Top Russian government official Alexander Torshin is a longtime attendee of the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C., with close ties to the breakfast’s associated organization, the Fellowship. The breakfast is a gathering of thousands of political and ministry leaders from the United States and all over the world, and the U.S. president has attended every year since 1953.

A New York moment:

Today the sight of a person reading a print newspaper is an oddity—but in New York City, the subways and buses are still packed every day with people reading the local tabloids, the New York Post and the New York Daily News. These tabloids are city institutions: The Daily News once had the largest circulation of any paper in the country.

It was 9 a.m., and the seventh-grade boys at Pathways Academy were filling out a worksheet on Red Scarf Girl by Ji-li Jiang, a memoir of the Cultural Revolution under Mao Zedong. When they finished, one of the boys passed out a local newspaper, The News-Times, for them to read during the few remaining minutes of class. Posters they made from other books they had read, like To Kill a Mockingbird, hung on the wall.

Northeast Winner: Jericho Partnership

Growing up in a rough North Philadelphia neighborhood with his single mother, Bill Beattie was a prime candidate to drop out of high school. But with mentoring from his chemistry teacher, he graduated high school and then college. With mentoring from his youth pastor, he devoted his life to Jesus.

A New York moment: 

Good luck keeping up with all the corruption trials going on here in the Empire State. Since the U.S. Supreme Court let off Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell in 2016, setting a higher legal standard for corruption cases, federal judges here have tossed out corruption convictions of two top New York politicians. 

It was a warm spring day at Nationals Park, where a major league baseball game between the Washington Nationals and the New York Yankees was beginning in a few hours. Batting practice had started, and Nationals star Bryce Harper was hitting home runs.

D.C. Washington had just arrived at the stadium, and yes, that is the name his parents gave him when he was born—in Arkansas. His grandmother wanted his initials to be “D.C.” and so his parents complied. The D.C. stands for Dwight Clyde but the only person who ever calls him Dwight is his wife.

Despite some muted anxiety from conservatives and loud opposition from liberals, Judge Brett Kavanaugh of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit seems headed for confirmation to the U.S. Supreme Court in the next several months. President Donald Trump’s second pick for the high court, Kavanaugh, 53, would succeed Kavanaugh's former boss—swing-vote Justice Anthony Kennedy—for whom he clerked.