Donald Trump’s dominant performance in the New Hampshire primary confirms what already seemed clear – that the former president appears headed toward his third straight Republican nomination. 

But embedded in Tuesday’s 11-point victory over Nikki Haley, the former president’s only remaining major rival for the GOP nomination, were some flashing red lights for Mr. Trump’s prospects in November, when he is likely to face President Joe Biden again.

In short, Mr. Trump is both strong and weak as a general election candidate. He engenders fierce loyalty among his “Make America Great Again” base and already has lined up nearly the entire Republican establishment in Washington behind him. At the same time, a not-insignificant portion of the GOP electorate is leery of another Trump nomination, as seen in the New Hampshire results. And many independent voters – who may decide the winner in November – are deeply opposed to his candidacy.

Overall, Mr. Trump beat Ms. Haley, the former governor of South Carolina, 54% to 43%. That would typically be seen as a solid win in an open primary – that is, a contest with no incumbent running. “You’d say, ‘Wow, this is someone who has a chunk of the party,’” says Chris Galdieri, a political scientist at Saint Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire.

But Mr. Trump is in many ways “running as a quasi-incumbent seeking another term,” Professor Galdieri adds – which casts the results in a different light. “What if Joe Biden had performed like this last night?”

As a battleground state, New Hampshire in some ways presents a good approximation of the national electorate. In that context, the exit polls showed Mr. Trump’s weakness among self-identified independents, who made up 44% of voters who turned out for Tuesday’s Republican primary. Ms. Haley won 58% of that cohort and beat Mr. Trump among college graduates 56% to 42%. 

Still, Mr. Trump beat Ms. Haley among two other key demographics: women (51% to 47%) and suburban voters (55% to 42%). Female suburban voters are seen as a crucial battleground demographic – a cohort that could swing the November election.

On Tuesday, “what Trump needed to do in some ways was simple: Get conservatives out to vote,” says Dante Scala, a political scientist at the University of New Hampshire. “It was Haley who was trying to duct tape this weird coalition of voters together who don’t have a lot in common.” 

Steven Senne/AP

Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley speaks at a presidential primary night rally, in Concord, New Hampshire, Tuesday Jan. 23, 2024.

That coalition included some Democrats who had reregistered as Republicans to vote for her, as well as voters registered as “undeclared” – both legal moves, but not a big enough base of support to win in a GOP primary contest. 

For Mr. Biden, too, Tuesday’s results contained some positives. The president won the Democratic primary easily as a write-in candidate, after the national party committee opted to skip New Hampshire and make South Carolina its first official nominating contest. Mr. Biden didn’t campaign here, but Democratic activists staged a robust write-in campaign. The president beat Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota 54% to 19% in a preliminary count, as write-in ballots continue being processed by hand. 

But New Hampshire had some warning signs for the president. Some 10% of those who voted in the Democratic primary said that they would not support Mr. Biden if he’s the nominee. 

The president also faces continuing challenges with the left flank of his party. On Tuesday, at an event in suburban Virginia focused on reproductive rights – a strong issue for Democrats – protesters opposed to U.S. support for Israel in the war in Gaza interrupted the president more than a dozen times, shouting “genocide Joe.” 

The main show Tuesday, however, was the Trump-Haley smackdown. And Team Biden is suiting up, signaling that it sees the general election as game on.  

Two top Biden White House aides – Jen O’Malley Dillon and Mike Donilon – are effectively taking over the president’s reelection campaign. Ms. Dillon ran Mr. Biden’s successful 2020 bid, and Mr. Donilon, a longtime Biden insider and speechwriter, was another key 2020 adviser. 

For now, Mr. Trump has to focus on the coming primaries, where he appears to be in a strong position. In independent-heavy New Hampshire, Ms. Haley got the head-to-head contest she wanted after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis dropped out, but still couldn’t pull off an upset. After losing the vast majority of self-identified Republicans to the former president, Ms. Haley’s path forward looks far more daunting.

Yet Ms. Haley is vowing to battle on in her home state of South Carolina, where she served as governor and which holds the next Republican primary, Feb. 24. In his New Hampshire victory speech, Mr. Trump did little to hide his irritation, slamming his former ambassador to the United Nations as an “imposter.” 

