On Monday, we picked Egypt’s presidential elections as our story to watch this week. We have not been disappointed. On Wednesday the candidacy of Hazem Abu-Ismail was revived, as Egypt’s Administrative court told the country’s Interior Ministry it needed to prove that his mother had become a U.S. citizen before her death. Presidential contenders and their parents and spouses must be Egyptian nationals, with no dual-citizenship. Abu-Ismail was considered a top contender for Egypt’s presidency, until he was banned because of his mother’s alleged U.S. citizenship. Part of his platform is the introduction of sharia law.

Welcome to our first Latitude News-letter!

This is our opportunity to share with you some of the highlights of what’s been happening on and off the site every week and to ask for your feedback on what and how we’re doing.

If you’re a regular visitor you’ll notice a new slide in the carousel: “your questions and comments are our leads.” That’s there because we want to trumpet the fact that we’re actually producing journalism assigned by our users.

The slide this week links to a story from Egypt. @mollyyoussef answered our call for story suggestions on Twitter with this question: “how did Egypt survive for a year in absolute absence of police?” So we got on the phone to Cairo and talked with journalist Magdi Abdelhadi. His description of cars driving down the wrong side of the road, sidewalks too full of street vendors for pedestrians to walk down and the thriving black market in Tasers and pepper spray gives a concrete picture of what life is like when what was a police state starts falling apart.

Also – check out our piece inspired by one of the people we canvassed in front of Boston’s South Station. Andrew Campanella wanted to know how other countries deal with underage drinking. This, as it turns out, is by no means a straightforward question—starting from the fact that “underage” means different things in different cultures. My top takeaway from Jack Rodolico’s piece—the U.S. doesn’t even make the top 20 “drunkest” countries.

By the way, we are now doing a man on the street or “vox pop” segment every week to see what international connections and parallels people are interested in. We’ll be recording in Minneapolis/Saint Paul next week. Let us know if you want us to come to your town!

Our most popular story this week? One of our perennial favorites, Lin Gu’s reflections on why the photograph of one Buddhist monk saying prayers over a dead man in a train station has become a morality tale in China. For one of our readers, a Buddhist priest in Florida, this was an occasion to talk about how death is treated in the U.S.:

People die here out of the public eye, for the most part, in hospitals, hospices or home. Dead are displayed in funeral homes, if at all. The general public is rarely exposed to death (except secondarily in films and TV) and are phobic about it. Americans are very fearful and self-defensive about death. It isn’t supposed to happen although it happens to everyone. I think death should be open and celebrated publicly as in more traditional or less fragmented societies. The monk dealt with the situation as he should have.

Finally, have you seen the clever take off of the Simpsons that mocks Russian president again Vladimir Putin? Nick Nehamas came across it, put it on our site and has now connected the Russian animator and the Simpsons’ scriptwriter in LA. How’s that for international connectivity?

Please keep the feedback, questions and comments coming in!