his legacy. Turkeys are to Thanksgiving what bison are to Ted Turner. The billionaire's passion for the largest land mammal in North America has both the bison and naturalists alike pretty thankful. He did the same for other animals and plants that were once native to these lands as well. Journalist Todd Wilkinson says the man mostly known as a business tycoon has actually always been a naturalist at heart.

He looked at these grand old 19th century paintings, masterpieces, by people like Albert Bierstadt or Thomas Moran. And he would say, I want my land to look like that. I want it to be inhabited by all of those native species. Turner owns more square miles than almost any other single individual. Two million acres stretching across several states. What do you think?

Looks pretty good. The last time we met him, he invited our Ted Koppel out to his flying D Ranch in southwest Montana, where 114,000 beautiful acres reach out toward Yellowstone. I'm not buying any more land. I've got enough. At the time, Turner was about to turn 80.

Lift six, down and hold. And it was then he revealed he'd been diagnosed with Lewy Body Dementia, a fatal brain disorder that worsens over time. Tired, exhausted and forgetfulness. It's hard to see Ted Turner slow down. And yet, facing his own mortality may just have made Ted Turner more protective of his lands than ever. He asked me if I believed in God, and I said I believe in a higher power. And he said, you know, I do too, but I believe that we can create heaven on earth. At a time when most of the attention he garnered was for winning the America's Cup or for founding CNN.

My cable network keeps America ahead with 24 hour news. He was quietly buying up his heaven on earth. Most of it in the American West. He then hired teams of top naturalists and conservationists who reintroduced everything from the native desert bighorn sheep to the critically endangered Mexican wolf and the balsam tortoise. You lose a little bit of rights to have an endangered species on your property.

But my dad felt it's dire. I want to help these species. Rhett Turner is one of Ted Turner's signs.

You see anything? Among other things, he's a professional wildlife photographer who spent years capturing his father's conservation efforts for a book. One frame at a time. That's a really big herd. On this night. Incredible. The light's really nice. We found him on Turner's 360,000 acre ranch in southern New Mexico called Armendariz, where ancient lava tubes provide a summer home for one of the largest bat populations in North America.

Right below our feet. You're going to see something that's really incredible. Sure enough, just as the light was almost gone.

Look at that. It happened. A cloud of Mexican free-tailed bats darkened the sunset. This has happened for thousands and thousands of years.

You could just hear their wings flapping right over our heads going out to feast on insects all night long. Do you feel a responsibility as a Turner to make sure that these lands stay the way they are? Yes, I absolutely do. It's got to be daunting. It is daunting. Absolutely is. But worth it.

It will be worth it. As you might imagine, managing two million acres isn't cheap, even for a billionaire. I mean, he always says we need to shape up and do the right thing, and that's not always the least expensive path. For years, his bison have been providing meat for his string of Ted's Montana Grill restaurants. But Turner was always aware that ranching alone wasn't going to fund his lands after he and his money were gone. That was the first thing that Ted said to me when I actually got to sit down with Ted is, Jade, we need to generate some more revenue on those properties.

Not a lot, but we need to generate some more. So Turner's plan? Open his private lands to the paying public to give them a chance to experience a genuine safari right here in America. His focus is let's get people to come and visit these properties.

Let's get them out here and help them to reconnect humanity with nature. Jade McBride is president of Ted Turner Reserves. Despite the huge swaths of open land that Turner owns, McBride is taking a very reserved approach to just how many guests will be allowed at any one time.

We want to generate as much revenue we can out of as little impact as possible. You could stay a week on his properties and not see another soul for literally thousands of square miles. The hacienda here at Armadaris allows just 10 people at any one time.

At his nearby ladder ranch, his four-bedroom country house accommodates no more than eight. You know, everybody has horseback riding and hiking and we do all these outdoor activities, but I think what really makes this place special is that we get to do them in this kind of restored ecosystem that feels a lot like a private national park. The real jewel, though, is in northern New Mexico.

Vermejo. At 550,000 acres, it's Turner's biggest ranch. It includes this Gatsby-era 25,000-square-foot mansion, the same home Turner once shared with his former wife, Jane Fonda. Its reading room alone is worth the stay.

Prices range from several hundred to several thousand dollars. Conservation capitalism is what he calls it. That's Robert Turner, Ted's grandson, who works here, managing the bison herd. So when people get out here and they see the oak and the deer and the bison and the big, beautiful natural landscapes, it helps to turn on something inside of them, to really get them passionate about the outdoors. Vermejo's streams and lakes are haven for Rio Grande cutthroat trout, a troubled species that Turner successfully reintroduced. Angler Brian Polmyer hoped to catch just one.