Matt Rourke/AP

Supporters rally for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump at a primary election night party in Nashua, New Hampshire, on Jan. 23, 2024.

How long Ms. Haley can keep her campaign alive is an open question. The answer is likely to center on how long her money holds out, both in her campaign treasury and in the super political action committee supporting her. One reason to stay in as long as possible, supporters say, is that she could step in if an unexpected event were to derail Mr. Trump’s bid late in the cycle. The former president is facing 91 felony counts in four criminal cases.

According to exit polls, the majority of voters in New Hampshire said they believed Mr. Trump would be fit for the presidency even if convicted of a crime, by 54-42%. Among those who said he would not be fit, 83% voted for Ms. Haley, while 13% voted for Mr. Trump – suggesting at least some portion of the former president’s supporters could change their minds, depending on what happens.

For the voters of Pembroke, New Hampshire, simply engaging in the quadrennial exercise of voting in the nation’s first primary was itself cause for enthusiasm. At the local public high school, Democrats and Republicans alike freely discussed their choices with a reporter. 

“I’m looking for somebody to change the way our government functions,” said Michael Johns, a Trump voter. “All the debt, all the wars, it’s time to stop that.” 

But another voter, who said he cast his ballot for Ms. Haley, had a different take. “I’m not a Trump fan,” said Scott, who declined to give his last name. “His rhetoric brings chaos.” 

Iranian Army/AP/File

A drone is launched from an Iranian warship Aug. 25, 2022. Experts say that Iranian drone technology and “swarm” tactics for using it have been instrumental in transforming Russia’s early inferiority to Ukraine in drone warfare into a now-dominant position.

With the war in Ukraine deepening Russia’s urgent need for weapons untouched by Western sanctions, Moscow is rapidly ramping up its relations with Iran, particularly through arms deals. And, in an unprecedented twist, the arms trade is two-way, with Iran supplying attack drones to Russia.

The two countries have nearly finalized their biggest arms deal in 30 years. Iran is selling drones to Russia that include new models that could greatly improve Russia’s offensive capability in Ukraine. Western reports say that Moscow is also negotiating to buy medium-range ballistic missiles of the new, highly accurate type that Iran has recently been firing at U.S.-linked targets in its own region.

Russia will reportedly supply Iran with its most modern Su-35 fighter planes, submarines, attack helicopters, and jet trainers, at an estimated price tag of $9 billion.

“The relationship between Russia and Iran has grown far more intense than anyone could have imagined a couple of years ago,” says Fyodor Lukyanov, editor of Russia in Global Affairs, a Moscow-based foreign policy journal. “Who would have ever believed that Iran could become a major arms supplier to Russia?”

Though Russia and Iran are often lumped together by Western commentators as natural allies, their relationship has developed cautiously and has often been vexed by significant differences. But Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and turmoil in the Middle East have created mutual needs that are driving a rapid improvement in their ties.

Russian Foreign Ministry/Reuters

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov meets with Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian in New York, Jan. 23, 2024. “The relationship between Russia and Iran has grown far more intense than anyone could have imagined a couple of years ago,” says Fyodor Lukyanov, editor of Russia in Global Affairs.

“There is no ideological component to Russo-Iranian relations,” says Andrei Fedorov, a former Russian deputy foreign minister. “It’s purely pragmatic, a bond of ‘brothers in arms’ created by the situation.”

Experts say that Iranian drones, and “swarm” tactics for using them, have helped transform Russia’s early inferiority to Ukraine in drone warfare into a dominant position. Though Russia has no need for ballistic missile expertise, it may be looking for more ammunition than its own factories can produce as it seeks to end the Ukraine war on its own terms.

The two countries have been de facto allies in Syria’s civil war over the past decade, although until recently Russia maintained good relations with Tel Aviv and looked the other way when Israel attacked Iranian assets inside Syria. Experts say that Russia still doesn’t want to abandon its relations with Israel, which have come under growing strain since the beginning of the war in Gaza.

“Neither Russia nor Iran are interested in a big war in the Middle East,” says Mr. Lukyanov. “Despite what they sometimes say, the Iranians are behaving quite cautiously, and the hope in Moscow is that things will not get out of hand.”

