“PANIPAT, India — Shivam Kumar’s failing eyesight was manageable at first. To better see the chalkboard, the 12-year-old moved to the front of the classroom, but in time, the indignities piled up.

Increasingly blurry vision forced him to give up flying kites and then cricket, after he was repeatedly whacked by balls he could no longer see. The constant squinting gave him headaches, and he came to dread walking home from school.”

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“Who speaks for American Muslims? The short answer is, no one. No individual or group can claim to speak for this country’s nearly 3.5 million Muslims, a diverse and dynamic population that’s expected to double by 2050. Instead we see spheres of influence that sometimes intersect and overlap.

CNN spent a year interviewing more than 100 American Muslims, asking who they think are the most influential Muslims in their fields. We sought nominees for whom religion is part of their public identity, but other than that, we let American Muslims do most of the talking.”

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““The hanging.”

For years, Karen Branan, a white woman from Georgia, kept at a safe distance the haunting words that her grandmother had spoken. Ms. Branan was an inquisitive journalist, but she refused to explore a hanging that her grandmother had said was one of her most unforgettable memories. She was afraid of what she might learn.

But in 1986, when she learned that she was going to have a racially mixed grandchild, Ms. Branan felt compelled to dig up the truth. She discovered that her relatives had been part of a mob that had lynched four black people — three men and a woman — in Hamilton, Ga., in 1912.”

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“NEW YORK — New York is hosting one of the biggest tributes to Sikh culture in America — a parade down Madison Avenue capped by a sea of turbans.

The Saturday afternoon gathering of thousands of ethnic Sikhs is officially called a “meditation celebration.” But it’s mostly a boisterous walk to live music, with participants wearing the stylish, multi-colored clothing of their culture. On the sidelines of the annual event, vendors offer homemade Indian food.”

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“US House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan forced out the Jesuit priest who had served as House chaplain since 2011, in an apparent partisan squabble, a new report said Thursday.”

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“MONTGOMERY, Ala. — In a plain brown building sits an office run by the Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles, a place for people who have been held accountable for their crimes and duly expressed remorse.

Just a few yards up the street lies a different kind of rehabilitation center, for a country that has not been held to nearly the same standard.

The National Memorial for Peace and Justice, which opens Thursday on a six-acre site overlooking the Alabama State Capitol, is dedicated to the victims of American white supremacy. And it demands a reckoning with one of the nation’s least recognized atrocities: the lynching of thousands of black people in a decades-long campaign of racist terror.”

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“In the biggest setback yet for the Trump administration in its decision to end a program that protects undocumented young adults from deportation, a federal judge ruled Tuesday that the government must resume accepting new applications.”

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“Feeling a connection to their struggles, Asha Stuart sought to shine a light on the resilient Siddi community.

In this short by Asha Stuart, get a rare look inside the Siddi tribal villages and explore the cultural diversity of this forgotten community. The Short Film Showcase spotlights exceptional short videos created by filmmakers from around the web and selected by National Geographic editors. The filmmakers created the content presented, and the opinions expressed are their own, not those of National Geographic Partners.

This story is part of Women of Impact, a National Geographic project centered around women breaking barriers in their fields, changing their communities, and inspiring action.”

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“The white Starbucks manager who called 911 on two African American men last week is no longer with the company, with Starbucks’s executive chairman saying the manager likely acted on her own “unconscious bias” when she decided to involve the police.”

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