The collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Maryland on Tuesday illustrates the ongoing need for vigilance over America’s bridges, which are vulnerable choke points in the nation’s transportation infrastructure.

As of Tuesday afternoon, emergency workers were searching for several people still unaccounted for after a container ship collided with a pillar supporting part of the Baltimore bridge over the Patapsco River, sending several cars into the water. 

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Map data from OpenStreetMap, Reuters

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Jacob Turcotte/Staff

On any given day, 49 bridges get hit, on average, often by trucks that are too tall for the structures that they’re trying to cross under. Collisions involving ships or barges are far rarer but can have more far-reaching implications. Fortunately, that particular risk is slowly on the decline.

After a freighter hit the Sunshine Skyway Bridge in Tampa Bay, Florida, in 1980, causing a collapse that was tied to 35 fatalities, safety engineers became far more focused on protecting the structures above navigable waters. A decade later, the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials issued more stringent bridge specifications designed to mitigate such disasters.

“Things are getting better,” says Mohamed ElGawady, a professor at the Center for Intelligent Infrastructure at Missouri University of Science and Technology. “It’s not as rapid as we wish, but in general, it’s moving forward.”

Unfortunately, the Key Bridge, hit by the cargo ship Dali in the early morning hours Tuesday, was built in the 1970s, before the new standards took effect. 

Officials said that the operators of the Dali cargo ship had issued a mayday call that the vessel had lost power moments before the crash, but the ship still headed toward the span at “a very, very rapid speed,” Maryland Gov. Wes Moore told reporters.

Because of the mayday call, local officials were able to close the bridge just before it collapsed, likely saving lives. Two people were rescued, but officials said six people were still unaccounted for as of late morning. One body was found and pulled from the waters.

As of Tuesday afternoon, traces of the collapsed portions of the bridge could be seen in the 50-foot waters of the Patapsco River.

While commuters pulled their cars close to the harbor’s edge to catch a glimpse of the collapsed bridge, rescue workers continued diving into the frigid waters and helicopters circled above looking for survivors.

“This is no ordinary bridge,” said Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg during remarks at a Tuesday afternoon press conference at Key Bridge. “This is one of the cathedrals of American infrastructure. It has been part of the skyline of this region for longer than many of us have been alive. So the path to normalcy will not be easy. It will not be quick. It will not be inexpensive. But we will rebuild together.” 

Matt Rourke/AP

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, at podium, accompanied by officials including Maryland Gov. Wes Moore and Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., speaks during a news conference near the scene where a container ship collided with a support of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, in Dundalk, Maryland, March 26, 2024.

The port is a big economic driver for Maryland, supporting 139,000 port-related jobs. It has become more important as a shipping destination since the 2016 expansion of the Panama Canal. That expansion allows larger ships to pass through Baltimore and other East Coast ports.

The accident is likely to tie up both highway traffic east of Baltimore and cargo traffic in and out of the city’s port. It’s a major entry point for imported cars and light trucks.

The collapse also highlights the ongoing needs of the nation’s more than 600,000 bridges. Of those, 1 in 3 are in need of replacement or repair. In 2021, in its latest assessment of the situation, the American Society of Civil Engineers gave bridges a C grade. That was actually a slight downgrade from the group’s 2017 grade.

But Dr. ElGawady is optimistic as states take the lead in using federal funds to improve their roads and other infrastructure.

“Many of those [older] bridges are being retrofitted,” he says. “So that certainly helps.”

In the two years since it was passed, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law has dispersed nearly $400 billion to all 50 states, the Biden administration reported in November, although some of the money is earmarked for green energy rather than for roads, bridges, and other traditional infrastructure.

Local residents, meanwhile, said they were stunned. One railroad worker, who commutes to his job by driving across the Key Bridge each day, said that his work has already been affected. “It’s going to be horrible,” he said. “A large portion of railroad business comes off of shipping containers.” He added, “Only time will tell” how long shipping and traffic will be impacted.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters

A demonstrator for abortion rights protests outside the Supreme Court as justices hear oral arguments about access to mifepristone in Washington, March 26, 2024. The pill is used in almost two-thirds of U.S. abortions.

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court of the United States heard its biggest abortion case since it overturned Roe v. Wade two years ago. And for the most part, the justices appeared skeptical that they should even be hearing the case at all.

In one of the most high-profile cases of what has become a blockbuster Supreme Court term, the justices are being asked to review a lower court ruling restricting access to mifepristone, a pill used in almost two-thirds of abortions.

