European leaders fear they are running out of time to convince President Trump not to ditch an international agreement to stall Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

The US president must decide by May 12 whether to keep the US in the 2015 agreement, under which Iran agreed to curb its enrichment of uranium that could be used to build a bomb, in return for an end to most international sanctions.

Washington’s European allies, fierce defenders of the agreement, call it the world’s best bet to prevent Tehran from becoming a new nuclear weapons power.

But Mr. Trump has called the accord “the worst deal ever.” After talks last week in Washington with Trump, French President Emmanuel Macron told reporters that “my view is there is a big risk he will leave.” And Trump's convictions were likely bolstered by a heavily hyped TV presentation Monday from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which lambasted Iran for lying about its nuclear arms program before the deal was signed.

That has left Europe's leaders in a bind. They see no indications of violations of the nuclear deal by Iran, and are convinced that remaining in it is the best way to ensure Tehran's continued compliance. But Trump seems to be committed to pulling out of the agreement, despite European efforts to dissuade him. And if the US does withdraw, the costs to European business and security could prove high.

“There was always a concern that the US would pull out,” says Aniseh Bassiri Tabrizi, an Iran expert with the Royal United Services Institute, a London-based think tank. “But those concerns have grown deeper in the last few days.” [Editor's note: The original version misspelled Dr. Tabrizi's first name.]

Nothing not already known?

In a TV presentation that he gave in English – clearly aimed at the United States, if not at Trump himself – Mr. Netanyahu, an avowed enemy of the Iran accord, offered what he said was evidence of a secret Iranian nuclear weapons program, operating before Iran signed its agreement in 2015 with the US, Russia, China, Britain, France, Germany, and the European Union.

Experts said the half-ton of documents, allegedly taken by Israeli spies from a warehouse outside Tehran, contained nothing that was not already known. European leaders said that in fact they provided further proof of the value of the nuclear deal, not of its flaws.

“It is clear that the international community had doubts that Iran was carrying out an exclusively peaceful nuclear program,” said a German government spokesman on Tuesday. “It was for this reason that the nuclear accord was signed.”

“The fact that Iran conducted sensitive research in secret until 2003 shows why we need the intrusive inspections allowed by the Iran nuclear deal today,” British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson added. “The Iran nuclear deal would make it harder for Iran to restart any such research,” he argued. “That is another good reason for keeping the deal.”

European Union foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini noted that Netanyahu had not questioned Iran’s compliance with the deal, and pointed out that it was struck “exactly because there was no trust between the parties, otherwise we would not have required a nuclear deal to be put in place.”

No appetite to 'fix' the deal

The International Atomic Energy Agency reiterated its statement from 2015, just before the deal was sealed, that it had “no credible indications of activities in Iran relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device after 2009.”

The Vienna-based agency has issued 10 reports confirming Iran’s compliance with the terms of the nuclear accord. But Trump has called on European signatories to “fix” what he sees as a weak deal; US and European diplomats have been talking for several months about how the agreement might be improved.

The White House complains that the terms of the deal run only for 10 years, until 2025; that the agreement does nothing to limit Tehran’s ballistic missile program; that IAEA inspectors do not have unfettered immediate access to military sites; and that the deal does not address Iran’s growing role in the region, through proxies and a military presence in Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen.

That seems enough to have persuaded Trump to pull out of the agreement. The Europeans have proposed maintaining the deal but building on it to meet the US president’s concerns. They do not appear to have had much success.

Nor is there any sign that Tehran is prepared to reopen the deal for negotiation. “The Iranians are already complaining about how little they have got out of the deal” in economic benefits, says Dr. Tabrizi. “I’m not sure anything would appeal to them at the moment.”

‘It is simply to unravel the deal’

The stakes for Europe are high. If Trump refuses to extend a waiver on sanctions on May 12, he will make it illegal under US law for any non-US firms to do business in Iran. That would “chill European trade and investment in Iran to nominal levels,” warns Ellie Geranmayeh, an Iran expert with the European Council on Foreign Relations. [Editor's note: The original version misidentified Ms. Geranmayeh's organization.]

Sanctions would mean that any bank dealing with Iran would lose its access to the US financial system; that would mean an end to Iran’s oil exports and to most other trade, since no major international bank would be prepared to carry out the necessary transactions and thus sacrifice its business in the US.