It's just no place I've ever seen that's quite like this. Yes, fishing and hunting, they're both allowed on Turner's properties, but only if the population can support it. This isn't a game farm. One of the trickiest endeavors is managing the native elk population. McBride says private hunts act as a pressure valve to conserve the biodiversity. We have a really fantastic wildlife biologist, and he spends a large percentage of his time trying to help us determine what are the correct number of animals that we should have on this landscape to be healthy. That said, Turner himself, especially later in life, still struggles with the hunting idea. He struggles with the idea of any animal being killed. He cries when animals die. I don't need any more money.

I really don't. The adventurer who made his name as a business tycoon knows he certainly can't live forever. But this holiday season, we can all be thankful for Ted Turner's carefully curated Heaven on Earth. And this is probably going to be his greatest legacy. Absolutely.

I think nothing would make him prouder than for him to know that his initiatives to protect nature are going to persevere, not only through the generations of his family, but far beyond that. Why get all your holiday decorations delivered through Instacart? Because maybe you only bought two wreaths but have 12 windows. Or maybe your toddler got very eager with the advent calendar. Or maybe the inflatable snowman didn't make it through the snowstorm. Or maybe the twinkle lights aren't twinkling. Whatever the reason, this season, Instacart's here for hosts and their whole holiday haul.

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That's amazon.com slash ad-free podcast to catch up on the latest episodes without the ads. As we continue to indulge in leftovers this holiday weekend, Tony DeCopel is talking turkey with Top Chef's Tom Colicchio. I kind of want a smaller fennel, but I'll take this. Well, I was going to ask you that. I got a lot of questions about fennel, actually. I'll take this one. That one? Okay.

Yeah. When you find yourself at the farmer's market next to a guy with opinions this strong about fennel and scallions, you listen. This is nice and fresh. So what's nice about it, you can see it's fresh because you look at the cut end. The cut end isn't browned out yet.

And that's especially true if the guy is Tom Colicchio. Honey water? You washed out the honey flavor. I was like, where's the honey? I'm looking for honey. Who for more than 20 seasons now has been a judge on one of America's biggest food shows, Top Chef.

So the question is why didn't you want to take the responsibility? Well, also, by the way, working as one of America's most successful restaurateurs. Probably 85% of the produce we buy we're buying from the farmer's market.

Wow. Many of his celebrated dishes have started here at a local green market in New York City's Union Square. But lately, the meals he enjoys the most are even more local than these ingredients. I cook very simply at home. It's not the food part of it.

I enjoy the half an hour, 45 minutes that we're sitting together as a family. Now 62, married, and a father of three, Colicchio is sharing the story of his many lives in the kitchen. In a new book, Why I Cook. If you had to put it in a few words, why do you cook? I mean, partly, it was something that I found at a very young age that I was good at.

It came very easy. Thomas Patrick Colicchio grew up in Elizabeth, New Jersey. Sharing a bedroom with two brothers and big, boisterous family meals in a working class Italian neighborhood. While mom ran the family kitchen, it was dad, a gambler turned corrections officer, who helped turn Tom into a chef. Having ADHD, I struggled with recipes. I get frustrated by recipes. But I loved cooking. And my dad wasn't the kind of dad who sat down and had these long conversations with you about your future. But he came home with these books.

You know, I have no idea what La Technique was doing in a county jail library, but there it was. Yes, Jacques Pepin's La Technique is what helped Colicchio understand the fundamentals of cooking. Once I understood that, I could look at a recipe and go, oh, they want me to roast something here. I know how to roast something, so I don't need the recipe anymore.

Or I can braise something. But now, when I braise it, well, I could change the flavor profile by adding different things into that braise. The kitchen, however, was where Colicchio learned how to be himself, a place where, in the chaos of orders and ingredients, he found a calling. Add the onion and the ginger and the fennel now.

I'm going to wait and add the garlic towards the end, only because it does have a tendency to burn very quickly. His career took off fast, from flipping burgers at a local snack bar to building whole menus at a North New Jersey hot spot. And ultimately, to New York City, where, not yet 30, he earned his first three-star review from the New York Times. You're an entrepreneur. You've managed to develop yourself as a chef. Did you learn lessons from your father's experiences with business? I don't think that my entrepreneurial spirit came from my father.