At least compared with the case two years ago, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, the stakes appear lower. However the court rules, mifepristone is going to stay on the market. The ruling likewise won’t affect the spectrum of state laws around the country regulating, or banning, abortions.

But in a post-Roe America, medication abortion has become more common, and this case has significant implications for that form of terminating a pregnancy.

The case stems from two lawsuits filed by a coalition of anti-abortion physicians and organizations – against the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the drug’s manufacturer, respectively. The legal questions in the case focus on the safety of mifepristone and how it’s been regulated.

The parties present strikingly conflicting views of the drug’s safety record, but during oral argument on Tuesday, the justices focused most of their questions on standing. Standing is a threshold doctrine that says that to bring a case, a party must show it has suffered a concrete injury. A majority of the court seemed to question whether the mifepristone lawsuits fall within those limits.

“This case seems like a prime example of turning what could be a small lawsuit into a nationwide legislative assembly on an FDA rule or any other federal government action,” noted Justice Neil Gorsuch.

If the justices side with the anti-abortion physicians, the Biden administration and medical experts have said, it could have a chilling effect on drug research and development in the U.S. far beyond the issue of abortion.

“Standing would be an easy way to avoid deciding the substance of the case,” says Elizabeth Sepper, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin School of Law.

Amanda Andrade-Rhoades/AP

An anti-abortion rights activist holds balloons outside the Supreme Court, March 26, 2024, in Washington, with the U.S. Capitol in the background.

Abortion in a post-Roe U.S.

The Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe reshaped America’s abortion landscape. Two years later, 21 states have enacted laws either banning abortion or restricting it more than Roe allowed, according to The New York Times.

The number of Americans getting abortions has increased, and where and how Americans obtain abortions has changed. Medication abortions accounted for 63% of all abortions in 2023, up from 53% in 2020, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research and policy organization that supports expanding reproductive rights. In that time period, the total number of abortions in the U.S. also increased by 10%, according to another Guttmacher study.

That context in particular makes this “the most important abortion case since” the court overturned Roe, says Cathren Cohen, a staff attorney at the UCLA Law Center on Reproductive Health, Law, and Policy.

“People will find a way to get the care they need. And the availability of these pills has put us in an entirely different scenario than before Roe,” she adds. “What an ‘illegal abortion’ looks like now is much safer.”

The FDA first approved mifepristone in 2000. It loosened regulations around its use in 2016 and again in 2021. Patients once had to take the drug in a physicians’ office before the eighth week of pregnancy. They now can have it prescribed via a telehealth appointment, receive it in the mail, and take it at home in the first 10 weeks of pregnancy.

In its lawsuits, the anti-abortion coalition claims that the FDA was too hasty with its approvals, overlooking serious medical problems that can arise from the looser regulations.

“As long as abortion is legal, we want it to be as safe as possible for the women who are using – and the girls who are using – the abortion pill,” says Sarah Parshall Perry, a senior legal fellow with The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank that is not involved in the legislation.

“Abortion is not at stake here,” she adds. “It is whether or not we want all federal agencies to follow federal law when they make regulations that affect millions and millions of Americans.”

Lawyers for the FDA and the drug manufacturer, meanwhile, cited multiple studies they said show that mifepristone is very safe, and in fact, has fewer adverse effects than Tylenol.

A district court judge in Texas and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit both ruled that the FDA’s actions were “arbitrary and capricious.” Both courts issued nationwide orders – the district court to take the drug off the market entirely, the appeals court to return mifepristone access to its pre-2016 state.

But from the beginning, legal experts questioned whether they should have allowed the case to proceed at all. On Tuesday, a majority of justices joined that chorus of skepticism.

Amanda Andrade-Rhoades/AP

An abortion rights activist is detained by U.S. Capitol Police, March 26, 2024, in Washington. The Supreme Court heard arguments in its first abortion case since it overturned the constitutional right two years ago.

The “squishy” standing doctrine

Standing doctrine holds that to bring a lawsuit in federal court, you must first prove that you’re suffering, or would suffer, a clear and concrete harm that the courts can abate. Tradition then holds that courts should provide the narrowest relief possible.

In this case, both lower courts agreed that the physicians have standing because they’ve had to, and with “statistical certainty” will continue to have to, give emergency care to women who experience complications after taking mifepristone.

The concerns about that analysis that some justices voiced Tuesday fell broadly into two buckets: One, that the group didn’t show enough of a clear and concrete injury to achieve standing. And two, that the remedy the group is seeking is too broad.

“I’m worried that there is a significant mismatch in this case between the claimed injury and the remedy that’s being sought,” said Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.

