Hatem Khaled/Reuters

Palestinians walk past the rubble of apartment buildings destroyed in the Israel-Hamas war, in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip, July 10, 2024. According to the United Nations, 70% of Gaza's homes have been damaged or destroyed in the fighting.

After nine months of war with Israel, Hamas’ postwar strategy – based on what it sees as its impending victory – is starting to take shape.

As talks with Israel, mediated by the United States, Egypt, and Qatar, continue toward a deal on a cease-fire and release of hostages, the militant Islamist movement is eyeing its postwar plans.

They include riding an electoral wave to power in the West Bank while evading responsibility for the massive reconstruction of Gaza – and for the vast devastation and loss of life there from the war it incited.

It has the feel of an audacious, “have your cake and eat it, too” agenda.

But polling of Palestinians suggests that simply by surviving and shaking up the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and through careful messaging, the movement could be on track to achieve its postwar aims.

“Victory” is not a term Hamas uses often in public, knowing that it is an emotionally charged, raw term for Palestinians in Gaza, where some 38,000 people have been killed and 70% of homes have been damaged or destroyed, according to the United Nations. In a recent survey, 61% of Gazans said at least one family member had been killed in the war.

And yet, with the war not over, Hamas’ narrative of medium- and long-term victory is taking shape.

In multiple press statements and in interviews with The Christian Science Monitor, Hamas is framing its Oct. 7 attack and resulting war as forcing Arab states, Israel, and the U.S. to once again address the Palestinian cause and statehood – after years of them treating it as an afterthought.

“All the attempts by the Americans and Israelis to bypass the Palestinians and deny them their basic human rights have failed,” says Bassem Naim, a Hamas politburo official in Istanbul and a former government minister. “Now we have the opportunity to set a new way forward.”

Sari Orabi, a Ramallah, West Bank-based Palestinian political observer and analyst of Islamist movements, says that Hamas’ “detractors admit there has been a change in paradigm.”

Mohamed Azakir/Reuters/File

Hamas officials Osama Hamdan and Bassem Naim (right) attend a joint news conference in Beirut, Nov. 8, 2023.

“Even Palestinians who differed with Hamas on Oct. 7 and do not believe Hamas has a real political vision admit that the way the Israeli occupation conducted the war was a blow to its reputation on the world stage,” he says.

With its forces returning to areas of northern Gaza cleared out by the Israeli military, its deployment of plainclothes police, and its launching of rockets at Tel Aviv, Hamas is signaling its resilience and defiance to Palestinians and regional powers.

“When we ask the question ‘Who is losing and who is winning?’ – Palestinians lost a lot of lives while Israel lost its global image, allies, and suffered economic losses,” says Belal Shobaki, head of the political science department at Hebron University in the West Bank.  

“Meanwhile Hamas is still able to act in Gaza, fire missiles at Tel Aviv, and be involved in all the sections of life. That may not be an immediate victory to some, but it is not defeat, and it puts it in a stronger position [vis-à-vis] Israel than when the war started,” he says. “Hamas will continue to push this message and it will resonate with many.”

Says a second Hamas official, in Gaza, who preferred to remain unnamed for security reasons, “The survival of the resistance is a victory for the Palestinian people. Martyrs have been lost, but our resilience is shaking the world.”

Postwar Gaza

According to Hamas officials, its desired postwar scenario includes relinquishing the administration of Gaza and shifting responsibility for reconstruction and services to a new, interim Palestinian government, formed with its tacit approval, to be followed by elections.

Hamas officials tell the Monitor it will accept a “Palestinian unity government representative of all Palestinians from all social and political factions or groups,” with apolitical ministers.

One condition, Hamas officials say, is that any incoming entity must govern both Gaza and the West Bank, currently governed by the Palestinian Authority (PA), which is dominated by Hamas rival Fatah.

Alaa Badarneh/Reuters/File

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas attends a meeting with Prime Minister Alexander De Croo of Belgium and Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez of Spain, in Ramallah, West Bank, Nov. 23, 2023.

