Sports journalist Walter Chihara of Lahaina News has covered it all in his community on Maui’s west coast – swimmers, canoe clubs, and surfing stars. He’s spent five decades in the historic coastal town.

As of last week, however, much of his town is gone. That includes the space where he held Lahaina Dojo, teaching Japanese karate. Houses of worship and museums have disappeared. 

So has his home. 

Though his family is safe, Mr. Chihara says, “we’re really trying to find out about all the neighbors.”

Survivors of the deadliest U.S. wildfire in more than a century know the island of Maui as more than palms, peaks, and waves. Beyond its vacationland veneer, Lahaina holds sacred sites for Native Hawaiians, and has for generations been home to various cultural groups and social classes.

Recovery will likely take years, says the governor. Thousands have gone without power in recent days or have been displaced in shelters. Painstaking search and rescue continues, meanwhile, as locals with missing loved ones are encouraged to submit DNA tests to help identify remains. Ninety-six people were confirmed dead as of Sunday night. 

Yet just as grief follows tragedy, so does giving. Local and state residents, as well as mainlanders, have mobilized a range of donations. An effort mostly led by Native Hawaiians has brought generators and other supplies to survivors by boat, as others help keep track of lists of missing persons. Mr. Chihara is among the grateful recipients, flooded with clothing and funds. As healing takes time, survivors like him are embracing the uplift. 

“Generosity has just been overwhelming,” he says.

Responding to fire’s aftermath

Since three wildfires began on Maui last Tuesday, most of the devastation has centered on Lahaina. Many attempting to escape, with no other way, threw themselves into the ocean. The U.S. Coast Guard rescued 17.

Rick Bowmer/AP

Hawaii Gov. Josh Green (left) and Maui County Mayor Richard Bissen Jr. speak during a tour of wildfire damage, Aug. 12, 2023, in Lahaina, Hawaii.

The fires’ causes remain unconfirmed, but they were fueled by strong winds and dry conditions. The perimeters of the fires are now largely contained. 

Local leaders encourage solidarity among the larger Hawaii ‘ohana, a cultural belief in the power and extension of family. Hawaiian is an official language of the state along with English. 

“If you have additional space in your home, if you have the capacity to take someone in from west Maui, please do,” said Democratic Gov. Josh Green last week. 

To ease the sudden demand, Hawaii’s capital, Honolulu, has paused a short-term rental rule, the Honolulu Civil Beat reports, and more temporary housing options may come with the help of hotels. Residents may also apply for certain aid through the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Officials ask for patience during the difficult process of victim identification.

“Everybody wants a number,” Maui Police Chief John Pelletier told a packed room of reporters Saturday. “Do you want it fast, or do you want it right? We’re going to do it right.”

Sarah Matusek/The Christian Science Monitor

Volunteers sort through donations in Wailuku, Hawaii, on the island of Maui, Aug. 12, 2023, which were shipped from the island of Oahu. Several organizations making up Hawaii's maritime community chipped in to the effort.

Maui locals, meanwhile, have raised their hands to help. Many have prepared free meals on the site of the University of Hawaii Maui College culinary arts program, an initiative also involving the nonprofit Common Ground Collective.  

On a recent kitchen shift, Truman Taoka dices vegetables. 

There are “all these people from other parts of the island helping out,” says the Maui-born-and-raised volunteer. “We are a small community, so everybody knows somebody on parts of the island.”

Barriers to action

Still, frustration has mounted over initial barriers to action. Firefighters lacked access to enough water, reports The New York Times. And people in Lahaina lacked notice that a disaster was fast approaching. 

Chris Phillips says he received “nothing” to warn him of the fire. The surfer watched as wind shook the windows of his apartment, and then smoke choked the sky.

“I have to find a job and start all over again,” he says at the Hawaii Convention Center, opened for evacuees, where he’d been sleeping in Honolulu.

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Jacob Turcotte/Staff

The state attorney general has announced a review of “critical decision-making and standing policies” around the fires.

“The records show that neither the State nor County activated the sirens,” which are typically used for storms and don’t necessarily signal the need to evacuate, but rather indicate the need to seek more information, writes Adam Weintraub, external affairs director at the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency, in an email. Alerts sent by officials to cellphones, televisions, and radio stations may have been disrupted by power or cellular outages.

Nina C., while lodging at her Lahaina timeshare last week, only learned of the fire’s severity through her sister in California, after several attempts to secure cell service. Ms. C., who declined to have her last name printed for privacy, fled with her son and husband, with whom she honeymooned on Maui years ago.

Sarah Matusek/The Christian Science Monitor

Chris Phillips, a survivor from the Lahaina fire on Maui, stands outside an assistance center at the Hawaii Convention Center in Honolulu, Aug. 11, 2023.

“We will continue to come back,” she says. “Not just because we love it,” she adds, but to keep supporting the local economy.

The cost to rebuild, by one estimate, could take $5.52 billion. Still, some residents are already wary of rebuilding Lahaina, once the capital of the Kingdom of Hawaii, in a way that mainly privileges wealthy property owners and tourists. That worry parallels experiences of displacement throughout Hawaii, including the overthrow of the royal government and annexation of the islands by the United States in 1898.