The economic ties go well beyond military hardware, with Iranian consumer goods, food products, and even automobiles making their appearance in Russian markets for the first time. In the longer term, the long-discussed North-South Transport Corridor, which would link Iran’s Indian Ocean ports with Russia’s sprawling railway system, is seeing real investment for the first time and could become a reality within five years, says Mr. Fedorov.

“Russia’s view of Iran is that it must be a key part of the post-crisis architecture of the Middle East,” he says. “Russian diplomacy works to that end.”

Ibraheem Abu/Reuters

Family members mourn next to the body of a relative, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, Jan. 21, 2024.

The Gaza Health Ministry announced this week that the number of Palestinians killed by Israel’s offensive in Gaza surpassed 25,000.

But there is a hidden, second toll: the writers, historians, artists, scientists, and university professors whose deaths have left a gaping hole in Gaza’s social fabric and in the hearts of people touched and inspired by them.

It is a loss, they say, that Palestinian society will feel for generations to come.

Colleagues still mourn Muhammed Sami Qraiqea, a 24-year-old visual and digital artist who devoted his life to using art and technology to chronicle Palestinians’ plight and brighten the lives of young Gaza residents.

As a volunteer with the Tamer Institute for Community Education, Mr. Qraiqea went to classrooms and hospital rooms teaching children arts, crafts, and theater.

He spent his last days and hours using art to alleviate the psychological stress of children and families seeking refuge in the al-Ahli Arab Baptist Hospital, which was struck Oct. 17 by ordnance whose origin is disputed but believed by experts to have been a misfired Islamic jihad rocket.

That day Mr. Qraiqea had gathered evacuee children, formed a circle, encouraged them to express their fears, listened to them, and played with them, according to the Tamer Institute.

Shortly after, he was killed in the explosion, along with more than 200 others.

Marking his death, the Tamer Institute commended his commitment to the “resilience of humanity amidst the ruins” while “holding tightly to his cherished hopes of breaking the cycle of love and death and ending the siege and recurring atrocities.”

Fellow artist and photographer Rehaf Batniji, who trained Mr. Qraiqea in graphic art, describes him as having been “authentic” and “expressive.”

“I witnessed firsthand the remarkable creativity and resilience he possessed in the face of numerous challenges,” Ms. Batniji says. “Sometimes he would just zone out and then come up with the most wonderful ideas.”

Hiba Abu Nada, a poet who wrote an award-winning novel, dealt with the issues of justice, Palestinian reality under occupation, and the Arab Spring. She was killed Oct. 20 when an Israeli missile hit her aunt’s home in Gaza City.

In one of her final poems, “I Grant You Refuge,” written Oct. 10 amid missile strikes, she wrote:

I grant you refuge in knowing
That the dust will clear,
And they who fell in love and died together
Will one day laugh.

“With her death, I feel Gaza has suffered immense losses in the realms of culture and literature,” says fellow Gaza poet Somaya Wadi.

One of the most high-profile Gaza intellectuals killed by the Israeli military offensive was Refaat Alareer, a poet who taught English literature at the Islamic University of Gaza and whom friends and colleagues refer to as “Gaza’s voice to the world” and “a national treasure.”

“His poetry, articles, and workshops left an impact on hundreds of young people by making them believe in the power of storytelling and narrative,” says Yosuf Aljamal, a former student and friend of Mr. Alareer. “Gaza is not the same after the killing of Refaat, but he will continue to live on through his students and his powerful words.”

Mr. Alareer documented the Israel-Hamas war on social media and refused to vacate northern Gaza. He was killed in an Israeli airstrike on his sister’s home in Gaza City Dec. 26 that also killed his sister, his brother, and their families.

In one of his last social media posts, he reposted his 2011 poem “If I Must Die,” which went viral and has become a mantra for Palestinians in Gaza. In the poem, Mr. Alareer writes:

If I must die
You must live
To tell my story. ...

If I must die
Let it bring hope
Let it be a story.

Mr. Aljamal says he is convinced Israel intentionally targeted Mr. Alareer to silence him. Now, “his poems are all over the globe, more than a month after his killing.”

Aid organizations say all of Gaza’s universities have been partially or completely destroyed by the Israeli offensive, including the Islamic, Open Arab, and Al-Azhar universities.