It came from my family at all. I think it came from the fact that I worked in kitchens and worked in restaurants that I didn't like, and I didn't want to have a boss. But even as he soared professionally, becoming executive chef at New York's celebrated Gramercy Tavern, Colicchio's private life was cruising toward rock bottom. I was doing drugs when I was cooking the whole time. The whole time, wow. And I had a bad night and ended up in Harlem somewhere with another cook getting a bunch of drugs and, you know, getting high all night and woke up in my bed, covered in my shirt with covered in blood. I don't remember getting home, and what kind of scared me is I was driving a motorcycle.

Wow. So somehow I made it home. But that was it. I woke up and said, that's it, no more. He quit the drugs, but his working-class roots still led to some awkward moments in the Frenchified fancy world of fine dining. I knew I could hold my own, but I just still felt like I was a fish out of water here. Now I'm in New York. You know, you get three stars, and now all of a sudden you get pulled in a lot of different directions.

And, yes, was there a certain amount of posture syndrome? Absolutely. We know you're talented chefs. That's why you're asked to come back. We need food! You tried to say no to top chef. Yeah.

You both kind of made small little mistakes, but on different sides of the spectrum. Lisa. I also, you know, didn't really love food TV, but then I'd go to a food festival, like Aspen Food and Wine, come time to sign books, and I'm sitting next to Bobby Flay, and he's signing 300.

I'm signing 20. I didn't think it was because he had a better book. He was on TV. He's on TV.

I was like, all right, let me do this TV thing. Looking back now in his new book, Colicchio traces the arc of a changing industry, where sexism and even abuse has been replaced by something a little kinder and a lot more welcoming. There's still voices being raised. Okay. It's a little different than it used to be, but there's still, you know, in the middle of service, there are times you've got to be forceful. But you have to be sure it's not personal. What's really missing is a lot of the misogyny that I saw.

Read in. But for Tom Colicchio, after all these years, the one thing that hasn't changed is the one thing that also keeps him in the kitchen. And looking back on it, food has the power to bring people around a table. And to this day, I love doing dinner parties, love hanging people over.

That's, I think, another reason why I cook. What's in a name? Well, let's ask Steve Hartman. When folks in Swedburg, Missouri, decided to name their elementary school building, everyone knew it had to be named after someone truly special. You have your name on a building, that's huge. It has to be someone that you just know would be right. That makes you think of when you think of good. Throughout history, there have been many national figures who fit that bill.

Also, lots of famous Missourians, who would have been great choices to celebrate and inspire. But in the end, they went with Claudine Wilson. Who is that, you ask?

You wouldn't believe. Meet school custodian, Claudine Wilson. You can get her a vacuum and she'll appreciate it because she really likes cleaning. Yeah, she's like in the zone, she focuses. And she just really dedicated herself to this school.

So much so, that over the past 30 years, she has taken on a busload of additional responsibilities. Morning. From transportation coordination. How are you guys today? To lunch duty, to landscaping. From facility operations, to fill-in operator. Sweetburg School, janitor speaking, can I help you? And the next thing I know, I was leaving at six in the morning and getting home about 730 at night.

And what's your motivation for doing all that? The kids. The kids is at your heart. That's what makes Claudine what she is.

School board president, Chuck Boren. These kids get sick. You think they go to the nurse to start with? They go to her. If they had a bad night, they go to her.

I mean, and she's there for each and every one of them. And all that is why the school board voted unanimously for the new name. And why today, there's really only one person in this whole community who remains unconvinced that Claudine deserves this honor.

Claudine. It touches your heart, but I don't think my name needs to be up on a building somewhere. So we'll add humility to one of the reasons why you should be up there. In America, building names often inspire greatness.

You've done a good job this morning. And Swedeburg, Missouri is no exception. They just define greatness a little differently. Would you want to be like her? Yeah. That's what everybody should want to be, you know?

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To learn more, visit Amazon.com slash Blink. This holiday season, create memories with family and friends by exploring the exciting world of the Pokemon trading card game. Reconnect with the characters you know and love like Pikachu, Charizard, and Mewtwo.

And learn about new ones. Whether you want to try your hand battling it out with Pokemon cards, enjoy collecting them, or both, they'll provide you with fun for years to come. Each Pokemon set features dozens of new cards in imaginative styles created by different artists. So there's something for every collector's aesthetic. And if you're ready to battle, the Pokemon trading card game takes only minutes to learn. It's a gift that is sure to delight gamers, collectors, and Pokemon fans alike.