“Because [the physicians] object to having to be forced to participate in this procedure, [they’re] seeking an order preventing anyone from having access to these drugs at all,” she added. “I’m just trying to understand how they could possibly be entitled to that given the injury that they have alleged.”

Justice Samuel Alito, one of the court’s most conservative members, countered that the FDA shouldn’t be able to issue regulations with legal impunity.

“Maybe what [the FDA] did was perfectly lawful, but shouldn’t somebody be able to challenge that in court?” he asked Elizabeth Prelogar, the U.S. solicitor general.

Judges, justices, and legal scholars over the years have chimed in on how “squishy” standing doctrine can be, and Chief Justice John Roberts did so here.

Supreme Court precedents “talk about requiring a substantial risk that harm will occur,” he said. “How are we supposed to find the spot at which the risk becomes substantial? ... What percentage of adverse consequences would be enough?”

But the standing arguments, and lower court rulings, in this case are part of a broader trend, noted Justice Gorsuch, another of the court’s more conservative members. In the 12 years Franklin D. Roosevelt served as president, federal courts didn’t issue a single universal injunction, he noted. Over the past four years, “that number is something like 60.”

“We’ve had, one might call it, a rash of universal injunctions” recently, he added.

Both Justice Alito and Justice Clarence Thomas observed during the argument that the FDA rule allowing mifepristone to be delivered by mail could violate the Comstock Act, an 1873 law that banned the mailing of abortion drugs or devices. Based on the oral argument, it doesn’t appear that a majority of the court shares that view, however.

It’s unclear how the Supreme Court will decide this case. The oral argument suggests that even the court that overturned Roe may be reluctant to endorse these legal arguments for the sake of restricting abortion access.

“It’s always been the case that standing is the easy way out” of difficult and potentially divisive cases, says Professor Sepper. “And it’s always been the case that conservatives on the court have fairly rigid notions of what it takes to have standing.”

As the 2024 general election gets underway, Democrats have begun to focus on what they see as a key threat to President Joe Biden’s reelection: candidates not named Donald Trump.

For the first time ever, the Democratic National Committee has launched a team solely focused on addressing third-party and independent candidates – specifically Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is now running as an independent. He recently earned double-digit poll numbers in a handful of swing states and today announced his running mate, lawyer Nicole Shanahan. 

The DNC effort is expected to include a communications push, opposition research, and legal challenges against any ballot access infractions. And as the centrist group No Labels struggles to find candidates for its bipartisan ticket, Democratic super PACs and think tanks like American Bridge and Third Way have also pivoted their focus to Mr. Kennedy.

In a presidential election likely be won on the margins, the success of Mr. Kennedy, who is polling better than any independent candidate since Ross Perot in 1992, could decide the race. But in the coming months, it’s not the Democrats’ new opposition effort that could be the biggest obstacle to the independent’s rise. Rather, his success could be stymied by a complicated procedural issue that has contributed to America’s dominant two-party structure: ballot access. 

While Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump will be on the ballot in all 50 states as the respective candidates for the Democratic and Republican parties, candidates outside these two groups face stiff filing requirements, with typically thousands of signatures, legal maneuvering, and deadlines that differ by state.

Some states require a presidential candidate to name a running mate before qualifying, one reason Mr. Kennedy announced his vice president in California on Tuesday. Another reason for his timing and choice of Ms. Shanahan, a philanthropist and former wife of a Google co-founder, is the fact that getting on the ballot as an independent can be expensive. Mr. Perot, for example, largely had the most successful independent campaign in modern history because he was a billionaire. 

Mike Blake/Reuters

Independent U.S. presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. poses for a picture from his home office in Los Angeles, March 18, 2024.

“This campaign is up against the most powerful financial interests in history,” Mr. Kennedy said while announcing his running mate. “We also face a determined campaign to keep us off the ballot by fair means or foul. Evidently the Democrats have little faith in their candidate’s ability to win the old-fashioned way at the voting booth.” 

RFK Jr. effect on Biden, Trump campaigns

Although Mr. Kennedy is only officially on the ballot in Utah, his campaign says it has also gathered enough signatures in New Hampshire, Hawaii, and Nevada. A pro-Kennedy super PAC, American Values 2024, claims to have enough signatures in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, and South Carolina as well. But CBS News reported Monday that Mr. Kennedy’s signatures in Nevada may be ruled invalid because he did not list a vice president on the petition forms, which the Kennedy campaign criticized as collusion between the state’s Democratic secretary of state and the DNC.

