Hamid Mir/Editor/Ausaf Newspaper for Daily Dawn/Reuters/File

Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden (left) and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, an architect of the 9/11 attacks, sit for an interview with Pakistani journalist Hamid Mir (not pictured), in an image supplied by Dawn newspaper, Nov. 10, 2001. Mr. Zawahri was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Kabul, Afghanistan, July 31, 2022.

Announcing the death of Ayman al-Zawahri – killed by a CIA drone strike on the balcony of a villa in downtown Kabul early Sunday – President Joe Biden said it demonstrated a U.S. capability to fight terrorism in Afghanistan today, even without thousands of soldiers on the ground.

Yet a year after the jihadist Taliban swept back to power in Kabul, the brazen presence in the capital of the Egyptian-born Al Qaeda leader – a key architect of the 9/11 attacks and earlier high-profile strikes on American targets – appears on its face to have brought Afghanistan full circle: back to the incendiary circumstances that led to 9/11.

Indeed, U.S. officials say that by harboring Al Qaeda leaders, the Taliban have breached the Doha agreement negotiated by then-President Donald Trump in 2020 and accepted by Mr. Biden. The U.S.-Taliban deal included a Taliban commitment to prevent Afghan soil from being used to plan attacks on the United States, in exchange for a troop withdrawal ending America’s 20-year military involvement in the country.

But, say analysts, the Taliban have never condemned Al Qaeda nor cut ties, and the presence and killing of Mr. Zawahri in Kabul – just a 15-minute stroll from the presidential palace – expose a collision of differing expectations between the U.S. and Taliban that is likely to worsen.

And there is plenty of interpretation over what Mr. Zawahri’s presence in Kabul meant. Was it a flouting of Doha? Or evidence the Taliban were trying to keep tabs on Al Qaeda?

The U.S. attack reveals the scale of the challenge for the Taliban, who need to balance a desire to maintain their ultraconservative, jihadist bona fides while pushing for recognition as a legitimate government, worthy of open Western embassies and billions of dollars in humanitarian aid.

Their “overwhelming victory” gave “the Taliban a sense that they are unstoppable, that they don’t need to obey anything other than what they believe is right, whether that’s Al Qaeda, whether that’s girls’ education, whether that’s human rights,” says Rahmatullah Amiri, a Kabul-based independent analyst and expert on the Taliban.

The White House/Reuters

President Joe Biden is shown a model of the Kabul home where Ayman al-Zawahri was residing, in a meeting with his national security team at the White House in Washington, July 1, 2022.

The drone strike “is a wake-up call for them, and this will shake them up a bit, that the golden days are almost over,” says Mr. Amiri, contacted in Europe. The Taliban, he says, do not think twice about hosting fellow Muslim militants; they don’t ask questions, as long as those militants don’t challenge the Taliban; and they don’t believe that in 2001 Al Qaeda actually carried out the 9/11 attacks.

“Back then it was not discussed. Now it is not discussed,” says Mr. Amiri. To the Taliban, hosting the Al Qaeda leader “is not such a strange thing. It’s totally fine.”

A powerful precedent, “very difficult for other Taliban to reject,” was set by Mullah Omar, Mr. Amiri adds. The shadowy first leader of the Taliban chose to let the American military destroy the Taliban’s self-declared Islamic Emirate in 2001 rather than hand Osama bin Laden over to the Americans. Al Qaeda’s charismatic founder was killed by a U.S. SEAL team in Pakistan in 2011.

Differing approaches

Yet even more is at stake for the Taliban today, as both sides navigate their differing approaches.

“This Doha agreement can’t be done if there is no good-faith relationship,” says Mr. Amiri. “The Taliban can successfully control Al Qaeda; it’s probably the only group that can. But why would the Taliban agree to do that for the U.S., which they fought for 20 years?

“The U.S. is trying to make an ally out of the Taliban against Al Qaeda, which is very difficult,” he adds. “But now that they took this guy out, the chance of friendship on such issues is becoming more and more unlikely.”

The Taliban have a mixed record regarding fellow jihadis. In the past year, they have continued to fight brutal battles to crush the Islamic State franchise in Afghanistan, which accuses the Taliban of selling out to the West.

Ali Khara/Reuters

Taliban fighters patrol the Afghan capital following the killing of Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri in a U.S. drone strike over the weekend, in Kabul, Afghanistan, Aug. 2, 2022.

The United Nations special representative for Afghanistan, Deborah Lyons, told the Security Council in January that the Taliban had worked to prevent “major” attacks by the Islamic State, but that the “desire of the de facto authorities” to take on the threat from “numerous terrorist groups ... remains to be convincingly demonstrated.”

Graeme Smith, a senior Afghanistan analyst for the International Crisis Group, says Mr. Zawahri’s presence in Kabul “highlights the difficult balancing act the Taliban have been trying to do politically.”

“There is a saying in Pashto that you can’t hold two watermelons in one hand,” he says. “In this case the watermelons are the jihadi supporters of the Taliban on one side, and the international community on the other.”

Talks with Germany

Current Taliban discussions with the German government about restoring an embassy presence and investing in economic development starkly illustrate the dilemma.

Aside from the fact that the original German Embassy was destroyed by a 2017 suicide truck bomb that killed 150 people – the blast was attributed to the Haqqani network, whose leader Sirajuddin Haqqani is now acting interior minister – the building is located a two-minute walk from where Mr. Zawahri was killed, in a villa reportedly owned by a senior aide to Mr. Haqqani.