Find gift ideas for all ages and at every price point at TCG dot Pokemon dot com slash holiday. Every morning, millions of Americans tune in to drive time radio legend Elvis Duran. On this morning, our morocca is behind the wheel. You seem remarkably calm. I mean, this is a really big show that's about to go on. It is. This is sort of our Super Bowl of the year. All right, let's get it started. If the annual jingle ball at New York's Madison Square Garden is the Super Bowl of holiday concerts. Then Elvis Duran is in the head coach role. It's pretty hot out there.

It's coming in hot. From introducing ads to mingling with pop princesses. Sabrina Carpenter, everyone. And interviewing rock royalty. Cher, everyone.

It's Cher. On this day, this Elvis is king. Good night. I'm not a camera guy. I'm a radio guy. This is a different day for me.

If you don't recognize his face, you may know his voice. Happy Tuesday. It's a busy day. Since 1996, the 60-year-old disc jockey has been host of Elvis Duran and the Morning Show.

What is wrong with taking chances in life, you people? The country's most popular top 40 morning program. I can't believe it's been 30 years because it's been nothing but fun. Every day, millions of listeners across America wake up to Duran and his crew dishing about music. I love this song. Pop culture.

Did she just wake up and go Beyonce? Pretty much whatever is on their minds. Are you really going to roll Mo out of the studio? And if it goes off the rails? As I learned last spring, so be it. I think I ejected Mo. I've been working with some of the same people for 25, 30 years.

The energy with each other is what makes it work. I don't need to be the center of attention. Elvis Duran and the Morning Show. With 70 markets across the country listening, Duran's a rarity these days. A nationally known radio DJ. Growing up, I remember big name radio DJs. Now it's kind of you and Ryan Seacrest. That's about it.

What happened? Radio isn't what radio used to be. A lot of radio companies gave up on personalities. They just wanted to play music. It's cheaper.

That's not good for our business. So I've done everything I can to keep personality on a radio show in the mornings. Whenever I've come into a room with you, I've walked out feeling better than I did coming in. Not only does this show remind me of home, it reminds me of my beginnings.

And it's Duran's personality that over the years has won him loyal fans, including some of the biggest names in pop music. Lady Gaga grew up dreaming of hearing her song on our show. And when she walked into the room, she was sort of nervous.

Maybe the opposite way. It's Lady Gaga. Whenever she talks, I feel 16. Well, tell everyone why you're saying that. Because I used to listen to you guys all the time. But it's everyday listeners with whom Duran feels a special bond. We are in the friendship business. I think about you when you hop in your car in the morning.

You're either leaving a house that may be full of turmoil or going to a job with a boss you don't like. But I have you for 20, 30 minutes, and I can be your friend. When did you fall in love with radio? When I was a kid. I'd spend the night at my grandmother's house when Mom and Dad were out late, and I'd listen to the radio. And I became friends with this voice in the dark.

He was just 7 and growing up in McKinney, Texas. I didn't have a lot of friends growing up. I was a loner. And so I found friendship through the radio.

And so began his quest to become one of those voices. I built my own little transmitter. And what was your studio? Where was it located?

It was in my closet in my bedroom. And my only listener was the lady next door. Duran's first real radio job came at age 14. After dropping out of college, he spent a decade bouncing between markets across the country. Back in the old days in radio, you never unpacked. You never took dishes out of boxes because you were always moving. But you know what? I've been very lucky.

I've been at Z100 since 1989, so I'm doing okay. While his show is based in the Big Apple, Elvis Duran's heart belongs in New Mexico. As a kid, he visited the land of enchantment frequently. There's so much to look at. I mean, with all these galleries.

In Santa Fe, he's learned the art... Look around. ...of appreciating art. So much of your life, certainly your professional life, has been about what you hear.

Right. This is about what you see. But can't you hear this as well?

It talks to you. Life out here is kind of quiet. The polar opposite of New York City is Santa Fe, New Mexico. Do you need that?

Of course I need that. Santa Fe is... it's a magical place. And I think in some ways this city has kind of saved my life a little bit.

It's good to be in a situation where you're forced to relax. Duran and his husband Alex Carr share a home here, not far from where they were married in 2019. But decades before they even met and started dating, they spoke by phone. Where else? On the radio. I had him on as a contest winner once. But you won something. Jingle Ball tickets. Jingle Ball tickets. That was in 1998. How old were you?

18. Oh my God. Every morning at 2.30 a.m. Santa Fe time, I slither up the staircase. He often hosts his show from here. Thanks to a home studio, his commute is short. Is the Elvis in New Mexico a different Elvis than the Elvis in the New York studio?

