In the parking lot of a Winn-Dixie, next to emergency shelters and stores with windows blown out by Hurricane Ian, Carl Kingsbury, Allen Wagner, and Joe Kardel spend almost three-fourths of their day in an RV-style command center. 

They’ve set two plastic tables in the center of the trailer and littered them with maps, multicolored highlighters, unopened pretzel thins, and a gallon bag of granola bars. On the wall is a diagram of the island’s power grid, color-coded in blue and pink. A generator powers the trailer, AC, and a TV in the background showing football – comfort food. 

This is how Pine Island, one of the barrier islands pummeled by Hurricane Ian, gets its power back. Mr. Kingsbury, Mr. Wagner, and Mr. Kardel work for the Lee County Electric Cooperative (LCEC) and are coordinating the restoration work on Pine – only accessible since late last week when the state jury-rigged a new bridge to the island. 

Two weeks ago, 9 out of 10 homes in Lee County lost power. Since then, more than 91% of the county’s grid is back online, says Mr. Kingsbury, LCEC’s technical training coordinator. An island like Pine, which bore some of Ian’s worst, may have two weeks left before it is entirely back online, and other islands will have to wait longer. But the speed of restoration, matched by other utilities across the state, has been rapid compared with past storms. More than 2 million Floridians lost power two weeks ago. Only about 21,000 are without it now.

Florida spent the past 15 years hardening its electric grid against extreme weather. While a formal analysis will follow, early signs are that it paid off. The state’s utility companies spent a decade and a half swapping wooden poles for concrete and steel ones, undergrounding power lines, and trimming nearby vegetation. This time, most of its citizens got power back within days after a storm that once would’ve disabled the grid for weeks. 

No electric system is hurricane-proof – certainly not against a storm that bordered Category 5. And fortifying the grid is a delicate balance of cost and benefit, since citizens have to pay for it in their electric bills or taxes. But as thousands of tree trimmers, repair crews, and other employees like Mr. Kingsbury work 16-to-18-hour days, the state’s investment in its power grid seems to have been good value, says David Dismukes, executive director of Louisiana State University’s Center for Energy Studies. 

“I guess some of these resiliency programs are really paying dues right now,” says Professor Dismukes. If taxpayers are left with the bill, he says, “what you want to see is performance outcomes like we did in Florida.”

Noah Robertson/The Christian Science Monitor

Allen Wagner (right to left), Carl Kingsbury, Joe Kardel, Jodie Barnes, Elizabeth Resendiz, and Oralia Lopez stand in front of the Lee County Electric Cooperative command center on Pine Island, Florida, Oct. 9, 2022. Mr. Wagner, Mr. Kingsbury, and Mr. Kardel are coordinating the power restoration work on the island, working at least 16 hours a day.

An impetus named Charley

The 2004 and 2005 hurricane seasons were disastrous for Florida. About 10 named storms hit the state, including Hurricane Charley, a Category 4 storm that followed a similar path to Ian. Millions of people lost power, some of them for weeks. 

In response, the Florida Legislature commissioned a report from its Public Service Commission (PSC) on how to harden the grid. It came back in 2007 with several recommendations – including annual storm-preparedness briefings, pole inspections, vegetation management, and undergrounding of some power lines. 

State utilities began upgrading their systems, and then – nothing. Florida didn’t have a major hurricane for 10 years. “We’re spending this money to harden the system, but it’s not getting tested,” Tom Ballinger, director of PSC’s Division of Engineering, says he thought at the time. 

The test came in 2016 and 2017, when a series of hurricanes crescendoed in Irma, a Category 4 storm that landed in the Florida Keys. A PSC report afterward found the pace of restoration was “fairly rapid” compared with past storms. 

During a 2018 workshop, Florida Power & Light, the state’s largest utility, said it took 10 days to restore power to all customers after Hurricane Irma. After Hurricane Wilma 13 years before it took 18 days.

And now, Mr. Ballinger says, “You’re looking at utilities restoring 75% of their customers within three days after a storm. So it is pretty remarkable.”

Comparing two storms is never exact. The time it takes to restore power depends on the strength of the storm, where it hit, the kind of damage, and the number of line workers and tree trimmers working. Even some standard metrics can be misleading, says Ted Kury, director of energy studies at the Public Utility Research Center at the University of Florida.

“We could talk about average restoration times and things of that nature,” says Dr. Kury, a former structuring and pricing analyst at The Energy Authority in Jacksonville, Florida. “But when you’re out of power, that’s little consolation to you.”

Still, some of the same storm-preparedness measures that worked when Hurricane Irma hit seem to be working now. Most damage tends to come from vegetation, like trees, falling on or flying into power lines. A strict vegetation management program now adopted by Florida utilities helped limit the projectiles. Many wooden poles have been replaced by sturdier concrete and steel. More distribution lines are underground, perhaps vulnerable to flooding but safe from wind. Critical infrastructure has also been hardened to prevent accidents (the loss of traffic lights for instance is a leading secondary cause of death after storms).