Omar Ishaq/picture alliance/Getty Images

Palestinians pass by a destroyed building of Al-Azhar University, during a truce between Israel and Hamas, in Gaza City, Nov. 26, 2023.

Most recently, the Israeli military carried out the demolition of Al Israa University in southern Gaza with explosives Jan. 17. It was videotaped by the Israel Defense Forces and distributed to Israeli media, prompting the Biden administration to ask Israel for clarification for the reasons for its destruction.

The IDF said in a press statement this week that it was investigating the approval process for the demolition.

Among the dozens of university professors that the Palestinian Ministry of Higher Education reports have been killed in the Israel offensive, one loss cited by students and academics was Sufyan Tayeh, an award-winning professor, renowned figure in the field of theoretical physics, and former president of the Islamic University of Gaza.

Dr. Tayeh, who held the UNESCO Chair for Astronomy, Astrophysics, and Space Sciences in Palestine, and a top researcher in his field, was killed Dec. 2 alongside his family in an Israeli airstrike in the Al Falouja area in the Jabaliya camp.

“It is not just a loss for us academics, but for the whole world, to lose this scientific knowledge” and contributions, says colleague Amany al-Maqadema, head of the Islamic University’s international relations department. “These killings are a targeting of Gaza’s intellectual elites.”

The list of names of Gaza Palestinian artists, writers, and educators killed in the war is growing by the day as the conflict grinds on.

Other notable figures killed by the Israeli offensive include the artist Heba Zaqout, writer Youssef Dawwas, novelist Nour Hajjej, poet Muhamed Ahmed, photographer Rushdi al-Sarraj, artist Ali Nasman, and Dr. Hamam Allouh, Gaza’s only nephrology specialist.

“It is heartbreaking to know that there are many others whose stories remain untold and not adequately shared to preserve their valuable contributions” to Palestinian society and the wider world, says Ms. Batniji, the artist and photographer, whose own gallery was destroyed in a missile strike.

“The occupation fails to understand the depth of our rich cultural heritage,” she says. “By targeting these individuals, they reveal the extent of their discomfort with our vibrant cultural scene” as Palestinians in Gaza.

For many artists, the war has reinforced the relevance of a favorite quote that was oft repeated by Mr. Qraiqea, the digital artist killed in the hospital blast.

Upon observing the aftermath of the Shatila camp massacre in Lebanon in 1982, French novelist Jean Genet said, “The struggle for a country can fill a very rich life, but a short one.”

Kais Saied, the autocratic president who promised to succeed where Tunisia’s nascent democracy had failed, retains a hold on power and popular support even as the country enters a second year of record inflation, food shortages, and potential insolvency.

On the recent anniversary of the 2011 democratic revolution that Mr. Saied has all but snuffed out, several hundred members of the anti-coup National Front for Salvation and Islamist Ennahda protested in downtown Tunis, chanting, “We will sacrifice our life for liberty,” and “Stand together against populism and the return of dictatorship.”

Yet few Tunisians have heeded their call.

Many are swayed by Mr. Saied’s use of the time-tested populist playbook of xenophobia and conspiracy theories, allowing him to divert the anger of a population worn down by 13 years of rotating governments, rising inflation, and poverty.

Their support for – or lack of opposition to – Mr. Saied continues to feed on a brimming well of bitterness and distrust over the failures of post-revolution democrats.

“A majority of Tunisians see politicians from the time after the revolution as crooks, traitors, and terrorists, and whatever Saied does looks better than what went before,” says Youssef Cherif, director of Columbia Global Centers-Tunis.

Johanna Geron/AP/File

TunisianPresident Kais Saied addresses reporters at a European Union-Africa summit in Brussels, Feb. 18, 2022.

“Which means people forget the economic problems under his rule, or they keep blaming those before him. They see the president as the only one who is trying to improve the country,” he says.

Political apathy is rife in Tunisia, which also works to Mr. Saied’s advantage.

Barely 20% of eligible Tunisians turned out to vote on Mr. Saied’s bespoke constitution, which turned Tunisia into a quasi-autocracy with a strong presidency. It was approved by 96% of those who cast ballots in the July 2022 vote.

