J. Scott Applewhite/AP

The Supreme Court is seen at sunset in Washington. Vast changes in America and technology have dramatically altered how the census is conducted. But the accuracy of the once-a-decade population count is at the heart of the Supreme Court case over the Trump administration’s effort to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census.

“Is this person a citizen of the United States?”

That is the question at the heart of several others the U.S. Supreme Court asked Tuesday in a case concerning whether it is lawful for the Department of Commerce to include a question on citizenship in the 2020 census.

In an expanded 80-minute-long argument, the justices probed a technically complex and detailed case that could have broad and long-reaching consequences for millions of people around the country. While the core issues in the case concern the next census specifically, and the purpose of a once-a-decade census generally, the issues the justices took most interest in today examined how much deference courts should give executive agencies and their presumed expertise in areas like census-taking.

Several members of the high court, across the ideological spectrum, have expressed an interest in curbing the power of administrative agencies. In the argument this morning, however, the court’s five conservative justices sounded more accepting of the government’s argument that Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross didn’t overstep his authority in seeking to reinstate a citizenship question.

A dense, and unusual, factual record from the lower court caused some disagreement among the justices, however, in addition to the debate over whether Secretary Ross violated the authorities given him by Congress.

“A secretary can deviate from his experts’ recommendations and his experts’ bottom line conclusions,” said Justice Elena Kagan. “But the Secretary needs reasons to do that, and I searched the record and I don’t see any reason.”

The high court’s decision is likely to be one of the biggest of a relatively quiet term. Were the 2020 census to include a citizenship question, research by the Census Bureau found that the question would decrease responses from noncitizen households by at least 5.8%, leading to an undercount of approximately 6.5 million people – about the population of Tennessee.

An undercount of that size could mean that a half-dozen states, including California, Texas, and Florida, would lose congressional seats and Electoral College votes. Also, it could jeopardize hundreds of billions of dollars in federal funding to states for services that are used by all, such as health care and infrastructure. Polls, surveys, and decisions by businesses would also be affected, and since it would alter the census results, the consequences would be felt for a decade, if not longer.

“This is not just inside-the-Beltway business,” says Justin Levitt, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. “It’s the basis for [political] representation, and it’s become the basis for our informational infrastructure. It’s the basis for who we are.”

The U.S. Census Bureau, a nonpartisan agency, has not asked the question on the census since 1950 (though it has asked a small subset of the population in the annual American Community Survey). But Secretary Ross indicated he was reinstating it after the Department of Justice said it needed “a reliable calculation of the citizen voting-age population” to better enforce the Voting Rights Act. Several states and nonprofit groups filed lawsuits challenging the move.

What followed was a legal fight over what information the Commerce Department had to turn over in court, followed by a trial. In mid-January, a federal judge in New York ruled that Mr. Ross had violated the Administrative Procedure Act by using a dubious excuse – the DOJ voting rights request – for reinstating the question. In early March, a federal judge in California ruled that a citizenship question was unconstitutional, and a federal judge in Maryland ruled the same in early April.

With the 2020 census form needing to be finalized by late June, the high court took the rare step of agreeing to hear it before an appeals court did.

Partisan lines

How the justices choose to interpret what the district court learned will be significant, and different interpretations became apparent almost immediately during today’s oral argument.

When U.S. Solicitor General Noel Francisco, arguing for the Commerce Department, opened by saying that a citizenship question had been asked on the census “for nearly 200 years,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor immediately cut him off.

“I’m sorry, it has not been a part of the survey since 1950,” she said. “And for 65 years, every Secretary of the Department of Commerce, every statistician, including this Secretary’s statistician, recommended against asking the question.”

Several questions on demographics were taken off the census around that time, Solicitor General Francisco said, but were asked on other Census Bureau surveys. A citizenship question has been asked on the American Community Survey, an annual survey sent to a subset of the population, since 2005.

Thus, he said, Mr. Ross “reasonably chose” by reinstating a citizenship question to the census.

Several justices sounded skeptical, referencing the Census Bureau estimate of non-response rates if a citizenship question is included. Mr. Ross “is told by the Census Bureau in three studies that if you ask this question on the regular form, you will get back fewer answers,” said Justice Stephen Breyer.