“Think about the hosting the Taliban were trying to do there,” says Mr. Smith. “They were trying to have nice European embassies quite literally a stone’s throw from people who want to murder foreigners. ... They were trying to work some strategic ambiguity, and this [CIA strike] lifted the veil on that.”

The result, he says, is that the Taliban are now subject to suspicion from both sides. The international community fears the Taliban are back in the business of harboring terrorists. And, he adds, there will be “vast suspicion from jihadis,” too, who will want to connect the dots between a high-level Taliban meeting with U.S. officials last week in Tashkent, Uzbekistan – where the urgent humanitarian situation and release of Afghan central bank reserves made up the agenda – and then, soon after, the death of the Al Qaeda chief.

But there may be more to the Taliban’s variable relationship with Islamist militants, and, in fact, with the Americans, including the possibility the Taliban are making real efforts, in their own manner, to curb attacks.

AP/File

Afghanistan's acting interior minister, Sirajuddin Haqqani (center), reviews police recruits during a graduation ceremony at the police academy in Kabul, Afghanistan, March 5, 2022. The Kabul villa where Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri was killed reportedly is owned by a senior aide to Mr. Haqqani.

Mr. Smith notes a history of de-confliction that dates back to 2018 at least, when the Taliban and U.S. forces stayed out of each other’s way, as they separately hunted down Islamic State militants.

More recently, the Taliban have been cantoning Taliban-aligned foreign fighters, including, reportedly, Uyghur militants, in areas away from their borders.

“What does that behavior indicate? To me it looks like they were trying to keep these guys under control,” says the International Crisis Group analyst. “Publicly, they don’t admit these guys are on the ground,” he adds. “Privately, they’ll say, ‘In the Doha deal we promised to keep an eye on these guys, and we’re holding them close.’”

What did Taliban promise?

Indeed, according to Andrew Watkins, an expert on Afghanistan at the U.S. Institute of Peace, Taliban negotiators told U.S. diplomats in Doha as early as 2019 that they only intended to keep tabs on Al Qaeda, but no more.

The careful language of the U.S.-Taliban agreement reflects that, and only commits the Taliban to preventing attacks from Afghan soil – not cutting ties with Al Qaeda or other militants.

“We do have some evidence that the Taliban are very highly aware of the consequences of allowing Al Qaeda to move about the country, or to operate unrestrained and unfettered,” says Mr. Watkins. He notes reports from early 2021 of a formal order issued by the Taliban leadership to junior commanders across the country to not harbor foreign fighters or take them under their wing.

“Obviously, that’s a case we now see of, ‘Do as we say, not as we do,’” says Mr. Watkins. “But it can also be read as evidence that the Taliban – in their own way – understood the importance of managing their relationship with Al Qaeda.”

That awareness will have only been heightened by the CIA drone strike, which killed a “guest” of the Taliban who presumably thought he was protected in the anonymous folds of Taliban territory.

“Whatever else, we know that today’s Taliban leadership does take the threat of American intervention seriously,” says Mr. Watkins. “Perhaps not full-scale, boots on the ground, but the fact that we haven’t seen the Taliban’s emir emerge in public, and the degree of paranoia in senior Taliban figures being filmed, photographed, or appearing in public at all, is one little testament to how seriously the Taliban take the continued threat from the Americans.”

The first clue to this library’s offbeat lending habits sits inside a tall glass display case near the entrance. Sprinkled amid storybooks, atlases, and a globe are a remote-controlled drone, an electric balloon pump, a DJ mixing board, and a Nintendo game console.

And those aren’t the strangest items available to borrow. A few steps away – past a Lego dinosaur and a pair of hulking automated checkout towers – an open binder lists more than 100 nonbook offerings, from bounce houses and hedge trimmers to a ukulele, a popcorn maker, and a $585 cheese warmer.

The Dewey Decimal System never saw this coming. It’s called “the library of things,” and Placentia’s collection is part of a nationwide movement that is reshaping public libraries and how they serve patrons in the digital age. 

More than half of America’s 9,000 public library districts now lend nontraditional objects, says Maria McCauley, president of the Public Library Association. Many have also revamped their event calendars to include such programs as punk rock aerobics, speed dating, cow milking demonstrations, and indoor miniature golf.

These and other innovations reflect the ingenuity of librarians in adapting to changing community values and needs. “Libraries all over the country are doing creative things like this,” Ms. McCauley says.

The beyond-books trend began, depending on who is asked, either a decade ago in Sacramento, California, or in the 1800s, most notably in Braddock, Pennsylvania, a Pittsburgh suburb whose library featured a boxing ring, eight billiards tables, a swimming pool, a bowling alley, a game room, and a 964-seat music hall with cushioned opera chairs. 

The Sacramento model has spawned a wave of copycats, including Placentia’s public library. Its 19th- and 20th-century predecessors are largely forgotten, says author Wayne Wiegand, a professor emeritus of library and information studies at Florida State University. 

“History holds thousands of precedents for what’s now called a movement. The problem is librarians don’t generally know much or care about their past,” he says.

