2018
November
16
Friday

Monitor Daily Podcast

November 16, 2018
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Clayton Collins
Director of Editorial Innovation

The action seems to be picking up along a continuum that runs from disgruntlement to despair. We hear terms like “collective trauma.”

A recent mass shooting feels long ago, partly because of an impatient news cycle – watch for our take on how to avoid normalization of such violence – and partly because that event has been overlaid with others that contribute to a sense of malaise.

Hundreds of residents remain unaccounted for in California’s wildfire zone. We see news of victim-blaming in Ireland and of human rights perhaps imperiled inside the US-Saudi-Turkey triangle. Another fraught election plays out – still – in Florida. Charges mount that Facebook, a virtual second home for so many, failed to protect its digital citizens from bad actors peddling influence.

Where is the counterforce? In real community, some offer. It was door-knocking neighbors and local officials with bullhorns, for example, who warned many to flee ahead of fast-moving fires.

What hope for those who feel overwhelmed? A Highline story by Jason Cherkis this week explains how simple, undemanding outreach – by letter, by text – can subvert the “seductive logic” of suicidal thoughts for those who feel pushed that far down. One young caregiver, Ursula Whiteside, studied patients’ treatment histories and confirmed a recurring need. “Each one, she felt, was desperate for any form of help or kindness.”

The newsletter Daily Good offered another balm this morning. “Showing respect to individuals,” one source declared, “has a kind of healing power.”

Now to our five stories for your Friday, including a look at expanding long-held social definitions in the US, at reframing agricultural innovation in Ghana, and at harnessing the power of migration in Canada.


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Today’s stories

And why we wrote them

Simon Dawson/Reuters
Demonstrators unfurl a banner Nov. 15 from Westminster Bridge, beside the Houses of Parliament in London. The question of where Britain stands in relation to the rest of Europe casts a long shadow in this proud island nation.

A deeper look

Steven Senne/AP
Jeanne Talbot, left, and her transgender daughter, Nicole Talbot, 17, sit for a photograph at a park in Beverly, Mass., on Oct. 8. In the first major electoral test in a US state, Massachusetts voters upheld a 2016 state law that bars discrimination against transgender people in public accommodations, including restrooms and locker rooms.
Stacey Knott
Farmers on Daniel Asherow's pineapple farm in Adeiso, Ghana, watch as Valentine Kluste gets a drone ready to spray the crops. In 15 minutes, it can cover the same ground that would take five people an hour by conventional means.

The Monitor's View

Reuters
Former Khmer Rouge head of state Khieu Samphan stands inside a dock at the courtroom of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) as he awaits a verdict, on the outskirts of Phnom Penh, Cambodia, November 16.

A Christian Science Perspective

About this feature

A message of love

Juan Haro
Tuareg and Wodaabe herders join some 50,000 nomads in the remote city of Ingall, Niger, for the three-day Cure Salée festival. As the last rains of the season pass, thousands of herders flock to the salty land every year for this unique meeting of rural nomads. Many come from the Sahel to refresh and revitalize their livestock, share travel experiences, trade, and, in recent years, receive humanitarian aid. Ingall’s oases and saline soils provide food and fresh water for tired camels and cattle before they travel south to prepare for the dry season. (For more images, click on the blue button below.) –Juan Haro, contributor
( The illustrations in today’s Monitor Daily are by Karen Norris. )

A look ahead

Have a good weekend, and come back Monday. On the Move, our series about migration, continues from Niger. We’ll look at the progress and pitfalls of the European Union’s effort to tempt people away from the migrant trade through operations at its source.

Also, if I say “welcome to the bundle,” a few thousand of you will know what I mean. Now that you’re reading the digital Daily to supplement your print Weekly, consider a neat shortcut: Read here about how to quickly add a home-screen bookmark to your iPhone or Android phone. Puts you a thumb tap away from the current Daily (even before the email notification goes out). 

More issues

2018
November
16
Friday
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