Names and faces
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau — along with President Donald Trump’s daughter, Ivanka Trump, as a guest — welcomed a new Broadway musical that celebrates the compassion and openness to international travelers that Canadians showed after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Trudeau and Ivanka Trump and some 120 ambassadors from around the world attended the show Come From Away on Wednesday night at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre in New York. The musical is set in the small Newfoundland town of Gander, whose residents opened their homes to some 7,000 airline passengers diverted there when the U.S. government shut down its airspace. In a matter of hours, the town was overwhelmed by 38 planeloads of travelers from dozens of countries and religions, yet locals went to work in their kitchens and cleaned up spare rooms. In remarks before the show, Trudeau got on the stage and said he was pleased that, “the world gets to see what it is to lean on each other and be there for each other through the darkest times.”
Chelsea Clinton’s new children’s book has a sharply worded title: She Persisted. Penguin Young Readers announced Thursday that the book will come out May 30. In it, Clinton honors 13 American women “who never take no for an answer,” including Harriet Tubman, Sonia Sotomayor and Oprah Winfrey. She Persisted also features a “special” and unidentified cameo, presumably Clinton’s mother, Hillary Clinton. “I wrote this book for everyone who’s ever wanted to speak up but has been told to quiet down — for everyone who’s ever been made to feel less than,” Chelsea Clinton said in a statement. “The 13 women in She Persisted all overcame adversity to help shape our country — sometimes through speaking out, sometimes by staying seated, sometimes by captivating an audience. With this book, I want to send a message to young readers around the country — and the world — that persistence is power.” The title refers to a comment — now a catchphrase — made by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell after the silencing of U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., during a debate in February about the confirmation of Jeff Sessions as attorney general.