Ann Hermes/Staff

“We worked with [the public library in] Sacramento to create our liability form and rules. ... [Borrowers] have been pretty good,” says Placentia library director Jeanette Contreras (left), sitting with assistant library director Yesenia Baltierra outside the Placentia Library. Their collection of objects is modeled after similar holdings in Sacramento, California.

Balancing the books

“It was one of those middle-of-the-night things,” says librarian Lori Easterwood, recalling the 2013 inspiration for Sacramento’s pioneering library of things. After waking up with the idea and the name, she checked Google, saw nothing, and jotted a note. “I used to keep a pad of paper by the bed,” for overnight thoughts, she says. “Eighty percent were inexplicable the next day.” 

This brainstorm wasn’t completely out of the blue. For several years, Ms. Easterwood and colleague Jessica Jupitus, a branch supervisor who moonlighted as a roller derby queen, had been experimenting with various “harebrained schemes” to attract new clientele and keep their library relevant.  

They launched “zombie survival aerobics” classes, hosted “bad art” craft nights, sponsored “haunted stacks” tours in which the “ghosts” of historical figures recounted their gruesome deaths, and organized truck rallies with Brinks armored cars, drag racers, and SWAT vehicles. 

For Ms. Easterwood’s library of things concept, the duo successfully applied for a $55,000 state grant. “Sometimes people don’t just need a book about sewing – they need the sewing machine too,” the application said. To decide which products to add, they set up a website for patron suggestions. 

As part of the grant, library employees also received customer service training from the Ritz-Carlton luxury hotel chain. It would come in handy.

In early 2015, when Sacramento’s things collection debuted, the atmosphere was a little bit crazed. “It became very popular very quickly,” says Justin Azevedo, who managed the lone branch that offered the program. “We had huge waitlists.” 

Storage was a challenge. Checking in books and DVDs is one thing; checking in guitars and lawn mowers is trickier. “We had sewing machines under people’s desks,” Mr. Azevedo recalls. But eventually, the kinks were ironed out, and staffers even mastered skills not normally taught to library science majors. “I learned how to replace a sewing machine flywheel and how to restring guitars,” Mr. Azevedo notes.

By the end of the first year, the library of things branch reported a 9% jump in customers and a 25% increase in attendance at adult programs.

That and a spurt of media attention led to the next hurdle: fielding a (still steady) stream of calls from other towns wanting to emulate the concept. One of the inquiries came from Placentia’s century-old library, one of only 11 independent library districts in California. Overseen by an elected board, the library predates the city, a bedroom community near Disneyland originally known for oil, citrus, and – in the late 1800s – a quirky colony of vegetarian spiritualists.

“We worked with Sacramento to create our liability form and rules,” says Placentia library director Jeanette Contreras. Borrowers must be at least 18 years old and agree to pay for cleaning, repair, or replacement costs if an item comes back in worse condition than it left. To underscore that caveat, Placentia’s things catalog includes the price of each entry. The podcast kit clocks in at $508.86, for example, and the KitchenAid commercial mixer is $541.

“People have been pretty good,” Ms. Contreras says, with the exception of an MIA violin and several crashed drones. 

Since launching with a $5,000 budget in 2017, the collection has grown to include mobile Wi-Fi hot spots, a rechargeable leaf blower, and a snow cone machine, all based on patron input. In April, the library added day passes to state parks, courtesy of a California initiative to improve access to nature.

Kaitlin Uthus, a mother of five, recently tried the library’s outdoor movie projector and screen after stumbling upon the catalog while returning books. “I was amazed by all the things you can get,” she says. 

Eight-year-old Amyra Diwan, who lives in Cypress, California, discovered the things binder while she and her mother were waiting for her brother to finish a saxophone lesson nearby. “With my mom, I’ve borrowed the ukulele, this really cool art kit, and the park pass” for a Father’s Day trip to Crystal Cove State Park, she says.  

Ann Hermes/Staff

“By providing us access to tools, our family was able to experience nature through the parks pass, music through a ukulele, and art through creating with the Vision Board,” says Maeesha Merchant, with her daughter, Amyra Diwan, who borrowed a park pass from the Placentia library.

Santa suits and Roomba vacuums

When the pandemic hit, it knocked the wind out of things programs all over the nation. Placentia converted a meeting room into a sterilization chamber in which masked employees wiped down returned items and quarantined them for two weeks, Ms. Contreras says. That kept books and DVDs in circulation, but the library of things went dark – except for laptops – until July 2021. 

At the same time, COVID-19 spurred some U.S. libraries to start or expand things collections, says Ms. McCauley of the Public Library Association. Branches that didn’t lend laptops or hot spots, for instance, began doing so when patrons could no longer come in to use desktop computers, she says. (Similarly, sidelined Los Angeles County public libraries beamed their Wi-Fi into parking lots, so customers could still enjoy free internet access.)  

“Libraries are intended to help people live their very best lives,” says Ms. McCauley, who also serves as director of the Cambridge Public Library in Massachusetts. “Nontraditional items broaden that mission.” 

Each library seems to put its own stamp on the concept. In Brunswick, Maine, patrons can check out Tibetan singing bowls and meditation cards. Mississippi’s Bolivar County Library System stocks Santa Claus costumes. And the library in Telluride, Colorado, circulates Roomba vacuums and check-engine light code readers.