Washington showed its teeth on this issue in 2014, when a New York court ordered French bank BNP to pay $8.9 billion to settle accusations that it had violated US sanctions by dealing with Iran, Cuba, and Sudan.

European negotiators are still hoping they might persuade the United States to offer them, and other nations, exemptions from sanctions. That would allow them to do enough business with Tehran to offer an economic incentive to stay in the pact and to abide by its restrictive nuclear terms.

“It’s worth a European push to keep the Iranians on board with the deal, but it’s going to be extremely difficult,” says Ms. Geranmayeh. “The White House is seeking Iran’s economic isolation.”

Nor does Tabrizi hold out much hope of such a soft US approach to its allies. “If the US pulls out with no evidence of any violations by Iran, and with no international support, it means the decision is not based on security concerns, or on concerns for relations with the European Union,” she says. “It is simply to unravel the deal, to make sure that it is no longer in place.”

Carolyn Kaster/AP/File

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani (shown with President Trump in this 2016 file photo) has been advising the president in the wake of a leak of potential questions for Mr. Trump from special counsel Robert Mueller.

News leaks have bedeviled many US presidential administrations. Teddy Roosevelt loved dropping the press tidbits but was shocked when they weren’t printed verbatim. Richard Nixon hated leaks and formed an internal anti-leak Plumbers team, inadvertently leading to Watergate abuses. Barack Obama prosecuted more leakers under the Espionage Act (eight) than all previous occupants of the Oval Office – combined.

But under President Trump, White House leaks have reached a new level. They’re not just a means of looking important to a reporter, or dispatching a rival. In some instances, they’ve become a way to try and influence the decisions of one man, by highlighting stuff that’s probably already on his desk. That one person, of course, is Mr. Trump himself.

There’s also the volume. Leaks flow in the Trump White House like water over Niagara’s Horseshoe Falls.

“I do think the Trump case is really unusual,” says David Greenberg, professor of history at Rutgers University and author of “Republic of Spin.”

Particularly unusual is the latest big drop of information – a lengthy list of questions that special counsel Robert Mueller might ask the president in a potential personal interview for Mueller’s inquiry into Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential campaign.

It’s possible that the list was leaked by the special counsel’s office, but that’s unlikely. Mr. Mueller’s team has been closed-mouthed to this point. And The New York Times, which obtained the document, said it was a list drawn up by Trump’s legal team from a conversation with prosecutors. But someone outside Trump’s legal team leaked the document, said the Times.

Pro tip: Always remember that the reporter knows exactly who the leaker is. The reporter’s editors have a pretty good idea of the person’s importance, though they may not know exact identity. A reputable publication will play the piece accordingly, and try to describe the leaker as closely as they can. (There’s a journalism legend that during Henry Kissinger’s shuttle diplomacy phase a weary journalist wrote of an anonymous quote from “a US official with a German accent on the secretary of State’s plane.”)

Trump’s recently departed lawyer John Dowd fits the above criteria. He was known for arguing that the president should refuse to sit for an interview with Mueller, due to the breadth, length, and difficulty of questions he would face. Trump reportedly rejected this advice. The New York Times leak might be a way for Dowd – or another associate – to metaphorically grab Trump by the shoulders and try to shake him up about the seriousness of his situation.

It’s possible that the questions represent a simple wrap-up. Mueller may be close to ending his investigation, and, if he talks to the president, would just go down his list of all the subjects he’s touched on to get a Trump comment at the end.

That’s not what former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti thinks, however. In a lengthy review of the questions on Twitter he points out they cover possible collusion as well as possible obstruction of justice.

“The questions are very revealing – they’re a roadmap of Mueller’s view of Trump’s potential criminal liability,” Mr. Mariotti tweets. 

That’s just one view, of course. Trump and his legal team have long insisted on his complete innocence of any wrongdoing. But again, the investigation has reached a serious point, and someone in Trump’s orbit apparently wants to warn him away from meeting Mueller and thinking he’ll sway the special counsel with his personal interaction skills.

Rudy Giuliani, himself a former federal prosecutor who’s helping Trump, said today that any such interview would have to be limited to “two to three hours” and be based on a “narrow set of questions.” That would be a very different meeting than Mueller apparently has in mind.

As to other leaks that roil the Trump team, a more traditional category stands out: the animus leak.

The name comes from a leak typology drawn up decades ago by the former White House staffer and veteran Washington think tank presence and commentator Stephen Hess.