“We cannot accept any discussion about Gaza as a separate part from the rest of the Palestinian territories,” says Mr. Naim, the politburo member. “We are talking about one political entity.”

“The day after is not only for Gaza,” he adds. “It has to be a day-after [plan] for the Palestinian cause as a whole.”

Yet there is another motive for pushing for a technocratic government, observers say: to help Hamas evade the responsibility of reconstruction, which it admits it cannot handle.

“Who can govern Gaza after the war? The reconstruction, rebuilding the economy and health sector, and guaranteeing security – Hamas is aware it cannot carry this out alone. No Palestinian group can,” says Hebron University’s Dr. Shobaki.

While the Islamist movement is cautiously open to an Arab presence in Gaza in coordination with it and other Palestinian factions, it fiercely rejects any Palestinian or Arab administration devised or promoted by Israel, and vows an insurgency. 

“We will deal with any foreign force as a new occupation, no matter its source,” says Mr. Naim. “Anyone who comes in on an Israeli tank, he will be considered an enemy.”

Eyes on the West Bank

Rather than reconstruction, Hamas says its main focus is dialogue and elections, which it wants to hold within two years throughout the West Bank and Gaza. The last such elections were in 2006.

“The only way forward is to let the Palestinians have a very democratic, very comprehensive, very free choice to choose their leadership through free democratic elections and choose their political vision,” Mr. Naim says.  

Hamas’ aim is to translate its battlefield “resilience” and boost in popularity into electoral gains – in parliament and for the Palestinian presidency.

With an interim governing entity in Gaza tasked with rebuilding the territory and providing for its 2.2 million residents, an unburdened Hamas could then focus on its political ambitions.

Multiple Hamas officials say they have no interest in continuing to govern Gaza as a separate enclave.

“Gaza is the back of Palestinian resistance, but Jerusalem is the heart and the West Bank is the lifeblood of Palestine,” said the Hamas official in Gaza. “As a national Palestinian movement, we aim to take part, along with other factions, in the daily affairs, policies, and diplomatic agreements made in Ramallah.”

Amir Cohen/Reuters

An Israeli tank maneuvers near the border with Gaza, in Israel, July 9, 2024.

Hamas believes its survival and a strong showing in elections would also force regional states, which traditionally work directly with the PA’s unpopular and autocratic President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah, to deal with Hamas directly.

“Oct. 7 taught the world a valuable lesson,” the official in Gaza says. “You cannot ignore the Palestinian people, you cannot ignore resistance, and you cannot ignore Hamas.”

Baseline of support

Considering Hamas’ apparent confidence in elections, it remains unclear how its narrative of victory and political goals resonate with Palestinians.

Do they believe Hamas’ postwar endgame is worth the mass destruction and loss of tens of thousands of lives?

Hamas’ ambitious plans are buoyed by recent polling suggesting that despite anger expressed by some in Gaza as the war drags on, Hamas is not facing a growing backlash, but retains a consistent baseline of support.

In a poll of Palestinians in the West Bank and in central and southern Gaza conducted by the Ramallah-based Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research from May 27 to June 1, the proportion of Gazans who supported Hamas’ decision to attack Israel has dropped to 57% from 71% three months ago.

According to the poll, conducted in person, fewer than half (46%) of Palestinians in Gaza prefer that Hamas stay in control of the territory. Yet 64% stated they were “satisfied” with Hamas’ performance in the war, and only 10% blamed the organization for their suffering.

Critically, when asked which political party they support, 40% of Palestinians in both the West Bank and Gaza chose Hamas, compared with 20% for Fatah, a shift from prewar September 2023 when 22% expressed support for Hamas and 26% for Fatah.

Also boosting Hamas: the dysfunction and inaction of Mr. Abbas’ PA.

“Even among those in Gaza who do not support Hamas or whose support has lessened throughout the war, this has not translated into support for Fatah and the Palestinian Authority, whom they also see as letting down Gaza,” notes Mr. Orabi.

Hezbollah scenario?