“Our strategy will be twofold: We’re going to make sure everyone is playing by the rules, and we’re going to make sure voters are educated,” says DNC spokesperson Matt Corridoni. “Especially when it comes to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. being funded by MAGA donors to be a stalking horse for Donald Trump.” Mr. Corridoni is part of the Democrats’ new Kennedy-focused team alongside veteran Democratic strategist Lis Smith. “We’re not taking anything for granted this election cycle, and that’s why we’re putting wheels in motion now,” he adds. 

Democrats don’t have to look that far back in history for third-party “spoiler” examples. In 2000, Green Party candidate Ralph Nadar won over 97,000 votes in Florida while Democratic candidate Al Gore lost Florida, and thereby the election, by fewer than 550 votes to Republican candidate George W. Bush.

And then there was 2016.

In Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, three “blue wall” states where Hillary Clinton lost in 2016 by slim margins, Jill Stein, whose Green Party typically attracts more left-leaning voters, earned far more votes than Ms. Clinton’s losing margin. And in these same states, Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson earned even more.

Dominick Reuter/Reuters

Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein motions on the second day of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, July 26, 2016.

“Going back to 2016, and if you’re asking me things I regret, one of them is not taking Jill Stein more seriously,” says Pat Dennis, president of the Democratic opposition research group American Bridge. He says his team has been “working in the background” to make it harder for No Labels to find a candidate.

Of course, it’s impossible to know for sure that Ms. Clinton would have benefited in these critical states had Ms. Stein or Mr. Johnson not been in the race. The same could be true this November. If Democrats are successful in siphoning off support from Mr. Kennedy, it’s far from certain that those voters would all flock to Mr. Biden. Some of these third-party voters could vote for Mr. Trump instead, or the Green Party or Libertarian nominees, or another independent candidate such as Cornel West. Or they could just stay home and not vote at all. 

“The Democrats are paranoid, but the truth is that there is no way to tell where [votes] are going to come from,” says Bernard Tamas, associate professor at Valdosta State University and author of the book “The Demise and Rebirth of American Third Parties.”

“Someone like Kennedy, there is no way to know who they are going to hurt more.”

Which is partially a factor of Mr. Kennedy’s politics. A member of America’s most famous Democratic family and a former environmental lawyer who covered the dangers of growing mercury levels in fish, Mr. Kennedy has since become a leading voice in what he calls the “vaccine safety” movement, which has only grown louder since the COVID-19 pandemic.

Along with vaccines and public health, his campaign, which has largely communicated to voters through popular podcasts, has also focused on free speech and environmental protection. All of which has helped him build a base of supporters from the left and the right, as American voters face a general election rematch of two of the oldest, most-disliked candidates ever.

“Voters are looking for a fresh alternative, and Mr. Kennedy is providing it,” says Stefanie Spear, press secretary for the Kennedy campaign. “Mr. Kennedy plans to take votes from both President Biden and former President Trump.” 

The “biggest threat” to democracy

Democrats, however, feel strongly that third-party and independent candidates would hurt Mr. Biden more than Mr. Trump this year. That’s a theory some polls support. There’s a reason that Mr. Trump and other Republicans don’t seem as worried about Mr. Kennedy and aren’t building out the same kind of attack as the Democrats, says Jim Kessler, a co-founder of the think tank Third Way.

“The premise begins with the notion that a head-to-head matchup will favor the Democrats,” says Mr. Kessler, who says that polls currently showing Mr. Trump leading Mr. Biden will tighten as Election Day nears. But given that “the hardcore supporters for Trump are more than the hardcore supporters for Biden,” says Mr. Kessler, Mr. Kennedy’s candidacy would “splinter the anti-Trump coalition.”

The anti-Trump Washington class is united, however, on the issue of Mr. Kennedy and other third-party candidates, even if that means stifling outside candidates in a way that’s led the Kennedy campaign to characterize the Democratic Party as the “biggest threat” to democracy in America. Supporters say their voices – and votes – are being suppressed because they support someone outside the two-party system. 

“Should we have more political parties? Almost every political scientist I know would say yes,” says Professor Tamas. “When you have more parties, it forces people to compromise and moderate.”

But this year with Mr. Trump on the ballot, say Democrats, is not the time to experiment.

“I wasn’t waking up in a sweat when Ross Perot was out there,” says Mr. Kessler, who admits, with a laugh, that he voted for independent candidate John Anderson in 1980. “Right now the stakes have never been greater.”

For more than six weeks, there have been no attacks by Iran-allied militias against U.S. forces in Iraq or Syria.

As the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza spilled across the Middle East in October, American troops deployed in those countries to quell the Islamic State came under fire repeatedly.