Justice Sotomayor referenced emails revealed in the lower court that showed how, prior to the DOJ requesting a citizenship question, the Commerce Department approached the DOJ about coming up with a reason for asking it. The DOJ said to ask the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, who in turn said it should talk with the DOJ, according to the emails.

“If the Department of Justice refused to listen to that, how can the Secretary conclude he’s complying with” the Census Act, added Justice Sotomayor. “This is a solution in search of a problem.”

Solicitor General Francisco expressed a different view of the lower court record. “There’s no evidence in this record,” he said, “that the Secretary would have asked had the Department of Justice not requested it.”

‘Is it arbitrary and capricious?’

When Barbara Underwood, the solicitor general for the state of New York, presented her argument for why reinstating the question violated federal law, Chief Justice John Roberts was the first to jump in. Wouldn’t a citizenship question help with enforcing the Voting Rights Act?

No, replied Solicitor General Underwood, since the Census Bureau had said that, due to the likely effect on response rates, a citizenship question would provide less accurate data.

"The Census Bureau says, ‘We're going to create a model ... trust us,’” said Justice Samuel Alito. “Is it arbitrary and capricious” – a standard at which Mr. Ross would be breaking the law – “for the secretary to say, ‘I’ll go with [the question]’?”

Both Justices Roberts and Alito ruled in favor of striking down part of the Voting Rights Act in the Shelby v. Holder decision, so “it is ironic” that they “are now eager for its enforcement,” Jennifer Nou, an administrative law professor at the University of Chicago Law School, said in an email. “It is also worth noting that the Trump Administration has thus far brought exactly zero Section 2 Voting Rights Act cases thus far – further suggesting pretext.”

Both Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh echoed Solicitor General Francisco’s point that many other countries, including Germany and Australia, ask about citizenship in their census. The United Nations also recommends countries ask about citizenship on their census, Justice Kavanaugh said.

“It’s certainly useful information for a country to have,” replied Solicitor General Underwood. “The question is whether it should be collected on [the survey] whose principal function is to count the population, when we have such strong evidence that it will depress that count.”

About that constitutional question ...

There were only a few occasions when the constitutionality of reinstating a citizenship question surfaced. The sixth sentence of the founding document charges the federal government shall make an “actual enumeration” of people in the country every 10 years. It is the first job the Constitution gives the government, before taxation, war powers, and making laws.

The high court prefers to avoid rulings on constitutional grounds when it can. Plus the lower court decision at question in this case found that the Commerce Department hadn’t violated the Constitution. Still Professor Nou says she is “surprised at how little attention the constitutional argument received.”

“The Court certainly seemed divided along partisan lines, suggesting a 5-4 decision in favor of allowing a citizenship question on the census,” she adds, impacting elections for the next decade.

“When the executive branch makes a decision with electoral consequences, it’s a good idea for courts to serve as a stronger check,” she continues. “If the Supreme Court fails to do so here, it will continue to be perceived as a partisan body.”

Sri Lanka held a day of mourning Tuesday and began to bury the dead from Sunday’s multiple bombings of churches and hotels. Authorities said suicide bombers targeted Easter worshippers and foreign tourists, killing 321 people and wounding hundreds more – making it Asia’s deadliest terrorist attack in decades.

On Easter morning, as much of the world woke up to news of the attack, the tragedy seemed to fit an all too familiar pattern: one more massacre against a religious community that would heighten interfaith tensions. By Tuesday, the Islamic State (ISIS) had claimed responsibility and Sri Lanka was framing the attack as payback for New Zealand’s Christchurch massacres last month, when dozens of Muslim worshippers were shot dead by a white supremacist.

But experts are cautioning that much is still unknown about the Sri Lanka actors and their motivations and planning. Then there’s the question of how Sri Lanka fumbled intelligence warnings about an attack on Christian targets, and why Sri Lanka itself is, in some ways, an unlikely site for an ISIS attack.

Why would Sri Lanka become a target for ISIS?

Sri Lanka is a majority Buddhist country with a Muslim minority estimated at 10%. But its political fault lines have long been ethnic, not religious, primarily between the Sinhalese majority and Tamil minority, which is mostly Hindu and Christian. Of all the countries where Christians and Muslims have been violently at odds, Sri Lanka ranks low on the list.