Another one of Hamas’ main goals is to outlast the war with its militant arm, the Al-Qassam Brigades, intact.

Having fighters, weapons, and some rocket-launching capability during an interim period leading up to elections would leave Hamas free to act both within and outside the Palestinian political system with an independent militia, much as Hezbollah operates in Lebanon.

Gil Eliyahu/Reuters

Fires blaze near a road after Lebanon's Hezbollah militia said it launched more than 200 rockets and a swarm of drones at Israeli military sites, in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, July 4, 2024.

“Hamas wants to be in a position to retain influence, to have weapons available, and the ability to influence decision-making without carrying out the responsibility for education, electricity, and water for its citizens,” says Dr. Shobaki. “It likely views a model of Hezbollah in Lebanon as its preferred outcome.”

For Israel and the U.S., this is widely seen as a worst-case scenario, a nonstarter.

Yet Israeli military officials, even as their forces methodically destroy Hamas infrastructure and kill thousands of its fighters, have expressed pessimism about Israel’s ability to completely degrade Hamas’ military capabilities. Privately, Arab officials expect Hamas to retain a potent monopoly over armed forces in Gaza after the war’s end.

Hamas officials outside Gaza say they are willing to discuss the future of armed resistance – even disbanding their militant arm – as part of a national dialogue with other Palestinian factions.

“Everything is on the table,” says Mr. Naim, the former Hamas minister.

“We have nothing against sitting around the table with all Palestinian factions and groups to discuss all our political decisions and activities,” he says, “including Oslo, the resistance, the government in Ramallah, the government in Gaza, and revise [our policies] based on these decisions.”

But he and the official in Gaza both note, “As long as the occupation continues, armed resistance is our right.”

Jessica Michalofsky set off across rural British Columbia with one goal in mind: to pick up her son to take him back to the city of Victoria. Aubrey was struggling with addiction, and she wanted him home where she could try to keep him safe.

She arrived that night in the town of Nelson, pulling into a parking lot to figure out her next move. “I just wanted to get him into the car,” she says. And then her phone rang. Aubrey had died that day of an overdose.

Five years earlier, Ms. Michalofsky had been so relieved to get him in the car to Nelson, where he was born amid the snowcapped peaks and pristine lakes of the Kootenays. There, she thought, he could go to college and live with his father – far away from the easy drugs he started using as a teen. “I was terrified he was going to die,” she says.

At first, it seemed to work. He enrolled at Selkirk College, and graduated with awards.

But drugs were just as available, if not as visible, in rural British Columbia. With its vast distances and dearth of services, each mile away from methadone programs, doctor prescriptions, drug testing, and overdose prevention sites makes life for rural drug users more precarious.

Courtesy of Jessica Michalofsky

Jessica Michalofsky and her late son, Aubrey Michalofsky, pose for a picture during a bike ride around Slocan Lake in the Kootenays, in British Columbia in 2018. He died with fentanyl in his system in 2022. His mother has been fighting for a regulated, safe supply of drugs ever since.

Aubrey Michalofsky died Aug. 30, 2022, at age 25. He had fentanyl in his system. He is one of over 14,000 residents to have fatally overdosed since 2016, when the Canadian province declared a public health emergency amid a toxic supply of synthetic opioids. Last year, British Columbia whipped drug politics into a frenzy by making it legal to possess and consume small amounts of cocaine or heroin. Since Aubrey’s death, his mother has joined a growing chorus of advocates calling on the government to go even further. These mothers want the province to offer something many regard as unthinkable: a safe and regulated supply of drugs.

Critics, from politicians to the public, argue that supplying drugs makes them even more entrenched in the fabric of society, while taking resources from recovery and treatment. But for mothers like Ms. Michalofsky – the ones who arguably hate drugs more than anyone ever could – it’s the only compassionate way forward.

“None of us started out thinking, ‘Oh, yeah, let’s get my kids some drugs.’ Nobody wants their kids to do drugs,” she says. “If I could wave a magic wand and get rid of all drugs, great.”

