Three very different gatherings bear watching as the week winds down.

They run from multinational to hyperlocal, and the action seems to intensify as we burrow down.

Leaders of the Group of Seven major industrialized nations are meeting, of course, as Howard LaFranchi reports in today’s top story. Some observers have taken to calling the assembly the G6+1. That’s a commentary on a perceived unity gap, with the United States as the outlier.

In Boston, an international convention of mayors yesterday batted around municipal-level ways of addressing the effects of climate change. It was cast as a joint pushback on higher-level disunity and inaction. “As a coastal city,” said Boston Mayor Martin Walsh, “we understand that [it] is one of our most significant challenges.”

And tomorrow, for the first time, a TEDx conference will take place in a refugee camp. That event, in northwest Kenya, has among its speakers not heads of state or even earnest Bürgermeisters, but individual drivers of action, including current and former refugees. Their unifying focus: perseverance and problem-solving.

“The aim,” reports Quartz, “is to steer away from the one-sided narrative of suffering and dejection.” It’s “also about showcasing how refugees can help change not only their lives but [also] the communities and countries in which they live.”

Now to our five stories for your Friday, highlighting efforts to refine roles and definitions in politics, to find safety from corruption and risk, and to guard against being lied to.