Communities “come together”

For some survivors, focusing even on day-to-day needs has proved overwhelming.

“Still, I’m like, confused,” says Héctor Bermúdez, outside a Wailuku shelter east of Lahaina on Saturday. “I don’t even know what day is today.”

The Lahaina resident fled with only his wallet. Family and friends have offered him housing in California, Texas, and Florida, says Mr. Bermúdez, but he’s unsure of next steps. He’s building back his world one donation at a time: fresh white towel, new blue shirt.

Shelby Scofield’s family pitches a tent nearby. Despite the difficult road ahead, Mx. Scofield says they’ve been moved by support.

Before the fire, the therapist had helped people transition out of incarceration, homeless shelters, and substance-use treatment centers into housing. Now clients are helping ease Mx. Scofield’s own transition, calling to check in and bringing over ice and clothes. 

Also delivered this weekend was the pet guinea pig, which somehow survived.

“The communities just come together,” says Mx. Scofield, “which is what is beautiful about Maui.” 

We encourage people seeking to help to research reputable aid groups before donating. The governor of Hawaii suggests supporting the following organizations: Hawai‘i Community Foundation – Maui Strong Fund, Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement – Kāko‘o Maui Fundraiser, and Maui United Way – Maui Fire Disaster Relief.

In the back room of a Jewish temple, the kids are running the show.

It’s just after 6 p.m. on a Thursday, and the learners at Life Skills Academy have invited their parents to take a seat. Board games and video games – made by the older children – await the visitors, who, for the next hour, will try them out. 

As her classmate gives the go-ahead, 7-year-old Freya Rollinson leads her father and younger brother to a corner. Her exuberant giggles punctuate the directions she’s trying to explain. She says the goal of the game, which features square blocks designated as creatures such as a dog, snake, and unicorn, is to “try not to get tricked.”

“What made you pick all these?” her father, Piers Rollinson, asks.

“My mind,” she replies.

Her answer speaks to the very nature of this learning environment. By Nevada law, Life Skills Academy can’t call itself a school, but education is its mission, albeit in an atypical format. The Montessori-inspired microschool, which rents space at the Jewish temple, served 13 children from age 5 through fifth grade during its inaugural 2022-23 academic year. 

But don’t call them students. Here, they’re “learners” who chart their own educational journey through critical thinking and project-based learning. They even make up the classroom rules. The two teachers, known as “learning guides,” take a supporting role in the background.

Jeff Scheid/Special to The Christian Science Monitor

A learner conducts research for a project at Life Skills Academy in Henderson, Nevada.

“We’re building a civil society from scratch,” says James Lomax, founder and director of Life Skills Academy, which is part of the Acton Academy network of microschools. “They, over the course of that first six weeks, make the rules that they live by.”

Most passersby wouldn’t know this place exists. And, in some ways, that’s symbolic of the entire microschooling movement. Tiny learning environments – reminiscent of the one-room schoolhouse – are sprouting in churches, temples, commercial spaces, and even houses across the United States. They’re in bustling cities, rural communities, and suburban enclaves.

Oftentimes, they’re created by parents or teachers who wanted something for their children or students that couldn’t be readily found in traditional schools. But it was the pandemic that thrust this model into the limelight, as families scrambled to make remote learning work. So-called learning pods came into vogue, with kids clustered around kitchen tables, working elbow to elbow with neighborhood pals, relatives, or family friends. The city of North Las Vegas even temporarily ran its own microschools in recreation centers during the pandemic.

Some saw this approach as a Band-Aid solution to a difficult situation. For others, it was just the beginning.

Jeff Scheid/Special to The Christian Science Monitor

A poster listing “rules of engagement,” as designed by the learners, hangs in Life Skills Academy in Henderson, Nevada, June 28, 2023.

“For lots of people, schools just got too big,” says Michael McShane, director of national research at EdChoice. “They felt like they were a number. They did not feel like they knew the other people in their community.”

Ask a dozen microschool leaders to describe their schools, and you’ll likely receive a dozen slightly different responses:
Montessori-inspired, nature-focused, project-based, faith-oriented, child-led, or some combination of other attributes. They may exist independently, as part of a provider network, or in partnership with another entity such as an employer or a faith organization. Their schedules vary, too. Some follow a typical academic calendar, while others operate year-round, and some allow students to attend part time.

In other words, there is no one-size-fits-all definition for microschools. But, in general, they’re intentionally small learning environments. They often serve fewer than 30 students total and operate as learning centers to support home-schooled students or as accredited or unaccredited private schools. Their exact designations differ based on state laws.

“What I love about microschools is that [they’re] kind of providing this middle ground between public school or home schooling,” says Dalena Wallace, founder and president of Wichita Innovative Schools and Educators, a support network for alternative education models.

The National Microschooling Center launched in August 2022 to support this patchwork quilt of tiny learning communities dotting the American landscape. For a sector analysis released in April, the center examined 100 microschools that exist in 34 states, as well as 100 prospective microschools preparing to open. Though it’s difficult, if not impossible, to pinpoint the exact number of students attending microschools, researchers say it’s likely between 1.1 million and 2.1 million. On the low end, that would mean microschools serve an estimated 2% of school-age children in the U.S.

