2020
January
29
Wednesday

Monitor Daily Podcast

January 29, 2020
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Mark Sappenfield
Senior global correspondent

Today’s stories explore a deeper ethical question in the impeachment trial, details of President Trump’s Mideast peace plan, Brexit’s challenge in cutting global ties, the perils of a communication blackout in Kashmir, and unexpected outbursts of friendship in Iowa.

But first, let’s look forward to this weekend.

Ahead of the Super Bowl, consider this. The real game will be the mind game. Just watch the offense of the Kansas City Chiefs. It’s a symphony of misdirection, intended to befuddle and bewitch more than bludgeon.

The game is more mental than it’s ever been. This week, the Cleveland Browns hired a 32-year-old Harvard grad to run their football operations. His boss? A Harvard grad known as an analytics guru. Forget three yards and a cloud of dust, think three Ivy League grads and a cloud of spreadsheets.

Baseball started the trend, first with “Moneyball” and more recently with infield shifts, WAR, and the death of the starting pitcher. Basketball followed with its analytics-based three-point revolution, and hockey has added Corsi and zone starts to prove, once and for all, that fighting really is stupid.

If you don’t understand any of that, just know this. Last Super Bowl, Patriots coach Bill Belichick essentially beat the Los Angeles Rams by out-thinking them. His superpower has always been in unorthodox schemes and strategies. And in a league where so much is equal, teams are learning that innovative thinking is the ultimate unequalizer.


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Today’s stories

And why we wrote them

Ng Han Guan/AP/File
Vice President Joe Biden waves as he walks out of Air Force Two with his granddaughter Finnegan Biden and son Hunter Biden at the airport in Beijing Dec. 4, 2013.

The Explainer

Patterns

Tracing global connections
Danish Ismail/Reuters/File
A Kashmiri girl rides her bicycle past Indian security force personnel standing guard in front of closed shops in a street in Srinagar, Oct. 30, 2019.

A letter from

Colorado
Story Hinckley/The Christian Science Monitor
Alex Neumann (right), a recent college graduate from California, refers to Art Tellin, an octogenarian from North Liberty, Iowa, as one of his best friends. "I hope Iowa has been good to Alex," says Mr. Tellin. "You can't help but like the kid."

The Monitor's View

Reuters
Grounded Boeing 737 MAX aircraft are seen parked at Boeing Field in Seattle, Washington, July 1.

A Christian Science Perspective

About this feature

A message of love

Yves Herman/Reuters
Members of the European Parliament marked the U.K.'s exit by singing “Auld Lang Syne” after voting in favor of the withdrawal agreement at the European Parliament in Brussels on Jan. 29, 2020. Britain is scheduled to leave the EU Friday.
( The illustrations in today’s Monitor Daily are by Jacob Turcotte. )

A look ahead

Thank you for joining us today. Please come back tomorrow when our Stephen Humphries looks into the earnest and passionate debate over the novel “American Dirt” and the questions of cultural appropriation. Who gets to tell someone’s story?

More issues

2020
January
29
Wednesday
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