There’s the ego leak, Mr. Hess wrote, in which people try to look important to the press. There’s the trial-balloon leak, meant to judge reaction to a proposed policy or action. There’s the whistleblower leak, meant to stop something in its tracks. There’s the policy leak, to draw attention to something the leaker believes to be unfairly ignored. All these are part of the Trump leak flow.

The animus leak involves a practice as old as politics – spreading dirt on your enemies and rivals within the government. Think of all the negative stories about former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and former National Security Adviser Gen. H.R. McMaster that surfaced before their involuntary departures. Many of those might be traced to people within the White House with whom they clashed – including each other.

White House Chief of Staff John Kelly is the latest animus leak target. This week’s NBC story detailing alleged instances of his demeaning Trump to colleagues is a case in point. That’s meant to lower his (already low) stock in the Oval Office. Who’s the source? That’s unknown, but Kelly has made many enemies with his attempts to impose discipline on the daily White House workflow. That’s upset powerful people, including Ivanka Trump and husband Jared Kushner.

Infighting isn’t unusual, notes Dr. Greenberg of Rutgers. But some administrations keep that quiet. Some don’t.

“In any administration, even the most unified, there are going to be different camps and differences of opinion,” he says. “There is not a single voice, there are many.”

Scott Peterson/Getty Images/The Christian Science Monitor

A cat walks across the wall of the family house of Shiite resident Aziz Ali Hassan and his family in the Al-Adel neighborhood of Baghdad, April 13, 2018. The wall is splashed with gray paint to cover graffiti written in 2006 by Sunni Islamist militants during the ethnic cleansing of of Shiites in the neighborhood. It read "Get out, you dogs."

Aziz Ali Hassan will never forget the graffiti warning that appeared on his family home at the peak of Iraq’s sectarian war in late 2006, when Baghdad’s mixed Shiite-Sunni neighborhoods were gripped by brutal ethnic cleansing.

Sunni militants linked to Al Qaeda had taken over the western Baghdad district of Al-Adel, forcing out Shiite families like Mr. Hassan’s.

Decades of living peacefully together – built on a sense of home and sanctuary, amid a tradition here of mutual reliance and neighborly care – was disintegrating before his eyes.

Daubed in red paint, the graffiti read: “Get out, you dogs.”

Hassan got the message, and he knew the consequences of defiance. Some 3,000 people were being killed every month in the capital alone – a rate of 100 per day.

Many of the bodies were dumped in the streets bearing signs of torture. Some were victims of Sunnis militants, as in Al-Adel; others the target of Shiite death squads that roamed other districts, murdering and forcing out Sunnis.

Overnight Hassan moved his family away from the crucible of Baghdad, southward to the Shiite shrine city of Karbala. It was a painful dislocation that forced him to redefine the meaning of home and safety, beyond the wide avenues and tidy, upper-middle-class homes of Al-Adel.

“We witnessed lots of killing; I was really afraid my sons would be killed,” recalls Hassan, a retired building contractor with a short grey beard, who serves as a deputy prayer leader.

“Home is me,” he says. “My house and my family are everything I have got.”

But to preserve his family, Hassan had to give up his house. They left with a few suitcases – and doubt that they could ever return.

Yet these days Hassan speaks at ease, now back in that very family home in Al-Adel, where slaps of gray paint barely conceal the original graffiti threat outside.

Challenge of restoring 'home'

The district could not be more different today. Shiite families, one by one, began to return to their homes in 2008, slowly rejuvenating this neighborhood by reversing ethnic cleansing and restoring its mixed nature. Similar partial returns have been under way in other Baghdad districts, where either Sunnis or Shiites were forced out.

It’s been a years-long process that gives insight into the variable meaning of “home” in Iraq, and the challenge of restoring – to a degree, at least – that sense of warmth and security in a nation where war and violent dislocation have been the norm since US forces invaded in 2003, both toppling Saddam Hussein and unleashing demons of ethnic hatred.

“It’s not a matter of healing but of overcoming, passing through. It’s going to remain inside but you are going to adapt, to improve,” says Laith, a resident who fled another mixed neighborhood with his Shiite family to Najaf during the worst period of violence, then resettled in Al-Adel in 2009.

The sectarian situation has improved “by adopting a new way of passing through differences,” says Laith. “People are more isolated than before. They are giving respect, they are cooperative, but they are not really friendly like before. Scars are still inside.”