“I don’t expect that it’s ever going to displace public school systems,” says Don Soifer, CEO of the National Microschooling Center, which is based in Las Vegas. “But it really wouldn’t surprise me if you were to get much closer to a 10% market share.”

Jeff Scheid/Special to The Christian Science Monitor

Learning guide Leah Yee points to a word while practicing reading with a child at Life Skills Academy in Henderson, Nevada.

The center’s analysis found that although current microschool leaders are predominantly white (64%), that share drops to 55% among prospective founders – indicating a gradually diversifying sector. More than a quarter of those seeking to start their own microschools are Black, and 5% are Latino. 

It’s also not an ideologically homogeneous group, Mr. Soifer says. Microschool leaders and families come from all different backgrounds, political perspectives, and religious beliefs. The center’s analysis found that only 27% of microschools offer faith-based instruction.

Kerry McDonald is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Economic Education and author of “Unschooled: Raising Curious, Well-Educated Children Outside the Conventional Classroom.” For years, she has been studying the microschooling movement, which she says dates back to the mid-1990s. That’s when a self-directed learning center in Massachusetts called North Star opened, and hybrid home-schooling programs popped up around the U.S. Ms. McDonald says she has been struck by the cooperation among microschool entrepreneurs who may have very different learning philosophies.

“They come together in the spirit of collaboration and community, sharing knowledge with each other, referring families to each other’s programs, providing resources and encouragement and support,” she says.

But many prospective leaders have one big thing in common: Fifty-two percent are professional or licensed educators, according to the center’s analysis. 

Felicia Wright fits that description. A former public school teacher, Ms. Wright founded The Learning Outpost in Las Vegas last year. It was the culmination of a dream that started percolating after her first year of teaching in 2014.

Jeff Scheid/Special to The Christian Science Monitor

Felicia Wright, founder of The Learning Outpost in Las Vegas, stands near classrooms, June 28, 2023.

“There’s no way I can do this forever,” Ms. Wright recalls thinking. “This is bananas.”

The workload and emphasis on testing, she says, made the job feel less focused on the children. She hopped from a traditional public school to a charter school but didn’t notice any drastic differences. So she left the field altogether – questioning her teaching chops – and went into marketing. But the tug of the classroom was too strong to ignore. She started an education-related YouTube channel and began tutoring, all of which led friends and family members to nudge her to start her own school.

In 2022, she and her husband took out a $9,000 loan from his retirement account to open The Learning Outpost, which operates out of rented space at a church. When classes began last August, the microschool served four children – two of whom were the Wrights’ own daughters.

“It was a rough go,” she says. “We were running in the red, and I did not have a whole lot of money to sustain this place.”

By October, Ms. Wright made a strategic change to entice more students. She created “flex” scheduling, allowing students to come all day for a minimum of two days a week in addition to the existing full-time option. She announced the flexible scheduling in an email blast, and, within two hours, her phone started ringing. Initially, the surge of interest came from home-school families, Ms. Wright says. As the months progressed, she started welcoming full-time students from private schools whose parents sought a change after noticing their kids’ high stress levels.

Her pitch to parents: “We’re not in a rush here, and kids are on their own journey.”

Jeff Scheid/Special to The Christian Science Monitor

Felicia Wright enters the microschool she started, The Learning Outpost, in Las Vegas.

That journey may look like learning about first aid or purifying water with a solar cell as part of a desert island survival-themed unit. There are no academic standards directly tied to those lessons, Ms. Wright says, but The Learning Outpost weaves in “mini lessons” about more traditional subjects – phonics and math, for instance – throughout the day.

In late June, Ms. Wright toiled in The Learning Outpost, hanging posters and lugging books to different locations. New signage, made by her father, greets visitors at the front entrance. It’s a refresh and reorganization as she preps to begin her second year – this time with an expected 26 students, two teachers, and one executive assistant. She describes her vision come to life as a “microschooling center” or “project-based learning center.”

“I want them to feel at home here,” she says. “That’s important to me.”

In some ways, the microschooling movement echoes a largely bygone time in American education when a little red schoolhouse drew children from the surrounding community. Today, the public one-room schoolhouses that exist typically function out of necessity, serving students in sparsely populated areas. 

But the themes inherent in them – multi-age, communal environments with small student populations – have consistently reemerged over the decades as Americans rejected sprawling schools with hundreds or even thousands of students, says Jonathan Zimmerman, an education historian at the University of Pennsylvania. 

He points to the open-schools phenomenon in the 1960s, when classroom walls were removed to foster movement and collaboration, followed by a push more recently from policy leaders and philanthropists, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, to create smaller high schools.

“This image or this metaphor – that’s really what it is,” Dr. Zimmerman says, referring to nostalgia surrounding the one-room schoolhouse, “has something to offer everyone.”

Riley Robinson/Staff

A wall at Highlands Micro School in Denver shows where teachers tracked each student’s height.

In Denver, it’s a little yellow schoolhouse, though. The Highlands Micro School sits on a leafy residential street about 3 miles northwest of downtown.

Anne Wintemute forged the trail in 2015, well before the term “microschool” had created any dent in the education sphere. At the time, the mother of three was simply looking for a different kind of schooling for her children and had heard that a few small schools existed across the country. She parlayed her business development background into launching the microschool, starting with a hunt for the perfect house. Denver allows educational uses in most zone districts across the city if certain codes are met.

