Weekend Edition: The week's best reads

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"Everyone in the streets was running around with machetes," says Melissa Fabian. "Ladies were running around. They all covered their faces. You could hear people screaming, and the bells of the church just ringing out all the time." It has now been five years since women in the Mexican town of Cheran took the law into their own hands and drove out organised crime. "We all feel proud because we stopped something, and did something that none of the other communities dared to do."

Cheran: The town that threw out police, politicians and gangsters

Some school-leavers in the UK are turning down the chance to go to university and taking up degree apprenticeships instead. They work full-time, gaining on-the-job training while also studying for a degree. And there are no tuition fees to pay. "Everything I'll learn during my degree I'll be putting into practice in my job. Whereas if I'd gone to university, I'd just be learning lots of things, but it wouldn't necessarily mean that I'd be able to implement them," says Radhika Parmar, 19.

The debt-free alternative to university

Being a clown is no laughing matter during the "creepy clown" craze. "It's what I do for a living," says Fudgie the Clown, from the US state of New Jersey. "I have been a professional clown for 34 years now - but this is ruining my business. I am not getting the phone calls. And it's not only me. My clown friends too. I'm checking with them: 'Is the phone ringing? No, my phone is not ringing'."

Is it all over for non-creepy clowns?

Why do some Americans seem to dislike Hillary Clinton so much? "She is a lying, manipulative, narcissistic woman who deserves nothing except to be put in jail for life," says activist Emily Longworth, 25. Most critics would not resort to the kind of extreme language that has seen Longworth blocked by Facebook - but what lies behind Clinton's undeniably high unfavourability rating?

The dark depths of hatred for Hillary Clinton

Motorists on their phones kill about 20 people a year in Great Britain. A BBC journalist spent two hours at a busy road junction and confronted many drivers about their phone-dependent behaviour. Do they know it's illegal? Do they even care?

Do people know how dangerous using a phone while driving is?

Not forgetting:

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