In the winter of 1976, Richard Hollomon was gunned down while closing up his gas station just outside of Wilson, North Carolina. Lester Floyd Jones witnessed as three black men robbed the store and engaged in a shootout with his boss Hollomon. Jones testified that Hollomon was shot from two feet away with a shotgun. Hollomon died from gunshot wounds. The quest for justice lead to another black man, Charles Ray Finch, spending more than four decades in prison for a murder he did not commit.

A giant, globe-trotting mural is linking displaced children from two different continents, across vastly different cultures, languages and experiences. “Same Difference: The Mural” is a 36-foot canvas with four different panels spearheaded by art educator Sarah Cornette. Four groups of children, from Chapel Hill; Thessaloniki and Samos, Greece; and Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, put paintbrush to canvas and depicted stories from their own experiences of travel and trauma.

For Maia Dery, sitting still has never been much of an option. Her teacher had her sit out in the halls to not disturb other students, and as soon as she had her precious drivers license, Dery routinely skipped school to escape to Duke Forest. As Dery says, she never did well in boxes.

As the budget stalemate lingers in Raleigh, rumors of another gubernatorial candidate came to fruition this week.