Oh, absolutely. And everyone back in New York has said to me at one time or another, you're so relaxed out there. We really like the New Mexico Elvis. Elvis Duran can't say how long he'll keep broadcasting. To be able to do this this long with this family, it's a miracle.

It really is. But he isn't ready to mute his microphone just yet. He's still got a lot of friends to keep company. Thanks for listening to Z100. How much of this goes back to the seven-year-old you listening to that voice?

All of it. You know, I'm not lonely anymore. I never, ever want to go back to being a lonely person ever again. And I don't want anyone listening to our show to be lonely. That's the legacy we're all trying to leave. I don't want them to remember my name. I just want them to remember how we made them feel every day. That's it.

That's it. Even 70 years on, the killing of Emmett Till remains among the most infamous murders of all time. Jim Axelrod takes us back to Mississippi and the scene of the crime.

If you know where to look in the Mississippi Delta, you can find a place in the Mississippi Delta where you can find a place in the Mississippi Delta where you can find a place in the Mississippi Delta where you can find a place in the Mississippi Delta. You can find markers of what a culture has spent decades trying to erase. This plaque at the Tallahatchie River, replaced every now and then when it's been riddled with bullets, marks the spot where young Emmett Till's brutally beaten body was pulled from the water, a cotton gin fan wrapped around his neck, with barbed wire.

The country store where Till whistled at a white woman, this 14-year-old boy's capital offense is being reclaimed by nature, soon to disappear entirely. In the vines growing over it, it is the perfect reflection of the erasure and of the attempt to pretend like none of this happened. But at the very spot where this lynching unfolded nearly 70 years ago, nothing. Every day, people drive by this barn just outside Drew, Mississippi, with no idea what they're passing. It's just a barn sitting on a farm in the absolute middle of nowhere. What worse thing imaginable happened inside there?

And I think that's the point. In his new book, The Barn, author Wright Thompson, also a fifth-generation Mississippi Delta cotton farmer, most of the monuments around the state were built... examines what he calls evil, hiding in plain sight. And like almost every person in Mississippi or even in America, I didn't know about the barn.

If I didn't know something that essential about the place that I think I know best in the world, then something was deeply fundamentally wrong. Mississippi in the summer of 1955, when Emmett Till visited relatives, was a different world for this kid from Chicago. Unfamiliar with the ways of the Delta, he had no idea the price to pay for aiming his whistle at the woman working at the store. He whistled at sundown on Wednesday and got taken at 2.30 a.m. on Sunday. An 18-year-old sharecropper named Willie Reed was out walking by the barn when a truck turned in. He hid while the woman's husband and brother-in-law, who'd snatched Till from his bed, dragged him into the barn. He heard screams, turned to whimpers, turned to silence. And then he went home. And everybody in his life said, Don't say anything. Don't you say anything. Instead, Reed summoned all his courage and walked into this courtroom to accuse two white men, J.W. Milam and Roy Bryant, of murder.

Reed's widow, Juliette. Everyone is telling him to keep his mouth shut. That's what they told him. Why couldn't he do that?

Why did he have to talk? I guess it was just something about Willie that he wanted to do right. While the open casket Till's mother, Mamie, insisted upon sparked outrage that fueled the Civil Rights Movement, without Willie Reed's bravery, no one would have ever been charged. It was all white jury, and the jury was laughing while he was testifying.

Bryant and Milam were acquitted. Willie Reed would have to flee to Chicago and change his name. Everything's so bright on your wedding day, right? Yeah. He remained haunted until the day he died. The screaming and the hollering and hearing somebody beat to death. He never had a peaceful day for the rest of his life.

I don't think he never really did. And you think about his suffering. Yes.

Yeah, I do. Everybody who did the right thing in this case had their lives deeply affected, if not ruined. And the people who did the worst of it walked away free. That injustice is what Thompson says needs illumination, here in the Delta, where the instinct's always been to keep it shrouded. And he was killed right about 4 or 5 miles from here, and people in Drew don't even know. It's like the past was being erased. In 1965, Gloria Dickerson integrated the schools in Drew. That's me right there, surrounded by all the white kids. Schools that made no mention of Till's death when she was growing up and still only merits 117 words, one paragraph in the Mississippi history textbook used today.

How can that be? How can that not be the first thing kids learn? In Mississippi, they're not going to learn about what happened to Emmett Till. She combats that erasure through a program to teach kids in Drew today, the history her parents made sure she learned as a child.

