Again this week the news was stacked with stories of the powerful jostling for advantage while others struggle simply to make their plight heard.

In the United States, harassment and assault scandals keep rippling wider, from Hollywood to senatorial politics and beyond. Some of what’s been triggered: empathy and introspection, and action close to home.

The issues that affect us most directly are the ones we confront first. One challenge is not letting distance distract from spiraling situations farther afield. Two quick examples:

A Saudi Arabian official told the BBC Thursday that “no country has provided more aid” to Yemen than has his kingdom. But the United Nations maintains that unless a Saudi-led blockade of Yemeni ports is lifted, some 150,000 malnourished children could die by year’s end.  (Yemen would have featured prominently in the Monitor’s recent famine series. Visas were all set, but then journalists were excluded from flights by Saudi decree.) For Yemenis, leaving the country is nearly impossible. 

And on Iraq, the International Rescue Committee noted in a release today that it’s “vital that the international community does not view the end of ISIS’ territorial control as the end of their responsibility to the Iraqi people who … face a long, difficult recovery.”

Attention there could brighten an American brand that has been fading by some measures in terms of global perception. The human family requires an expansive, and inclusive, kind of care. 

Now to our five stories for your Friday, chosen to lift you above the churn to highlight durable progress, empathy, and cultural chemistry in action.