Third in a series on war veterans

Bernie Holritz, 99, loves to tell how God directed every aspect of his life, though never in a straight line. As America battled Japan during World War II, the Navy recruit didn’t expect he’d one day evangelize the Japanese.

What sounds depressing—a teen’s diagnosis with osteosarcoma, a rare bone cancer—became the impetus for an inspiring new PG-13 movie from Disney+. 

Clouds tells the heartbreaking and joy-filled true story of Zach Sobiech and the remarkable events springing from his terminal disease. Based on his mom Laura’s memoirs, the two-hour film radiates realities and love of close family and friends in a small Minnesota town and shows the potency and purview of Zach’s music. His song “Clouds” became a global sensation.

Netflix shrugged off concerns five Republican senators voiced last week over a new TV series planned by the streaming service. The lawmakers accused the company of normalizing Chinese atrocities against ethnic minorities by adapting a Chinese book trilogy.

Of the five NCAA athletic conferences that make the most money, four have committed to putting players on the gridiron this fall. The last holdout, the Pac-12, looks like it is headed for a fall football return, as well.

“We feel we’ve got a responsibility to our student-athletes and our programs to explore that possibility,” Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott said. “So that’s what we’re doing.”

Deftly skewering a shish kebab and cleaving a chicken are the first hints that one man is more than a short-order cook. When a truck slams through a restaurant’s plate-glass windows, the cook, despite his own wounds, starts performing triage on the injured. 

It’s an intense opening to Transplant, a new Canadian medical series on NBC. This series’ likable characters elevate it above other medical dramas, as does morality that—so far—grounds the central figure. That cook is actually a Syrian doctor, Bashir Hamed (Hamza Haq), who fled Syria with his 12-year-old sister.

Second in a series on war veterans

The 19-year-old Marine dug through volcanic black beach sand, carving out a foxhole to protect himself from a terrifying barrage of Japanese artillery. He abandoned his rifle when its muzzle embedded in the choking sand, rendering it useless, and picked up another from a nearby dead infantryman. His most pressing thought: survival.

Winds of cultural change blew across the Midwest plains last month, right into Missouri’s Arrowhead Stadium. The NFL’s Kansas City Chiefs announced an immediate ban on fans wearing headdresses or Native American–style face paint at games. Previously, the team only discouraged it.