Sri Lankan Tamil militants fought for an independent state for three decades, until the defeat of the Tamil Tiger group in 2009. Muslims were targeted by both sides during a brutal war that tore the country apart, including terrorist attacks and assassinations of civilian leaders.

Since then, social tensions have continued, including attacks by Sinhalese-Buddhists on Muslims – often fomented by militant Buddhist groups with political patrons. Authorities have warned of creeping radicalization among Muslims, and in 2016, a justice minister said that 32 Sri Lankan Muslims had traveled to Syria to join ISIS. More recently, Islamists were accused of destroying Buddhist statues.

Still, such sectarian tensions are all too common in South Asia. They don’t explain the scale and sophistication of Sunday’s attacks – or the targeting of Christian communities. Local Islamic militants had been focused on Buddhists and secular Muslims, not Christians or vacationers in Sri Lanka’s booming tourism industry.

Experts say ISIS militants returning from Syria could have brought back an anti-Christian agenda, but would have needed a local network to carry out any attacks.

Sri Lanka’s government has accused two hitherto obscure local Islamist groups of involvement, possibly with ISIS support. But that raises more questions: Did the bombers travel overseas to train for the attacks? Who funded them? Why did they not attack Sinhalese Buddhist targets?

Police have so far detained 40 suspects and begun to identify bombers captured on security cameras, which is likely to reveal their network and how they prepared the attacks. It’s possible that they pulled off the coordinated attacks alone. But that’s a big leap from defacing Buddhas.

How could Sri Lanka have ignored the warnings?

Missed intelligence nuggets before major terrorist attacks aren’t unknown. Security forces often struggle to pinpoint specific threats and may be stretched by other ongoing investigations. What is unusual in Sri Lanka is that specific threats were relayed and that local officials have since provided details to news outlets, effectively calling out the government for failing to respond.

A police circular from April 11 translated by The New York Times warns of a plot to bomb Catholic churches and cites a particular Islamist group and the location of its plotters. (A government minister had tweeted the circular on Sunday in an apparent protest.) The Times and other newspapers have reported that the United States and India had warned Sri Lanka in recent weeks about possible suicide bombings on the island.

President Maithripala Sirisena has called for an investigation into the failure to respond to advance warnings of Sunday’s attacks. This may be fruitful, but it’s already clear that political divisions within the ruling coalition are hobbling governance in Sri Lanka.

The president triggered a crisis last October when he sacked his prime minister and replaced him with Mahinda Rajapaksa, the wartime president whom he succeeded in 2015. The prime minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe, refused to go and eventually prevailed after two months of chaos, but Mr. Rajapaksa remains a powerful player.

The feud between the president and prime minister speaks to the dysfunction that left churches unguarded on Easter, despite warnings of their vulnerability. Health Minister Rajith Senaratne has said that Mr. Wickremesinghe didn’t see the police report. Did Mr. Sirisena?

Writing in The Guardian, British-Sri Lankan academic and peace activist Farah Mihlar noted that postwar politics has sidelined justice for victims and national reconciliation. “The cycles of violence experienced in Sri Lanka’s recent history may be distinct, but they are connected by a thread of state failures, impunity, lack of justice and disregard for human rights.”

Minorities voted in 2015 to oust Mr. Rajapaksa, seen as a Sinhalese nationalist, and replace him with the current government, which makes its divisions and incompetence even more painful, Mr. Mihlar wrote.

Is there a connection with the Christchurch attacks?

Sri Lanka’s state defense minister Ruwan Wijewardene told parliament on Tuesday that the government had information possibly linking the bombings to the March 15 mosque massacres in Christchurch, New Zealand. While he didn’t give details, his comment is likely to fuel speculation of an Islamist retaliation, in effect depicting Sri Lanka as payback for Christchurch.

Given the level of planning required for multiple suicide attacks in different cities, that timeline seems suspicious. Similar large-scale attacks have reportedly taken months to prepare.

More likely is that the Easter attacks were already in the works and that Christchurch may have convinced a few waverers to join. But that’s not the same as a retaliatory attack. And Mr. Wijewardene may have reason to muddy the waters – and deflect blame – after a systemic government failure. ISIS, meanwhile, has every reason to claim that it was responsible.

“It seems that of late they’re just claiming anything they can,” says Gary LaFree, a criminologist at the University of Maryland and founder of the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, or START.