By August 2016, a brown duplex had been transformed into a yellow schoolhouse, complete with a red front door and a cupola containing a bell. A treehouse-inspired play structure built by Ms. Wintemute, a dirt pit for play excavation, and a garage converted into an art studio take up the backyard. 

Ms. Wintemute says she built the microschool on an ideological foundation centered around these questions: “What does a school look like if relationships are guiding the decisions? What does it look like to have high standards on an individual level versus the same standards for all? And is it possible to build an educational organization – a school – that serves the needs of the learners?”

Highlands Micro School, considered a private school in the eyes of Colorado, serves 24 students in kindergarten through fifth grade. Ms. Wintemute, who is transitioning out of a leadership role to pursue other opportunities, says the students take a normed assessment three times a year to ensure they’re meeting or exceeding academic standards comparable to their peers’ in public schools. But proof of concept also comes into play when students age out of Highlands and go on to another school.

Kate Giacomini, who is taking over as the microschool’s director and owner, says she witnessed that firsthand with her son. He joined Highlands as a second grader and graduated to a 600-student public middle school.

“He was able to flourish because he’s really flexible,” she says. “He was given the tools he needed to problem-solve and learn and be confident in his own skin.”

Riley Robinson/Staff

Anne Wintemute (left) and Kate Giacomini stand outside Highlands Micro School in Denver. Ms. Wintemute started the school in 2016. Ms. Giacomini is taking over as director and owner.

Her son’s experience mirrors what Mr. Lomax hoped would be the outcome when he started Life Skills Academy. The U.S. Naval Academy graduate and engineer had encountered a frustrating trend in the workplace: young hires from some of the nation’s top universities who had earned high grades but lacked the ability to problem-solve or navigate human relationships.

Meanwhile, Mr. Lomax and his wife were concerned their daughter’s preschool was more focused on academics than soft skills, such as her ability to make friends and resolve conflicts.

Life Skills Academy aims to foster a learner-directed model where the children chart their own educational trajectory and, in the process, gain leadership, teamwork, and problem-solving skills, Mr. Lomax says. The children move along at their own speed, mastering English language arts and math lessons in the morning before spending the afternoons doing project-based units.

As a kindergartner in 1985, Mr. Lomax says his teacher likely had no idea how the internet would transform future careers. Likewise, with artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies, he says educators can’t fathom the job market for today’s children.

“I can’t prepare them for that, but what I can do is make sure they know how to learn,” he says.

Mr. Rollinson says he saw evidence of that happening in his daughter, Freya, and son, Elliott, after they started attending Life Skills Academy. Instead of coming home anxious, the way Freya had while enrolled at a charter school, she now seems reinvigorated – asking lots of questions and loving to read and write stories.

Freya puts it this way: “We get more free time. There’s no homework. You get to take off your shoes.”

The key to keeping the lights on in a microschool is the same as in any public or private school – money. 

Nearly 9 in 10 microschools rely on tuition as their primary source of funding, according to the sector analysis by the National Microschooling Center. About 18% receive state funding provided through school choice programs. Microschools often cobble together other funding streams from fundraising or grants as well.

When Michael Parsons launched the Vandalia Community School in Charleston, West Virginia, last year, he set the microschool’s tuition at $6,800 annually and created avenues for financial aid. He says the rate is lower than nearby private school tuition, a strategic move to make the microschool more accessible. 

Riley Robinson/Staff

A camper plays in the beloved dirt pit, June 29, 2023, at Highlands Micro School in Denver.

Mr. Parsons says he is proud that his microschool – which launched with nine children, including two of his own – serves a racially diverse student population as well as both neurotypical and neurodivergent learners. But those equity-minded efforts could go by the wayside if tuition is out of reach.

“We’re always doing our best to kind of fall in that sweet spot where if somebody wants to come to our school, within reason as much as I possibly can, I want to remove money as a deal breaker,” he says.

West Virginia families have a tool at their disposal to help cover that cost: the Hope scholarship. The education savings account program allows families to use state aid – $4,488 per child for the upcoming academic year – for microschool tuition, among other options. Similar programs exist in other states that have passed expansive school choice legislation, such as Florida and Arizona.

As of early June, the West Virginia treasurer’s office had awarded Hope scholarships to 5,099 students, with hundreds more approvals expected this summer. It’s unclear how many of those students are attending microschools, as the money can be directed to everything from tutoring services and textbooks to private school tuition.

Still, the situation has drawn the ire of groups such as the West Virginia Education Association (WVEA), which contends that public schools will be hurt as schools with few, if any, accountability measures receive taxpayer funding.

“Not only are there no restrictions on the educator; there’s no accountability for the students,” says Dale Lee, president of the WVEA, which represents nearly 10,000 educators across the state. “We don’t know if their education is progressing as it should, and yet we’re comparing our public schools and scrutinizing them over test scores when the microschools and learning pods don’t have to have any accountability.”

Some microschool leaders wince at the idea of regulation stymieing creativity. They argue their accountability comes in the form of a contract with the parents who enroll their children. Depending on the microschool, those academic measures of progress could take the form of occasional testing, a portfolio review of a student’s work, or something else entirely. 

