Good morning, and welcome to the weekend.

Grab your cup of coffee or tea, and sit down with a selection of this week’s great reads from The Globe and Mail. In this issue, reporter Jana Pruden, photojournalist Melissa Tait and videographer Tim Moore dive into the loud, hectic and oh-so-sparkly world of cheerleading. “I hadn’t thought much about cheerleading until I ended up at my cousin’s daughter’s cheer competition in rural Saskatchewan one snowy Saturday morning in February,” Jana said. She loved it!

In April, the Globe trio headed to a national competition in Niagara Falls to learn more about what has often been an overlooked and underappreciated sport. Over three days, they saw a lot of joy, a lot of tears – and a surprising amount of barf. They also realized what a mistake it would be to discount cheer as something frivolous. As 13-year-old Alyssa Baldock told Jana, “Even if you get kicked in the face by a girl, you have to keep smiling.”

Melissa found the competition so “overstimulating” that she didn’t take a single photo for the first hour and a half of the event. By the end of the weekend, she’d taken more than 18,000 photos – an unusually high number for a single assignment. “I experimented with slow shutter speeds and other camera tricks for three very long days to try to capture the speed and spectacle of the sport.”

When it came to video, Tim knew he had to save the action for the end, where you really want to be immersed in the top two teams going head-to-head.

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Three days inside the sparkly, extremely hard-core world of Canadian cheerleading

At the Canadian Cheer National Championships, thousands of girls and women flip, tumble and dance in the growing sport of competitive cheerleading.

The awkward economic truth: A recession might be just what Canada needs

Economies historically see a recession about every 10 years as the economy overheats and resets, but Canada and the United States haven’t faced one in more than a decade.

Questions of how to protect communities from wildfire risk loom large as thousands flee homes nationwide

As wildfires force thousands to flee their homes in Alberta and Nova Scotia, experts say there’s not a comprehensive enough multi-jurisdictional strategy backed by sufficient funds to tackle the issue.

Europe’s problem child no more: After years of misery, the Greek economy is on fire

The Greek economy remains a work in progress but there’s no doubt the worst days already feel like ancient history.

Playing for keeps: Meet the faces of gaming in Canada

Gaming is a $2-billion industry and these Canadians are making fascinating plays in it.

Museum reclaims Rumi from the mindfulness set

What do one of Brad Pitt’s tattoos and the name of Beyoncé’s second daughter have in common? Both are inspired by the 13th-century Sufi mystic and poet Muhammad Balkhi, usually known as Rumi. The Aga Khan Museum in Toronto has mounted an exhibition examining Rumi’s life and work, the visual art he inspired in the centuries after his death and his current popularity.

For Cheryl Pounder, the 2002 Olympic gold-medal women’s hockey game was perfection

The former Canadian player and now broadcaster doesn’t want to relive or even watch that surreal moment because, ‘it’s perfect in my mind.’

Drawn from the headlines

Ford government pauses proposal to build housing on dwindling farmland - CBC NEWS, May 31, 2023 as drawn by Wes Tyrell for the Globe and Mail