Some libraries pair their items with seminars or special events. The Guilderland Public Library in upstate New York teaches “cut the cord” lessons to go with its “try before you buy” assortment of cable TV alternatives: Amazon Fire TV Sticks, Apple TV boxes, HDTV antennas, and Roku streaming devices. And New Jersey’s Borough of Totowa Public Library celebrates its stockpile of cake pans with family cake-decorating nights. 

Such customizations are about “making sure we offer what people need,” says Ms. Jupitus, the Sacramento book maven who now helps run the public library in Tempe, Arizona. 

In 2014, Dallas librarian Melissa Dease distributed donated prom dresses at a neighborhood branch in a low-income area. “People came from a hundred miles away,” she says. “It was kind of heartbreaking to think they might not have been able to attend their dances otherwise.” Today, the prom initiative boasts nearly 1,000 dresses, along with shoes from Neiman Marcus and a smattering of suits.

Ann Hermes/Staff

Among the items available from the library of things collection at the Borough of Totowa Public Library in New Jersey are musical instruments, like this guitar.

“The importance of amusements”

Although all of this might sound new and unusual, the history of American libraries isn’t as bookcentric as many assume. “I trust you will not forget the importance of amusements,” steel magnate Andrew Carnegie declared at the 1889 dedication of Braddock, Pennsylvania’s amenity-laden library, the first of nearly 1,700 public library buildings he bankrolled over the next 30 years.

Most of the structures were far more modest, but Carnegie’s blueprints always included a community room, says Mr. Wiegand, the library historian. “For decades, public librarians used these rooms for myriad purposes, including sewing classes, kitchen instruction for farm housewives, health clinics, and hundreds of other ‘things,’” he explains. But eventually, many of the rooms were converted to storage for more books and their original mission faded from memory, he notes.

Even before Carnegie, libraries commonly housed art galleries, conversation parlors, and rooms to play chess and checkers. 

Some also lent nonbook materials. In 1894, St. Louis patrons could take home tennis rackets and board games, says Mark Robison, a University of Notre Dame librarian who co-edited “Audio Recorders to Zucchini Seeds: Building a Library of Things.” 

Other early precedents for today’s smorgasbord of borrowable objects include framed paintings (1904 in Newark, New Jersey), piano rolls (1907 in Evanston, Illinois), and stereoscopes (1909 in Portland, Oregon). In 1936, the Los Angeles Public Library added 7,126 used toys to its catalog, according to Mr. Wiegand’s book “Part of Our Lives: A People’s History of the American Public Library.” 

Like their modern counterparts, librarians of the past worried about staying relevant, especially to younger age groups. In 1945, a library basement in Santa Monica, California, was transformed into a “young people’s room” where a radio played constantly and a social worker presided instead of a librarian, Mr. Wiegand says. (Teen spaces are now common in libraries around the United States.)

During the 1960s, libraries hosted jazz concerts, talent contests, movie nights, and anti-poverty programs. Denver’s public library held a 1973 multicultural series – with such titles as “Black Awareness” and “Viva Mejicano” – that drew up to 3,700 people per event, dwarfing an appearance by novelist James Michener that pulled in just 350, Mr. Wiegand reports.

In some locales, the emphasis on reaching new audiences grew so pronounced that, in 1975, The Wall Street Journal ran a story headlined “With a Little Luck, You May Even Find Books in the Library.”

“Over the generations, librarians have tried all sorts of things to get people to use them,” Mr. Wiegand says. “I applaud that.”

Ann Hermes/Staff

“The library of things allows us to access things we normally wouldn’t buy. It’s an amazing resource. We have used so many countless items,” says Ariana O’Brien, with her daughters (from left to right) Ellie, Maggie, and Chloe and the cheese warmer they borrowed from the Placentia Library on March 22 in Placentia, California.

The fine print

But there can be pitfalls, says library scholar Michael Gorman, a former president of the American Library Association and retired dean of library services at California State University, Fresno. “Public libraries have limited physical, financial, and staff resources – and have had to make trade-offs in recent years,” he explains. “I am not against libraries providing any needed social service,” but their primary purpose should revolve around books and “the human record.” As long as other activities don’t undercut that central mission, “I’m all for all of it,” he says.

The funding for things collections typically comes from property taxes, grants, philanthropic gifts, or even – in the case of Placentia – revenue from an in-house passport services office. Some libraries also accept donated objects.

In 2012, shortly before Sacramento started plotting its things program, a backyard astronomers’ club in Michigan gave a set of telescopes to the Ann Arbor District Library. The district, which had been lending framed artwork since 1969, added the night-sky equipment to its “Unusual Stuff to Borrow” catalog, which also listed home energy monitors (to gauge the efficiency of appliances) and “science to go” educational kits, according to The Ann Arbor Chronicle.

The telescopes proved so popular that the collection soon expanded to include music synthesizers, models of the human brain, and outdoor games, says Rich Retyi, the library’s communication and marketing manager.

Although Ann Arbor began building its nontraditional storehouse first, Mr. Robison and other observers credit Sacramento’s public library with inspiring the nationwide explosion of copycats. Two factors set Sacramento’s effort apart: the breadth of its offerings and the patron survey on what objects to lend.

Ms. Easterwood, who now runs the public library in California’s infamous prison town of Folsom, says the trend also taps into the “sharing economy” movement that gave rise to the likes of Airbnb and Uber.