Ms. Wallace, of the Wichita Innovative Schools and Educators support network, says she anticipates greater regulation if microschools accept public money, but if they’re relying solely on tuition and private funding, she believes they should be granted more freedom. Her own six children, whom she home-schools, attend a microschool one day a week in rural Abbyville, Kansas. The arrangement provides variety during the week, she says, and also “helps keep it sustainable for families that need a little bit of additional support.”

Ultimately, Mr. McShane, of EdChoice, expects more attempts to regulate microschools as the sector expands. A hint may lie in how states handle home-schoolers.

Riley Robinson/Staff

Summer campers play June 29, 2023, at the Highlands Micro School in Denver. During the school year, Highlands enrolls about 24 students in K-5.

“There’s a wildly different home-schooling regulatory environment from state to state,” he says. “And I imagine something similar will probably happen with microschools.”

Regardless of whether state money is available to parents, microschool leaders are tapping into private funding sources to make ends meet.

In Las Vegas, Ms. Wright received three grants totaling $52,000 for The Learning Outpost during one week last year. “Those opportunities make a big difference” for small enterprises operating on thin margins, she says.

A powerhouse in the grant-making arena is the VELA Education Fund, which gives money to “everyday entrepreneurs in unconventional education.” Since 2019, the nonprofit fund – whose board members include representatives from the Walton Family Foundation and Stand Together Foundation – has distributed more than $24 million, some of which has gone to microschool leaders.

A report released by VELA this year notes that 93% of its grantees serve children whose families identify as low income or historically underserved, with 38% focusing on those student populations.

No matter how microschools are financed, Dr. Zimmerman considers quality monitoring a civic responsibility given the need for an educated populace.

“It’s not just about these people,” he says. “It’s about all of us. And so they should be allowed and encouraged to innovate, but the rest of us should be watching closely.”

Mr. Parsons, from West Virginia, doesn’t see microschools fizzling out as a fad. Down the line, he even envisions an education landscape where school choice isn’t seen as a divisive concept.

Could microschools forge partnerships with nearby public schools? He thinks yes. In an ideal world, Mr. Parsons says microschool students could participate in sports or extracurricular activities at public schools. Conversely, students struggling in larger public school settings could be referred to microschools.

“I hope to see this become something [in which] the adults are behaving like adults, and we’re talking and we’re collaborating,” he says. “The students benefit from that.” 

Press Information Department/AP

Pakistan's President Arif Alvi (center) hoists the national flag during a ceremony to commemorate Independence Day in Islamabad, Aug. 14, 2023.

The people of Pakistan celebrated 76 years of independence from the British Raj Monday with fireworks and commemorative ceremonies. But amid the pomp and celebration, there was a palpable sense of unease about the country’s future.

After five years of instability, Pakistan’s fractious politics entered a new phase last week when the president dissolved the National Assembly on the advice of outgoing Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif.

The constitution stipulates that general elections must be held within 90 days of the dissolution, but it is difficult to find anyone who believes that will happen. Instead, it is expected that a long period of technocratic rule by a caretaker government will give the military establishment time to decisively remove former Prime Minister Imran Khan from the political process.

Indeed, in its final month, the National Assembly passed more than a hundred bills without debate or opposition, including amendments that have empowered both the military and the Inter-Services Intelligence to crush dissent and persecute civilians. Meanwhile, Mr. Khan was convicted of corruption and transferred to a high-security prison.

Journalist and dissident Taha Siddiqui, who is no fan of Mr. Khan or his party, says these developments are evidence that Pakistani democracy “exists on paper but not in practice.”

“Unless and until the military lets go of its hold over the country, it is difficult to see Pakistan being free,” he says. “And given that the military is so entrenched – its footprint is everywhere from business to politics to religion – it seems almost impossible for Pakistan to be free and truly independent.”

Anjum Naveed/AP

Lawmakers arrive for a group photo with then-Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif at the end of parliament's last session in Islamabad, Aug. 9, 2023. Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar, a former senator, was sworn in Monday as Pakistan's caretaker prime minister.

In the aftermath of the May 9 riots – when supporters of Mr. Khan laid siege to military installations in a show of anger at his initial arrest this spring – the Pakistan army cracked down on Mr. Khan’s party, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI). Thousands of activists were thrown behind bars, and virtually the entire top leadership was forced to defect. With Mr. Khan barred from contesting elections for the next five years, prospects for a PTI comeback are dim.

For Sayed Zulfiqar Bukhari – who served as a minister in the PTI government – Mr. Khan’s absence from the political arena will mean voters are deprived of their freedom to choose.

“How can you classify something as a transparent democracy when you’re dismantling the largest national-level party ... and the most popular leader in the country is in prison?” he asks. “For Pakistan to become a free and democratic country, what needs to happen is free and fair elections. The people have to pick their leaders and the government that comes in has to have the mandate of the masses.”

By contrast, members of the outgoing coalition government believe that the greater threat to Pakistani democracy would be a failure to prosecute Mr. Khan. That is the view of Ahsan Iqbal Chaudhary, a former planning minister who served in the coalition government led by Mr. Sharif. “No one is above the law ... [and] what happened on May 9 was not democracy but an attack on the state,” he says. “Does America forgive the attack on Capitol Hill?”

