Words on Bathroom Walls, a new film based on the book by Julia Walton, takes viewers inside the mind of a teenager diagnosed with arguably the least understood and most stigmatized mental illness: schizophrenia. 

Adam Petrazelli (Charlie Plummer) is a high-school senior when he has his first psychotic episode. It occurs in a classroom, the worst place possible for a teen trying to maintain his popularity. 

The COVID-19 tracking graph for Sedgwick County, Kan., looks like the steep incline at the beginning of a roller coaster. The city of Wichita and its surrounding county went from 143 active cases on June 1 to 2,442 on July 28, according to the Sedgwick County Health Department. By the third week of July, the percentage of people testing positive had soared to 12.8 percent from less than 2 percent on June 1, and the county’s top physician reinstated a ban on gatherings of 15 people or more.

Three weeks ago, Guy Lyons had just enjoyed a late breakfast. He sat down on the couch with his phone and began scrolling through unanswered emails when his phone rang. It was his elderly neighbor, Mr. Earl, as the block called him.

Guy and Mary Lyons had moved into their diverse, lower-income neighborhood in North Little Rock, Ark., 11 years ago because they wanted to minister to neighbors like Mr. Earl. Over the years, they’d grown close to the retired police officer through neighborhood barbecues and driveway conversations. 

Four years ago the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in favor of same-sex marriage. Despite the closeness of the vote and faulty reasoning in the majority decision, that battle (unlike the 47-year battle concerning abortion) seems to be over—for now. 

Persevering pro-life counselors outside abortion businesses contribute to some last-minute changes of heart, but pro-Biblical-marriage counselors are not standing outside city halls and wedding chapels pleading with same-sex couples about to make their vows.

The holiday season is a time for extended family reunions. A huge one came earlier this year for Japanese Americans smiling and embracing in the Holiday Inn lobby here. From the lobby’s leather couch, 90-year-old Bacon Sakatani gazed at the gathering from under bushy gray eyebrows and a Korean War veteran’s cap. His wrinkled skin, stretched over high cheekbones, crinkled with the smile of a thankful grandfather watching his loved ones gather.

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind tells the true story of a Christian family living in the African nation of Malawi in 2001. British actor Chiwetel Ejiofor (12 Years a Slave) wrote and stars in the Netflix film and also directed it on location in Malawi in just 37 days.

Trywell Kamkwamba (Ejiofor) and his wife are farmers and Christian leaders in their small Malawian village. While the couple is poor, they value education and spend precious funds to send their 14-year-old son William (Maxwell Simba) to school.

It’s been three years since Netflix released the true crime docuseries that sparked nationwide debate over corruption in the criminal justice system. Now Season 2 of Making a Murderer finds Steven Avery and his nephew, Brendan Dassey, still behind bars serving life sentences for the 2005 murder of Theresa Halbach.