But in 2023, British Columbia registered a record 2,558 suspected overdoses, the vast majority from poisoning.

“We have to think outside the box,” says Cheryl Dowden, executive director of ANKORS, a harm reduction organization in downtown Nelson, a historic silver-rush town of roughly 10,000 people. “The toxic drug crisis is a humanitarian crisis of epic proportions, and it’s not being treated that way.”

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

Wade Swagar, overdose prevention site coordinator for the nonprofit ANKORS, sits by an infrared spectrometer – originally designed for the food industry – that his group uses to test drugs to determine if they have toxic additives, in Nelson, British Columbia, April 25, 2024. He says they test about 25 to 40 drugs a week.

Compared with most other places, British Columbia has already thought outside the box.

In January 2023, the western province became the first in Canada to decriminalize the possession of small amounts of hard drugs. It was the second jurisdiction in North America to do so after Oregon. As in Oregon, the pilot program met public backlash, intensified by local and national politics. In May, the province asked the federal government to roll back the program, making it illegal again to consume drugs in public.

Canadian “common sense” or “compassion fatigue”?

Drug policy has become a political lightning rod. The Conservative rival to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has appealed to Canadian “common sense.” In May, Pierre Poilievre asked if British Columbians were with him on a different approach “that would ban the drugs, stop giving out tax-funded opioids, and instead invest in treatment and recovery to bring our loved ones home drug-free.”

Decriminalization, at its heart, was intended to destigmatize drug use and remove police from the equation of how best to help users. But in places like Nelson, it had the reverse effect. Nelson Police Chief Donovan Fisher talks about reams of letters his department received from community members angered that the police spent the year not doing anything about the drug use they were seeing in broad daylight, from City Hall to Main Street. Nelson Mayor Janice Morrison likened it to “compassion fatigue.”

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

Police Chief Donovan Fisher speaks about managing the decriminalization of drug use, in Nelson, British Columbia, April 25, 2024. British Columbia is the second jurisdiction in North America to decriminalize drugs after Oregon. While he is not against it, he worries about how it affects the public.

When a safe inhalation site was proposed on the outskirts of downtown, a neighborhood group opposed it, wearied by an increase of drug use and disturbance near their homes. “A lot of parents are saying, ‘We don’t want to shelter our kids,’” says resident Kirsten Stolee, who has two teenage daughters, “but I don’t think kids should see what my kids have seen in the last year.”

Amber Streuckens was devastated when the inhalation site was canceled. While she is on the front lines of the crisis as an educator with the Rural Empowered Drug User Network, she understands the public response. “We’re seeing people die in our communities. We’re seeing people who are very destabilized by a toxic drug supply. ... There’s been no magic bullet, right? So I think public discontent is reasonable,” she says. “But I also think that it’s being weaponized in a very intentional way.”

It’s in this context that advocates for safe supply – the most controversial policy, but what advocates say is by far the most important – are trying to effect change. “Our main goal right now is to stop the deaths,” says Leslie McBain, who co-founded Moms Stop the Harm, a network of Canadian families who’ve lost children to the drug crisis. “But this fight seems to be getting more and more difficult.”

British Columbia has long pioneered drug policy. In 2003, Insite in Vancouver opened as the first legal, supervised safe consumption site in North America. The province has supported needle and syringe programs, methadone therapies, and expanded prescriptions of opioids and stimulants. The newest idea is the “compassion club” model, in which activists buy, test, and sell safe drugs at no profit.

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

Kirsten Stolee, a mother of teenage girls and a member of the Neighborhood Network, sits in her living room and talks about the opioid crisis in Nelson, British Columbia, April 26, 2024. She lives across the street from a homeless shelter and is worried about safety and what her children see from their bedroom window, as drug use occurs frequently nearby.

Harm reduction policies have historically come from the bottom up by drug user groups responding to needs in their community – and only later “society comes around,” says Tim Dickson, a Vancouver-based lawyer.