Al-Adel is known to readers of The Christian Science Monitor as the place where correspondent Jill Carroll was kidnapped by Al Qaeda operatives on Jan. 7, 2006, and spirited to six different hideouts while being held captive for 82 days. Her translator, Alan Enwiyah, was shot dead; their driver escaped.

That incident took place just blocks from the home of Hassan, who says he witnessed Ms. Carroll’s abduction from a distance and heard the lethal gunshots.

Back then, she was meant to interview Adnan al-Dulaimi, a Sunni politician widely seen as orchestrating, with his sons, the Sunni militant presence and ethnic cleansing of Shiites in Al-Adel a decade ago. He and his associates were also widely considered the architects of Carroll’s kidnapping.

Scott Peterson/Getty Images/The Christian Science Monitor

The ruin of the house of the late Iraqi Sunni leader Adnan al-Dulaimi in the Al-Adel neighborhood of Baghdad on April 13, 2018. He was accused of fomenting ethnic cleansing of Shiite Muslims by Sunni militants linked to Al Qaeda a decade ago, and of orchestrating the 2006 kidnapping of the American journalist Jill Carroll of the Christian Science Monitor. On the door are painted the words "not for sale, not for rent," and "blood [revenge] wanted."

Yet today Al-Adel is a different place, trying to restore its blend of Sunni and Shiite residents. The house of the late Mr. Dulaimi is now abandoned and unkempt, with broken windows and painted warnings not to touch it. The anti-aircraft gun he had placed in the middle of the street to menace residents is now gone.

Laith reckons that by 2007, at least 95 percent of Shiites had been pushed out of Al-Adel – “maybe 99 percent.” Since 2008, when executive orders required handing back property that had been illegally occupied, Al-Adel began to change and now has a population that is perhaps 50 percent Shiites returnees, and a further 10 percent Shiite newcomers. Sunnis make up the remaining 40 percent.

There are small signs of reconciliation between individual Shiite and Sunni families, against the backdrop of the sectarian and social cleavages that still define Iraq and its politics overall.

Recently, for example, Laith’s Sunni neighbors brought his family meat, in recognition that the Shiite family was commemorating a religious event that day. Laith has also given food parcels to the Sunni family during important celebrations like a graduation.

Risks to help neighbors

Despite the dangers a decade ago, Al-Adel was also a place with a history of sectarian mixing. That meant instances of some Sunni families providing secret support and sanctuary for Shiite neighbors, despite grave risks.

“We were always mixed, and the level of people is good, with teachers and educated people,” says Musab, an IT specialist whose Sunni family has lived in Al-Adel since the early 1990s. Militants ruling the neighborhood from 2005 made life excruciating, he says, but sometimes friendship for longtime Shiite neighbors trumped fear.

“Originally people in Al-Adel refused this [sectarian clash], and told Shiites, ‘Don’t move, stay here and defend yourselves,’” says Musab. But the situation became a “hot time” for Shiites, “you see more arms in the streets, more insurgents,” so that most felt they had no choice but to leave.

“Some Shiites stayed, but we helped them, brought them food, they are hiding with us, because they are our friends, they are members of our family,” says Musab. “They have loyalty for their neighborhood and said they would die here and not leave.”

To conserve that mutual sense of home, Musab describes how his family helped a number of Shiites stay in Al-Adel. Because most of the Sunni militants patrolling the neighborhood were outsiders, it was not too difficult to clothe Shiite neighbors in more traditional Sunni garb like white dish-dashas, long robes, he says, to disguise them if they had to go out.

“We stayed home all the time, or went out for a few hours to get food. It’s dangerous,” Musab recalls. “If you got caught [helping Shiites], they would slap you or make threats, or maybe kill you.”

Shiite neighbors could not be more grateful for such critical help, which reaffirmed their commitment to their neighborhood, says Musab, despite the spasm of ethnic cleansing.

The IT worker estimates that his work has taken him into more than 100 houses in Al-Adel, where long conversations often ensue.

“People say that if ISIS came here [today], ‘We will fight them, strike them,’ because they have a very bad experience with them in the past,” adds Musab. “Everyone, Sunni and Shiite, would fight them because [ISIS] is always our enemy, for all people.”

Neighborhood 'no longer mine'

Not every Baghdad neighborhood is experiencing such a rebirth, even as normalcy has returned to much of the capital since Iraqi security forces last year vanquished ISIS and their staunchly sectarian ideology.