Ms. McCauley of the Public Library Association agrees: Being able to borrow pricey, rarely used tools and gadgets “reduces consumption and waste,” and gives financially strapped families access to technology and gear beyond their budgets.

Will the concept last?

Absolutely, predicts Mr. Robison. As Google searches and Kindle e-books continue encroaching on traditional library turf, things collections help attract new crowds, he says. 

Meanwhile, librarians keep devising new categories of items and activities. Six years ago, for example, when Mr. Robison was working on his handbook, he found few libraries lending passes to museums, zoos, parks, and other attractions. Now, such passes are ubiquitous, according to the Public Library Association.

Educational kits are another staple. In Northern California, the Solano County Library system created social justice tote bags (with materials to spur family conversations and action on such issues as Indigenous rights and immigration) and multisensory kits to help trigger memories for people with Alzheimer’s, says Ms. Jupitus, who had a hand in developing some of the items. 

Ann Hermes/Staff

“Good quality cake pans can be costly, especially when they may only be used once or twice, so loaning them out makes perfect sense. We began with a collection of 12 pans and now have over 50,” says Annemarie Shapiola, children’s librarian at the Borough of Totowa Public Library in New Jersey.

Placentia’s kit list ranges from “World of Bugs” to “Learning About Money.”

Clever marketing is also important. Sacramento’s library used to hold winter holiday craft-making nights that invariably drew just “10 to 14 older women,” Ms. Jupitus says. On a whim one year, she and Ms. Easterwood rebranded the event as “Broke A$$ Holidays” – and 80 people showed up. “The content was identical,” Ms. Jupitus says. “We just called it something different.” 

The next big thing could be pet care products, Mr. Robison suggests. Libraries looking to diversify into the animal arena “should consider the kinds of expensive items that pet owners use only occasionally, such as travel crates, harnesses, cooling mats, and yard stakes,” he says. The field appears wide open. While researching this story, the only pet object uncovered was a dog training agility kit at the Middle Country Public Library in Centereach, New York.

Everything should be fair game, Mr. Azevedo advises. 

After Sacramento unveiled its initial batch of things in 2015, nominations poured in for future items – many of which sounded unworkable, he says. When people asked for weed wackers and cake pans, he recalls, “I said, ‘No way.’” But now the library carries both, he notes. “I’m curious to see what we’ll have in three years that seems impractical now.”

Courtesy of Ladd Keith/Courtesy of Sara Meerow

Researchers Ladd Keith (left) and Sara Meerow, who co-wrote a report on urban planning and heat resilience, spoke with the Monitor about heat equity, projects to watch, and how cooperation is key.

Heat waves in the headlines – from Texas to Taiwan – renew climate change calls to action. Beyond personal pledges, there’s interest in more systemic contributions from cities, which are disproportionate polluters of greenhouse gases.

From the sweltering state of Arizona, Ladd Keith and Sara Meerow outline possible solutions. Their American Planning Association report published this year explores strategies for curbing urban heat islands – zones that are hotter than outlying areas – and urges paying more attention to heat equity.

“Everyone in the community should have a thermally safe indoor and outdoor environment,” explains Dr. Meerow, associate professor at the School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning at Arizona State University. 

She and Dr. Keith, an ​​assistant professor of planning at the University of Arizona, spoke with the Monitor about heat equity, projects to watch, and how cooperation is key to heat resilience. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity. 

Within the field of urban planning aimed at climate resilience, how new is this focus on heat? 

Dr. Keith: Heat’s received less attention, historically, than other hazards like wildfire, sea level rise, flooding, extreme storms, drought. It’s really only been in the last few years that communities have been taking heat risk seriously.

Is it purely the temperatures we’re clocking, or other societal factors that are pushing this new interest?

Dr. Meerow: There is a clear trend in increased intensity and duration of heat waves. There’s also been a number of these really unprecedented extreme heat events, like last summer in the Pacific Northwest of the U.S. and in British Columbia. This year, obviously, [Europe has] received a lot of attention because they are so out of the norm. I think that has helped also bring more attention to the issue.

Your report lays out two key components of urban heat resilience: heat mitigation and heat management. Could you spell out the differences with a few examples? 

Dr. Keith: Heat mitigation is the idea that you reduce the urban heat from that urban heat island. It’s strategies that reduce vehicle [exhaust] and air-conditioning waste to make buildings more efficient. ... Also looking at using materials that are more reflective and lighter in color so that they trap less heat to start off with, so that’s things like cool pavement or cool roofs or even cooler walls for the design of buildings. And of course urban greening is a popular strategy. 

Heat management is all about preparing and responding to both chronic heat – the general rise in average temperatures – but also those acute heat risks like those extreme heat events that we’ve been seeing with increasing frequency. That really involves the public health sector, the emergency managers doing things like opening more cooling centers, making sure that people have thermal equity in their homes and they have access to safe indoor environments.

Ross D. Franklin/AP

People try to keep cool at the Justa Center, a resource center catering to the older homeless population, as temperatures hit 110 degrees, July 19, 2022, in Phoenix.

Phoenix, long known for its high heat, last year announced the launch of the country’s first publicly funded office focused on urban heat hazards – the Office of Heat Response and Mitigation. What’s the significance of this?