He is currently representing the Drug Users Liberation Front, which had applied for an exemption to Canada’s Controlled Drugs and Substances Act to run a compassion club. The request was rejected; the group continued operating anyway. Last year, amid backlash to decriminalization and questions around the “diversion” of safe supply – whether criminals are getting their hands on the drugs – it was arrested and shut down.

Even though doctors can prescribe opioids and stimulants, the British Columbia coroner’s office says only a fraction of drug users access the medical system: some 5,000 per month out of 225,000 users.

Mr. Dickson agrees not all Canadians are yet on board with the notion of a compassion club. “But that doesn’t undercut whether it’s right and just and fair or not,” he says.

Many opponents fear a proliferation of drugs. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime’s World Drug Report 2024 notes that drug use has risen to 292 million users, a 20% increase in a decade. It also notes that in jurisdictions where cannabis has been legalized, drug use appears to have increased.

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

Mayor Janice Morrison poses at the overlook in Gyro Park above Nelson, British Columbia, April 26, 2024. She is a member of the Nelson Fentanyl Task Force.

DJ Larkin, executive director of the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition, says that nonmedical safe supply differs from the selling of cannabis because it wouldn’t be for profit. “We’re looking at this through the lens not of trying to sell people something,” they say, “but rather, if someone accesses it, how do we make sure it’s as least dangerous as possible?”

The British Columbia coroner’s office recently advocated expanding nonmedical supplies of drugs. While police Chief Donovan in Nelson grapples with some aspects of decriminalization, he’s come to see safe supply as the “lesser of two evils.”

Recovered drug user Guy Felicella says many people in the recovery community only support expanded treatment – not the provision of more drugs. But, he says, many forget that recovery is hardly ever linear.

“I’m not hard-line on it because it took me 31 years and it takes most people ... multiple years to figure out how to stay sober,” he says. “And when they relapse, that drug supply is sitting there waiting for them and kills them.”

“We’re always saying, ‘Get your drugs checked. Get your toxic drugs checked; get your illegal drugs checked,’” Mr. Felicella says. “Tell me what the difference is.”

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

Donnie, who is homeless and was living in a tent in front of City Hall, says decriminalization of drugs didn’t make much difference in his life, but what he really needs is safe supply, in Nelson, British Columbia, April 26, 2024. The tents sprouted up on the lawn after the HUB, one of the core service locations for the street community, closed over lack of federal government funding.

“We miss these people”

The national debate has had a silencing effect in parts of rural British Columbia. One founder of a compassion club in Nelson declined to be interviewed because of the threats they face. In Nelson, ANKORS operates a drug testing center and an overdose prevention site. It works with three doctors who prescribe drugs. But many users live scattered throughout the valley. Bus service is scant. Many don’t own cars, and getting to appointments takes resources and time. “Transportation issues in rural communities are massive, and sometimes with pretty awful consequences,” Ms. Dowden says.

Last year, 16 people died of overdoses in Nelson. That pales in comparison with Vancouver, where 650 died. But Ms. Streuckens offers devastating context. “Maybe our numbers don’t seem as huge ... but we know most of those 16 people,” she says. “We miss these people.”

Ms. Michalofsky is reflective about her son’s death. She knows he could have died with any drug encounter over the years he used. But he was doing his best in Nelson when he enrolled himself in a methadone program, excelling at Selkirk College, where she is raising funds for the Aubrey Michalofsky Social Justice Scholarship.

At the time of his death, he was working a job as dishwasher and helping to take care of his ill father. But it was too hard to get into town without a car or reliable transport, she believes. Aubrey eventually left the methadone program, which is when he began to spiral. His mother says she just knew he should be back in Victoria.

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

A poster hangs on a bulletin board at the nonprofit ANKORS in Nelson, British Columbia, April 25, 2024. The group works on harm reduction and offers support to drug users struggling with addiction.

An avid athlete, she has put her focus on advocating for safe supply with Moms Stop the Harm. Last year she ran 900 kilometers (559 miles) from Nelson to Victoria, setting off from the park along the lake where Aubrey celebrated his birthdays growing up.

