An earthquake comes with little warning, but it’s possible to notice the effects of a tremor before feeling the earth move. A few days after Haiti’s massive earthquake on Jan. 12, 2010, I noticed pieces of loose stone falling from a wall moments before I realized the earth was rumbling in an aftershock. 

On Jan. 2, 2020, a U.S. drone strike killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad, but the dramatic moment followed signs that the ground was shifting. U.S. Gen. David Petraeus once called Soleimani “a truly evil figure.” 

During the 1970s, former advertising executive Jerry Mander wrote about the early days of television, when only three channels existed: “It was as if the whole nation had gathered at a gigantic three-ring circus. Those who watched the bicycle act believed their experience was different from that of those who watched the gorillas or the flame eater, but everyone was at the same circus.”

The first two weeks of November felt more like a 30-ring circus in American news and politics, but many viewers watching the same act in the same ring weren’t seeing the same thing. 

It’s a bright Sunday morning in Tegucigalpa, and Michael Miller is late for church.  

Miller serves as an elder at the bilingual Union Christian Church, but he’s spent the morning trying to talk a 15-year-old boy off the streets and back into the Micah Project—a Christian ministry Miller’s led for nearly 20 years. 

It’s been a long night.

When Omar Rivera agreed to join an independent commission to purge rampant corruption from the Honduran police force, he and other Christians on the panel had at least three things, he says: “We had moral strength. We had Christ in our hearts. And we weren’t worried about whether we’d be killed.”

As it turned out, the commission would need all three.

When Chad and Melissa Buck mark milestones in their family, the couple celebrates progress some parents barely notice. Melissa teared up last year when she realized her daughter had started smiling in pictures: “That’s huge for her.”

It’s huge because the Bucks’ children began their lives in a very different home filled with abuse and neglect. The Michigan couple fostered and then adopted three siblings, ages 4 years to 18 months. They later fostered and adopted two more children, including a biological sibling of the first three.

The news about news continues to dominate headlines, and on Sept. 14, The New York Times demonstrated again why readers have legitimate reasons to question media giants: A Times story reported an accusation that Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh was involved in a lewd and sexually aggressive encounter against a female student in college.

Several Democratic presidential candidates immediately called for Kavanaugh’s impeachment.

Each morning in the Bolivian city of La Paz, thousands of young men pull ski masks over their faces and baseball caps over their heads, as they wait for scores of pedestrians to spill into the bustling streets.

The sight might be startling outside of La Paz, but in the South American city perched high in the Andes Mountains, it’s a normal part of the morning commute: The masked men aren’t waiting to rob pedestrians; they’re waiting to shine their shoes.