Last month, a record-low 11.6% of Tunisian voters participated in local elections under Mr. Saied’s new political system; the opposition characterized that turnout as an “overwhelming rejection” of his political project.

Populism’s pull

The pull of Mr. Saied’s populism and anger over Tunisia’s post-revolution era can be felt most acutely in Minhala, a low-income Tunis neighborhood of cinderblock houses sagging on a hillside of government-owned land.

It is a bellwether district practically in the president’s backyard.

The residents are transplants from Tunisia’s marginalized hinterlands who have migrated here over the past decade to escape drought and poverty and look for jobs in the capital. 

Taylor Luck

The main street running through Minhala, a marginalized neighborhood, remains unpaved and jagged despite repeated demands by residents, in northern Tunis, Tunisia, Aug. 21, 2023.

These were the same disenfranchised Tunisians who rose up and started the revolution in 2010 which ousted the former dictator, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali and sparked the Arab Spring.

Which may be why Mr. Saied frequently uses this neighborhood as a campaign stop for photo-ops, making grand promises and railing against post-revolution “thieves.”

Nothing much has changed here since his highly publicized visit last July, when he promised paved roads, jobs, and decent housing.

The jagged road running up the hill and the side roads are still dirt; patches of pavement with leftover cement from construction speak to residents’ attempts to fix them themselves.

Most houses remain without electricity and running water.

Residents still have to walk down to a dirty, plastic-bottle-littered stream twice a day to fetch water in buckets and soda bottles for use at home. Promised cash and food never materialized.

The people’s patience

The president’s standing nevertheless appears largely secure.

“Kais Saied is someone who we can trust and is working against a corrupt system,” Ahmed, a Saied supporter, says as he tends to his fig grove above the hilly neighborhood. “Someone who stands with the people and is for the people deserves all our patience and time.”

Some weary residents, though, see Mr. Saied as another disappointment.

Taylor Luck

Bouthaina enters her neighbor's home, which remains without electricity and running water despite several requests, in Minhala, in Tunis, Aug. 21, 2023.

“The government and the state have let us down. They all lied, and Kais Saied is no different,” says Bouthaina, pointing to her barrel of green-tinted stream water. “They are working against the people and leaving us to rot.”

“We put our trust in Ennahda, then [the secular party] Nidaa, then Kais Saied, but the system continues to neglect us,” says Um Khalid, a Minhala resident who says she cannot afford chicken or vegetables, tears welling in her eyes. “What do we do now? Are we entirely alone?” she asks. “We vote and everything gets worse.”

Mr. Saied’s supporters are quick to remind Tunisians that the president has steered the nation through the pandemic, inflation, drought, and wheat shortages caused by Russia’s war on Ukraine.

“The president is facing unprecedented crises no Tunisian president has had to face,” says Mahmoud Ben Mubarak, secretary-general of the pro-Saied political group July 25. “All the while we are battling the deep state,” he adds, echoing Mr. Saied’s accusations that the Islamist party Ennahda is exacerbating food shortages and tanking the economy to “incite a revolt,” even though its leaders have been jailed.

The pro-democracy opposition’s voice barely registers.

“It is on us as the opposition to provide clear alternative economic and national policies,” says Nabil Hajji, secretary-general of Democratic Current, a party whose leadership has also been jailed. “We are failing to provide an alternative vision for Tunisians.”

Taylor Luck

Minhala resident Um Khalid stands in the streets of the marginalized neighborhood in northern Tunis, Aug. 21, 2023. “The system continues to neglect us,” she says.

“Hope” on the ballot in November

A glimmer of a hope for change could come in presidential elections next November, though Mr. Saied has banned international observers.

So far, his only challenger is Olfa Hamdi, a former CEO of Tunisia’s airline and founder of the secular democratic Third Republic Party.

In addition to vying to become Tunisia’s first female president, she is presenting an “alternative vision” to the xenophobic and autocratic Mr. Saied, running on a platform of “an inclusive and sustainable democracy” and “hope, prosperity, and unity.”

So far, many voters remain unconvinced.

“We need to give the president more time because he can’t reform what happened in 11 years in just two years,” says Basma Ben Jedian, a nurse from southern Tunisia, pledging her vote for Mr. Saied.