And when we were past that barn, my moms would say, that is where Emmett Till was killed. But you want the experience you had as a kid. You want that to be the experience of every kid in Mississippi. Every kid, every kid.

The blacks need it, and the whites need it too. We are for family, sorry. While Tallahatchie County apologized to the Till family in 2007, and a statue was unveiled in 2022, the legacy of silence remains powerful here. You're in your 60s when you first go to the barn. I didn't know anything about the barn. Reverend Willie Williams' first visit to the barn was two years ago, and he helps run a nonprofit dedicated to Till's memory. I'm in high school when I find out this is the story where Emmett was a white lady, and I grew up in the Delta. Not talking about what happened in the story, not talking about the barn, was that an attempt to erase? Erase, I think so, sure it was. And that right there is the barn.

This is where the paradox hits hardest. The ordinary buildings so many see concealing extraordinary evil no one knows. Come in. Oh.

Yeah, I mean, it's... That's the only appropriate reaction. The barn, owned by a man who let us visit but didn't want to talk, and who's negotiating to sell it to Reverend Williams' nonprofit. Here, where Emmett Till was a white lady, you'll find the most mundane items of everyday life. Knowing what happened here, and it's such art, and there's an outboard motor, could you have something more ordinary?

Driftwood from the river, those are Christmas decorations, that's a cross, that's an angel. And that, says Wright Thompson, is why he's Doug's son. And that, says Wright Thompson, is why he's dug so deep. So if the erasure continues, no one can say, we didn't know. It's the not knowing that we're combating. It's the not knowing. I mean, silence and erasure are just different words for the same thing.

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We'll let him explain. How are you holding up? Are you over it? I'm over it. I'm fine.

At least, at times, I think that. It's obviously not what I wanted, but that's life. I'm not going to lie, it's been an adjustment, but the world continues to spin. And I'm an adult. I have children that are counting on me. I mean, they don't listen to me, but I can't tell you how.

I'm an adult, I have children that are counting on me. I don't listen to me, but I can't just curl up in a ball and mope. Sometimes I'm embarrassed how detached I feel about it. The me from September would be ashamed of how well I'm holding it together. I've become the person giggling at a funeral. I'll admit it, I was blindsided, but I knew this could happen. I prided myself on being the contrarian when all the other supporters were putting the cart before the horse. I've done my research. I read all the articles, I know the history. This has happened before, not that long ago.

It'll probably happen again. I'd be lying if I didn't admit I do think about it, mainly in the morning. It mostly lingers for a moment, wanting to own my whole day. As I get my coffee, I always ask the same questions.

Is this real? How did this happen? I've done a deep dive on all the numbers, trying to figure out who's to blame. Sometimes I think I care too much. Other times I feel my emotional state means I've lost the ability to empathize.

I'm a numbshell of a former compassionate human. It happens every morning. Then I shake it off, wake my kids up for school, and face the reality. The New York Jets are not going to make the playoffs. They have Aaron Rodgers, Devante Adams, and that defense, all those weapons. And they're done.

It's brutal. Anyway, I'm okay. We're going to be okay. Maybe. We're professional podcasters, only murders in the building. We're the most-listed two-murder podcast on the Upper West Side that's sponsored by Adelie Jane. Yeah.

You're not getting in here. That's Selena Gomez, alongside co-stars Steve Martin and Martin Short in the hit series Only Murders in the Building. The actress, pop star, and business mogul is the subject of our Sunday profile from Tracy Smith. On any red carpet, Selena Gomez is the picture of beauty, poise, and confidence. But she'll be the first to tell you that things aren't always what they appear. Just cut to the chase.

For instance, her latest film, Amelia Perez, Gomez co-stars as the wife of a powerful Mexican drug lord who secretly transitions with the help of a character played by Zoe Saldaña. To listen is to accept. The film is a hard-hitting true crime story, a poignant love story, a journey of self-discovery, and by the way, it's also a musical.

But somehow, it all works. At the end of a shooting day, what were you like? What were you feeling?

Usually a little sore from the dance numbers. Why'd you want to do this? I found it incredibly compelling. I've never really seen a movie like this before. I don't think I've ever been this proud of something in the acting field.

And that's really saying something. At 32, Selena Gomez has a lot to be proud of. Yes, she's an accomplished actor, but she's also a very successful singer-songwriter. And thanks to her wildly popular Rare Beauty line of cosmetics, she's a billionaire, yup, and a very active philanthropist. It's all quite impressive, and even more so when you realize where she started. She was born in the Texas town of Grand Prairie. Her mom, Mandy Teefy, was only 16 years old.