Mr. LaFree helped create START’s widely consulted terrorism database, which goes back to 1970. He points to a wave of terrorist incidents since 2002 that peaked in 2014 and has since fallen, despite high-profile attacks like those in Sri Lanka. While Sunday’s bombings were particularly deadly, the global trend in terms of fatalities and number of incidents offers some encouragement. “It’s been falling for three years and pretty substantially,” he says.

Who should rule Sudan?

More than a week after nationwide civilian protests led to the military ouster of Sudanese strongman Omar al-Bashir, ending his 30-year reign, the military and protesters camped out in front of the army’s headquarters in Khartoum remain deadlocked.

Previously, the army had positioned itself on the side of the civilians, as unrest that started in December over economic conditions grew into nationwide protests over Mr. Bashir’s grip on power.

On April 11, the army pressured him to step down, arresting members of his Islamist National Congress Party and assuming control over the country as an “interim” ruling military council.

But Sunday, on the night the opposition was set to announce a new civilian government, talks between activists and the military broke down. And that is raising concerns among pro-democracy forces that the Sudanese army, now buoyed by the deep-pocketed support of a Saudi Arabia-United Arab Emirates alliance, has little intention of handing over power and is answering only to the alliance’s anti-revolution agenda.

After decades on the periphery of Arab politics, Sudan has suddenly been catapulted into the front lines of the battle between two conflicting movements shaping the region: popular protests for democracy and freedom versus a counterrevolution to restore authoritarian order.

The Gulf alliance

The roots of the pro-authoritarian alliance can be traced to the Arab Spring of 2011, when the oil- and gas-rich Gulf monarchies were caught off-guard by popular uprisings that brought protests right to their palace gates.

Determined to push back for their regimes’ survival and regional influence, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, analysts and insiders say, have been backing strongmen and groups in recently ‘liberated’ Arab states, undermining democratic gains.

The alliance’s strategic goals are twofold: to edge out regional rivals Qatar, Turkey, and Iran and to prevent political movements, particularly Islamists, from taking root and challenging Gulf policies and legitimacy.

The Saudi-UAE campaign has won either Western support or indifference by framing the narrative as a choice between Islamists and chaos or military strongmen and stability.

“As of now they have been more successful in their counterrevolutions than the revolutionaries were themselves. The UAE and Saudi have been completely free to roll back freedoms achieved across the Arab world,” says Andreas Krieg, a lecturer in security studies at King’s College London.

The campaign’s first success was in Egypt, where the Saudis, the UAE, and their allies quietly pledged support to Field Marshal Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, then the defense minister. He later staged a coup ousting Mohammed Morsi, a democratically elected Islamist president, in a move initially welcomed by large swathes of the Egyptian public.

After Mr. Sisi was installed as president, the extent of Gulf support become clear: Saudi Arabia agreed to provide more than $16 billion to Egypt, while the UAE granted billions in investment and military support.

Since 2014, Egypt has been the staunchest supporter of the Saudi-UAE axis, backing its war in Yemen and blockade of Qatar.

In Libya, three years after the revolution, the Gulf alliance began backing rogue general Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, who is now launching a siege of Tripoli and the U.N.-backed government with Gulf military support and funding.

Riyadh and Abu Dhabi have also actively courted figures and parties in Tunisia, the Arab world’s lone functional democracy, and are attempting to align themselves with the military ruling elite in Algeria.

Rapid response

In Sudan now, protesters and activists say the Gulf bloc is intervening rapidly. The UAE and Saudi Arabia were the first states to comment on Mr. Bashir’s ouster, saying they “stand by the Sudanese people.”

Already the alliance has close ties to the emerging military leadership. Lt. Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, who was named president of the transitional military council, led the contingent of Sudanese armed forces supporting the Gulf coalition in Yemen.

Gen. Mohammed Hamdan, his second-in-command, also allegedly participated in the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen and reportedly has direct support from Riyadh.  

Umit Bektas/Reuters

Protesters tear down a banner with a picture of Sudan's head of the transitional council, Lt. Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and pictures of Sudanese soldiers and protesters together minutes after it was draped on a railroad bridge near the Defense Ministry in Khartoum April 20.

Their appointments were met with food and oil “humanitarian aid” from Saudi Arabia and, according to activists and observers, streams of money to the military council from the Gulf to help pay salaries.

