Grab a cup of coffee and settle in. Here’s what you might have missed in a busy news week:
The racist next door
It started with racial slurs. A family who fled civil war and religious persecution would call police and even get a protective order from their neighbor’s harassment. The neighbor then allegedly mowed down their mother with his car. He was still allowed to return to his home next door. What came next was a tragedy that no family should have to endure. After numerous red flags, one question remains: Why was nothing done to stop him?
The #TakeAKnee protests have always been about race. Period.
Kneeling during the National Anthem was never about the anthem itself. Or the flag. Or the military. And the backlash, while painted with broad strokes of red white and blue, can’t hide the color line below.
Six jobs you thought (wrongly) were extinct
A machine devoted to writing. Kitchen blades made by anvil and forge. Seltzer delivered to your house in bottles. CNN’s Bill Weir uncovers six crafts that you probably thought went the way of the dodo.
The plot to murder North Korea’s exiled son
Kim Jong Nam, the half-brother of current North Korean ruler Kim Jong Un, was killed in what Malaysian authorities describe as a brazen and public assassination. Two women from humble backgrounds in Indonesia and Vietnam are the only people charged in the world’s most high-profile murder mystery.
Memories and Muck: How to gut a ruined house
While we write about PR, let’s not forget Texas and Florida where survivors of Irma and Harvey have returned home to the realization that the only way they can make their flood-damaged home habitable again is to destroy it.
Opinion: The general’s speech we wish the President could give
Frida Ghitis writes that Air Force Lt. Gen. Jay Silveria struck exactly the right notes in condemning hatred – in contrast to Donald Trump who blew the opportunity after Charlottesville.
Opinion: If Muhammad Ali was a hero, so is Kaepernick
Peniel Joseph writes that from Jackie Robinson to Bill Russell to Muhammad Ali, American culture has been shaped by politics – and race – as a driving force in sports.