Iran-backed militias fired on U.S. forces in solidarity with Hamas, a fellow member of Tehran’s “Axis of Resistance” alliance against Israeli and American interests in the region.

Some 180 such attacks at first elicited a limited U.S. response, as Washington sought to avoid a direct confrontation with Iran.

But when a drone strike by Kata’ib Hezbollah, an Iraqi Shiite paramilitary group, killed three Americans on Feb. 3 on Jordan’s border with Syria, the United States escalated mightily and precisely in a bid to deter further attacks.

American warplanes struck 85 Iran-backed militia targets. Then, on Feb. 7, a U.S. drone in Baghdad destroyed a vehicle – with no collateral damage – carrying the Kata’ib Hezbollah officer who had handled logistics for the deadly attack in Jordan.

The anti-U.S. attacks in Iraq and Syria stopped.

So why has deterrence worked – even if only temporarily – against Iran-backed militias in those countries?

And why, in contrast, have more than two months of U.S.-led airstrikes against the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen so far failed to halt rocket and drone attacks against shipping through the Red Sea?

“What really shook them up [the militias and the Iranians] was the targeted killing of the logistics commander in Baghdad,” says Kenneth Katzman, a veteran Middle East analyst and senior fellow at The Soufan Center, a global intelligence and security consultancy in New York. 

Hadi Mizban/AP

Iraqis gather at the site of a burned vehicle targeted by a U.S. drone strike in Baghdad, Feb. 7, 2024.

The strike, he says, was proof of exceptionally precise locational intelligence. He adds that it “showed that the U.S. is willing to employ the same strategy it used on Al Qaeda and the Islamic State – a targeted killing strategy that … convinced” the militias and Iran “that Washington is going to use all elements of its intelligence and capabilities to go after them if they continue.”

Since the eruption of the Hamas-Israel war, Tehran and Washington have both made clear their desire to prevent the regional spillover from triggering a direct conflict between them.

One result is that, after the death of the Americans in Jordan, Kata’ib Hezbollah publicly complained that Iran pressured it to stop attacks against U.S. troops. The commander of Iran’s Qods Force – the wing of the Revolutionary Guard that manages Iran-backed “Axis” militias across the region – specifically ordered the militias to stand down.

Another result is that soon after an escalation this month between Israel and “Axis” member Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hezbollah said it had already informed Qods Force chief Brig. Gen. Esmail Qaani it would fight Israel alone – without Iran – if Israeli actions precipitated an all-out war with Hezbollah.

Delicate calculations

Few analysts think Iran would stay out of a fight that jeopardized its most powerful proxy force, but Hezbollah’s careful public messaging shows how delicate calculations of deterrence and escalation may be.

“The killing of the U.S. soldiers pulled the rug from beneath the Iranians’ own feet, because it exposed them by forcing the Americans to respond more forcefully,” says Julien Barnes-Dacey, director of the Middle East and North Africa Program at the European Council on Foreign Relations.

“Up until that point you had a degree of calibrated, ongoing Iranian attacks against U.S. assets that didn’t quite cross the line of fatalities, that allowed Tehran to put pressure on the U.S. without forcing an unwilling Biden administration to get sucked into a response of their own,” says Mr. Barnes-Dacey.

“It’s a fragile calm in Iraq and Syria at the moment, and it would be a pretty brave bet to suggest that U.S. deterrence has been established in a sustainable fashion,” he says. “There is a holding pause in conflict between the two at the moment, but I’m not sure of the extent to which Iran will hold its fire and will take other hits – whether from the U.S. or the Israelis – without feeling compelled to reinitiate its own attacks.”

Iran has significant influence over Shiite militias in Iraq and Syria, those most loyal to the Islamic Republic, such as Kata’ib Hezbollah, because it largely created them. It has far less influence in Yemen, where the Houthi movement was well-established and had successfully captured the capital, Sanaa, before Iran significantly boosted the their arsenal of missiles and armed drones.

Iran also has its own bitter experience with a U.S. targeted killing. The Qods Force commander and creator of the “Axis of Resistance,” Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, was assassinated in a drone strike in Baghdad in 2020.

Vahid Salemi/AP

An Iranian woman holds a poster of the late Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, commander of the Qods Force, who was killed in a U.S. drone attack in 2020 in Iraq, as she attends the annual rally commemorating Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution, in Tehran, Feb. 11, 2024.

“That tactic has scared the Iranians, and the [Axis] militias,” says Dr. Katzman of The Soufan Center. “What I am surprised at is that it hasn’t scared the Houthis, because they’re in line for the same treatment if they continue the way they are going. There are definitely calls for targeted strikes on Houthi leaders in Washington – that is very clear.”