Observers point out that the reckoning after the May 9 attacks has allowed the Pakistan army to reassert its control over the country’s fragile democracy and that the civilian government has ceded space to the military as an act of self-preservation.

But for veteran journalist Zebunnisa Burki, the rolling back of democratic freedoms actually began in 2018, when the military establishment went out of its way to bring Mr. Khan to power.

“Nothing is in a vacuum. Everything that is happening right now is linked to what was happening back then,” she says. “I wouldn’t lose hope completely, but it’s very difficult to find any because civilian space has been ceded terribly.”

Akhtar Soomro/Reuters/File

Former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan speaks with Reuters during an interview in Lahore, Pakistan, March 17, 2023. With Mr. Khan barred from contesting elections for the next five years, prospects for his party are dim.

The election of Mr. Khan in the summer of 2018 was seen as the beginning of a kind of hybrid democracy, where major policy decisions were taken by the Pakistan army and defended by the civilian facade of Mr. Khan’s government. Cracks began to appear a few years later when Mr. Khan tried to assert his constitutional authority as prime minister, eventually leading to a complete breakdown in civil-military relations. After Mr. Khan’s government was removed in an army-backed vote of no confidence in April 2022, the incoming coalition government adopted a policy of appeasement toward the generals.

“If civilian space was ceded, say, 70% back then [during Mr. Khan’s tenure], the rest of it has been given away as well,” says Ms. Burki.

In spite of these problems, however, some politicians and civil society remain hopeful of a turnaround in the country’s fortunes.

“One of the best things in many ways has been an awakening of the PTI supporters because they’re younger people,” says Ms. Burki, who’s an outspoken critic of the PTI. “At some point, history does teach you lessons, and when they’re over the toxicity of all of this, perhaps there will be some kind of reckoning of what has gone wrong in Pakistan over the years and perhaps the younger voter, the younger lot, can demand a little more.”

As for Mr. Khan and the future of his party, supporters remain bullish that he will eventually prevail.

“I just feel Imran Khan and PTI will succeed one way or another because he’s just got tremendous support everywhere in the country,” says Mr. Bukhari, the PTI official. “I’ve always categorically said that in Pakistan, we’re overdoing it and it’s not so bad. Other countries have fixed themselves, but what you need is five to seven years ... to turn Pakistan around.”

Chris Pizzello/AP

Stephanie Sanditz, a member of both the writers and actors guilds, pickets outside Netflix studios on Aug. 9, 2023, in Los Angeles – the 100th day of the writers strike.

In Hollywood, the only thing that lasts forever is “The Simpsons.” But the twin strikes by writers and actors are beginning to feel endless, too. 

The Writers Guild of America has been picketing for over 100 days. In July, it was joined by the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA). Both unions spent much of the summer at an impasse in their respective contract renegotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. On Friday, the writers union and studios agreed to formally resume negotiations.

Why are they striking?

Both unions overlap in two major issues at the core of their disputes with studios. The first is how producers will utilize artificial intelligence. Actors and writers want to protect their jobs by implementing guidelines over the use of AI. The second, and predominant issue, concerns royalty rates. Writers and actors have traditionally been paid for their work each time their movie or TV episode airs in reruns. The streaming business model has rendered that model of compensation outdated. 

“Now each individual piece of content doesn’t necessarily make money on its own,” says Ben Fritz, author of “The Big Picture: The Fight for the Future of Movies.” “It’s just one thing that you may watch on a streaming service that you pay maybe $15 a month for. And most significantly, the streaming services like Netflix and Max and Disney+ do not tell anyone how many times something is watched.”

The studios argue that they have yet to turn a profit from streaming services. (The one exception is Netflix.) They believe that the additional labor costs and residual payments that unions are asking for will make it even more difficult to get out of the red. 

“Those contracts obviously constrain the studios and what they can do. And they’re saying, ‘You know, that isn't fair. We should wait until we figure out the model,’” says Mr. Fritz. “The unions’ position is: If we wait until you've got a healthy model that you like and then we come begging for a piece of it, it’s going to be too late. Then you're going to have us over a barrel.”  

Mario Anzuoni/Reuters

Actors and writers walk the picket line during their ongoing twin strikes outside Paramount Studios in Los Angeles, Aug. 2, 2023.

What does that mean for new TV and movies?

In early August, Ryan Reynolds attended a game with the Welsh soccer team Wrexham AFC, which he co-owns. He brought along a special guest: Hugh Jackman. Weeks earlier, the duo had been filming “Deadpool 3,” featuring Mr. Reynolds as the titular character and Mr. Jackman as Wolverine. It was one of the first productions to halt filming due to the actors strike. If picketing continues, Mr. Reynolds may see many more games this season.

“Deadpool 3” is among 73 productions that are now on hold. Productions on hiatus include sets in Australia, Morocco, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. The strike’s impact was even felt at the end of the yellow brick road in Oz. A cast of witches in the cinema adaptation of the musical “Wicked” has put down its broomsticks and picked up protest signs. 

Some big-name actors, including Anne Hathaway, Paul Rudd, and Dakota Fanning, are still filming. SAG-AFTRA granted waivers to 58 movies and four TV series that aren’t affiliated with any of the major studios represented by the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. 

