Protecting migrants and honoring the humanity of those who died on the perilous trail is a kind of religion in southern Arizona where spiritual leaders four decades ago founded the Sanctuary Movement, a campaign to shelter Central Americans fleeing civil war, and scores of volunteers carry on their legacy today. Faith-based groups working in migrant activism run the gamut from the Tucson Samaritans, which leaves lifesaving caches of water, food and other provisions in the remote wilderness, to Catholic Community Services of Southern Arizona, which operates a shelter, to Methodists providing asylum-seeking families with legal aid and a place to stay, to name a few.

Archaeologists are giving a grassy hilltop overlooking iconic Plymouth Rock one last look before a historical park is built to commemorate the Pilgrims and the Indigenous people who once called it home. Braving sweltering heat, a team of about 20 graduate students enrolled in a masters program at the University of Massachusetts-Boston began excavating an undeveloped lot on Cole's Hill in Plymouth, Massachusetts, this week.

Essential workers who helped New York City through the COVID-19 pandemic were honored Wednesday with a parade up Broadway — nurses, doctors, first responders, teachers, bus drivers and more riding on floats through a canyon of tall buildings and falling confetti. The parade stretched from Battery Park to City Hall, led up Broadway in lower Manhattan by grand marshal Sandra Lindsay, a health care worker who was the first person in the country to get a COVID-19 vaccine shot after they were authorized for public use.