The Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol shook the peaceful transfer of power after a national election. President-elect Donald Trump says he’ll pardon many of the convicted rioters – a potentially controversial precedent.

• Trump appoints RFK: President-elect Donald Trump announces he will nominate vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.
• APEC in Peru: Representatives from 21 Pacific Rim members are meeting in Peru for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum.
• Abu Ghraib detainees: A jury in the United States has awarded $42 million to three former detainees of Iraq’s notorious Abu Ghraib prison, holding a Virginia-based military contractor responsible for contributing to their torture and mistreatment two decades ago.
• Sri Lanka election: The party of Sri Lanka’s new Marxist-leaning President Anura Kumara Dissanayake has won a two-thirds majority in Parliament, providing a strong mandate for his program for economic revival.
• Onion purchases Infowars: The purchase of Alex Jones’ Infowars at a bankruptcy auction by the satirical news publication The Onion is the latest twist in a yearslong legal saga.

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Hezbollah’s intensified rocket barrages against northern Israeli communities have created two conflicting impulses among residents: They support the war against Hezbollah, yet are eager for it to end.

President-elect Donald Trump is planning a trade war with China, and Beijing is considering its options. Sitting back and accepting tariffs does not appear to be among them.

As more women enter skilled construction trades, they are laying a foundation to succeed in a rough-and-tumble world of labor union brotherhoods.

The stories of courageous men and women fighting for civil rights in the 1960s inspire awe and gratitude. Activists like John Lewis risked their health, safety, and liberty to stand for justice. 

More than five years after a fire destroyed its upper structure, Notre-Dame in Paris will reopen with grand ceremonies Dec. 7-8. The cathedral’s new bells have already been rung. A new, phoenixlike golden rooster now sits atop a rebuilt spire.

Oak trees have been hewed by hand to re-create the 300-foot-long timber roof first built by medieval craftspeople eight centuries ago. And modern artists have designed new stained-glass windows.

Yet for the thousands of people from many countries involved in the restoration of the world’s most famous Gothic church, it is not the material structure that they want visitors to notice most.

Rather, many speak of the qualities that went into their work – such as truth, joy, and humility. “For me it’s ... like nursing the injured,” worker Paul Poulet told Agnès Poirier, author of the book “Notre-Dame: The Soul of France.”

Others note how any place of worship is meant to evoke transcendent and eternal qualities. The specifications for the new windows, for example, call for evoking joy, hope, and peace. The working of the timbers and stone was done by hand because “truth comes through the genuine materials ... [and] respect for the monument as we knew it,” Philippe Jost, director of the reconstruction, told GQ magazine.

The public wants to rediscover this “refuge of beauty, tenderness, and consolation,” said Archbishop Laurent Ulrich of Paris. The project also had a healing purpose. “It shows that in this period of doubt and of questioning, if we remain united around a common goal, we can achieve the impossible,” said Olivier Ribadeau-Dumas, Notre-Dame’s rector.

The cathedral’s redone interior is a triumph “of truth and grace,” said Ms. Poirier after being allowed to step inside. Yet the ultimate grace in a cathedral revived from the ashes is the spirit of those who took a broken building and restored it. Their work was a worship of love and spiritual renewal.