The year before, she ran hundreds of miles around the provincial Health Ministry building. As a result of her endurance, she secured a meeting with the province’s public health official, Bonnie Henry, pleading with her to offer a bus service across rural areas to hand out methadone. “No,” is what she heard.

“Why?” she asked. “Why? We did all this stuff during COVID. Why can’t we do this?”

This spring, she got behind the wheel and traced the journey she made to the Kootenays to try to save her son – this time with a U-Haul.

Rural British Columbia has given her the opportunity to buy a farmhouse with a big garden for much less than in Victoria. It also gives her the chance to be close to where Aubrey last lived, and died.

But she’ll fight for what rural life took away from her family, too – safe drugs for a child struggling with addiction. She is joining forces with Moms Stop the Harm advocates throughout the region.

“Most of the moms that I know, we have become advocates of safe supply only because we see that our children would not be dead. They might still be addicted to meth or cocaine, but they wouldn’t be dead,” she says. “Sometimes I still can’t believe that it happened. It will be two years at the end of August. I still sometimes hope maybe it’s not true.”

Part 1: Stick, meet Carrot. How Portland police and activists teamed up to fight addiction.

Thousands of Californians have evacuated their homes this month, escaping wildfires. Already this year, wildfires have burned over 200,000 acres – more than five times the five-year average for this date. A blistering week is making conditions worse.

The increasing frequency and severity of fires and other climate-related events have brought with them another crisis: homeowners are being dropped by insurance companies – or facing historic rate increases as insurance companies grapple with growing risks from highly exposed markets.

“Insurance companies are not magicians, right?” says Dave Jones, former insurance commissioner for California. “There’s a very real impact associated with climate change, which is landing on their balance sheets.”

Rates are rising nationwide. A new study from the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) finds that what Americans pay to insure their homes rose on average by 15% between 2020 and 2023, even after accounting for inflation. The rise isn’t uniform. In areas at low risk of natural disasters, such as hurricanes and wildfires, the premiums have risen along with inflation and the increasing values of homes. In ZIP codes at highest risk – in states such as California, Florida, Louisiana, and Texas – premiums have soared.

The reason: Hit by the fallout of increasingly destructive storms and the possibility that climate change could make future disasters even worse, the insurance industry is reevaluating its risks. The reevaluation suggests that, even with housing inflation slowing to its smallest increase in more than three years, the cost of insuring the riskiest homes will continue to climb. 

“Everyone faces that same problem, which is that they need to be able to pay out a lot of claims at once,” says Philip Mulder, a risk and insurance professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “From the insurers’ perspective, this is a logical enough story. But from the homeowners’ perspective … they feel stuck.” 

Feeling fortunate

For homeowners caught up in the price surge, it’s personal. Fran Lancaster has lived in her Poway, California, home for over 20 years. In 2023, she noticed a jump in her mortgage payments and discovered that her insurance had tripled. 

“I just basically had to eat the extra money,” says Ms. Lancaster. A widow who lives on a fixed income made up of retirement savings and Social Security, she says she called more than a dozen companies, none of which would write her a new policy. Ultimately, she doubled her deductible for a slight discount on the premium and took the financial hit.

Courtesy of Fran Lancaster

Fran Lancaster with her dog, Jaxon, at her home in Poway, California, July 2, 2024. Ms. Lancaster’s premium for homeowners insurance is now triple what she was used to paying.

“I’m able to do it without feeling like I can’t put gas in my car. So I feel a little bit fortunate in that sense,” she adds.

Karen Lober is having a tougher time. “They used to at least be able to sell you some peace of mind,” she says. “Not anymore.”

The retired Teamster has three roommates and works odd jobs to keep up with bills now. Most of Colfax, the city where she lives, is classified as a very high fire hazard severity zone. Ms. Lober’s insurance company canceled her policy in 2021, forcing her to cobble together coverage: a fire policy from the state’s option of last resort – Fair Access to Insurance Requirements, or FAIR – with a wraparound policy from a traditional insurer. The combination costs her hundreds of dollars more per month.  