Dr. Keith: An office or a position like this can really help coordinate some of those heat mitigation and heat management efforts that are historically siloed across different disciplines. Urban planning, emergency management, public health – they don’t necessarily all talk to each other. … Miami-Dade County and Los Angeles have both created chief heat officers as well.

Dr. Meerow: The key word there is coordination, and that’s really what this office is about. I think it’s also significant that this office specifically does acknowledge the need for both that mitigation and response – or management, as we term it.

I’d like to hear more about that, because one of your seven planning principles is “coordination across planning efforts.” Why is cooperation so important, and who should that involve?

Dr. Keith: The important thing is that we don’t give the wrong impression that you need a chief heat officer to address heat. That’s a really important message … especially for smaller towns and smaller communities that don’t necessarily have the resources for a full-time chief heat officer. 

I think that’s where that coordination becomes really important. … We’re forging new relationships and new processes and new partnerships.

Dr. Meerow: We want to make sure that they’re also not working past each other or at cross-purposes. So making sure that if we have efforts to try and cool a particular area of the city in one plan, … there’s not another [department] that is planning a new parking lot [there].  

That reminds me of the Maricopa Association of Governments’ Heat Relief Network, which coordinates things like hydration and cooling stations with various public and private partners. Are there other salient examples, from the Southwest or other regions, where cooperation has paid off in urban heat resilience efforts? 

Dr. Keith: We’re actually taking that cooperation … to the state level now [with] a coordinated statewide cooling center map [in Arizona], and we’re taking those lessons [from different locations] and applying them statewide.

New York City has a really well-respected [model] addressing heat efforts. They have their Cool Neighborhoods NYC plan; they have a Be a Buddy program where people actually check on vulnerable neighbors and those that are recipients of social services during peak heat periods to make sure that they’re actually physically OK. 

Is it too early to have any data, any evidence yet on design or planning principles in urban areas that have worked well to reduce heat hazards for some of the most marginalized communities? 

Dr. Keith: There’s not a single silver bullet to solve heat inequities, unfortunately. But … there’s very good evidence that historically marginalized communities, lower-income communities, minority communities have higher heat severity than their whiter and richer counterparts across the country and across the world.

We know the ways that we can help address that, which is increasing urban greening, making sure that when we have any kind of public investments or public projects that we’re strategizing those resources and investing in the communities that need the help the most. … Also making sure that everyone has access to affordable housing and quality housing so that you can afford air conditioning.

There are some catch-22s for urban planning with heat resilience in mind. Planting trees, for instance, takes time for those trees to mature and relies on water that could be allocated elsewhere. What can help cities think through some of these trade-offs?

Dr. Meerow: If we know that trees take water and water is a precious resource, we still might prioritize planting trees in communities that we know have a much lower tree canopy cover than other ones, which tend to be lower-income, minority communities in many places.

Dr. Keith, you’re part of a team that’s evaluating Tucson’s Cool Pavement project. Can you elaborate on the project’s goal, and what exactly is this “asphalt rejuvenator” you’re studying? 

Dr. Keith: Many cities are looking at cool pavement pilot projects. Los Angeles and Phoenix have been looking at [a coating] that you literally put on the streets, and [it] reflects more light and retains less of the heat. Tucson’s looking at an asphalt rejuvenator, which acts as more of a sunscreen for the road. 

I’m wondering what, if anything, gives you hope?

Dr. Keith: I think we still have a long way to go, but we’re seeing good first steps in coordinating and addressing heat better.

Dr. Meerow: People have always died from heat, but I think people are just more aware of it, more concerned. I think that’s true of climate issues and climate change more broadly.

It sounds like awareness is a precursor to cooperation, and that cooperation is a precursor to innovation. 

Dr. Keith: One hundred percent. … Getting the stories out about what the risks are and how you can address heat is just so critical, so that communities that haven’t yet experienced that record-breaking heat wave – that they likely will in the future – can start preparing today.

Editor’s note: Dr. Keith’s description of the pavement projects in Los Angeles and Phoenix has been clarified.

Did I enjoy Jordan Peele’s latest movie after I initially viewed it? Nope.

My expectations for the movie were too concrete. I’d become used to Mr. Peele’s adeptness at turning horror films into social commentaries, whether they were indictments of white liberalism (“Get Out”) or harbingers of class warfare (“Us”).

Then I thought about this latest film, “Nope,” – and the director’s intent – from a more abstract perspective. Mr. Peele, who is Black, didn’t feel burdened by the need to make a stereotypical Black film, or a film with an overt message of social justice. He made a film that highlighted cinema, and through that passion, he advanced his unique genre of films. He expressed freedom in simply being a Black man who created a work of art.

Such a sense of autonomy can be fearful – and fleeting. I am reminded of the cautionary tale of comedian Dave Chappelle, who famously quit his eponymous show because it became too much of a spectacle. “Chappelle’s Show” was irreverent comedy mixed with social commentary, but he felt like his messages weren’t clear when people mocked them instead of meditated on them.

Mr. Peele’s “Nope,” featuring cowboys and aliens, is irreverent at times. The protagonist, played by Daniel Kaluuya, is named Otis Jr., or O.J., which seems to be a nod to the former football player and rental car pitchman who was famously acquitted for murder. Mostly, it is a movie that warns against the danger of spectacles and how predators – both in nature and industry – are not easily tamed. “Nope” also alludes to how Black people and Black culture are exploited in Hollywood.