Last Tuesday, delegations from Saudi Arabia and the UAE visited Khartoum and met with General Burhan. Sunday, the UAE and Saudi Arabia announced a $3 billion aid package.

The Gulf states argue that stability in their fellow Sunni Arab state is in the common interests of the region.

But observers and protesters say the Gulf is already influencing the ruling military council’s decisions: The military council has declared Sudan’s continued participation in the war in Yemen and reportedly scrapped an agreement allowing Turkey to establish a military base and operate the Red Sea port of Suakin. Sudan was also reportedly pressured to turn back an attempted visit by a Qatari government delegation.

More alarming to activists, the military council has extended a purge of Mr. Bashir’s inner circle to a wider crackdown on Sudanese Islamists, jailing figures with suspected links to Qatar and Turkey.

‘Prize’ of North Africa

At stake in Sudan is a nexus of the Gulf bloc’s interests. Not only does Sudan provide one of the largest contingents for the war in Yemen, but it also helps provide the arid Gulf states with food security. Saudi Arabia currently leases more than one million acres of agricultural land in East Sudan, while Emirati and Bahraini companies have leased tens of thousands of acres for decades.

Yet the greatest prize in Sudan may be its 530 miles of Red Sea coast. Key is the Bab al-Mandeb strait, the 20-mile-wide stretch of ocean between the Horn of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula linking the Mediterranean to the Red Sea and Indian Ocean through Egypt’s Suez Canal.

It is the route through which one-tenth of the world’s crude is shipped.

Control of the Sudanese coast would give the UAE-Saudi axis unparalleled control of shipping routes, not only securing Gulf oil exports to the West but also the ability to shut out Iranian exports.

In Sudan, the alliance also sees an opportunity to stamp out one of the last safe havens for opposition Islamist movements in the region.

Under Mr. Bashir, Sudan hosted Islamist movements of various stripes, including the Muslim Brotherhood, the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and even Al Qaeda, once harboring Osama bin Laden himself.

Karen Norris/Staff

Backlash

With tens of thousands of Sudanese still camped out in front of the army headquarters in Khartoum, slogans have turned to pointed warnings to Gulf states, who some fear will “hijack our revolution.”

“When Bashir was supplying troops to their wars, Saudi and the Emirates did not stand with the Sudanese people against his oppression, arrests, and killings. They were silent,” says Othman, a Sudanese activist from Khartoum who preferred that his full name not be used. “Now the winds have changed and they claim to be on our side, but they only want to profit from our revolution.”

Magdi el-Gizouli, Sudan analyst and fellow at the Nairobi-based Rift Valley Institute, says that across the region the Gulf alliance is interested in stable authoritarians. “The Egyptian model is their preferred option,” he says. “Democracy is the last thing on their mind, and people in the streets are aware of this.”

Protests against Gulf involvement in Arab affairs have not been confined to Sudan.

In Algeria, where weeks of popular protests brought down President Abdelaziz Bouteflika in March and continue to pressure the military and political elites, the UAE and Saudi Arabia have been the popular targets of chants.

Algerian protesters have held up banners reading “Down with Emirates, down with the regime,” while thousands of Algerians have taken to social media to warn of alleged Gulf designs and troll Saudi and Emirati figures.

In Libya, thousands gathered in Tripoli on Friday to protest the siege of the capital by General Haftar, singling out Saudi Arabia and the UAE, along with France, for fueling the conflict, holding up signs such as “No to Gulf wars.”

By putting themselves front and center, analysts say, the UAE and Saudi Arabia risk alienating the Arab street to the detriment of their patrons.

“One of the worst things for the Sudan military right now is to appear to the public as a proxy for the UAE and Saudi Arabia, because the meddling of the two countries in Egypt and Libya is fresh in everyone’s minds,” says Mr. Krieg, the analyst. 

Power of the purse

In both Algeria and Sudan, protesters remain in the streets, pressing to ensure that full, democratic political transitions are followed through without intervention.

Yet demands for freedom, an end to corruption, economic prosperity, and a greater say in decision-making may collide with those countries’ economic crises, analysts warn.

“Even if a civilian government is granted authority, its ability to change the situation is limited,” says Mr. Gizouli, the Sudan analyst. “It will face the fact that the government is bankrupt, wholly dependent on foreign support, and face tens of thousands of protesters who want higher salaries and subsidies.”