For example, Laith grew up in the Amiriyah neighborhood, which is adjacent to Al-Adel to the west. That makes it closer to the former Sunni insurgent stronghold of Fallujah and farther from downtown Baghdad. Few if any Shiites have been able to return.

Both neighborhoods had a similar sectarian mix, but Amiriyah was home to high-ranking Saddamists and former intelligence officials. Al-Adel, by contrast, was “more educated, with more intellectuals,” so the “mentality is different” and not so narrow-minded, says Laith.

“After 30 years we were sold out by our [Amiriyah] neighbors, it was a 180-degree turnaround,” says Laith. Ethnic cleansing started early there, in 2005, with big Shiite figures being killed. He has not been back to Amiriyah since he fled that year.

Every time he goes to the airport he has to pass Amiriyah and is reminded that the good memories of his childhood – and the feeling of home there – are gone.

“I roll down the window and just spit on it,” says Laith. “I just lost all my childhood memories in that area; all my memories have been ruined and damaged. All the friends I used to have, they have either fled or been killed.”

“The house, everything has been changed,” he says. “It is no longer mine.”

Hassan’s family has settled back in. But a Sunni family that was allowed to stay free of charge for over two years in the hope they would care for the place was instead neglectful and used it to store looted goods. Hassan and his friends had to force them out at gunpoint in 2008.

Friendly welcome back

But when they returned, the welcome from their Sunni neighbors who had stayed was overwhelmingly friendly; they recalled how Hassan’s family had been active and supportive to the community for more than 30 years, and had been sorry to see them go.

“Sunni friends here told us, ‘The dust of your feet is more precious than those [people] who came to invade your houses,’ ” recalls Hassan. “That means they were not satisfied with the situation back then, but were afraid for themselves.

“They said we were so precious to them,” says Hassan.

Such reconciliation echoes more and more widely in Baghdad, where residents have survived the paroxysms of violence and want to choose another way.

“Even those with hatred inside are keeping their mouths shut,” says Hassan. His love for home and his neighbors in Al-Adel means he would refuse the offer of a bigger home in another area. Or if sectarian violence were to return.

“If something like that happens again, I won’t leave my house,” says Hassan, resolutely. “Enough weakness. Let’s feel the strength.”

Kansas Department of Revenue/AP

An example of Kansas' new driver's license design meant to comply with federal identification requirements for airport security purposes. The new Real ID licenses will contain either a gold circle with a white star cutout proving the holder is lawfully in the United States and that it is acceptable federal identification, or the words 'not for federal ID.' All states are expected to comply with the Real ID requirements by Oct. 1, 2020.

Changes are coming to identification requirements for residents of the United States. In response to a 2005 federal law, states are ramping up security measures involved in issuing driver’s licenses and other identification cards.

Q: What are Real IDs?

A Real ID can be either an identification card or a driver’s license that meets stepped-up federal standards. It will be needed to access federal facilities, enter nuclear power plants, and board federally regulated commercial aircraft.

Q: Why was legislation passed?

Congress passed the Real ID Act in 2005 in response to 9/11: Some of the hijackers aboard the four flights that crashed that day used fraudulent IDs. The Real ID Act strives to make securing fake IDs more difficult.

“Securing our identity documents is a crucial component to keeping the commonwealth, and the country, safe,” said Pennsylvania state Rep. Ed Neilson, a Democrat, when the state passed the Pennsylvania Real ID Compliance Act in May 2017.

Q: What’s happening now?

The beginning of this year included several deadlines as the Real ID process moves along. Jan. 22 was a key date for domestic air travel: As of that day, any driver’s licenses used for identification at airports have to be issued by states that are either in compliance with Real ID requirements or have been granted an extension. Also, on Feb. 5, Real ID enforcement began for states or territories that are not compliant and do not have an extension.

American Samoa is the only US region that is not compliant and doesn’t have an extension (see map). Thirty states are compliant, and 20 have been granted extensions. The latter states are thus in the midst of taking steps to meet Real ID requirements. Massachusetts, for example, recently closed its Registry of Motor Vehicles offices for a weekend so it could upgrade its computer system as part of the Real ID rollout.

SOURCE:

US Department of Homeland Security

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Jacob Turcotte/Staff

Q: When will Real ID be enforced?