“Even if there is a new president, he or she will be like the others and nothing will change,” says Fraj Belkhiri, a 27-year-old sweets factory worker in Sfax. He views Mr. Saied as an “honest man” who has “stood alone against a corrupt system.”

“The president can only improve the situation,” he believes, “if he becomes a full dictator like Ben Ali.”

Ahmed Ellali contributed to this report.

At a time when automakers are reducing sales estimates for electric vehicles in the United States, they didn’t need this: an arctic blast in Chicago last week that rendered some EVs inoperable before they could be recharged.  

As temperatures plunged, drivers at public charging stations found the process took far longer than usual and sometimes didn’t work at all. As delays grew, so did lines of cars waiting to charge. Some ran out of juice before they could plug in, forcing owners to abandon their cars – not exactly a ringing endorsement of the technology.

“The electric [vehicle] industry took a pretty big hit just in reliability this week,” says Miles Galfer, a data-solution architect and Tesla owner in suburban Chicago.

Already racing to make EVs go farther on a single charge, auto companies now face the pressing challenge of making their EVs more winter-friendly. That means making batteries more resistant to the cold and expanding the public charging network, especially in cities with frigid weather where EV owners living in condos or apartment buildings don’t have access to their own dedicated chargers.

On the battery front, manufacturers have made much progress, scientists say, but more needs to be done.

“Low temperature is definitely on people’s radar,” says Neil Dasgupta, a mechanical engineering professor and deputy director of the Energy Frontier Research Center at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. In the cold, chemical reactions naturally slow down, making it harder for batteries to hold a charge. “Batteries will continue to get better in the coming years,’’ he says.

One reason for such optimism is that it’s not just EV companies pouring money into cold-weather battery research, he says. NASA has to ensure its battery packs can operate and recharge in extreme conditions on Mars and the moon. The Defense Department needs the same level of reliability for its equipment in arctic conditions. 

The challenge for EV makers is to ensure the technology is cheap enough to incorporate in mass-market cars.

Researchers are working on various solutions. One of the most popular is preheating a battery so that it’s at the optimum temperature to charge quickly when connected to a charger. Teslas, for example, automatically precondition their batteries when they detect a driver planning to take a ride or charge up. 

Carlos Osorio/AP

Kim Burney charges her Tesla, Jan. 17, 2024, in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Last week’s cold snap exposed a vulnerability for electric vehicle owners: Batteries don’t charge efficiently in single-digit temperatures when electrons move slowly and don’t absorb or release as much energy.

The problem is that at really low temperatures, this can take a long time. To meet this challenge, Chao-Yang Wang at Penn State University has invented a technology that can heat up a battery from minus 60 degrees Fahrenheit – and fast-charge the battery to 80% of its capacity – all in less than 10 minutes. He demonstrated this technology on more than 400 electric buses at the Beijing Winter Olympics in 2022 and formed a company to commercialize it. 

But at best, it would take two-to-three years for that technology to find its way into production EVs, he says. “Adopting a new technology in the auto industry is notoriously slow.”

Another challenge: Preheating the battery takes energy. That’s not a problem when cars are plugged in. But for the growing number of EV owners living in condos or apartment buildings who don’t have a dedicated charger, that can pose problems, especially in cold weather when the battery is low.

That’s what happened last week in Chicago, especially for EV owners dependent on the public charging network.

“I’ve never had a problem waiting for a charging spot,” says Jim Bowler, a retired tech executive and Tesla owner. “That changed this winter.”

For the first two years he owned his Model 3, he lived in Chicago’s suburbs, and winters posed little problem. He had a garage and his own charger. But three years ago, he and his wife moved downtown to a mid-rise condominium building with limited EV charging options in the area. On his way to jury duty in late November, during the city’s first subzero cold spell, he stopped at a Tesla Supercharger station and had to wait in line – a first.

It was only a 10-minute wait, hardly the hour-plus delays some Chicago EV owners reported earlier this month, he says. But “that occurrence was a little bit of a wake-up call to me, saying: We’re hitting that inflection point where charging infrastructure is not keeping up with EV adoption.”

