Patriotism runs deep in Charlestown, and this video by the Globe's John Tlumacki, which accompanies a column by Kevin Cullen on today's Metro front, captures that spirit of love of country.

Cullen writes: Charlestown is one square mile. From that square mile, 5,000 men and 100 women went off to war in the 1940s, and 94 men and two women didn’t come back. Gold Stars hung in windows from City Square to Thompson Square, all the way down to the Schrafft’s factory in Sullivan Square. In the other windows, mothers pulled back curtains, watching their kids walk down to the Navy Yard, waiting for them to return.

By Maria Cramer, Globe Staff

For many of the actors in "The Wire," the gritty HBO series that took an unflinching look at life in inner-city Baltimore, the show had a profound influence on the way they viewed the country's poorest and most disaffected. After the series ended in 2008, Sonja Sohn, who played Detective Shakima Greggs, founded reWIRED for Change, a nonprofit organization that includes other members of the cast and crew and that tries to help youths in underserved communities. For almost a year, Sohn has been working with a Boston community activist to create a curriculum based on the series. The Globe caught up with Sohn, who is expected to attend a panel discussion tonight in Cambridge (details below) about how the show can influence policy, to ask her about the effort.

Q. Was there a moment when you were traveling that you realized the kind of influence you wield because of your work on "The Wire?

A. We started to speak to some guys sitting on a porch and drinking in North Carolina about the importance of voting and their rights. The next day we got a call from a regional director down there telling us that they had a guy who had stated that he came to register for the vote because the big dude from "The Wire" -- Gbenga Akinnagbe, who plays Chris Partlow -- told him to come down. He not only voted but he volunteered for a campaign. That was a moment that illustrated again the power of celebrity and our association with "The Wire" to affect social change in these communities. I took two men who had never voted in their lives to register. They were in their 60s. That was incredibly moving.

Q. What about your background qualifies you to work with the young people you meet through reWIRED for Life?

A. I think my own experiences inform me more than anything. ... My family loved me and if you have love that’s the difference between someone becoming a sociopath and someone having a shot at the end of the day. I was loved, but there were bases that weren’t covered. There was a certain amount of emotional neglect outside of the home, there were abuses which led me to experiences with the drug life. When the idea for this organization came up and when the idea for the program came up and when I started to facilitate the program every step of the way it became more and more obvious that I was basically born to do this ... This was one of the most profound purposes of my existence.

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By Scott LaPierre, Globe Staff

When I first contacted the Ringling Bros. circus about shooting video of the Torres family, who perform as the Rebel Riders stunt motorcycle team, they explained that I wouldn't be allowed to actually go into the Globe of Steel (formerly known as the Globe of Death, but that's a long story).

Which sounded sensible enough. I mean, the sphere is only 16 feet wide, and during shows they cram seven riders in there, all moving at speeds of over 40 miles per hour.

But when I arrived in Manchester, N.H., for a demonstration with the Rebels, I asked again if I could go in. The PR handlers for the circus, which is at Boston's TD Garden through Sunday, looked on nervously as the seven Spanish-speaking family members huddled for a moment before agreeing that sure, I could come in.

A few ground rules about staying alive in the Globe, and we were off.

As I stood perfectly still in the center, I tried to ignore the rushing waves of engine oil smells and the loud buzzing that circled inches from my head, and before I could actually process the danger -- it was over.

Boston University theater students were invited to partake in a "clown college master class" recently, a seriocomic affair led by two seasoned Ringling Bros. clowns who swung from slapstick low comedy to philosophical observations on their craft.

Leo Acton and Mike Richter are an advance clown team, arriving weeks before the actual circus comes to town to spread goodwill and share generations-old clown knowledge and gags. Acton is a graduate of Ringling Bros.' Clown College (a real-ish institute of higher learning), which he describes as a sort of comedy boot camp, "with really big boots."

Richter, a New Hampshire native, says the secret to clowning is to "say yes" and follow any leads your improvisational partners offer. The two emphasized that clowning (and improvisational acting in general) isn't necessarily about you getting the laugh; it's about getting the biggest laugh possible for a gag as a whole. The Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus comes to the TD Garden Oct. 14-18.

-- Scott LaPierre

Globe file photo

Michael Kineavy, a chief adviser to Mayor Thomas Menino, deleted e-mails.

By Donovan Slack, Globe Staff

It started with a tip: A senior member of Mayor Thomas M. Menino’s re-election campaign had been conducting bare-knuckled politicking on a City Hall e-mail account.

