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Millions of boxes of USDA surplus food are being shipped with mandated letters from President Donald Trump asserting his concern to protect the well-being of Americans struggling through the coronavirus pandemic.

That this unprecedented action is taking place just before the November election is a fact critics decry as a cheap politicization of food and hunger.

Yet faith-based and secular food providers say they are distributing the boxes anyway—because hungry people need food.

Some 400 rabbis and other Jewish religious leaders from across the spectrum of Jewish institutions have signed a statement in support of efforts in New York to shut down schools and limit synagogue attendance in Hasidic Jewish neighborhoods hit hard by COVID-19.

The statement comes in response to chaotic protests that have broken out in New York City’s Brooklyn borough, driven by Hasidic Jews opposed to Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s decision to shut down yeshivas and limit the number of people attending synagogues in ZIP codes with large numbers of Orthodox Jews.

On a recent Sunday, photos of two Black men graced the sanctuary of First Grace United Methodist Church in New Orleans as Shawn Moses Anglim spoke during “a little children’s moment.”

The two church members pictured, Dillard University president Walter Kimbrough and pediatrician Ted Atkin­son, were lifted up as role models for the children because they are participating in a COVID-19 vaccine study at Ochsner Medical Center in New Orleans.

Nine writers tell us about a book they’ve read recently that’s helped them reframe what it means to be a person of faith and a reader right now.

They both resist easy answers to the problem of suffering.