6-year-old computer scientists. Drool-worthy pastries. Luring Zara. | Morning Newsletter

Mohammed Jabateh, the Delco man on trial as an alleged Liberian war criminal, had his own account heard by jurors Thursday. In his asylum application, he argued he was a victim of the gory, cruel ethnic conflicts of the 1990s.

Anita T. Connor, a breast cancer survivor, believes that "God spared my life, so I could help save another." Out of that gratitude arose an organization that supports fellow patients and survivors, educates men, comforts children and turns them all into "my sister's keeper."

Panthers QB Cam Newton was taking heat and lost a sponsor after making a sexist remark to a female reporter. He later apologized. The reporter then started taking heat after people found some old, racist tweets on her account. She also apologized. Nobody wins, we all just shake our heads.

No budget deal? No problem. "I can do this indefinitely," Gov. Wolf says.  Great.

While many are still pushing to have Frank L. Rizzo's statue removed, not much attention has gone to removing the statue of Christopher Columbus or renaming Philly's Columbus Day Parade. Many other cities have downgraded their Columbus connections due to his legacy "as a killer and a slaver," one museum director said.

Restaurant critic Craig LaBan reviews the decadent pastries at Walnut Street Cafe, and I can barely finish this sentence because I'm so busy drooling. This newsletter might need a hiatus next week as I'll be mummified in sugar and butter and hazelnut cream and "the crackle of gossamer caramel sheets."

And you thought sports trades were brutal? Mall company PREIT moved five Cherry Hill tenants — Banana Republic, Hollister, Clarks, Call It Spring, and Aveda — to free up space for one Zara, the wildly popular European fast-fashion brand.

In times of trouble, we turn to the classic protest songs — like those featured in Ken Burns' "The Vietnam War" — again and again. But nowadays, music critic Dan DeLuca writes, the calls for protest and catharsis in pop culture fall more to comedians like Jimmy Kimmel.

TV critic Ellen Gray lists the 7 "timeless" TV shows she says everyone should go back and watch. They're not your usual suspects. I would be surprised if most people have seen even 5 of them (If I'm wrong, tweet @ me!).

Meet the women who helped make Philadelphia a hotbed of fine arts in the late 1800s. Known as the Red Rose Girls, they were feminists who often had romantic relationships with women, and some made their own living as highly skilled illustrators, stained-glass artists and mural-painters.

Since 2010, the natural-gas industry has spent $46.6 million on lobbying and $14.5 million on strategic campaign contributions to legislative leaders, effectively buying their way out of paying their fair share in taxes. Our Editorial Board says it's time for lawmakers to step up and pass a sensible severance tax.

Readers responded to our package about how to improve Independence Park with some really brilliant ideas. Add a reflecting pool? Stop hiding the Liberty Bell? Turn it into a water park? OK, maybe not that last one.

In one of the most astonishing investigative reports I've read in a long time, Reveal uncovers a court-ordered rehab program where defendants from Oklahoma, Arkansas, Texas and Missouri were sent to work in a chicken-processing plant under grueling conditions — with the "rehab center" pocketing their wages.

The New Yorker profiles Gloria Allred, the famous attorney and Southwest Philly native who went to Girls High and Penn.

A flood of anti-Trump volunteers are canvassing and making calls for Democratic candidates for governor in New Jersey and Virginia, the only states with gubernatorial elections this year. [The New York Times]

A gunman climbed into a bell tower at the University of Texas in 1966 and unleashed unholy hell on students and teachers below, a horror that was incomprehensible at the time. Less so now. [Texas Monthly]