More than half of states require insurers to participate in a FAIR plan, a policy pool made up of insurance companies that offer coverage in that state. Because the pool is all high-risk, its policies are more expensive than traditional coverage. Homeowners shopping for a FAIR plan have run out of other choices. 

“What business did the insurance industry think they were in?” asks Carmen Balber, executive director at Consumer Watchdog, an advocacy group for people buying insurance. Both Ms. Lancaster and Ms. Lober lodged complaints with the organization.

“Do we need to move towards better climate resilience? Definitely,’’ Ms. Balber says. “But the industry jumping ship, precipitously, is a real betrayal of their policyholders.”

In Florida, so many big insurers have left the state that specialty insurers now dominate the market, according to the new NBER study. To guard against a catastrophic storm that would bankrupt them, smaller insurers rely on reinsurance – insurance for insurance companies – to cover nearly 40% of the properties in the state. 

Reinsurers face the same inflation pressures as the companies they insure and have “really put the brakes on how much coverage they’re willing to write and the price at which they’re willing to write that coverage,” says Professor Mulder.

Those costs get passed to homeowners.

Jeff Gritchen/The Orange County Register/AP

Homeowners and insurers alike are reeling from extreme weather that has caused major disruptions throughout the country, from flight delays and downed trees, to flooding and landslides. Tarps hang behind a cliff-top home above a landslide in Dana Point, California, Feb. 20, 2024.

Insurers’ dismay, Californians’ hope

Last year was the worst for underwriters since 2011, and the industry as a whole has been in the red for half of the last 20 years. In California, historic wildfires in 2017 and 2018 wiped out a decade of insurance industry profits. 

As a result, California’s insurance crisis is acute, mainly driven by high payouts following climate-related losses. But a 1988 state policy that has suppressed insurance rates despite the Golden State’s higher home values has exacerbated the problem, as costs have skyrocketed.

“We should have had a system that was reasonable over a longer period of time, but we didn’t,” says Rex Frazier, president of the Personal Insurance Federation of California and a former state deputy insurance commissioner. “Now companies are dealing with that. And so the market and consumers are dealing with that.” 

California is dealing with it, too. Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara has brought together environmental activists, researchers, and policy and insurance experts – including Mr. Frazier – for a California Climate Insurance Working Group. Their goal is to reduce threats from climate-related disasters, bringing hope to insurers and despondent homeowners. 

Big changes and little changes 

Insurance companies have long called for changes to California’s rate policy, arguing it prevents them from preparing for catastrophe and from covering their losses from large-scale events, which are now more frequent and severe. They’re advocating for the ability to use forward-looking risk models and to include reinsurance in price-setting. They also want the state to shorten the turnaround time to approve rate increases, which can take years. 

“Until it’s a profitable insurance market, insurance companies aren’t going to write more insurance,” says Janet Ruiz, director of strategic communication at the Insurance Information Institute, which provides research to the insurance industry.

Experts say restoring a healthy market will require a combination of policy and behavioral changes. Steps like “home hardening” – using fire retardant materials and clearing brush and debris – and broader efforts to reduce the speed and impact of climate change, like eliminating fossil fuel use, are essential. 

“Insurance is the last part of it,” adds Ms. Ruiz.

According to Mr. Jones, who now runs the Climate Risk Initiative at the University of California, Berkeley’s Center for Law, Energy & the Environment, nothing matters more than tackling the risk at its source. 

“The lack of availability of insurance is the price that we’re paying for the failure to address climate change. It’s not any more complicated than that,” he says.

“You’ve got to make some money on it, or else you can’t survive. So I understand that,” says Ms. Lancaster in Poway. “I also just know that for ordinary people it’s becoming superhard.”

Vadim Ghirda/AP

Britain's new prime minister, Keir Starmer, stands outside No. 10 Downing St. in London, July 5, after returning from seeing King Charles III, who asked him to form a government.