Eric Gay/AP/File

Crews work to restore power and traffic lights after they were knocked out by Hurricane Matthew, Oct. 8, 2016, in Flagler Beach, Florida. When traffic lights go out after a storm, the result can be post-hurricane accidents as intersections become less safe. Florida has worked to harden infrastructure like traffic signals as well as the power grid itself.

It’s all been expensive, but state Sen. Joe Gruters says it’s been worth it. “When a third of the state goes down for a day, it’s $1.3 billion in lost activity,” says Senator Gruters, who represents Sarasota and northern Charlotte counties and introduced a 2019 bill to further harden the grid. “There’s nothing more important than having reliable, affordable energy.”

Lines rising again on a storm-tossed island

If the progress is noteworthy, so too is the damage on an island like Pine. About 200 poles were damaged, says Mr. Kingsbury, sitting in the command center. Some are downed next to the road. Some poke out of the ground like snapped toothpicks. 

Hardening or no hardening, he says, this is the reality of living in Florida: Parts of the grid will break. “No one can plan for almost a Cat 5 hitting the territory,” says Mr. Kingsbury.

LCEC only arrived on Pine Island last Friday, and started by assessing the damage. More than 500 line workers and tree trimmers are now working there, first to restore the two circuits running north and south – which Mr. Wagner calls the grid’s “backbone.” Once that’s running, they’ll move to critical infrastructure, like medical centers and fire stations, and then to the most people who can get power in the least amount of time. 

Step by step, tree trimmers clear the vegetation from the conductors and roadway; line trucks remove, straighten, and reset damaged poles; and line workers in bucket trucks restore the conductor line. Depending on the damage, repairing each pole can take from 10 minutes to 5 hours, says Mr. Kingsbury. He and Mr. Wagner have been working 16 to 18 hours a day for the past two weeks. The line workers, they say, are on a similar clock.

“Every aspect of the company is in motion,” says Mr. Kingsbury.

For line workers since the hurricane, it’s motion and emotion, he adds. More than a dozen LCEC employees lost their homes, and seeing the destruction around them can be wrenching. But despite the damage and despite the hours, getting the power back on is a way to cope. It’s their job to help fix a broken community. 

“Linemen say it’s poles and wire,” says Mr. Kingsbury. “No matter where you go it’s poles and wire.”

Editor's note: The order of the names in the photo of LCEC workers has been corrected.

Every Monday morning at 9 o’clock, Russian students of all grades have been required to attend a new course: Conversations About Important Things.

Announced over the summer, the course is intended to instill deeper patriotic feelings among students, and the Kremlin regards the task as so urgent that President Vladimir Putin himself offered an example of the opening lesson. Its supporters see it as a nondoctrinaire way to redress the lack of patriotic education in Russian schools since the Soviet collapse.

But its detractors view it as another giant step on the road back to totalitarianism. The announcement of the new classes led to considerable pushback from parents’ groups and human rights organizations which argued that propaganda has no place in the school and, at the very least, students should be permitted to opt out of the new course.

Some media reports suggest that the Ministry of Education has revised the course material to respond to parents’ objections, to remove explicit mentions of the military operation in Ukraine, NATO, and the honorable nature of dying for Russia. Indeed, the official list of topics for the lessons issued by the ministry consists of mainly saccharine talking points, such as “Russia and the world” and “the day of labor.”

But analysts who’ve taken a deeper look at the teaching materials being recommended by the ministry say the focus will clearly be on historical themes that stress national consolidation in the face of outside efforts to sow disunity, putting the national good above one’s own life, and seeing the state as the embodiment of all that’s trustworthy.

“This process of [reintroducing patriotic indoctrination] has been underway for some time,” says Nikolai Petrov, an expert on Russia with Chatham House in London. “Instead of a range of textbooks there is now only one approved version, especially in history, and the range of accepted interpretations is increasingly limited. ... Parents are different these days [from Soviet times]. Any body of government is interested in avoiding political scandals. When they encounter public resistance, they will try to pacify it. But, in many cases, they haven’t really changed their minds. They just set out to get the results they want by other means.”

Pavel Golovkin/AP/File

Children attend a math lesson in a school in Moscow, Jan. 18, 2021.

“The state has no right to do this”

In recent years, especially since Russia’s confrontation with the West grew acute following the annexation of Crimea in 2014, restoring Soviet-style patriotic education has been a constant topic of debate among Russian educators and politicians.

Universal military-style cadet training has been restored, and this year a pilot project was launched in 10 Russian regions to install educational “advisers” in schools, whom many teachers fear will bring an ideological focus. Another development that activists complain of is the creation of a new state-sponsored youth organization called Big Change, reminiscent of the Soviet Young Pioneers which, although said to be voluntary, will have the effect of increasing the state’s role in the upbringing of children.

