“I believe the women, yes.”

Those five words are, in some ways, groundbreaking. On Monday, Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell asked fellow Republican Roy Moore to drop out of the Alabama Senate race. He said he believed several women who accused Mr. Moore of molesting them when they were teenagers decades ago.

Now, Mr. McConnell has plenty of purely political reasons to disavow Moore. Moore has repeatedly bashed McConnell as an ineffective leader. Yet the words still matter.

The history of sexual crime is a history of male dominance. And recently, the crime has often hidden behind a question: Who is to be believed? Countless women have remained silent because that question most often cuts against them.

McConnell’s words point to a broader change, whatever the facts of this case. So do reports against Harvey Weinstein and others. When “Wonder Woman” reportedly says she won’t do another movie unless the allegations against producer Brett Ratner are addressed, it is a sign of a power shift.

Clearly, that power is not in simply flipping the script and distrusting whatever men say. It is in recognizing that true power – the kind that moves societies forward – is never rooted in dominance, secrecy, or shame.

Today, among our five stories, we examine the lessons from the US-Russia investigation so far, Israel's attempt to be patient amid mounting Mideast tensions, and a pioneering effort to recast schools in West Africa.