In his condo building alone, the number of Teslas has roughly doubled in three years, he adds. He’s on a committee looking into installing chargers, but that would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

With conventional cars, “you can leave them out in the cold and they pick up right where they left off,” Mr. Bowler says. “It’s not true with EVs. You need to think differently.”

A big red drum booms, and then a lilting jinghu – a Chinese bowed string instrument – draws the audience of more than 2,000 people into the ancient Peking opera tune “Deep Night” conducted by Long Yu, chief conductor of the China Philharmonic. 

The concert to usher in the Lunar New Year is happening not in Beijing, but in the City of Brotherly Love, performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra and guest soloists. 

The orchestra’s unique role in bringing together American and Chinese musicians extends far beyond celebrating the Year of the Dragon, which begins Feb. 10. It’s a powerful form of diplomacy – especially amid high U.S.-China tensions, says Matías Tarnopolsky, president and CEO of the Philadelphia Orchestra. 

As relations between Beijing and Washington sank into a deep freeze during the pandemic, the orchestra was one of the few points of warm connection, he says, recalling a meeting he had with a senior Chinese diplomat.

“The [diplomat] said to me, ‘Please keep doing what you’re doing – sometimes it’s the only thing that’s working between our nations,’” says Mr. Tarnopolsky.

“It reminds us that a great orchestra like Philadelphia’s touches hearts in the moment of performance and far, far beyond,” he says, calling the orchestra’s work in China “a multigenerational project.”

Indeed, the orchestra’s long-standing ties with China – it recently celebrated the 50th anniversary of its pathbreaking 1973 China tour – give it an outsize role in today’s broader push by Beijing and Washington to stabilize relations by strengthening people-to-people connections.

Hsinhua News Agency/AP/File

The Philadelphia Orchestra Group of the United States was welcomed by the Chinese audience as it gave a concert in what was then called Peking on Sept. 14, 1973.

“To ensure the two major countries can get along, a right perception of each other is more important than anything else,” said Huang Ping, consul general of China’s New York Consulate, at a Jan. 16 event highlighting upcoming Chinese New Year celebrations such as concerts, art exhibits, and culinary festivals in the eastern United States. “We need to enhance people-to-people exchanges to deepen our mutual understanding.”

The U.S. and China are also working to boost direct flights and cultural, sports, and student exchanges – an outcome of the meeting between President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping in San Francisco last year. Mr. Xi said China is ready to welcome 50,000 U.S. students on exchange and study programs over the next five years. In China, the U.S. students “will be greeted with warmth and affection,” Mr. Huang wrote to the Monitor. “Please visit.” 

Symbol of American goodwill

When violinist Davyd Booth first came to China with the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1973, during Mao Zedong’s radical Cultural Revolution, the U.S. and China were seeking to rebuild ties after a quarter century of hostility and estrangement.

Following his historic 1972 China trip, President Richard Nixon had decided to send his favorite orchestra, then conducted by Eugene Ormandy, as cultural emissaries.

The trip was sensitive. Much art and music was banned by the Communist regime as bourgeois. Word came that Mr. Mao’s wife, Jiang Qing, insisted at the last minute that Mr. Ormandy change the program and conduct Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony, about rural life, rather than the Fifth, about fate. Mr. Ormandy, who disliked the Sixth, was outraged. “All of a sudden I heard [Mr. Ormandy] scream, ‘I will not conduct that symphony!’” Mr. Booth, who was in a nearby dressing room, recalls.

Ultimately, American diplomat Nicholas Platt persuaded Mr. Ormandy to conduct the Sixth – before a pleased Madame Mao in the front row. The trip was a success. Surprisingly, the concerts were broadcast nationwide, giving hundreds of millions of Chinese their first taste of Western music in years.

Jennifer Lin, director of “Beethoven in Beijing,” a documentary about the Philadelphia Orchestra’s legacy in China, compares the phenomenon to the famous exchange of Chinese and American table tennis players in the early 1970s.

“Everyone knows about pingpong diplomacy,” she says, “but music diplomacy had an equal impact on the relationship.”

For Chinese people, hearing the orchestra’s Western repertoire in 1973 “was like being in the desert and getting a long drink of water – everyone was craving the music but they couldn’t perform it,” she says.

Quenching that thirst, if only briefly, the Philadelphia Orchestra won a unique reputation in China – not only for exposing people to outside music but also for being a symbol of American goodwill.