Russian Education Minister Sergei Kravtsov insisted in a recent interview that it’s not old-fashioned indoctrination, but a “set of conversations about events, people, their deeds, and ideas ... not a lecture, but a discussion.”

The lesson from the Conversations About Important Things course that Mr. Putin delivered personally on Sept. 1 mostly steered clear of the war in Ukraine, and stressed to students that cultivating individual excellence was the path to Russian national strength. But in responses to students, he veered into some of his own favorite themes.

He lamented the quality of education in Ukraine, saying that he was amazed to learn that students in Ukraine “do not even know that the Crimean Bridge exists. They believe it is a fake. ... They have no clue, no idea that Ukraine and Russia used to be part of a single state, the Soviet Union,” he said. “The Communist Party, which was in power back then, formed union republics, including Ukraine, and transferred a large number of historic Russian lands, including Donbas, to Ukraine, although Donbas residents did not want that.” Mr. Putin’s remarks are controversial personal opinions, but presented as teaching material they are prime exhibits for the critics’ case against this course.

Anastasia Kuznetsova, a human rights activist and founder of the independent Parents of Russia association, argues that the new lessons will undermine an important post-Soviet gain, in which the family became chiefly responsible for deciding what values should be most important for children.

“The state has no right to do this,” she says. “First they decided to introduce these classes, and now they are developing their plans on how to do it and what to teach. We are categorically against this. Children should form their ideas under the influence of family. If these lessons are going to take place, they should not be obligatory. ... Under the law, children have the right to opt out. Teachers who use threats or insist that pupils must attend do not understand the law. Many parents don’t know it either. It’s important to expand awareness of parents’ rights.”

Press reports suggest that in some areas parents have been granted the opportunity to withdraw their children from the lessons, which the ministry insists are “extracurricular” activities. But in a recent interview with the Tass news agency, Education Minister Kravtsov said that while students will not be graded for the Conversations class, skipping the lesson would be punishable. “Extracurricular activities are a mandatory part of the education program,” he said. Mr. Kravtsov added that the subject of the “special military operation” in Ukraine would certainly figure in the classes.

Alexei Nikolsky/Sputnik/AP/File

Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, listens to Russian Minister of Education Sergei Kravtsov during their meeting in Moscow, Jan. 12, 2021.

A tough lesson for teachers

Vladimir Volkov, a history teacher in a town north of Moscow, says he well remembers Soviet-era patriotic education, which included constant military training and civil defense drills. It’s all coming back, he says. “Everything is viewed as preparation for war, with the idea that there will be a war and students will take part in it. The principal figure is a man with an assault rifle and the main idea is that everyone should learn to defend their motherland. ... Students don’t seem to react much to this. They have their own lives. The majority seem to regard such lessons as a game, something that just isn’t real.”

Many teachers may not be ready, or even know what may be expected of them in delivering the new lessons.

“I’ve talked with quite a few of my fellow teachers about this,” says Tatiana Chervenko, a math teacher and member of the Alliance of Teachers trade union. “One said she will just talk with students about Russia as a country of possibilities in general for the full hour. Others seem to take it seriously and are trying to implement the guidelines. ... 

“A lot will depend on how teachers implement the material. I had a chat with one of my son’s teachers – he’s in the first grade – and she said that not all parents liked the idea of these classes, so she intended to use the hour to show the kids pictures of nature. But we heard that another teacher was telling children that the West is bad, that there are Nazis in Ukraine, and Russia is opposing that. In the Alliance of Teachers, we plan to go on opposing this order, with the aim of getting it canceled. We say so openly, but a lot of people remain silent because they are scared,” she says.

Experts say that Russia’s Education Ministry is in the process of rewriting textbooks and plans to introduce a whole new curriculum, including patriotic education, by next year. It’s not clear where all of this is leading, or even if there is any comprehensive set of ideas behind it, but it appears that the present mood of war is stifling debate and giving momentum to nationalist and pro-military voices.

“Clearly the war is driving the changes in education right now,” says Mr. Petrov, the Russia expert. “In these conditions it’s much easier to pressure teachers to teach in certain ways, and not in others.”

Taylor Luck

Potential investors read the profile of up-and-coming startups at a monthly event linking entrepreneurs with investors in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, May 30, 2022.

To the soothing strum of traditional Arabian stringed instruments and lit by purple and blue mood lighting, Saudi innovators and investors sip glasses of coffee, talk market opportunities, and share business cards.

On a temporary stage erected in the hall of a high-tech research center in Riyadh, young Saudis make their three-minute pitches to an audience of 50 potential investors.