“The only money available is from Gulf countries, and it comes with difficult conditions.”

About an hour from the U.S.-Mexico border, in St. David, Arizona, something new is growing in the desert: hope.

Mental health has been a focus for this town of fewer than 2,000. Melanie Larson, the nurse for the St. David Unified School District, says many students experience anxiety and depression. Two counselors support them, but each comes in only once a week. The rest of the time, Ms. Larson serves as both nurse and counselor to a student body of about 420.

A few years ago, after two St. David adults – one a recent high school graduate – died by suicide in close succession, the district enlisted the help of Hope Squad. The national organization trains selected students to watch their peers for suicide warning signs and refer those at risk to professionals. St. David is the first district to enlist the approach in Arizona, tapping Ms. Larson as the coordinator.  

Peer counseling isn’t a new concept – hope squads were born two decades ago. But the idea is steadily emerging as one approach to meeting mental health needs in both K-12 and higher education. Students can’t tackle every problem their peers experience, but they can help ease the pressure on professionals for basic services – especially in high-needs and rural districts.

“We definitely have schools that are seeing the relationship between trauma, bullying … perfectionism, and mental health disorders,” says Jennifer Wright-Berryman, suicidologist at the University of Cincinnati and lead researcher for Hope Squad.

“All those things can contribute to suicidality. And now that schools are becoming wiser to those variable relationships, they’re like ‘Wait we really need to focus on getting some suicide prevention into our schools,’” she says.

Nearly all of the teens recently surveyed by the Pew Research Center reported anxiety and depression as problems for people their age in their communities. While mental health awareness is growing nationally, school counseling services haven’t kept pace. The American School Counselor Association recommends a ratio of 250 students for every one counselor. Except for Montana, New Hampshire, and Vermont, all states exceed that rate, and Arizona tops the charts with an average of 758:1, according to a recent report from the American Civil Liberties Union.

“Many students that go into the counseling department just need to talk. They don’t necessarily need professional help,” says Dr. Wright-Berryman.

Peer counseling can help “take some of that workload off of counselors that might otherwise see those kids,” she says.

Learning to step in

It isn’t difficult for high school sophomore Kason Jacquez to spot those kids. They might be visibly upset, or spending all of their time alone – or maybe they just don’t ever accept a compliment. Before Hope Squad came to St. David, he often noticed them.

“You could walk in the hallway and be able to pick out people pretty easily … during practices and things like that and you could just see people that were struggling,” he says in a phone interview.

But Kason didn’t always know what he could do to help. He has experience with mental illness in his own family – he says his aunt had depression and ultimately died by suicide. When Hope Squad came to his school, his classmates nominated him for the program.  

The group meets weekly, offering guidance on how to approach someone in need and when to reach out for assistance from an adult.

Not every conversation needs to start by talking about mental health. Sometimes, Kason says, he begins by saying, “‘How are you?’ or ‘You know, I haven’t heard you laugh in a while,’ or just complimenting them to get them at ease.”  

Breaking stigmas

The Young Adult Connect Initiative, organized by the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) in New Hampshire, is spreading similar skills. For almost a decade, the organization has been training high schoolers across the country to pay attention to the social-emotional well-being of their classmates. It's now in its second year extending the training to young adults up to age 25.

Ann Duckless, NAMI New Hampshire’s community educator and prevention specialist, says she’s encouraged by how younger people seem more open to discussing suicide.

The newest generation of adults is more susceptible to mental health issues, she says. ”Part of that is really the connectedness to technology and just the stress of 2019.”

But on the other hand, they “are so much more savvy and sophisticated on these issues. ... They have a much better understanding of mental health, substance use, and suicide risk than previous generations,” she says.  

The Westgate Community School, a K-12 charter school in Thornton, Colorado, has begun its own peer counseling program, started by the assistant principal for grades 7 through 12, Amanda Novak. She helps connect students of all ages with trained high school mentors.

Her program aims to make counseling interactions feel more informal – although Ms. Novak or other adults still supervise. The group, now four years old, has become so established that many mentees have it listed in their Individualized Education Program (IEP) as a special social-emotional accommodation. Some have even become mentors themselves.