The filmmaker’s abstract approach to “Nope” challenges the notion of what escapism might mean to Black moviegoers such as myself. That can be tricky, as even Afrofuturistic movies such as “Black Panther” contain political themes and ideologies. And yet, in a world and a country with noted anti-Black policies and sentiments, the need to “get away from it all” is more than understandable. Does that idea of liberation manifest itself differently between movie maker and moviegoer? It largely depends on the subject – both the art and the viewer. 

Universal Pictures/AP

In “Nope,” Daniel Kaluuya’s character is Otis Jr., or O.J.

It was easier to escape into “Black Panther” because it was an action movie of the Marvel variety, and I’ve enjoyed that franchise with a childlike enthusiasm. Meanwhile, Mr. Peele has set a standard with his first few movies that might seem like the theater of the absurd – if they weren’t so on the nose about Black trauma.

With that said, I enjoyed “Nope” more on my second viewing because I had a better understanding of what the director sought to convey. I grew to appreciate his artistry as much as I did his analysis, and that was a needed transition for me.

Black folks have internalized that burden of responsibility to speak for our community in film and media – and to be clear, it is a burden – for generations. Arguably the most loaded quote in Hollywood history came from Hattie McDaniel, the first African American to win an Oscar. 

“I sincerely hope I shall always be a credit to my race, and to the motion picture industry,” she said after she received the award, even as her seat for the event was segregated from the white attendees. Labor over love, duty over desire, describes the fate of so many Black Hollywood trailblazers. Mr. Peele didn’t paint himself into a corner with the expectations of others. 

The filmmaker’s latest work is refreshing in a world where recent Black cinema can look like trauma retreads. There is a new film about Emmett Till slated for the end of this year, and the very thought of another piece of media about the brutal beating and lynching of a 14-year-old Black child makes me uneasy and sorrowful. The fate of Emmett is one of the most recognizable civil rights tragedies. Mining the story for historical nuggets pales in comparison to the perpetual pain that the story presents.

We are in desperate need of different stories and outlets to present Black triumph – and yes, Black trauma.

Mr. Peele’s quirkiness and love of cinema have provided such an outlet. On the one hand, his work is an ode to the Black Hollywood pioneers before him. On the other hand, his work is a clarion call for moviegoers to think outside of the box in terms of how we digest media. In our ravenousness, we’ve become myopic, even those of us who consider ourselves cultured or researched.

There is a saying which captures the plight perfectly – “can’t see the forest for the trees.” Mr. Peele’s brand of escapism doesn’t mow down the foliage – it simply takes a step back and appreciates a wider perspective. It is a lesson for all of us. 

Inshah Bashir was just 15 when she fell from the third floor of her under-construction house in Kashmir’s Budgam district and lost mobility in her legs. Although 14 years have passed, Ms. Bashir still vividly remembers that period in her life after the accident.

“In a region like Kashmir, where even able-bodied people struggle to live their daily lives, there was little hope for a disabled woman,” says Ms. Bashir, who uses a wheelchair. “My disability threatened to put an end to my dreams of independent life.”

But that isn’t where Ms. Bashir’s story ends. Eventually, she convinced her parents to let her enroll at Shafaqat Rehabilitation Center in Srinagar – on the condition that a family member accompanies her – and found new hope on the center’s basketball court. She trained with the men’s wheelchair basketball team, and has since traveled around India and the world to compete in tournaments, even representing India at a sports leadership program in the United States in 2019. Ms. Bashir now serves as the captain of Kashmir’s first wheelchair basketball team for women. 

In Kashmir, where disability representation and resources are in short supply, Ms. Bashir and her teammates have helped draw attention to disability rights, while offering young women hope for a brighter future. Their stories show how adaptive sports can be an on-ramp to greater independence and help disabled people become more confident. 

“Players move past their disabilities and focus on the game. This helps them come out of depression and become more independent, along with becoming socially active and good communicators,” says Louis George, a coach with Wheelchair Basketball Federation of India, which organizes basketball camps and selects players for the national teams.

Ms. Bashir, who delivered a TEDx talk about her athletic journey in 2020, says basketball helped her overcome feelings of hopelessness.

“The first time I put the basketball in the net, all my negative thoughts vanished. I had gained a new purpose,” she says.

Courtesy of Inshah Bashir

Inshah Bashir (front right) trained with the men's wheelchair basketball team at Shafaqat Rehabilitation Center in Srinagar, India. Early efforts to establish a women's team failed in part because traditional families were hesitant to let their disabled daughters play sports.

State of disability rights

In December 2016, the Indian Parliament passed the Rights of Persons With Disabilities Bill, which added 14 recognized disabilities, suggested penalties for discrimination, and increased the education and government job quotas for disabled people from 3% to 4%. However, this is yet to be implemented in Jammu and Kashmir, the territory that encompasses Kashmir valley and has one of the highest disability rates in India, according to latest census reports. 

“Infrastructure in the Union Territory is not disabled-friendly, especially in public offices and educational institutions,” says disability rights activist Javid Ahmad Tak, who uses a wheelchair and founded the Humanity Welfare Organization Helpline, a nonprofit organization to help the disabled community in the territory. 

There are only 15 disability centers in Jammu and Kashmir, according to Annamalai University in Chidambaram, India, each with a capacity of about 40 people. The territory has hundreds of thousands of people with disabilities living across many districts.