Sultan Alzohofi, who has designed an app to reduce waiting times at barber shops, walks onto the stage in search of investment funds to the sound of a buzzing hair clipper.

“This is what you will hear while waiting for your turn at the salon,” he tells his audience. Now you will be able to join the queue before arrival and reduce waiting time.”

A quiet revolution is taking hold in Saudi Arabia, where citizens have long prized secure jobs for life over innovation and risk.

Now, thanks to government encouragement, investor interest, and an overhaul of laws and regulations, Saudis are increasingly staking out their own paths to prosperity, counting on themselves rather than big firms or the government to secure their future.

They are changing society’s perceptions along the way.

“Now if you say you run a startup, [people] look at you with a new eye,” says Rayan Hanbazazah, an e-commerce specialist at a coworking space in Jeddah.

“A viable path to success”

In the oil-reliant, big-government-dominated Saudi Arabia of the past, trying to start a business was an uphill, sometimes futile, battle.

The government treated small startups and large corporations in the same way; entrepreneurs faced high costs and required dozens of permits from different agencies that sometimes never arrived.

Mr. Hanbazazah, whose company offers its clients e-commerce services, recalls facing many obstacles in his own failed attempts to launch startups in the 2000s and early 2010s: red tape, a lack of financial backing, and a societywide lack of faith in a small business.

“Entrepreneur” was a label reserved for grocers and roadside vendors. Families even refused to marry their daughters to men seen as entrepreneurs, preferring potential grooms who had stable jobs for life at government agencies, oil firms, or international corporations. 

But things have changed. “Now your family and community will support you because they believe the market has changed and that this is a viable path to success and a sustainable career,” says Mr. Hanbazazah.

Taylor Luck

Majdi Al-Lulu (right), founder of Grintafy, a talent scout and evaluator service for soccer in the Middle East region – a startup that has partnered with professional clubs like West Ham – at Grintafy's offices at the Vibes coworking space in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, May 22, 2022.

Saudi Arabia’s energetic but controversial Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman has made small and medium enterprises (SMEs) the pillar of his Vision 2030 plan for a post-oil economy. By the target date, such companies should be contributing 35% of national gross domestic product, up from 20% today.

To that end, the government agency Monshaat has been busy since 2017 developing and advocating for startups and SMEs, assessing the likely impact of laws and regulations, certifying viable startups, and launching incubators for potential and existing entrepreneurs across the kingdom.

“In the past, it was really hard. I would need to do a lot of procedures in order to be listed and get the necessary licenses and then search for an opportunity,” says Saud Alsabhan, Monshaat’s vice governor for entrepreneurialism.

Now potential Saudi entrepreneurs have a one-stop online shop to get licenses in minutes; another portal allows them to apply for financing from 27 different banks and institutions in one go.

The number of registered Saudi SMEs has grown by 65% since 2017, and stands now at 892,000.

 “The government gave support and made it easier to start a business, and [local entrepreneurs] saw an opportunity. It became much easier and much faster to start a business in Saudi Arabia, and the market really responded to that,” says Mr. Alsabhan.

“A huge mindset change”

Saudi banks that long liked to play it safe with real estate or stocks are increasingly eyeing the room for growth and profit margins of SMEs. Encouraged by government guarantees, they have boosted SME investments from 2% to 8% of their portfolios in the last two years.

At a Monshaat business incubator in Riyadh, Fahad Al Hassan, who co-founded Soum, a startup that links buyers and sellers of electronic goods, recalls the rapid change.  

“When I was in college 12 years ago, the coolest thing was to be a petroleum engineer. Working for Aramco was the dream,” says Mr. Al Hassan, who himself studied petrochemical engineering.

But then a regional ride-hailing app, Careem, was bought out by Uber, the royal family made its support for entrepreneurship clear, and Saudi newspapers began putting innovators on their front pages. That changed the tone of young Saudis’ conversations and career plans.

“Now you hear college seniors talk about fintech or wanting to work for startups … to be able to do something big in the future,” says Mr. Al Hassan. “That is a huge mindset change. That’s awesome.”

At Vibes, a coworking space in Jeddah where swings, beanbag chairs, and foosball tables sit between interconnected office spaces, young entrepreneurs and employees of different startups mingle and chat excitedly about potential investors over specialty coffee from the office cafe.

Standing in one corner is Majdi Al-Lulu, who four years ago was renting a desk at Vibes as he hashed out an idea for a Middle East soccer talent evaluator and scouting service.

His company, Grintafy, now has a staff of 20 and a partnership with West Ham club in the United Kingdom.

“At the time in 2018, we felt like we were pioneers going out into the unknown,” says Mr. Al-Lulu of the handful of Saudis who belonged to the first wave of entrepreneurs.

“Now it feels like the most normal thing in the world. And what Saudis are learning is that since we are from the community, unlike international companies, locals understand us and we understand them.”

