Paranoia is often said to be a defining characteristic of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, who traveled to Singapore this weekend on one of three airplanes — the other two being decoys to throw off any adversaries. Perhaps most illustratively, South Korea's Chosun Ilbo reports that Kim traveled to Singapore with a personal, portable toilet in order to deprive "determined sewer divers" from "insights into the supreme leader's stools."
But despite that sounding, well, totally nuts, Kim might actually be making a wise decision by keeping his excrement out of Singapore's sewers. Poop-divining is not unheard of, the New York Post observes: During the Cold War, the CIA allegedly obtained stool samples from Soviet leaders Mikhail Gorbachev and Nikita Khrushchev in order to gain insight into their health, and Josef Stalin also allegedly decided against signing an agreement with China's Mao Zedong in 1949 after collecting a sample of Mao's feces and using it to analyze his psychological profile.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
Hotels with kitchen gardens for a foodie weekend awayThe Week Recommends Feast on seasonal produce straight from the veg patch at these country retreats
-
Succession planning as the Dalai Lama turns 90In the Spotlight China 'determined to shape the narrative' around choice of Tibet's next spiritual leader
-
AI is creating a luxury housing renaissance in San FranciscoUnder the Radar Luxury homes in the city can range from $7 million to above $20 million
-
The last words and final moments of 40 presidentsThe Explainer Some are eloquent quotes worthy of the holders of the highest office in the nation, and others... aren't
-
Senate advances GOP bill that costs more, cuts moreSpeed Read The bill would make giant cuts to Medicaid and food stamps, leaving 11.8 million fewer people with health coverage
-
Canadian man dies in ICE custodySpeed Read A Canadian citizen with permanent US residency died at a federal detention center in Miami
-
GOP races to revise megabill after Senate rulingsSpeed Read A Senate parliamentarian ruled that several changes to Medicaid included in Trump's "One Big Beautiful Bill" were not permissible
-
Supreme Court lets states ax Planned Parenthood fundsSpeed Read The court ruled that Planned Parenthood cannot sue South Carolina over the state's effort to deny it funding
-
Trump plans Iran talks, insists nuke threat goneSpeed Read 'The war is done' and 'we destroyed the nuclear,' said President Trump
-
Trump embraces NATO after budget vow, charm offensiveSpeed Read The president reversed course on his longstanding skepticism of the trans-Atlantic military alliance
-
Trump judge pick told DOJ to defy courts, lawyer saysSpeed Read Emil Bove, a top Justice Department official nominated by Trump for a lifetime seat, stands accused of encouraging government lawyers to mislead the courts and defy judicial orders
