This week, the ladies of Bombshell welcome Lindsey Ford, from the ‎Asia Society Policy Institute, to chat about this spring's Appointment in Helsinki: the US-North Korea presidential summit. Then, they set an Iran Deal death watch and puzzle through what happens when Red Sparrow meets real life in the nerve-agent poisoning of a Russian double agent in the UK.  White House mayhem continues to say "hold my beer" with the firing of Rex Tillerson and what it means for Trump administration Kremlinology.  Finally, the pop culture world is looking up, with the return of Occupied, the digital release of Last Jedi, and much more.

• Karoun Demirjian, "Corker prediction: Trump will pull out of Iran nuclear deal in May," Washington Post
• Ankit Panda and Vipin Narang, "The Trump-Kim Summit and North Korean Denuclearization: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly," War on the Rocks
• Ellen Barry, "Britain Says It Has Proof Russia Stockpiled Lethal Nerve Agent," New York Times
• Andrew Jeong, "North Korea to Meet for Talks With U.S., South Korean Delegations in Helsinki," Wall Street Journal
• Heidi Blake, Tom Warren, Richard Holmes, Jason Leopold, Jane Bradley, Alex Campbell, "From Russia With Blood," BuzzFeed
• Derek Chollet and Julie Smith, "The Clock Is Already Ticking On Mike Pompeo," Foreign Policy
• Ilan Goldenberg, "A Requiem for Rex's Redesign," Foreign Policy
• Ilan Goldenberg and Elizabeth Rosenberg, "How to Save the Iran Nuclear Deal," Foreign Affairs
• Alex Ward, "Trump finally decided to get tough on Russia. But did he go far enough?" Vox
• Ellen Barry, "Britain Hints at Tougher Blow Against Russia: Stripping Tycoon's Assets," New York Times
• Asia Society Policy Institute event, "Drones, Bots, and Smart Weapons: Artificial Intelligence and Asian Security"

This week, the ladies of Bombshell welcome Sarah Margon, Washington Director of Human Rights Watch, to explore a side of the Syria conflict we discuss too little on this show: the human dimension. The ladies wade through three different political maelstroms in Italian elections, President Xi’s quest for immortality, and President Putin’s land of misfit nukes.  Hairstyles, process, and wrongheaded beliefs about trade deficits explain the White House, and Radha plugs spoken word cookbooks (written by spies).

• Economist, "Send in the clowns," Economist
• Laura McGann, "When does Hope Hicks get to be a 'wunderkind' instead of a 'former model'?" Vox
• Sarah Margon, "Giving Up the High Ground," Foreign Affairs
• Marc Freeman, "'M*A*S*H' Finale, 35 Years Later: Untold Stories of One of TV's Most Important Shows," Hollywood Reporter
• Evan Osnos, "Xi Jinping May Be President For Life. What Will Happen to China?" New Yorker
• Philip Rucker, Ashley Parker, and Josh Dawsey, "'Pure madness': Dark days inside the White House as Trump shocks and rages," Washington Post
• William J. Broad and Ainara Tiefenthaler, "Putin Flaunted Five Powerful Weapons. Are They a Threat?" New York Times