Taylor Luck

Noura Al-Mallouh, artist and founder of Kham Space, stands in the coworking space’s workshop that Jeddah creatives use to create installations and projects increasingly in demand from both the government and private sector as public events in the kingdom mushroom, in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, May 24, 2022.

Artists as entrepreneurs

The shift is also leading to an increasing desire among Saudis to work as freelancers – something unheard of in the kingdom a decade ago.

As Saudi Arabia hosts a growing number of high-profile sporting events, tourism festivals, and business conferences, there is high demand for statement art installations with a distinctive local identity.

With commissions flooding in, more Saudi creatives are giving up their day jobs to pursue careers as artists full time.

One place for the creative community is Kham Space, a creative coworking space in Jeddah founded by Noura Al-Mallouh in 2018 as a community and workplace for the growing number of Jeddah creatives.

Here on the sprawling second floor of a repurposed, palm-shaded Jeddah villa, two dozen writers, illustrators, artists, interior designers, photographers, and graphic designers use studios and private rooms amid upcycled furniture and sculptures.

Some paint; others do audio work or saw, weld, and hammer in Kham Space’s workshop.

“People are following their own passion,” Ms. Al-Mallouh says, “and when everyone is looking for local creatives … there are opportunities for you. You are not just an artist, you are practicing a profession.”

The word of mouth is spreading.

“What is getting Saudis to take this leap of faith is not just funding or support, but hearing true stories, the good and the bad, from those who have set off on their own,” says Mr. Al Hassan, the entrepreneur.

“Hearing each other’s experiences is giving many people the nudge they need to jump and work outside an established company,” he adds. “The status quo has been upended.”

Colette Davidson

The Edmond Fallot mustard mill, seen here on Sept. 23, 2022, offers tours of its production facility all year round.

A half-dozen tourists huddle around a metallic counter at the Edmond Fallot mustard mill, as company employee Martine Dupin pumps various blends of Dijon mustard onto miniature wooden spoons. There are gingerbread, blackcurrant, and whole seed “old style” varieties, among others. Faces contort as the pungent zing rises to their nostrils.

“I’m definitely planning to buy some mustard today,” says Elisabeth Soulier, from Poitiers. “It’s great in a sauce for cooked rabbit, or in a vinaigrette for salad. It’s hard to find mustard anywhere anymore. And Burgundy mustard is so much better than the rest.”

Like her fellow tour group members, Ms. Soulier will be able to buy her pot of mustard in the gift shop – but just one. France is in the midst of a prolonged mustard shortage that has left supermarket shelves sapped of 21% of its stock of the beloved condiment. Edmond Fallot and its competitors have had to put caps on in-store purchases to minimize hoarding.

Now, with mustard in high demand due to drought and war, French farmers are looking to innovate and stake a larger claim in the market for France’s gastronomical heritage. They say they’re ready to move beyond the shortages and find opportunities for growth.

“Canadian mustard grains are very good, but mustard is emblematic of France,” says Patrice Boudignat, a mustard producer with 12 acres of land in the Ile-de-France region. “If we want to reduce the costs and inconveniences of transportation and have a shorter supply circuit, then we need to make more room for our local product. It’s our heritage that we’re trying to preserve every day.”

Colette Davidson

Martine Dupin, left, offers tastings of various mustard blends at Edmond Fallot, including its famous Moutarde de Bourgogne, which is made using a local seed, on Sept. 23, 2022.

A hard year for mustard

Mustard is the third most popular condiment in France, behind salt and pepper, and the French are the No. 1 consumers in Europe of the spicy yellow paste, at approximately 2.2 pounds annually per person.

The Burgundy region, and specifically the city of Dijon, has been at the center of mustard-making since the Middle Ages. In recent years, Burgundy has counted some 300 producers, capable of producing more than 10,000 tons of grains annually.

But mustard fields have been hit with insect attacks, which farmers have been unable to contain due to French laws on the use of insecticides since 2019. The region has seen its production cut by two-thirds in five years, from 12,000 tons in 2017 to 4,000 in 2021.

Even in good years however, Burgundy producers are not able to meet French consumer demand for moutarde with local grains, which require around 30,000 tons annually. Major labels have relied heavily on the Canadian market to fill the gaps. But drought conditions throughout 2021 – blamed largely on climate change – abruptly cut production in half.

The war in Ukraine has meant that France can’t count on grains from Russia and Ukraine, which produce a milder, yellow mustard version, to increase supply – assuming the French would buy it. The combined effect has put increased pressure on local producers to meet market demand.

“This is a situation affecting the whole world,” says a spokesperson for Maille, a market leader in Dijon mustard. “It’s temporary and out of our control.”

Edmond Fallot, which represents 5% of the French market, increased production by 20% to 25% at the beginning of the year. But they can’t do more.

