2022
June
15
Wednesday

Monitor Daily Podcast

June 15, 2022
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Scientists have been listening to dolphins in the waters around New York City. And they’re hearing the sounds of a maritime revival – a staccato of hope. 

A new study led by Columbia University and the Wildlife Conservation Society confirms dolphins are returning to New York Harbor, drawn by a plentiful supply of food, in this case, bunker fish. Researchers dropped underwater microphones into various spots around NYC waters, partly to calculate the scale of the rebound. Dolphins find their meals via echolocation. When the frisky mammals are hunting and eating, their clicks create, to the human ear, a foraging buzz. And these researchers heard a lot of bottlenose buzz. 

In recent years, the dolphins have been joined by humpback whales frolicking offshore, at the busiest seaport on the East Coast. This cetacean comeback, say scientists, may be partly due to climate change and is likely the result of cleaner coastal waters.

The harbor is cleaner today than it’s been in nearly 110 years, according to a 2019 report by New York City’s Department of Environmental Protection. A shift in federal and state laws as well as attitudes is credited with making the waters more hospitable to marine life. The dumping of toxic chemicals and human waste into the harbor has largely stopped. Annual coastal cleanup events now draw thousands of volunteers. Thanks to the Billion Oyster Project, bivalves, which act as natural water filters, are also making a comeback. 

Humans are also taking advantage of the tidal shift. A new 5½-acre park, including Manhattan’s first public beach, is being built on the Hudson River.

We’re changing a lot of perceptions about what people think about the New York, New Jersey Harbor estuary,” Howard Rosenbaum, director of the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Ocean Giants Program, told the Gothamist.

Indeed, the waters of New York City now credibly offer a portrait of maritime resilience, natural vibrancy, and restored beauty.


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Today's stories

And why we wrote them

Jabin Botsford/Reuters
The nine-member Jan. 6 committee arrives on the dais ahead of a June 13, 2022, hearing. From left, Democratic Reps. Adam Schiff and Zoe Lofgren, both of California; Chairman Bennie Thompson of Mississippi; Vice Chair Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, the committee's two Republicans; and Democratic Reps. Jamie Raskin of Maryland and Elaine Luria of Virginia.

Our reporter explores whether the evidence presented so far in the Jan 6 committee hearings constitutes legal wrongdoing by former President Donald Trump or simply implicit encouragement of the Capitol riot.

Patterns

Tracing global connections

The perseverance of Western allies supporting Ukraine is being tested. In the face of rising inflation, our London columnist asks, will the determination to defend a democracy against Russian aggression hold?

The Explainer

Here’s another take on inflation, this time from a gas pump perspective. Our reporter offers an impartial look at the causes of high gas prices and how that might change buying habits.

SOURCE:

U.S. Energy Information Administration

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Karen Norris/Staff
Ismael Francisco/AP/File
Part of a shipment of humanitarian aid from Mexico is unloaded in Havana on July 30, 2021. The donations of food, oxygen, and medical supplies were sent to help counteract the severe economic crisis affecting the island nation.

Amid the shortages of food and other essentials in Cuba, our reporter finds a spirit of creative solidarity, a community approach to seeking solutions, and a willingness to put compassion above profits. 

Yui Mok/PA-IMAGES/Reuters/File
Kate Bush fan John O’Connor, arrives early for the singer’s “Before the Dawn” concert in 2014. The ticket-holder traveled from Cork, Ireland, to see the show in London.

Thanks to a popular Netflix TV show, a new generation is discovering a 1980s music innovator – a British artist who was often overlooked in North America.


The Monitor's View

One running tally in the Ukraine war is the number of churches damaged or destroyed by the Russian military. During a TV address in early June, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced that 113 churches had been attacked since the Feb. 24 invasion. His larger point to the Ukrainian people? The struggle to save Ukraine is also a defense of religious liberty.

Protecting that freedom – among others – may indeed be a big motivator for Ukrainian fighters. After all, the largely Christian nation elected a Jew as president – Mr. Zelenskyy – by a landslide in 2019. Ukraine’s religious leaders often speak of freedom of conscience in choosing and practicing a faith. Its main faiths – Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant – cooperate on issues, not merely coexist. During the 2013-14 Maidan revolution, clergy offered prayers, comfort, and serenity to pro-democracy protesters in the capital, Kyiv.

One reason given for the war is a fear by President Vladimir Putin that Ukraine’s various Orthodox churches have broken or are breaking away from the authority of the Russian Orthodox Church, which aligns itself with the Kremlin’s autocracy. That drift undercuts a belief in Russia that it is the center of the Orthodox world.

The attacks on Ukrainian churches may be aimed at sending a message against religious freedom. But they serve another purpose. “Given that the church as an institution of society enjoys the greatest level of trust of the citizens of Ukraine, religious figures are one of the biggest obstacles for the Russian invaders,” Maksym Vasin, executive director of the Institute for Religious Freedom, told Devex, a news site on global development.

Such attacks are not a surprise to Ukrainians. After Russia took Crimea by force in 2014 – a response to the success of the Maidan revolution – it suppressed all faiths in the peninsula other than the Russian Orthodox Church. Now the war in 2022 is again reinforcing Ukraine’s national narrative that it is a country that honors individual rights, especially religious liberty.

Freedom, however, is only a means to an end. “I have to be free in order to love,” says the Right Rev. Dr. Andriy Chirovsky at Toronto’s St. Michael’s College and an expert on Eastern Christianity. Being able to love is what it means to be created in the image and likeness of God, he told The Catholic Register while speaking about the Ukraine war.

During his TV address on June 4, the Ukrainian president pleaded with Russian troops to stop attacking churches. He was appealing to their conscience, perhaps out of a deep love. That is what religions do. They appeal to people to think from higher principles. As Ukrainians defend their own religious liberty, they are doing so for everyone.


A Christian Science Perspective

About this feature

Each weekday, the Monitor includes one clearly labeled religious article offering spiritual insight on contemporary issues, including the news. The publication – in its various forms – is produced for anyone who cares about the progress of the human endeavor around the world and seeks news reported with compassion, intelligence, and an essentially constructive lens. For many, that caring has religious roots. For many, it does not. The Monitor has always embraced both audiences. The Monitor is owned by a church – The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston – whose founder was concerned with both the state of the world and the quality of available news.

Letting divine Love animate our interactions helps to bring out the best in ourselves and others.


A message of love

Ashlee Rezin/Chicago Sun-Times/AP
Emese Kovacs Taylor plays with her daughter, Aliz, in the Crown Fountain on Michigan Avenue, as temperatures spike in Chicago, June 14, 2022. Much of the Midwest and a swath of the South braced for a heat wave on Tuesday, with temperatures that reached triple digits and record highs in some places.
( The illustrations in today’s Monitor Daily are by Jacob Turcotte. )

A look ahead

Thanks for joining us. Come back tomorrow: We’re working on a story about a unique form of community compassion found at Boston’s Haley House, a resource for those experiencing homelessness.

More issues

2022
June
15
Wednesday

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