Persistent challenges

But peer counseling can ultimately only go so far. The mental health needs facing many school districts extend beyond students’ abilities, says Amir Whitaker, staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California.

“The fact that we’re even talking about peer counseling just shows the lack of investment,” says Dr. Whitaker. In other countries, “they’re probably making enough investment to where there are enough professionals to meet the needs of students.”

He does still support evidence-based peer counseling, but argues fixing professional shortages will take reprioritizing mental health funding.

Dr. Whitaker’s report points out that while schools reported a 5% increase in the number of counselors to the National Center for Education Statistics from 1999 to 2015, students reported a 15% increase in the number of security guards and police during the same time.

Ms. Novak agrees that comprehensive mental health services extend far beyond peer counseling. Meeting with students who have severe needs, working on IEP requirements, and completing suicide risk assessments all fall to trained professionals exclusively. Peer counselors can’t ease those burdens.

Despite the obstacles, many students still report that peer counseling is helping push a necessary cultural shift. Recently the St. David hope squad organized a spirit week, where students dressed in wacky outfits each day of the week to drum up excitement around improving mental health.

This year, it couldn’t compete with homecoming. But the squad is still optimistic.

“There’s good things in life,” says Kason. “I can make a difference for those people that are struggling.”

If you are in crisis please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-Talk (8255) or text TALK to 741-741.

Mother Earth Foundation Philippines

San Fernando, Philippines, is touted as a model city for solid waste management. While once common to see trash dumped into the streets, officials and residents of the city of more than 300,000 have cooperated to divert 80% of trash from landfills.

In recent years, new technologies and initiatives have attempted to address one of humanity’s worst contributions to this planet: trash.

But for the city of San Fernando, north of Manila in the Philippines, addressing the problem goes beyond the latest innovation to hit the market.

Between 2012 and 2018, the city increased the percentage of trash diverted from landfills from 12% to 80%, a feat many local governments can only dream about. Instead of going to dumpsites or, worse, into waterways, most of the waste collected in the city now becomes compost or is sold for recycling.

But becoming an almost litter-free city was a long process. “We are not just fighting waste. We are fighting mindsets, culture,” says Regina Rodriguez, who manages the city’s environment and natural resources office.

A 2018 World Bank report revealed that nearly 2 billion metric tons (2.2 billion U.S. tons) of solid waste was generated worldwide in 2016 – a number that could increase to 3.4 billion metric tons (3.7 billion U.S. tons) by 2050, damaging mostly developing countries.

“In low-income countries, over 90% of waste is often disposed in unregulated dumps or openly burned. These practices create serious health, safety, and environmental consequences,” the report said.

The Philippines, one of the biggest contributors of plastic pollution in the oceans, produced over 14 million metric tons (15 million U.S. tons) of waste in 2016. Only 28% was recycled.

Almost two decades since the country passed the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act, which required the establishment of materials recovery facilities (MRF) in every village across the country, full compliance has yet to be achieved.

The MRFs were supposed to receive mixed waste for sorting, segregation, composting, and recycling, with the residual waste transferred to a long-term storage or disposal facility, or sanitary landfill. But some public officials claimed the law was not economically viable, especially for low-income municipalities.  

Froilan Grate, president of the Filipino nonprofit Mother Earth Foundation (MEF), feels otherwise. “What you need is support from all sectors,” he says, stressing the importance of political will and commitment from local officials.

In 2012, the local government of San Fernando tapped the MEF to implement a zero waste strategy in the city of more than 300,000. It was a long and grueling effort. Across the city, solid waste unceremoniously dumped in the streets was a common sight, recalls Ms. Rodriguez, saying that at the time, many thought it was impossible to solve.

Six years later, San Fernando is touted as one of the world’s model cities in terms of waste management.

Mr. Grate attributes the initiative’s success to a combination of local government support, strict implementation of policies, and a robust educational campaign for households.

“There are a few key aspects,” he says. “No. 1 is political will. Everyone from the mayor down to the village officials must want to do it. … It is also critical to involve the villagers. In other local government units, garbage collection is very centralized. You have to empower the people so they take part in it.”

He underscores the need for funds to implement the programs, a legal requirement that is widely overlooked in the rest of the country. And while the programs may seem expensive at first, Mr. Grate notes the long-term savings.