“We have a small facility. We still use a stone mill to grind our seeds, something that big distributors abandoned long ago,” says Marc Désarménien, the owner of the company, which has been family-owned since 1840 and uses 100% Burgundy-grown seeds. “They want to produce fast, but they lose quality. I’m the third-generation owner of this business and we’ve always favored quality over quantity.”

Nicolas Guyonnet/Hans Lucas/Reuters

Empty cartons of French-made mustard Amora sit on a shelf in an Auchan supermarket in Guilherand-Granges, France, on Aug. 28, 2022.

“Periods of crisis represent opportunities”

The overwhelming demand has sent prices surging for next year’s mustard harvest, and has encouraged local mustard growers to increase production and brought new farmers to the crop, in an attempt to bring mustard back to its French roots and reduce the country’s reliance on Canada.

The Burgundy Mustard Association says the price for Burgundy seed is expected to double next year as compared to last: €900 euros per ton in 2021 versus an anticipated record €2,000 euros for 2023. And the Chamber of Agriculture for the Cote d’Or region says the number of producers has since risen from 160 to 500, with a goal to produce 15,000 tons of seed by 2023 – 40% of producers’ needs.

The challenge now for mustard producers is to make this newfound bounty sustainable and resilient against the sorts of conditions that caused the shortages this year, including insects and drought.

“Periods of crisis represent opportunities, but the concern is that these new [growing] methods are not preserved in the long run,” says Stéphane Fournier, a professor of innovation and sustainable development at the Institut Agro Montpellier. “All of us – citizens, nonprofits, and all the players involved – need to continue to develop alternative methods.”

Local mustard growers have heard the call for innovation. Some are testing new seed varieties that are more resistant to the unpredictable weather patterns that have come with climate change. Small-scale farms in regions not traditionally known for mustard are popping up.

And producers are looking for ways to widen the scope of what consumers want. Mr. Boudignat in Ile-de-France has developed sample versions of mustard oil and mustard-flavored chocolate, in addition to his more traditional varieties.

Edmond Fallot also now sells a sweet and savory mustard flavored with a pain d’épices (spice bread) blend, compliments of Mulot & Petitjean, a family-owned company in Dijon since 1796. In turn, Mulot & Petitjean has begun incorporating Edmond Fallot mustard into their dessert breads.

“We’re always searching for innovation and so is the consumer,” says Catherine Petitjean, the ninth-generation head of Mulot & Petitjean, based in Dijon. “We want to remain anchored in tradition but it’s the 21st century. We have to keep developing or we won’t move forward.”

Responsible consumers

Local producers are confident that consumers will follow them. French consumers value knowing the source of their food and appreciate products that circumvent large supply chains more than ever, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic hit. They put food origin as the top criteria for buying fruits and vegetables, according to a 2020 Ipsos poll, with 63% of those polled saying they bought local products whenever possible.

“We’re seeing that people are becoming more and more attentive to what they’re consuming, to know not only where [their food] was produced but also how it was produced,” says Marc De Nale, the director-general of Demain La Terre, a nonprofit that works with fruit and vegetable producers to promote sustainable development. “They want to know that farmers are engaged [in sustainable practices], have progress in mind, to produce better while also protecting the environment.”

As French consumers wait out the mustard shortage, some are supplementing their cravings with similar products from Algeria and Poland now filling supermarket shelves. Others have paid for train tickets to the Burgundy region in hopes of scoring a pot from local producers or are paying a fortune on Amazon. Still more are trying to make their last pot of Dijon mustard last as long as possible, until the tangy zest of this homegrown culinary hero makes its way back to the stores.

“I always use mustard when I cook, it’s simply part of our traditional cuisine,” says Guy Benoît, a native of Beaune, during a mustard tasting at Edmond Fallot. “I still have my little reserve of two pots at home because unless you get to the supermarket at 8 o’clock in the morning, there’s nothing left. But I know it’s going to come back.”

Editor's note: The original version mistakenly misnamed the Edmond Fallot mustard mill.

Kandra Miller has struggled with addiction to alcohol, heroin, and meth for seven years. In that time, she lost everything, rebuilt her life during two successful years of recovery, and lost it all again when she relapsed last year and became houseless, she says. 

In June, Ms. Miller felt ready to reclaim her life again. But this time, she wasn’t alone. When she joined the line for a detoxification clinic just after sunrise one morning, standing with her was Amber Richards, a peer support specialist whose job it is to transition people using drugs to treatment, housing, jobs, and – hopefully – sobriety.

By early September, Ms. Miller was housed in a sober living facility, attending 12-step meetings and, after some slip-ups, approaching 30 days without using drugs.

Her goal: “Stay sober for the rest of my life,” she says. 