Todd Rosenberg/Courtesy of The Philadelphia Orchestra

American violinist Davyd Booth (center) receives flowers after performing at a Nov. 10 concert in Beijing, marking the 50th anniversary of the Philadelphia Orchestra's first trip to China. Mr. Booth took part in the 1973 trip and several others.

Tan Dun, then a middle school student from Hunan province laboring on a communal farm, heard the bold notes of the Beethoven symphony from a village loudspeaker in 1973 and was captivated. After the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976 ushered in a musical revival in China, Mr. Tan joined a conservatory, studied in New York, and became a world-renowned Chinese American composer and conductor. He has earned a Grammy Award, Academy Award, and many others, and is dean of the Bard Conservatory of Music in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York.

“We have played a lot of his music and he’s conducted some,” says Mr. Booth of Mr. Tan’s ongoing ties with the Philadelphia Orchestra. 

The power to humanize

Last November, Tristan Rais-Sherman, assistant conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra, got his first experience directing Chinese music at the 50th-anniversary joint performance with the China National Symphony Orchestra in Beijing.

Leading musicians through the soft tones of “The Moon Reflecting on Er-Quan Spring” was “one of the most challenging things on the program,” he says. “It’s a long piece with all these little phrases that need precise care, like a little jewel.”

On his first trip to China, he also discovered how similar Chinese and American musicians are. “It was comforting in a way,” he says. “They have the same struggles, the same issues, and they require the same help.”

The concert, which received congratulatory messages from Mr. Xi and Mr. Biden, concluded with a powerful rendition of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony and multiple encores. 

The deep collaboration between the musicians, and the shared experience of the audience, are ways that music brings people together, says Mr. Tarnopolsky after the concert.

Music helps to “humanize Americans to Chinese people, and Chinese people to Americans,” he says. “Despite all the ups and downs, the Philadelphia Orchestra continues to come to China. ... When things are tough, it’s even more important.”

AP

A young man performs a stunt on his bicycle near the Tigris River in Baghdad, Iraq, Dec. 31.

Iraq ranks as the fifth-most vulnerable country to global warming. About 70% of its young people live in poverty. And both Iran and the United States have lately launched attacks against militants in Iraq, reaffirming its history as a place for others to settle scores.

So amid these giant forces, what is the main concern of Iraq’s leader? “Corruption remains ... the greatest threat to Iraq’s future development,” wrote Prime Minister Mohammad Shia al-Sudani in The Guardian in late 2023.

In fact, last month when the government celebrated the sixth anniversary of the victory over the terrorist group Islamic State – which took over a third of the country in 2014 – many Iraqis expressed hope for a greater victory.

“God willing, we will celebrate the victory day when we conquer your corruption,” wrote one Iraqi, Fadel Sharba, on social media.

Mr. Sudani knows well why corruption is the top priority. He came to power in 2022 after two years of mass protests by young people demanding clean governance in one of the region’s rare democracies. Even today, thousands of university graduates, unable to find jobs, often take to the streets. Many of the prime minister’s reforms are targeted at youth, who make up 60% of Iraq’s 43 million people. He has invited them to join in the anti-corruption drive through a campaign called #PasstheBaton.

Driven by these yearnings for honest and accountable leaders, Iraq is enjoying an unusual period of political stability, 21 years after a U.S. invasion toppled a dictator.

“Some Iraqi leaders can be successful in upholding the law and constitution, in driving agreement, and in getting things done,” wrote James Watt, a former British ambassador in the Middle East, in Devex, a news site on global development. “I see a country at peace with itself, hungry to rebuild.”

The government’s reforms have resulted in a record $24 billion in foreign direct investment last year and a record number of infrastructure projects. The number of hours of reliable electricity rose to 20 hours a day last year, up from 13 the year before. In ensuring nobody is above the law, “Iraq has come a long way in recent years,” declared Human Rights Watch this month.

The prime minister describes Iraq’s current situation this way: “We find ourselves in a far more harmonious situation than at any other time in the last three generations.” A big reason for that harmony has been the upwelling for integrity in governance among young Iraqis, reflecting their values of civic equality and freedom born of Iraq’s long experience of adversity.