Selena's parents split when she was five, and she says the family had a lot of love and not much else. You struggled. Do you remember the times when it was tough to make ends meet, to put food on the table?

Of course. My mom worked multiple jobs. She also was finishing high school when she was having me. When I'm doing something great today, it just makes me more thankful for the lessons that my mother taught me. Selena was barely 10 when she landed a part on TV's Barney and Friends. I'd like to think of something I never thought before. And a few years later, she became a fixture on the Disney Channel.

From your chin to your toes, an elephant trunk broke. She branched out into music and became a pop sensation. Hey, it's Selena.

Does that work? And when the pandemic came, she switched gears again, hosting a popular online cooking show shot in the kitchen of her L.A. home. Cameras everywhere, from every aspect of it. How are your cooking skills now? They're not that great, I'm not gonna lie.

And then, in 2021... Oh, you fancy. She helped hook up one of the biggest hits on TV, Only Murders in the Building, with co-stars Steve Martin and Martin Short. This is it. Our one chance to get to know Tim Kono.

Oh, that's a nice high drama line. OK, give me another. Why? What was the matter with that one? Nothing, it was perfect. It was just reeking of your years on CBS. How has working with Martin Short and Steve Martin changed how you look at the world?

In every way. These men, Steve and Marty, have been working longer than I've been alive. But they are the first ones to be on set. They take time to ask everyone they run into how their day is. And on top of it, they think everything through. They are wonderful people and they've helped me grow up in a lot of ways. Been savage. You can just splice that onto the Charles Hay.

Yeah, I'll get out the splicer. These guys have become my friends and allies and people I can ask advice from. I couldn't be more grateful to work with them.

The bed's getting cold and you're not here. Selena Gomez is the first to admit that she's had a magical life and that it hasn't always been a bed of roses. She's been open about her health struggles, like having lupus and receiving a kidney transplant. Selena Gomez was diagnosed with lupus, depression and anxiety. She also decided to take her battles with anxiety and depression and her bipolar diagnosis public.

Her 2022 documentary, My Mind and Me, is an unvarnished look at her life, the highs and the very deep lows. Were you nervous about sharing that with the world? A little bit. Once I released it, it felt like a huge relief because I am a firm believer that one of the strongest things you can do is be vulnerable. And that doesn't mean you have to pour your heart out to everyone. But I made that choice because I knew I wasn't the only one that felt that way. And if my world was already out there for everyone to see, I'd like to tell my part of the story. And to add on that, it's a dream what I'm doing. And this is part of what her dream looks like. She held a benefit last month for her Rare Impact Fund, a charity aimed at helping young people who suffer from the same mental health challenges she's been through. Of all the things you do, and you do a lot, how important is this?

This is probably the most important thing to me besides my family. But this is the cherry on top of everything. It seems another high point is her relationship with music producer, Benny Blanco. You talked a bit about your personal life, so I'm just going to ask a tiny bit about one of the sexiest men alive in People magazine. Yeah, that's my man.

What'd you think when you heard that? It was very charming. To know that there is someone in the world that deeply cares about every tiny detail about who I am.

I'm really, really lucky, so yeah. It's clear from her latest project that she's an artist who likes to take risks. But Selena Gomez's gutsiest move has been sharing her real self.

And that has made all the difference. Her reaction in general has been overwhelmingly positive, hasn't it? Sure, maybe. I just, I don't, it's not that I really need anyone's approval. I think I'm just really, I'm okay with where I am and who I am, and I'm glad. I'm glad that I finally got there.

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That's cloud gaming with Amazon Luna. Angela Merkel, once considered the most powerful woman in the world, has stayed largely silent since stepping down as Germany's leader three years ago. Until now. She's talking with Mark Phillips. Do these still conjure up highly emotional memories for you?

Yeah, naturally. We met Angela Merkel in a fitting place for her. The museum in Berlin dedicated to the wall, that great symbol of the Cold War division between East and West. Parts of the wall have been preserved as a reminder of those hard times, especially for someone who lived through them. When you look at the wall, what comes to mind to you immediately? Between the ages of 7 and 35, I had to live with this wall. I was, so to speak, behind the wall and couldn't come to this side.