Due to the long lead time of cinema releases, the delays may not be noticeable for a while. But both Disney and Sony Pictures recently pushed back the release dates of several 2024 movies. 

The impact is more immediately noticeable on TV. In place of scripted series, the networks’ fall schedules are loaded with reality shows and sports. CBS is importing Season 1 of the hit Kevin Costner drama “Yellowstone” from sister streaming network Paramount+. Meanwhile, it’s easier than ever to win big on “Jeopardy!” With its writers on strike, the game show’s new episodes will be recycling old questions. 

Finally, spare a thought for Tim Burton. The director had been in Vermont with Michael Keaton and Winona Ryder filming a long-awaited sequel. (The name should not be spoken three times  – we’ll mention it just this once: “Beetlejuice.”) The production had just one sequence left to film when the strike hit. Since the shutdown, several props have been stolen.

What could lead both sides to come to an agreement? 

No one can predict how long the twin strikes will last, says Brian Welk, senior business reporter for IndieWire, a film industry site. But, he adds, “I do think it’s going to be prolonged.”

The two sides are in a financial game of chicken to see who will be first to blink. 

Neither strike has yet entered record-breaking territory. The longest actors strike in history ran for six months in 2000, while the longest writers strike was for 154 days in 1988.

In July, Dwayne Johnson made a seven-figure donation to the SAG-AFTRA Foundation Emergency Financial Assistance Program. Since then, a number of other A-list actors have also donated more than $1 million each. It’s a big boost to the union’s 160,000 members. But many of them have already had to take out loans from the Screen Actors Guild credit union. 

On the other side, the studios and streaming services appear to be united. But how long before individual companies break ranks and push the others toward settlement? It depends on whether movies and TV are core to their business, or just one division within a multiproduct corporation like Amazon and Apple.

“Not all the studios are created equal,” says Mr. Welk. “Disney at least has parks to fall back on, and other things. But if you’re just a content company like Paramount or Warner Bros. and now you can’t produce shows ... you’re going to start to feel the pinch.”

Netflix, the only profitable streaming service, seems best equipped to weather the strike. It has a deep pipeline of content to draw from, says Mr. Welk. Even so, there may be a limit to how long subscribers will be happy to subsist on leftovers of USA’s “Suits” while new episodes of premium originals such as “Stranger Things” are delayed by the strikes. 

Several other factors may propel a resumption of negotiations. One economist estimates that the writers strike, which has passed 100 days, has cost the California economy $3 billion. The state’s governor, Gavin Newsom, may get a starring role in this drama. He recently offered to help broker a deal between the writers and studios, which have returned to the bargaining table. If they come to an agreement, that may put pressure on actors to follow suit. At some point, the end credits will roll on this story.

Correction: This article has been updated to include the correct title of the SAG-AFTRA Foundation Emergency Financial Assistance Program.

On his morning rounds after a summer rainstorm breaks Beijing’s heat, Zhao Shisheng inspects his favorite vine of gourds. 

From a small pot of dirt set against the wall of his back alley home, the vine climbs a bamboo pole, rising past mops hung out to dry. From there, it scales window ledges, pipes, and electricity wires, soaring toward a makeshift trellis Mr. Zhao built on his rooftop.

In fact, Mr. Zhao’s prolific, potted garden – bursting with vines of melon, grapes, tomatoes, cucumbers, mint, and beans – is rapidly enveloping his modest, one-story house, where he lives with three generations of his family and a pet parrot.

“This is my hobby,” says Mr. Zhao with a smile. 

Ann Scott Tyson/The Christian Science Monitor

Another gardener, Zhao Guangliang, grows gourds, melons, grapes, tomatoes, apples, and many other fruits and vegetables in containers and pots surrounding his home on a narrow Beijing hutong, or traditional alley.

Mr. Zhao counts himself among the ranks of Beijing’s hutong gardeners – the avid, green-thumbed residents who work wonders in the city’s maze-like ancient neighborhoods, tucked behind skyscrapers and traffic-clogged avenues. In hutongs, as the narrow alleys are called in Chinese, people travel more slowly – often by bicycle or by foot – affording them time to enjoy the lush bounty, and admire the gardeners’ horticultural feats. 

“We eat some and I share the rest with neighbors. I don’t need to sell what I grow. I already have a way to make a living,” Mr. Zhao says, pointing to a tiny convenience shop in the front room of his house.

These gardens are largely vertical, rising like Jack’s beanstalk out of humble clay pots or small planters. Vibrant vines and curly tendrils cling to the old stone and rounded tiles of the traditional courtyard homes. Their rustling leaves create a soothing sound and welcome shade as they arc over alleys and courtyards on trellises.

Like many of the gardeners, Mr. Zhao takes pride in cultivating beauty on the hutong where he and his family have lived for generations. “We’ve been here for more than 100 years,” he says. “I am a descendant of the [Qing Dynasty] Empress Dowager Cixi,” he adds, referring to the 19th-century Manchu concubine-turned-noblewoman who effectively ruled China for 50 years until 1908.

Ann Scott Tyson/The Christian Science Monitor

Amateur painter Liu Changli displays his watercolor painting of a hutong scene in Beijing's Chaoyangmen neighborhood, July 2, 2023.

