Homes on “Heroin Highway” in North Camden now have potted plants outside and laughing teenagers hanging out on a porch after sunset. Police officers walk down a quiet block once controlled by drug dealers.

At the peak of violence six years ago on this block, four officers attempted to arrest a suspected drug dealer, only to have a crowd of more than 100 attack them and free the suspect.

Mayors of several so-called sanctuary cities boycotted a planned meeting at the White House on Wednesday after the U.S. Department of Justice warned it would revoke federal funding if they refused to turn over documentation on immigrants detained in criminal investigations. President Donald Trump blasted the boycotters, accusing them of putting the needs of “criminal illegal immigrants over law-abiding Americans.” New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu, president of the U.S.

Seattle Mayor Ed Murray announced he plans to resign after a fifth person accused him of sexual abuse. Allegations surfaced over the past five months that Murray had molested boys in the past. On Tuesday, The Seattle Times reported Murray allegedly abused his cousin’s 13-year-old son in 1975 while living with the family. Other accusers include Murray’s former foster son and a man who claims Murray paid him for sex when the man was a teen. Murray, who is gay, has not faced criminal charges.

Maybe only in heaven will we know what music was. “What was that back there?” we’ll say. “And what witchcraft did it work on me, that it broke my heart, and I loved to have it so?”

Take “Autumn in New York,” by Vernon Duke: “Autumn in New York / Why does it seem so inviting? / Autumn in New York / It spells the thrill of first-nighting. / Glittering crowds / And shimmering clouds / In canyons of steel / Are making me feel / I’m home.”

Star Parker is a conservative commentator, author, and founder of the Center for Urban Renewal and Education (CURE). Here are edited excerpts of our recent conversation at her Washington, D.C., office.

Tell us about your childhood.

I met anti-gentrification activist Angel Luna, a subject of WORLD Magazine’s recent article on gentrification, at a local doughnut shop chain in Boyle Heights. A white man founded the doughnut empire, now the largest doughnut shop chain on the West Coast. But in the sugar-dusted store in Boyle Heights, the servers dishing out apple fritters and Boston creams were Latino, the customers were Latino, and the soap opera playing on a corner television set was from Mexico.

The city of Baltimore took down four Confederate monuments early Wednesday morning following a violent white nationalist rally in Virginia last weekend protesting the removal of a similar statue. “It’s done,” Mayor Catherine Pugh told The Baltimore Sun. “They needed to come down. My concern is for the safety and security of our people. We moved as quickly as we could.” A commission appointed by the previous mayor had recommended removing a monument to Marylander Roger B. Taney, the Supreme Court justice who wrote the U.S.