And of course, that's still very moving. Angela Merkel's new book is filled with moving memories of what it was like growing up in the communist-controlled police state that was East Germany. Her family had moved there when she was an infant because her father, a Protestant pastor, was assigned to a church there. But it was the fall of the wall that spurred her political awakening and jump-started a career nobody would have bet on. A woman from the East who would not only become Chancellor of Germany, but who would hold the job for 16 years, who would be called the most powerful woman in the world, and who would deal with its most powerful men. It turns out, life in the East actually had given her one advantage for dealing with all those men in dark suits. Those bright pantsuits of hers weren't an accident.

In my book, I write that maybe my love for colorful clothes is due to the fact that in the East, everything was very gray. Angela Merkel! Merkel's uniform became part of her identity and helped her break through the American pop cultural barrier the way few European leaders could. Angela Merkel left power three years ago this week and has gone into a kind of self-imposed political radio silence since then, keeping her recollections and her opinions to herself.

Not anymore. Among the more awkward memories, that first shocking, even embarrassing meeting with President Donald Trump. I think it's fair to say your most difficult relationship with an American president was with President Trump in his first term. You talk about your first encounter in the Oval Office, where he refused to shake your hand. And you say that it occurred to you that he was fascinated with Putin and with politicians with authoritarian and dictatorial traits.

Why did you say that? Why he didn't want to shake my hand, that you have to ask him. I think he often conveyed a message with a handshake. With some men, he shook hands for a long time.

Thank you. What were you thinking? Should I reach over? Will we shake hands? Won't we shake hands? What's he trying to do?

I describe it in my book because it was so interesting. I whispered to him, I think they want us to shake hands. And at that moment, when I said it, I noticed that he wanted to convey a message. And I was quite naive, telling him that they want us to shake hands. But did you get what he was trying to do? Did you think, oh, he's going to play it that way. That's how we're going to do it.

Yeah, that's the way it was. I left being convinced that multilateral cooperation would be difficult with Donald Trump. You can make deals with Donald Trump because he always thinks in terms of advantage and disadvantage. But in my experience, win-win situations are not only good for one side, but for both sides.

That's not really his way of thinking. Merkel's book, which is being released around the world, went to press before last month's election. You say at the end of your first chapter about Donald Trump that you wish with all my heart that Kamala Harris defeats her competitor and becomes president. Were you very disappointed in the results of the American election?

I was sad. First of all, I wanted a woman to win. I was also in favour of Hillary Clinton. And secondly, I'm closer to Kamala Harris's political conviction.

But the American voters have decided, and it was a democratic election. Merkel has come in for her own share of criticism since she left office. Her decision to allow more than a million refugees and migrants fleeing Syria into Germany is now often cited as a reason for the rise of the anti-immigrant right-wing political parties in Europe.

She says those forces were on the rise anyway. Her decision to allow the German economy to become too dependent on Russian natural gas is seen as another reason for Germany's economic decline since the flow was stopped. She says staying engaged with Vladimir Putin seemed like the right idea at the time, difficult though it was. And it didn't stop him from invading Ukraine. You dealt a lot with Vladimir Putin. I take it, reading between the lines of your book, that you found him a very difficult and manipulative character as well. That he, even an intimidating character at times. Famously, you don't like dogs, he'd bring his dog to the meeting. Do you think he did that in an intimidating kind of way?

And how would you suggest people deal with him, especially as things are heating up again? Without fear. Of course, there are attempts to see how people react under a certain amount of pressure, and Putin can do that too.

And with the dog, he expressed exactly that. But it all depends on how I manage the situation. I'm used to political pressure since childhood, so that did not shock me. Angela Merkel, despite all her experience, says she now refrains from giving advice.

But she does give hints. Are you worried about the way things are now? I'm worried in general about the developments in the world.

I've always said that fear is not a good advisor. Times have become rougher. We are now sitting in a place where the world was divided in the Cold War. And then, there was 1990, we had great hopes that things would become easier after the end of the Cold War. Things have not become easier. Thank you for listening.

Please join us when our trumpet sounds again next Sunday morning. Is this government quietly brought former Nazi scientists to America in a covert operation to advance military technology? Or that in the 1950s, the U.S. Army conducted a secret experiment by releasing bacteria over San Francisco to test how a biological attack might spread without alerting the public? These might sound like conspiracy theories, but they're not. They're well-documented government operations that have been hidden away in classified files for decades. I'm Luke LaManna, a Marine Corps recon vet, and I've always had a thing for digging into the unknown. It's what led me to start my new podcast, Redacted, Declassified Mysteries. In it, I explore hidden truths and reveal some eye-opening events like covert experiments and secret operations that those in power tried to keep buried. Follow Redacted, Declassified Mysteries with me, Luke LaManna, on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. To listen ad-free, join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app.