Indeed, around the corner next to another hutong garden, a plein-air painter has set up an easel and canvas to capture the scene. “This plant is a loofah gourd,” says Liu Changli, dabbing leaves on his watercolor tableau. “People in Beijing like to grow it because you can eat it, or simply enjoy looking at it.”

The leafy summer setting in the old alley, set against the backdrop of Beijing’s high-rises, offers inspiration for Mr. Liu, an architect by trade who paints both for leisure and in drawing up designs. “Here my paintings can contrast the traditional hutongs with modern architecture,” says Mr. Liu, who belongs to a painters’ group in Beijing.

The grower of the loofah gourds, Zhao Guangliang, steps out his door carrying a potted tomato that needs a sunnier exposure. Space is precious in the hutongs, where people live in crowded conditions and share public toilets. So gardeners must be creative. Assisted with strategically placed bamboo, they use every nook and cranny for plants. One of Mr. Zhao’s neighbors arrays plants on the roof of an unused van. Mr. Zhao opts, for now, to seat his tomato on a small chair.

A longtime hutong resident, Mr. Zhao eagerly shows a passerby his winter melon plants, and hot peppers. Then he springs a pop quiz: “What’s this?” he asks. “Hmmm….a ‘kugua’ [bitter melon]?” the passerby ventures, tipped off by the melon’s bumpy skin. Mr. Zhao beams. “Correct!” Encouraged, he guides the visitor across the alley to check out his neighbor’s bumper crop of cucumbers and eggplants, pointing out a big gourd clinging to a surveillance camera.

Ann Scott Tyson/The Christian Science Monitor

The roof of an unused van makes a handy surface for growing potted plants in the crowded back alleys of Beijing's Chaoyangmen neighborhood, where gardeners and plant lovers make use of every available space.

When it’s time for the visitor to depart, Mr. Zhao sends her off with a wave.

“Come by again when you are free!” he says.

Visit with them for a time, and the gardeners enjoy sharing not only growing tips, but also how to use different plants in cooking and other practical ways. “This is a Sichuan pepper bush I’ve been growing for more than a decade,” boasts Mr. Wang, who withheld his first name for privacy. “You dry out the pepper in the yard, then you can use it to make mapo tofu or meat stew.”

“Whichever plant you like, I can give you one,” he offers. “This is mint. Do you have some in your house? Smell this kind – see how strong it smells? If you get bitten by a mosquito you can crush some and rub it on your skin.”

The conversation meanders from peppers to mint to jasmine, flowing easily and readily as Mr. Wang moves around his compact but fruitful garden.

“It’s good for people to chat like this,” he reflects. “It gets rid of your worries. Come by anytime.” It’s an invitation that, like the hutong gardens, is hard to resist.

AP

The sun shines through clouds over wildfire wreckage in Lahaina, Hawaii.

Extreme weather events and other disasters keep posing new questions about how communities can be better prepared for such emergencies. One line of defense is now evident in Lahaina, the Hawaiian town on the island of Maui, which was leveled last week by fire.

The inferno cut off roads, cellphone networks, and the internet, complicating official responses to an event few anticipated. Yet even before the smoke had cleared, private boats traveled from other islands and elsewhere on Maui laden with food, water, and other supplies. Anyone with a house still standing opened their doors and kitchens. Religious congregations that lost their buildings gathered to worship wherever they could. 

This outpouring of generosity is rooted in aloha and ohana, two traditional Hawaiian concepts that link individuals in bonds of love, compassion, and family. “We are here for one another, bound by the spirit of aloha that defines our community,” wrote Blake Ramelb, a Lahaina native and filmmaker. “Let us join hands across the miles, showing that compassion knows no bounds.”

Scholars who research how people prepare for and respond to disasters often look for “anticipatory altruism” in a community, or the spiritual attributes behind individual resilience and community trust. Emergency managers point to social cohesion – such as family and religious ties – as necessary to endure and recover from disasters, whether fires, terrorist attacks, or epidemics.

“We have witnessed anecdotal evidence of altruism before natural and human-made disasters, such as letting your neighbors know you have a tornado shelter and that they can use it even if you are not home,” wrote academics at the University of Oklahoma in a 2021 article in Public Administration Quarterly. Their research was based on a survey in six states that experience tornadoes and other forms of severe weather.

One disaster-preparedness expert, Steven Jensen of the Red Cross Scientific Advisory Council, says community or network support is key. “Whether it’s church, school, neighborhood, the stronger we make those connections beforehand the more they’re going to be there for us after disaster strikes,” he told Government Technology.

Such bonds are reservoirs of strength in communities emerging from natural disasters. In this year’s earthquakes in Turkey and Syria, for example, local relief groups formed by women provided some of the earliest help. After a 2011 tsunami in northeast Japan, residents who were isolated from government support found comfort in the virtue of koh, a sense of shared spiritual purpose expressed in mutual help.

An oral history of New Orleans captured the importance of community bonds following Hurricane Katrina in 2005. It included the story of a couple who waited out the storm in their grocery store and then immediately set out distributing water and food as the flood receded. “We’re working towards a bigger goal,” said the woman, whose name was Kim, told The Advocate. “I just feel that God’s gonna always provide for me if I keep just working hard trying to do his will.”