“San Fernando’s initial investment was around 2 million Philippine pesos (nearly $38,000). Now, the savings that come from diverting waste from landfills is roughly 50 million pesos (nearly $970,000) every year,” he says.

Over time, Ms. Rodriguez says, local neighborhoods and schools in the city have established their own MRFs. The city now has more than 100 waste treatment facilities in its 35 villages, many more than the minimum one per village required by law.

Rene Lasca, president of a local homeowners’ association, says their decision to have their own MRF in the neighborhood contributes to the city’s waste management efforts. It also enables them to sell recyclables and compost, as well as foster camaraderie among neighbors.

In addition to major policies, which include a total ban on plastic and polystyrene, the city has also initiated short-term programs, such as collective cleanups, to ensure the initiative remains at the forefront of people’s minds.

“No policy can be successful if people do not comply,” says Ms. Rodriguez. She notes that making sure residents separate waste at home was one of the major challenges they had to address at the beginning. They did so through information campaigns urging citizens to respect the law.

“It is tiring, but you cannot give up because you know it is necessary. … You are not just changing their daily routines, you are changing mindsets, perceptions, and sometimes even traditions,” she adds.

Now, all households follow segregation policies and separate waste into three types: biodegradable, recyclable, and residual. Some even have their own compost pits.

Walking around San Fernando, it is difficult to imagine that solid waste once used to litter its streets.

Across the country, other local government units have started to follow the city’s example, working with groups such as the MEF to improve their waste management.

“It is a difficult problem to address,” Mr. Grate says. “But the case of San Fernando shows that at the local level, there is something that can be done and that it is possible to do it.”

This story was produced in conjunction with Earth Beats, a Sparknews collaboration highlighting environmental solutions for Earth Day.

AP

President-elect Volodymyr Zelenskiy gestures to supporters at his campaign headquarters after winning the April 21 election.

Until last Sunday when it elected a new president, Ukraine held a dubious world title. Only 9% percent of Ukrainians had faith in their government, the lowest in any democracy. In other former Soviet states, the level of trust is 48%. What’s more, Ukraine is one of the most corrupt and poorest nations in Europe.

With a reputation like that and possibly setting an example for other Soviet states, voters in Ukraine elected a total newcomer to politics, comedian Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who had only played a president on a popular TV show. In the reality of a campaign, he inspired enough trust to win nearly three-quarters of the ballots. And he beat an incumbent president, Petro Poroshenko, who was seen as part of an entrenched elite that, while it stood up to Russian aggression, failed to change a political system that worsened poverty.

The choice of a novice to lead Ukraine reveals just how much voters want clean governance. “I am not a politician, I’m just a person, a simple person, who came to break this system,” Mr. Zelenskiy said of his victory.

To a large degree, however, Ukraine’s democratic system did work. Compared with other Soviet states, especially Russia, it held a competitive election and removed a sitting president who conceded gracefully and who will allow a peaceful transition of power. “To all the countries of the former Soviet Union: Look at us – everything is possible,” Mr. Zelenskiy said.

In addition, Ukraine is now the only country outside of Israel to have both a Jewish president and a Jewish prime minister (Volodymyr Groysman). For a country with a history of anti-Semitism, this is quite a feat. And it contradicts Russian propaganda that Ukraine is run by neo-Nazis.

Humor helped the neophyte candidate gain widespread trust. When a right-wing politician hinted that Mr. Zelenskiy was less than patriotic by being a Jew, he disarmed his opponent by threatening to “unleash” his Jewish mother on him. On the serious side of the campaign, it was his promises to speed up anti-corruption efforts that won over voters.

Since a pro-democracy, anti-Russia uprising in 2014 that brought Mr. Poroshenko to power, Ukraine has made only small steps against corruption, mostly out of pressure from international creditors. Mr. Zelenskiy plans to install reformers in anti-corruption bodies and bring transparency to military spending. And if he can dominate an election for a new parliament this fall, he plans to end the current immunity for lawmakers.

Ukraine’s best defense against Russia’s heavy hand in its affairs is clean governance and open elections. If Mr. Zelenskiy can maintain the trust put in him by voters, he will not only liberate his country from Moscow’s influence but end its low ranking as a country of little trust in government. As a TV star, his wit won him the trust of the people. Now he must keep it as president.