Government e-mails are, by law, public documents, meaning it sounded like an easy lead to track. It was anything but. The ensuing quest took four months, a half-dozen requests and letters, and the involvement of two lawyers - and ended with $2,773 in city charges. It also led to the city providing the full e-mail complement of just one employee and a few random e-mails of another.

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Globe staff photo/Wendy Maeda

Sylvia McDowell looked over the headstone of the Nelson family, including former Judge David Nelson.

By Meghan Irons, Globe Staff

Susan Whoriskey was just 8 when her mother died of cancer. Ruby Baynes was fresh from Honduras looking for a better life for herself and her children.

The two, each searching for belonging, would form an unusual friendship over the years.

Baynes’s story and the lives she touched are coming to life after the Globe reported recently on Forest Hills Cemetery’s quest to reveal its black history in a project called “Finding Voices in the Silence.”

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By Ann Silvio, Globe Staff

When the hearse carrying Senator Edward M. Kennedy's body came to a stop in front of the Mission Hill basilica on Saturday, a scrum of reporters, pundits, and television anchors was watching. Yet little notice was paid to one of the most curious moments of the day: the slow-motion, dance-like steps of a US Marine as he ceremoniously approached Kennedy's casket.

That Marine, Lance Corporal James Hendershot, was the "pull-man" or a “drag man” on a casket team, made up of service personnel from all five military branches. Not to be confused with an honor guard, a casket team has the sole task of carrying a casket from place to place. From house to hearse, hearse to church, church back to hearse, and hearse to grave.

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By Maria Sacchetti, Globe Staff

GUATEMALA CITY -- We stood in the darkened parking lot near La Aurora International Airport, waiting for Fredy Zepeda’s body.

Zepeda, a 35-year-old drywall hanger, died after an alleged hit-and-run driver plowed into him as he was putting his 1-year-old son into a car seat on a Brighton street. Now, the task of identifying the body last Tuesday night had fallen to his brother Wilson, 21, the baby of his family.

Evelyn Magana, a street-smart, chain-smoking lawyer in Guatemala who had helped many others through this before, was by his side as Wilson and his family planned to bring Fredy Zepeda home to rest in his hometown of Atescatempa, a journey chronicled by a Globe reporter and photographer. (For a photo gallery, click here.)

Globe photo/Maisie Crowe

Wilson Zepeda (left) mourns at his brother's funeral in Atescatempa, Guatemala.

At the cargo drop, we waited below a loading dock that had been transformed into a miniature chapel to accommodate body shipments. It had a tin roof and a wall decorated with a crucifix, white clouds, and blue sky.

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By Erica Noonan, Globe Staff

How do you tell a guy who's about to go to bat in a softball game on a warm night under the lights in Natick that the president of the United States has just said he had "acted stupidly"?

Erica Noonan

I had already seen Cambridge police Sergeant James Crowley twice before that night 10 days ago and he was getting tired of my questions.

But President Obama had just unleashed a firestorm – one that is still reverberating around the country today -- by saying the Cambridge police had "acted stupidly" in arresting Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr.

It was the moment the story, which had already been making headlines, became supercharged. And my editors wanted a reaction.

I found the sergeant, who had been the arresting officer, getting ready for his turn at bat on a Natick softball field.

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Christine Hochkeppel for The Boston Globe

Sunbathers ignored the machine. Somewhere in the sand: the keys to a VW.

By David Filipov, Globe Staff

It was hot. Really hot. My lower back was starting to growl, and my fingers were red-hot little balloons of pain. Easton’s Beach in Newport was the Sahara. From the size of the pile in front of me, I could see that my job was nowhere near done.

And where were my bloomin’ car keys??!?

This was not where I had intended to be, raking a massive heap of sand, seaweed and garbage in the heat of the day on the most popular beach in one of the region’s most prestigious seaside cities.

It had all started so well. I was reporting about Newport’s efforts to clean up the yucky red seaweed that had plagued the beach for decades. The town had acquired a large, Zamboni-like machine – the Beach Harvester -- to do the job. It was so much more efficient than raking the stuff off the sand. It was a great excuse to hit the beach – and get PAID for it. Not only that, the days I visited, July 14 and July 16, were rare decent beach days in what will no doubt go down in history as the Summer of Floods.

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Globe reporter Tracy Jan talked with NECN about the case that sparked a debate over racism and racial profiling.