Ms. Miller is one of hundreds of people supported by a unique program showing promise in suburban Clackamas County, Oregon. The program, Project Hope, is a coordinated public health response that funnels people at risk of dying by drug overdose into the care of Ms. Richards, a former heroin user and an expert on recovery. If someone overdoses in this large and diverse locale east of Portland, they’ll likely receive a visit from Ms. Richards or a specialized firefighter within the week, who offers resources and support.

In Oregon, advocates of Project Hope say it’s a model method of closing gaps between social services, first responders, hospitals, community hubs, and jails. Ms. Richards and her team have helped hundreds of clients find help, from detox to housing and counseling, since the project’s inception in 2018. 

But Ms. Richards and her colleagues are up against a historic spike in drug-related deaths. Fatal overdoses exploded in Oregon at more than double the national rate between 2019 and 2021, according to the National Center for Health Statistics, and Clackamas County is following the trend. 

“We can’t keep up,” says Apryl Herron, a Clackamas County public health coordinator who co-founded Project Hope. 

The spike is driven by methamphetamine and fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid flooding Pacific Northwest drug markets for the first time. Fentanyl is 50 times more potent than heroin and can be pressed into illicit pills or mixed into other drugs, authorities say.

Oregon has responded to this crisis with a nonpunitive approach. In 2020, voters approved a landmark law that decriminalized small amounts of illicit drugs and earmarked hundreds of millions of dollars for addiction treatment and community-driven responses. Counties and cities across the state are beginning to experiment with big plans. That’s fueled some optimism among addiction experts and advocates, and some are taking inspiration from Project Hope.

“She had tears in her eyes”

Before the program debuted, the response to a nonfatal overdose in Clackamas County was typical of the status quo in most of the United States, Ms. Herron says. If someone overdosed and did interact with first responders or a doctor, which is far from guaranteed, they might have been given a hotline to call. Otherwise, that person was free to continue using until their next overdose, she says.

Ms. Herron co-founded Project Hope with Amy Jo Cook, a community paramedic with Clackamas Fire who works with unhoused people with substance use disorders. In 2018, Ms. Cook began visiting the homes of people who had overdosed and offering them opportunities, such as an immediate spot at a detox. 

Photos courtesy of Project Hope

The Project Hope team, (from left) Apryl Herron, Cat Caruso, Amber Richards, and Amy Jo Cook, helps overdose survivors find a path toward recovery.

But the opioid crisis exploded during the COVID-19 pandemic, and Project Hope ramped up. Its small staff of four people, of which Ms. Richards is the only full-time employee, became a nexus for a slew of organizations in Clackamas County that interact with people using drugs, including hospitals, health centers, emergency services, police, and the county jail. That means Ms. Richards is often bouncing between courtrooms, fast-food restaurants, hospital beds, and the Clackamas County Jail. 

Her goal is to break down barriers to treatment. She begins by listening and sharing her own experience. 

Ms. Richards began taking prescription opioids 10 years ago. She later progressed to heroin. Her own path to recovery involved almost 10 trips to detox and numerous relapses. “I know all about it because I went through it,” she says. 

If she can win a client’s trust, it’s off to the races. She transports clients, who are often impoverished and without vehicles, to the doctor’s office, detox, and treatment centers. And she’s waiting for them in the parking lot when they’re finished. She navigates health plan bureaucracies with a part-time case manager and provides clients phone numbers for sober-living residences. She buys meals and hands out “harm reduction kits” that include naloxone, a medication that reverses opioid overdoses. 

And she picks up the phone when her clients call. That was welcome and unusual, Ms. Miller says; she was used to being ignored.

“She had tears in her eyes when she was talking to me,” Ms. Miller says. “She understood what was going on.” 

It’s hard work. One client Ms. Richards supports who lives in a tent and has overdosed in the past only began committing to detox after speaking with Ms. Richards for a month. Often, they simply meet in a parking lot and hug, Ms. Richards says. Another client recently accepted help but disappeared, only to resurface with criminal charges. 

Between December 2020 and December 2021, Project Hope staff members made 140 referrals, in which they connect clients to supports such as peer mentoring programs, housing, and jobs. Staff also made 60 referrals for treatment. 

But Project Hope doesn’t keep data on whether someone enters recovery or stays clean after receiving help. In fact, sobriety is not the project’s goal, Ms. Herron says. She judges its impact by whether clients accept help. 

That mission is partially a product of the tragic environment staff members work in, and their small team. Almost 70 people died due to drug use in Clackamas County last year, compared with a death toll of about 40 people in 2019. Accordingly, Project Hope’s goals were “refined over time to become realistic,” Ms. Herron says. Anecdotally, a few former clients have stayed in recovery for more than a year and keep in touch.

Not giving up

Project Hope is a model of “harm reduction,” a public health philosophy driving drug policy in progressive jurisdictions across the U.S., including Oregon. Harm reduction advocates say people using drugs can’t reach sobriety if they’re dead, so health care must provide support and safety supplies such as clean syringes and naloxone – not incarceration and stigma.