Are Houthis undeterrable?

Indeed, despite the U.S.-led bombing campaign to thwart Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping since Jan. 12, continued Houthi resistance – including one cargo ship sunk and another set ablaze in recent weeks – in declared solidarity with the Palestinians has resulted in a surge in their status and influence at home and abroad.

Analysts say the Houthis are largely undeterrable after prevailing militarily over Saudi Arabia, despite a years-long bombing campaign. And Iran has limited interest in reining in the Houthis – even if it could – because their efforts are tying up U.S. forces and focusing attention on Gaza.

Dr. Katzman notes that the U.S. agreed to discuss its presence in Iraq with the Baghdad government, enabling Iraqi leaders to argue that militia attacks against the Americans would likely only prolong a U.S. military role – and giving Iran an incentive to pressure its militia allies. The same does not apply in Yemen.

“The Houthis don’t feel they owe Iran that much,” he says. “Iran didn’t create the Houthi movement. Iran wasn’t supporting them when they took over Sanaa. Iran came in very late to the party.”

Nevertheless, a “concerted” U.S. military effort to strike Houthi ground weapons could have an effect, Dr. Katzman adds.

“The U.S. Air Force can do more damage in one hour than the Saudi Air Force can do in eight years,” he says. “It would cause them to hunker down, even if they are not totally deterred. If you do find them and do get one or two of these leaders, that has an effect, too.”

Ashley Milne-Tyte

Sam Alexander lives in Harpswell, Maine, in a house he built on land in his family since the 1700s. In his early 80s, he has family nearby but is independent and still does the haying at the family farm every summer.

Beverly Wight Smith has seen a lifetime of Maine mud seasons in this former farming town. From growing up on a farm during the Great Depression, to seeing neighbors clop through the mud on horseback during World War II when gasoline was scarce, to watching the trees finally turn green from her porch, this former government worker is happy to have stayed in Mount Vernon.

The farms are few now, the cows and horses that used to fill the fields largely gone. But Ms. Smith says she wouldn’t live anywhere else.  

“Everyone is so friendly and helpful,” she says. “People know more neighbors here than they do in the city.”

The story of old age in rural areas is often portrayed as a sad one: shrinking populations, a lack of public transport, poor health, and social isolation. Here in Maine – one of the most sparsely populated states in America – its aging population is staying put and getting help from friends, neighbors, and community groups. This pattern is repeating itself all over the United States, say experts in rural aging. Many older people want to keep living in the places where they were raised, worked, and brought up their own families – even if they are far from stores, hospitals, and sometimes, their neighbors. 

“These are real people living real lives,” says Alana Knudson, director of the NORC Walsh Center for Rural Health Analysis. “They walk to the mailbox in the snow. There are some very hardy people aging. And keeping active and busy is really, really important to them.”

Older people aren’t “left behind” when younger people move to cities to find work, she says. They choose to stay. 

Ashley Milne-Tyte

Beverly Wight Smith, who wrote a history of her rural hometown, Mount Vernon, Maine, uses a comfortable chair at the Dr. Shaw Memorial Library. She's a lifelong walker, who never drove a car, but she can catch rides now with friends, family, and a volunteer ride service.

Staying is easier for some than for others. Ms. Smith has four children who all live in the state, and a daughter recently moved in with her. Ms. Smith has never driven a car, but it doesn’t matter. If a family member can’t take her where she needs to go, she books a ride with a local volunteer group called Neighbors Driving Neighbors. 

Like many people thriving in old age, she keeps busy. She has been writing and acting in local plays for the past 40 years and is the author of a book on a history of the area. Until a few years ago, she could regularly be spotted walking the half-mile or so from her house to the now-shuttered general store, the church, or the community center. 

Now 93, she says she walks less these days due to poor balance, but she just finished a six-week course in chair yoga. 

“There’s so much going on,” she says of her small town. 

A town committee called Aging in Place has a lot to do with that. It’s run mostly by volunteers who are themselves retired, and groups like it are springing up all over Maine, the state with the second-highest percentage of people living in rural areas. Aging in Place organizes events with speakers on various topics, hosts monthly “muffin mornings” at the town’s community center, and checks in on older people who live alone. 

A “brave” ask 

Alice Olson is in her 70s and is an active member of the committee. She says while committee members do their best to get in touch with those they know are isolated, Mainers, famous for their reserve, must also come to them. 

Recently an older man approached her at a coffee morning, announced that he lived alone, and asked that someone on the committee check in with him regularly to make sure he is OK. 

