Top 5: Wage boom is a bust + Nazis’ favorite drug is back

+ Load up your ski gear, we’re going to the mall [Click here to view this message in your web-browser](. Edition: US 16 February 2020 [The Conversation]( Academic rigor, journalistic flair When looking at your paycheck, don’t forget about inflation. Leif Skoogfors/Getty Images [Real pay data show Trump’s ‘blue collar boom’ is more of a bust for US workers, in 3 charts]( David Salkever, University of Maryland, Baltimore County In his State of the Union address, Trump said workers are experiencing a boom in wages. The numbers say different. A funeral held in July 1945 for two victims of the Ku Klux Klan, George Dorsey and his sister, Dorothy Dorsey Malcolm, of Walton County, Georgia, held at the Mt. Perry Baptist Church Sunday. Bettman via Getty [Lynching preachers: How black pastors resisted Jim Crow and white pastors incited racial violence]( Malcolm Brian Foley, Baylor University Religion was no barrier for Southern lynch mobs intent on terror. White pastors joined the KKK, incited racial violence and took part in lynchings. Sometimes, the victim was a preacher. - [As China suffers from coronavirus, some wonder: Is it really that serious? 3 questions answered]( John A. Lednicky, University of Florida The coronavirus is still spreading in China, and the doctor who warned Chinese officials early on about a possible outbreak is now dead. But in the US, some think the outbreak is exaggerated. Is it? - [A Nazi drug’s US resurgence: How meth is making a disturbing reappearance]( Richard Gunderman, Indiana University There's widespread attention on the dangers of opioid addiction, but use of damaging crystal meth continues in the U.S., with police seizures rising. - [The dystopian experience of skiing in New Jersey’s new American Dream mall]( Robert Snyder, Rutgers University Newark Skiing in a mall is bizarre enough. But a mall dubbed the 'American Dream' – when malls are vanishing, along with the postwar vision of the American Dream – is its own brand of eerie dissonance. [We need your help today to bring fact-based journalism to the public]( [Follow us on Twitter.]( [Join us on Facebook.]( You’re receiving this newsletter from [The Conversation](. Not interested anymore? [Unsubscribe instantly](. We’ll miss you. 89 South Street - Suite 202 Boston, MA 02111