It depends on the state. For those that have been granted extensions, Oct. 1, 2020, is the hard deadline. After that date, a Real ID will be required to fly, access restricted and semi-restricted federal facilities, and enter nuclear power plants.

Q: What do people need to apply for a Real ID card?

Applications for a Real ID can be made at a local department of motor vehicles. The required documentation depends on personal circumstances but is likely to include a Social Security card or tax form; a birth certificate, passport, or immigration form; and two proofs of state residency, such as a current utility bill. 

Q: Will Real ID be required anytime people need proof of identity?

Not necessarily. The Real ID Act does not apply to voting or registering to vote, attending court proceedings, accessing health services (at hospitals, for example), entering public areas, or even driving per se. Also, the law does not prohibit an agency from accepting other forms of identification such as a US passport.

Q: How does this law apply to unauthorized immigrants?

The federal measures allow compliant states to issue driver’s licenses and identification cards to unauthorized immigrants. The cards are required to state on their face and in the machine-readable zone that they can’t be used for official federal purposes. Also, their design must differentiate them from cards that meet Real ID standards.

However, several states issue noncompliant cards for various reasons, so the Department of Homeland Security cautions against assuming that holders of such cards are unauthorized immigrants. 

Q: How will this affect beneficiaries of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program?

The law allows states to issue Real ID-compliant driver’s licenses and identification cards to those who provide valid evidence of having approved deferred-action status. They must also have employment authorization documents and Social Security numbers. These DACA individuals are allowed to hold temporary Real IDs until their expiration.

Ronald Reese slips quietly into the library, unnoticed by the kindergartners scattered around the floor. His eyes scan their upturned faces, searching for his daughter. He grins broadly — there’s Nia Mya at the center of it all, wearing a pink unicorn shirt and twisting her feet nervously around the rungs of a purple stool as she speaks, occasionally looking to her mother for encouragement. Mr. Reese takes out his smartphone and begins recording his nine-year-old, the bestselling author. 

Nia Mya’s route to literary fame was a straight trajectory from first grade to Amazon, helped along the way by an observant mother, a supportive father, and one pesky sibling.

Today, Nia Mya Reese is speaking at Bluff Park Elementary School in Hoover, an idyllic, affluent suburb of Birmingham, Ala. The five-year-olds are quiet, a few shyly sucking their thumbs. But the older students are in awe as Nia Mya explains how a class assignment — describe something you are an expert at doing — led to her first book, “How to Deal with and Care for Your Annoying Little Brother.”

Cherinita Ladd-Reese had plucked the manuscript from an assortment of spelling tests and history homework, surprised to discover her daughter’s charming take on how to navigate siblinghood. She encouraged Nia Mya to polish the text. As summer drifted toward fall, Nia Mya's draft began to look less like schoolwork and more like a real book.

Ms. Ladd-Reese thought it would be fun to self-publish it, but a call to Oklahoma-based Yorkshire Publishing gave her surprising news — they wanted to publish and market the book themselves. The slender, 32-page paperback climbed to the top of Amazon’s bestsellers faster than Nia Mya could lick the pink-and-teal icing off her eighth birthday cake.

Last year, Yorkshire published Nia Mya’s book on bullies, while she is working on a third, which focuses on sore losers. And the business-minded tween is always looking ahead. Nia Mya recently became a representative for Justice, a girls’ clothing company. She can often be seen sporting shirts with messages such as “Never stop dreaming big” and “I am a girl. That’s my superpower.” She wants to design a line of clothing and is sketching ideas.

“I think I was playing hopscotch at her age, and that was about as far as my vision went,” Cherinita says. “I told her I need a personal assistant just to keep up with her and help carry out the plans in her head.”

Cherinita works as an executive director at Faith Chapel in Birmingham, while Ronald is a real estate agent. They both help their daughter juggle opportunity with everyday third-grade life.

Harry Connick, Jr. featured the family on his talk show, giving Nia Mya and her brother, Ronald Michael, their first taste of New York. (The lights impressed her, she says, but the city smells like garbage.) CBS News interviewed her. Teachers asked her to speak to their classes. 

Cherinita tries to limit Nia Mya to no more than two events per month. Thursday nights are dedicated family time, and Sundays are reserved for church. “A lot of the principles people see in Nia Mya are not just words,” Cherinita says. “It’s thrilling when you see the lessons you’ve tried to instill coming out. I tell her that whenever God favors you or spotlights you, it’s never just for you, it’s so you can give something to others.”