“It was brave of him,” she says. 

She believes the town would be a good place for older adults even if Aging in Place didn’t exist. 

“It’s the community” that keeps her and her husband here, she says. “So many people watch out for each other. I have a friend whose husband died four years ago. Later a tree [in her yard] got hit by a storm, and a neighbor came and cut it down and took the wood away.”

She adds, “It’s just what people do here.”

Ashley Milne-Tyte

Old friends Ralph Black (left) and Sam Alexander both can’t see leaving their rural hometown of Harpswell, Maine.

Sam Alexander lives 65 miles south in Harpswell, on Maine’s rocky coast. A retired contractor, he lives in a house he built in 1973, where he and his second wife raised seven children. He comes from a long line of Maine shipbuilders and farmers. The house sits on land his family has owned since the 1700s. 

“My family’s been here so long my ancestors would rise up out of their graves and shoot me dead if I went anywhere,” says Mr. Alexander, age 81. Besides, “I know a lot of people; I have a lot of friends,” including retirees from other states who have made the coast their home.

“I haven’t seen a place I like better,” he says of Harpswell. “This is home. I’m biased, but in lots of respects it’s a great place to live.”

On the couch opposite sits one of his oldest friends, Ralph Black. Unlike Mr. Alexander, Mr. Black, age 80, lives alone on neighboring Orr’s Island. He has a son in the same building, but says family relationships can be tricky. His longtime partner lives in a town 13 miles away. The nearest hospital is around 15 miles away. 

“I do worry, living in a rural place ... how will I cope [if I have a serious health problem]? Who’s going to take care of me? Those are concerns that are in my mind,” he says. 

Still, the idea of moving to the town of Brunswick, where his partner lives, does not appeal. “I’m not going anywhere,” he insists, citing strong ties to the community where he was born and raised.

Mr. Alexander has children nearby but concedes he hasn’t tapped them for anything much – yet. He still does the haying at the family farm every summer. 

“I think most Mainers, if we live in one place a long time, [have] such an independent streak that up until we realize we have to, we don’t want to accept help,” he says. “But [there] comes a point when everybody has to – a little or a lot.”

Ashley Milne-Tyte

The isolation of Mount Vernon, a rural Maine village, is not a barrier for older residents who choose to remain because a new ethos of aging in place has spurred closer networks of neighbors and community services to help them.

Send in the Scouts and shop teachers

An independent spirit is something all rural Americans share, says Ashley Washington of Lutheran Services in America. But sometimes it can leave them isolated. 

To help older adults in rural areas age successfully at home, Lutheran Services has launched an initiative called the Rural Aging Action Network. It connects isolated older adults with local resources and local people who can make their lives easier. 

Currently the network operates in parts of Minnesota, Montana, and North and South Dakota.

In these states, “you may see the nearest health care facility up to 200 miles away,” says Ms. Washington. 

She describes their outreach efforts, which began last year, as working well. In a town in Montana, an older woman who could no longer take care of her lawn received help from a troop of Boy Scouts who took on the job. In a tiny town in South Dakota, she says, some seniors couldn’t afford to update their homes with accessories like wheelchair ramps. A local high school wood shop teacher volunteered his help. 

Ms. Washington says the gratitude goes both ways. 

“A lot of these [local people] are so encouraged by the invitation to help their neighbors,” she says, and are delighted to step in. “That’s really something that we see is unique in rural communities.”

When it comes to the animated incarnations of the X-Men, such as the new series currently streaming on Disney+, some things never change.

About 30 years ago, when I was a comic book-obsessed kid, I loathed the choir rehearsals that took place during the same time as the beloved X-cartoon. I learned how to record episodes on the VCR at a relatively young age because I didn’t want to miss the exploits of Wolverine, Gambit, Storm, and an assortment of mutants.

I found myself in the midst of responsibility once again when the first two episodes of “X-Men ’97” became available for streaming early morning March 20. My younger son woke up at 3 a.m. with a touch of restlessness. Apparently he’s an X-Men fan as well. I was tempted to watch the first two episodes with him, but I chose to employ my superpower – my patented football cradle and rock, which induces sleep in toddlers.

Some hours later, I finally got a chance to sit down in front of one of my favorite pop franchises. The iconic intro, long a fan favorite because of its audio and visual richness, remained potent in light of a slight remastering. This is an enduring theme with “X-Men” – its ability to invoke nostalgia while maintaining modernity. It does so because it is unapologetically “woke.”

