On a warm September morning, Bill Lee was making phone calls from a campaign bus en route to meet with members of the Black Farmers and Agriculturalists Association in Memphis, Tenn.

The visit was one of dozens of campaign stops the GOP candidate made in recent months, barnstorming the Volunteer State as the unlikely front-runner in the race for governor of Tennessee.

Lee has never held public office, he’s never attempted a bid in politics, and unlike his Republican opponents, he didn’t run attack ads in his successful bid for the GOP nomination for governor.

What a week in Washington, D.C.

On Monday evening at a restaurant near the U.S. Capitol, a small crowd of protesters ambushed Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and his wife, Heidi, as they made their way to a booth in the upscale eatery. The demonstrators heckled the couple until they left: “We believe survivors!” 

On Sunday morning in New Bern, N.C., residents in one of the towns hardest hit by the effects of Hurricane Florence surveyed the massive storm’s damage and contemplated the possibility of more flooding this week, as rivers in coastal regions continue to rise.

“It’s been a pretty catastrophic storm,” said Pastor Jim Pennington of Temple Baptist Church in New Bern. “And the thing is—it’s going to be a one-two punch.”

On Sunday morning, church members won’t gather for worship services at Lifepoint Church in Wilmington, N.C., near where Hurricane Florence made landfall on Friday, downing trees, knocking out electricity, and threatening to cause catastrophic flooding in North and South Carolina.

But while the congregation won’t meet during the still-dangerous conditions on Sunday, Lifepoint Pastor Jeff Kapusta told me that doesn’t mean church is canceled.

Three months before democratic socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, 28, stunned politicians by defeating a 10-term incumbent in a Democratic primary in New York, Nicanor Ochisor, a cabbie in his mid-60s, stunned his family by committing suicide in his garage in Queens.

Ochisor, a taxi cab driver for nearly 30 years, had been dismayed by plunging profits in recent months, and his son said his father was distressed over losing significant business to the ride-sharing company Uber. Ochisor was the fourth New York City cab driver to kill himself in five months.

From Detroit to D.C., it’s been a time to mourn this week for two well-known American figures.

On Friday morning at the U.S. Capitol, Sen. John McCain’s 106-year-old mother, Roberta McCain, sat straight-backed and dignified in her wheelchair as she looked on the flag-draped coffin holding the body of her 81-year-old son, who died on Aug. 25.

“He knew from at least June 23, 2013, that McCarrick was a serial predator. … Pope Francis must be the first to set a good example for cardinals and bishops who covered up McCarrick’s abuses and resign along with all of them.”