Northwest Winner: Windswept Academy

The early morning prairie sun reflects off the yellow school bus that brings children to a tan, aluminum-sided school building at the end of a residential street.

The bus’s doors part, and boisterous children pour out wearing dresses, T-shirts, and polos in the school uniform colors of blue, green, or red. Backpacks bounce as the kerfuffle pushes through the front door, heads down the hallway, and turns a corner into the white-tiled gymnasium that doubles as a cafeteria.

During a White House meeting with lawmakers and governors from farm states Thursday, President Donald Trump said he’s asked his economic and trade advisers to negotiate a possible return to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). The president pulled out of the 11-country trade pact last year after calling it a bad deal for the United States. But he has since said he’d be open to rejoining the agreement if the terms were more favorable. The growing threat of a trade war with China is widely seen as the primary reason for the president’s turnaround on the trade deal.

In the gripping documentary Of Fathers and Sons, director Talal Derki offers a rare glimpse into the inner workings of a radical Syrian Islamic family. The Syrian conflict’s effect on children and families who have fled Syria is well-known. What isn’t known is how the conflict has impacted the children of the jihadists who remain there, and Derki returned to his Syrian homeland from Berlin to find out.

Nick and Chelsea Torres couldn’t believe their ears when they heard a heartbeat. An ultrasound three weeks earlier hadn’t been able to find one. At their eight-week appointment, they thought the doctor would say they’d miscarried their unborn child.

Chelsea was so overjoyed she didn’t notice a second heartbeat. The doctor revealed the image on the ultrasound was conjoined twins, a rare condition occurring once in every 200,000 live births.

Author and former-Muslim-turned-Christian-apologist Nabeel Qureshi died Saturday after a yearlong battle with stomach cancer. He was 34. Qureshi, a Pakistani-American, was a speaker with Ravi Zacharias International Ministries, traveling the world to lecture and debate Muslim scholars. Qureshi wrote The New York Times best-seller Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus, which chronicled his conversion.

KALISPELL, Mont.—A 19-year-old girl with a nose ring and hair pulled tight into a ponytail walks into a waiting room, carrying a car seat. A gaggle of women swarms her. She lifts a blue-eyed, fair-haired baby out of the car seat, and the oohs and aahs turn into laughter.

“Sorry we bombarded you,” one nurse says. “You saved her life,” the young mother replies, looking down at her baby. “So I owe it to you guys.”

Ninety-seven-year-old Alfred Marcus once stood 6-feet-1-inch tall, but now he bends over his walker as he makes his way to the elevator of his assisted living home, past a room full of residents playing Bingo. He recently moved from the tiny town of Prinsburg, Minn., just 15 miles away, where he spent his whole life, except the time he spent serving in World War II.