Today, at Bluff Park, Nia Mya’s wireless mic refuses to stay looped over her ear. Finally, she gives up, holding it in front of her like a dandelion upon which she is about to make a wish.

“How annoying is your little brother on a scale of one to 10?” asks a student. 

“Ten,” Nia Mya says, grinning. “He gets on my last nerve sometimes, but he’s very sweet and playful.”

At the end of the presentation, Bluff Park second-grader Elodie Graham has a special request. She and three friends want Nia Mya to read a book they wrote, in which they come face to face with a bear. Nia Mya skims the story, smiles, and gives it back to the young author.

“She said she liked it!” Elodie says. “She didn’t have to look at it, but she did.”

As the students leave, Nia Mya gives her father a high five and flops dramatically onto a bean bag chair. “Phew!” she says, before jumping up and disappearing between the bookshelves, looking for something new to read. An irrepressible dreamer, Nia Mya is unfazed by the fruits of those dreams, even as they continue to manifest. She plans to write until she doesn’t want to write anymore, and then she wants to be a teacher.

“She’s a normal nine-year-old,” Ronald says. “She and her brother still disagree. She still wants to stay up late. But every child has something in them: Our job as parents is to notice it, cultivate it, and encourage it. Move out of the way and support it.”

REUTERS

Tony Elumelu, chairman of the Transnational Corporation of Nigeria, speaks in Abuja, in 2013.

Earlier this year, Africa received an image makeover with the release of the blockbuster superhero movie “Black Panther.” Far from being depicted as backward or poverty stricken, the fictional African country of Wakanda was shown as a technological marvel and a model for equality of the sexes.

But a more subtle point was that Africans themselves can be the biggest factor in shaping a bright future for the continent. Foreign aid and trade can do only so much. The best solutions are close to home. And one recent development shows how real Africans are becoming more like Wakandans. The continent now has its own versions of “Bill Gates” – billionaires committed to seeing the continent thrive through philanthropy.

Forbes magazine reckons there are now a dozen native African billionaires. One of them, Tony Elumelu of Nigeria, is dedicating $100 million through his TEF Entrepreneurship Program to finding and supporting young Africans with exciting business ideas. The 2018 group of more than 1,000 budding entrepreneurs was chosen from more than 150,000 applicants.

The commitment to helping one another has deep roots in Africa’s diverse cultures. The concept of “ubuntu” in the Zulu language translates roughly to “a person is a person through other people,” an acknowledgment that a universal bond of sharing connects humanity. “Ubuntu is the essence of being human,” South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu has said. “It speaks of the fact that my humanity is caught up and is inextricably bound up in yours.... It speaks about communities.”

According to a recent survey, Africans today are becoming more willing to help each other, bucking an unfortunate international trend in the opposite direction. The 2017 World Giving Index published by the Charities Aid Foundation measured three behaviors: helping a stranger, donating money to a charity, or volunteering time to an organization. Africa was the only continent to see an increase in all three of these giving behaviors.

Among the countries with the highest percentage of people who said they had helped a stranger, for example, Sierra Leone ranked No. 1, Kenya No. 4, and Liberia No. 5. The United States ranked No. 7. Among countries with the highest percentage of people who volunteered time to help others Kenya ranked No. 2, Liberia No. 4, and Sierra Leone No. 8. The US ranked No. 7.

Turning from passive acceptance of foreign aid to the dynamism of self-development is the future of the continent, says Ibrahim Assane Mayaki, chief executive officer of the South Africa-based New Partnership for Africa’s Development Planning and Coordinating Agency. “Africa today looks like what Asia and China did in the 1950s. If you look at most of the experts who were analyzing India and China in the 1950s, they were not very optimistic regarding the future.

“China and India didn’t develop with aid. They developed with their ideas and with their leadership. It allowed them to leapfrog and make huge progresses,” said Dr. Mayaki, a former prime minister of Niger, at a meeting of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation in Nairobi, Kenya, last month. (Mr. Ibrahim, who was born in Sudan, is another of Africa’s billionaires.) 

“Africa today is psychologically in that same position,” Mayaki continued. “We are more confident than before. We don’t think solutions will come from outside. We believe more in ourselves. And we believe regional solutions are important. This is the most important asset that we have.”

That could almost be a line from “Black Panther.”