That word is the bane of some folks’ existence, but how else should we describe this team and Charles Xavier’s dream? The fact that “X-Men” has never shied away from controversy is only part of its compelling tale. The series has always been aware of societal issues and challenges, whether it’s addressing various forms of extremism or conveying differences in a humane way. This is part of the genius of Chris Claremont, the famed writer who imprinted his political and social consciousness onto the X-books from 1975 to 1991. 

Marvel Animation

Jean Grey (voiced by Jennifer Hale) and Storm (voiced by Alison Sealy-Smith) are two of the mutants returning in Marvel Animation’s “X-Men '97.”

Morph, a shapeshifter whose disappearance dramatically affected the events of the original animated series, was presented to a new audience as nonbinary. An initial backlash was quickly snuffed out by Larry Houston, the producer and director of the original series.

“For me, the word ‘nonbinary’ is the same as the word ‘shapeshifter,’” Mr. Houston, a Black pioneering animator, told Variety. “Every character that can change from one gender to another, or from human to animal, that’s just another word for ‘shapeshifter’ for me.”

Picking up after the events of Xavier’s presumed assassination, the X-Men find themselves the target of the violent efforts of an extremist group, the Friends of Humanity. The nuances of language have not escaped X-writers, as the battle took place at a venue formerly known as the “Hip Skate Party,” with a few of the letters emboldened to spell “HATE PARTY.” The conflict takes place over the course of two episodes, with the latter show introducing a familiar antagonist: Magneto.

The ideological conflict between Xavier and Magneto has often been distilled down to one similar to that of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, with Xavier being a pacifist and Magneto being aggressive and dictatorial. Critical analysis of the two Civil Rights Movement icons shows the mutuality of their goals, and so it goes with the two X-leaders. Claremont’s “Trial of Magneto” comic book informs a good portion of the second episode.

In many ways, it is the discussion between coexistence and separatism. Recent comics have engaged the discussion further, with Xavier and Magneto agreeing to create a separate Utopia for mutants, with varying effects. The tenuous nature of “human and mutant” relations is a clear comparison to racial and social conflicts in America, which again, keep the series relevant.

Besides his sociological grasp, another Claremont staple is how he allows the environment and the characters to grow and adapt, through joy and suffering. There are instances throughout the first two episodes that feature Cyclops and Storm not just as leaders but also as fighters with complete control of their abilities. Speaking of Cyclops, he and longtime love Jean Grey are expecting a child – resulting in questions about their commitment to the team versus to each other. It is not the least bit melodramatic, but a real-life situation that helps the traditional comic book characters come to life.

Ultimately, “X-Men ’97” is a blast from the past that resonates in this time. There have been other various efforts to engage members of Generation X and millennials that seem lazy and uninspired. This is not the case with this series. My only gripe with the show is actually with Disney+, which has the audacity to present the option of a “Skip Intro” button during the opening credits. 

Why in the world would you want to do that? We older folks are trying to slow time down, not speed it up.

AP

A camp for displaced people in Myanmar is seen across the Moei river from Thailand, which delivered its first batch of humanitarian aid to war-torn Myanmar March 25.

Three years ago – before the wars in Gaza and Ukraine – the world watched as a military coup in Myanmar triggered a violent civil war that has left more than a third of the population in need of assistance. On March 25, one of the country’s neighbors finally did something tangible to relieve the suffering and, perhaps, open a door for peace.

Thailand sent trucks of food and other essentials across the border to Myanmar’s Red Cross to help 20,000 displaced people. The aid delivery, one of many to come, was a small step and somewhat controversial. It remains uncertain if the supplies will be diverted by the ruling junta. Despite that possibility, Thailand’s move is a signal of a rising concern for innocent people in one of the world’s worst conflicts as well as for the need to keep Myanmar from splitting apart.

The plan for the aid shipments is “about paving the way for Myanmar to once again reengage and engage constructively with the international community,” Thai Vice Foreign Minister Sihasak Phuangketkeow told Reuters.

Large parts of Myanmar are out of the military’s control after recent battlefield advances by various rebel groups, such as one that includes the remnants of the elected government ousted in 2021. Also, the junta has further alienated its political base, the majority Burman ethnic group, with a new effort to draft at least 60,000 young men and women into the army over the next year. Thailand is now worried about a surge of asylum-seekers. Many in the Myanmar military have already defected across the border.

The Thais have shifted their thinking on the war. A recent election, in which voters favored the progressive Move Forward Party, has led to a new government in Bangkok trying a different approach toward ending war next door. Or as the Thai vice foreign minister said during the first aid delivery, “We want every side, all sides, to overcome their differences so that we can be led to reconciliation and peace in the near future.”