In a week that seemed to be all about separation, it’s not a mere distraction to think about unity.

The United States promotes its own “world championships” in sports, but most of the rest of the world comes together for the World Cup, a truly global showcase for soccer. (There’s an alternative confederation for international entities not recognized by soccer’s governing body.)

You don’t need to tune into matches to hear highlights: With a header against Morocco Wednesday, Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo passed Hungarian legend Ferenc Puskás to become the top goal scorer in international play for a European nation.

The World Cup is not all glistening. There's controversy around how Russia landed its host role. A Deutsche Welle reporter was assaulted while on air. But other stories sing. Some 99.6 percent of Icelanders who were watching TV last Saturday were tuned to the nation’s first Cup match. Fans of Senegal’s and Japan’s teams celebrated wins by cleaning up stadiums. A Peruvian broadcaster narrated that country’s first Cup game in 36 years in Quechua, a language he’s working to preserve.  

Then there’s this: A day before Russia and Saudi Arabia kicked off this year’s Cup, a program called Football for Friendship brought young players from 211 countries together in Moscow, creating 32 teams – coed and multinational – for stadium play and, well, unity. It was all about, as Russian pro Aleksandr Kerzhakov said, “the message they bring back home, where they are trying to change the world for the better.”

Now to our five stories for your Friday, highlighting the need for resilience around democracy and human rights, for workforce pragmatism on American farms, and for political neutrality at an Idaho fiddle fest.