After a voter-approved windfall for substance use treatment in 2020, the state of Oregon is set to dole out $265 million in taxpayer funds over the next two years. Part of that funding will create an “army” of peer mentors like Ms. Richards, says Tony Vezina, chair of the state Alcohol and Drug Policy Commission. 

But Mr. Vezina says Project Hope is notable because it built cohesion between organizations that have historically not focused on addiction treatment, such as local police and fire departments, jails, and hospitals, with a peer mentor at the center.

“[Project] Hope really is that unique,” Mr. Vezina says of the program.

Todd Korthuis, an addiction medicine specialist at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland, tells the Monitor that organizations elsewhere should be building bridges like Project Hope has in Clackamas County. He emphasizes that opioid use has reached the level of a crisis in Oregon.

“We just haven’t seen anything like fentanyl in the past,” he says. “It’s going to take all of us working together to respond.” 

Ms. Herron is thrilled Project Hope has helped so many people. The small program is set to expand, and she is particularly excited to bring on another full-time peer mentor who will work as Ms. Richards has. 

On the ground, Ms. Richards is animated by the progress she sees individuals make every day. She’s deeply proud of Ms. Miller.

“I’m seeing more hope than I’m seeing hopelessness,” Ms. Richards says.

AP

Georgia Democratic candidate for governor Stacey Abrams speaks in July at a rally about voters casting in-person ballots the first week of early voting as she tries to navigate the state’s new election laws.

The midterm elections next month in the United States – in which voters will elect new officials at the local, state, and federal level, but not a new president – come at a time of uncertainty for democracy worldwide. Yet two trends in the U.S. challenge a common refrain that America’s centurieslong experiment in self-government is in trouble.

One trend is a string of consistent court rulings to safeguard elections and voting rights from false claims and unfair restrictions. The other is rising civic engagement, measured by political activism and high voter registration numbers. Together, they show that rule of law and the public’s desire for accountable government are holding firm against disinformation and cynicism.

“An expanding electorate, millions of citizens newly awake to the transformative power of the vote, and more determined than ever to be part of the democratic process and to be equitably represented in government – that’s what gives me hope,” Harvard University political science professor Claudine Gay told The Harvard Gazette.

There are, of course, novel concerns about American democracy two years after the 2020 presidential election and its turbulent aftermath.

A third of Americans say election fraud determined President Joe Biden’s victory, according to a Monmouth University poll in June. A survey by the Brookings Institution last week found that 345 candidates for local, state, and federal office support false claims that the 2020 presidential election was flawed.

Yet more than half of voters worry more about making sure eligible voters have access to voting than about efforts to prevent voting fraud, according to a NPR/Marist poll in June. Since 2020, many states have enacted new laws that some interest groups say restrict voter access while others say prevent voting misconduct. One common restriction, for example, is a requirement for government-issued photo identification in order to vote. The controversy over this restriction is high even if nearly 8 in 10 Americans support it.

Meanwhile, in yet another measure of voter sentiments, 84% say the integrity of the elections is top priority, according to a Rasmussen poll last week. ”Preventing cheating in elections is a priority for voters,” the polling firm concluded. Some states are wrestling with bipartisan support for measures that meet these expectations.

Courts are trying to play a crucial role sorting out these issues and clashing priorities – maintaining their role in preserving the design of democracy. On Sept. 30, for example, a federal judge upheld voting laws in Georgia against allegations that they unfairly excluded certain types of people from casting ballots. The ruling effectively shut down claims by Stacey Abrams, the Democratic candidate for governor, that she was denied victory when she sought the office four years earlier. A month earlier, a federal judge overturned a restrictive provision in Wisconsin that would have prevented disabled voters from casting ballots without assistance.

For many voters, worries about the electoral process are not their only concern. Issues such as rising crime, inflation, illegal border crossings, and Supreme Court rulings on personal rights are driving people to vote. A Morning Consult/Politico poll found that 59% of Democrats and 58% of Republicans are “extremely” or “very” enthusiastic about voting. That’s up 44% and 46% respectively from two years ago.

Younger voters in particular show what’s behind that enthusiasm. Recent polls by two universities, Tufts and Harvard, found voters in their 20s are determined to exercise their power. “In the past two election cycles, America’s youngest voters have proven themselves to be a formidable voting bloc with a deep commitment to civic engagement,” said Mark Gearan, director of Harvard’s Institute of Politics, on the institute’s website. They show “a pragmatic idealism as they consider the state of our democracy and the concerning challenges they face in their lives.”

In the past, midterm elections were mainly seen as a report card on the current president. This year’s might be more – an affirmation that, despite democracy’s troubles, self-government can remain an exercise in honesty and hope.