Mr. Tak says new sports initiatives can be a source of financial income for women, as well as a way to help build support systems, but that more work needs to be done on the state level.

“At least one center should be in each district to facilitate disabled people, especially women, to get involved in different activities,” Mr. Tak says, adding that basketball and other forms of engagement such as computer skills training can “help to bridge the gap of segregation and loneliness the disabled go through.”

This rings true for Ishrat Akhtar. She was 16 when a spinal cord injury changed her life forever, and like Ms. Bashir, the young woman took years to come to terms with her new body. Then, one day, she was passing through Shafaqat Rehabilitation Center and spotted a group of men playing basketball in wheelchairs. 

“When I asked them if I could join, they happily welcomed me and trained me for the next few months. There has been no looking back since then,” says Ms. Akhtar, who was one of the first to join the new women’s team along with Ms. Bashir in 2018.

Breaking perceptions, finding hope

Still, playing sports as a disabled woman in the traditional society “has not been only accolades and appreciation,” says Ms. Akhtar. As in many parts of the world, disabled people in Kashmir are often treated like burdens, and in a region where many lower- and middle-class families still view marriage as women’s primary obligation, these attitudes are amplified toward disabled girls. 

“I faced a lot of criticism” for playing basketball, she says. “But I had to train myself to only focus on my own growth.”

Voluntary Medicare Society, which runs Srinagar’s Shafaqat Rehabilitation Center and coordinates both the men’s and women’s wheelchair basketball teams, had tried to start a women’s team prior to 2018, but was unable to find enough players.

Courtesy of Humera Ashraf

Humera Ashraf, shown practicing at her home in Budgam in Kashmir, says the women's wheelchair basketball team has inspired her to move forward in life.

“Initially, it had been very challenging to put the team together,” says Mohammad Rafee, member and coordinator of the men’s wheelchair basketball team in Kashmir. “Traditional families were too reluctant to allow the young women to pursue sports along with their disability.” 

But the women’s team “has helped in breaking that perception,” he adds. “It has been great to see these women grow and participate in different competitions at the national and international level.”

Having a local team makes basketball more accessible for Kashmiri women, who would otherwise need to travel to Delhi or other parts of India to pursue an athletic career – an especially difficult task for those who use wheelchairs. And for young women navigating a new disability, simply seeing yourself reflected on the basketball court can have a huge impact. 

When Humera Ashraf damaged her spinal cord in 2020, the injury pushed the teenage medical student into isolation. “I thought I would not be able to walk or move, and this thought made me crazy,” she says. “I felt everything came to a halt.”

But during a stint at Shafaqat Rehabilitation Center, she felt hopeful seeing the women’s wheelchair basketball team use the premises to train.

“It was here that I met other women who helped me understand that my life was far from over,” says Ms. Ashraf, who has since joined the team and resumed her medical studies.

AP

African National Congress (ANC) delegates attend a policy conference in Johannesburg, South Africa, July 29.

When the African National Congress (ANC) became South Africa’s first democratically elected ruling party in 1994, it promised that state-owned enterprises like utilities and the national airline would reflect “a public consciousness.” That meant that the companies would model the country’s diversity and be engines of shared prosperity.

Three decades later – with the ANC still in power – many of those enterprises are in shambles. One recent report found that public entities are hobbled by “crumbling infrastructure, poor and ever-changing leadership, corruption, wasteful expenditure and mismanagement of funds” and owe roughly $42 billion in debt.

The most conspicuous example is Eskom, the state electricity company. Its aging power plants and financial troubles have resulted in rolling blackouts – or “load shedding” – that put customers in the dark for up to 12 hours at a time. Yet that dysfunction may now have a silver lining: a corrective impulse toward honest government after years of unbridled graft.

At its midsummer party conference last weekend, the ANC backed a plan by President Cyril Ramaphosa allowing new private energy production. That signaled a shift away from the party’s conviction that only the state can fairly protect the public good – a belief shaped by the inequalities of the apartheid era, when the Black majority was largely excluded from the formal economy.

It also reflected a rare admission of failure and need for greater transparency in government. “Our weaknesses are evident in the distrust, the disillusionment, the frustration that is expressed by many toward [the ANC] movement and government,” Mr. Ramaphosa told the party gathering. “The people of South Africa will never forgive us if we abandon ... confronting wrongdoing within our ranks.”

That contrition may provide a model for other societies like Sri Lanka and Pakistan that are grappling with the economic damage caused by corruption and mismanagement. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, 1 in 5 of the world’s largest enterprises are state-owned. That marks an upward trend. At their best, public entities can seed the development of new industries and ensure the provision of essential public services. But they can undermine competition and are prone to abuse.

Mr. Ramaphosa is attempting to uproot a culture of corruption in the ANC that cost the state an estimated $17 billion during the nine-year presidency of his predecessor, Jacob Zuma. A government inquiry found that state entities like Eskom were portals for graft and abuse.

As it turns out, an acute energy emergency and its economic consequences may be the spark for needed reform. “The crisis that we are facing ... is a call for all South Africans to be part of the solution,” Mr. Ramaphosa said in a national address last month.

An entrenched ruling party that opinion polls show has lost the public’s faith may be starting to restore the public good above its own. That reset starts with the humility to see that societies build through honest and shared enterprise.