A landslide victory in Britain’s election has set the stage for an audacious political experiment – one that, if it succeeds, could also impact America and other increasingly fractured Western democracies. 

That’s because the new center-left Prime Minister, Labour Party leader Keir Starmer, has cast aside the usual political playbook in welcoming his huge parliamentary majority.

Beyond a familiar focus on delivering on campaign promises, he has also set himself much more ambitious targets: to defuse the anger and heal the divisions corroding this, like other, Western democracies, and to restore voters’ trust in politics, politicians, and democratic government.

“This wound, this lack of trust,” Mr. Starmer said in one of his first statements after the election, needs to be “healed.” And he said everything his new government did would aim to revive people’s confidence that “politics can be a force for good.” 

As U.S. President Joe Biden, France’s Emmanuel Macron, and other politically embattled European leaders can attest, that is more easily said than done.

Yet the message Mr. Starmer will take from last week’s election is that while the task is daunting, and success uncertain, it could yet be achievable. 

He will see both cause for encouragement and strong reasons for caution in the vote.

The good news goes beyond the result itself: a commanding haul of 412 Labour seats in the 650-member House of Commons, up from barely 200 in the last election, in 2019.

It is also found in the the response from leading politicians in the Conservative Party, which was ejected after 14 years in power and reduced to a mere 121 seats five years after its own landslide victory. 

In scenes unimaginable in the current political climate in America and many other Western countries, both victors and losers responded with grace and mutual respect.

And respect, too, for the verdict of the voters.

“Yours is the only judgement that matters,” outgoing Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said in his final remarks to the nation outside Number 10 Downing Street.

His Chancellor of the Exchequer – the British equivalent of Treasury Secretary – was more explicit. “Today, power will change hands in a peaceful and orderly manner, with goodwill on all sides,” said Jeremy Hunt. “This is the magic of democracy.”

Hollie Adams/Reuters

Supporters of the far-right Reform UK party wait for an election campaign rally to begin in Birmingham, Britain, June 30, 2024.

But here’s the challenge facing Mr. Starmer: while British politicians may still cherish that “magic,” the popular mood has become disillusioned, despondent, bitter, and angry.

Some of this can be traced to the aftermath of the financial crash of 2008, the pandemic, and rising energy prices pumped up by Russia’s war on Ukraine.

But it has been compounded by successive Conservative governments.

They overpromised and underdelivered on the benefits of Britain leaving the European Union. They failed to deliver on pledges to “level up” the country by focusing on less prosperous areas in northern England.

During the pandemic, then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s staff partied in Downing Street while ordinary Britons duly observed isolation and social distancing rules.

And in the past few years, Conservative politicians seemed to spend more energy arguing with one another than on governing, even as interest rates and inflation spiked, public services deteriorated, economic growth stagnated, and families struggled to make ends meet.

“There was a huge desire not just to put the Conservative Party out,” Britain’s last Labour Prime Minister, Tony Blair, wrote this week, “but to punish them. Labour was a credible instrument of punishment.”

Still, anger toward the Conservatives was not matched by much visible enthusiasm for Labour.

Voter turnout was down. And while Labour won the most Commons seats by far, its edge in the national popular vote was narrower. The party took 34%, compared to 24% for the Conservatives.

Most worryingly for both main parties was that third place, at 14%, went to the anti-immigration Reform UK party of Nigel Farage, a close ally of former U.S. President Donald Trump and the driving force behind Brexit.

Reform UK finished second in dozens of constituencies, mostly cannibalizing the traditional Conservative vote and thus handing victory to Labour. And next time around, Mr. Farage said, “we’re coming for Labour.”

The usual playbook would tell Mr. Starmer to prioritize immigration, to reduce the number of migrants crossing the English Channel in rickety boats that often sink. And there are early signs Labour will indeed clamp down on the people smugglers who are organizing, and making money from, the migrant arrivals.

But Mr. Starmer’s overriding aim is to address the popular mood that has made Mr. Farage’s message so alluring.

In his remarks on entering Downing Street, he spoke directly of Britons’ waning trust in government, and a “draining away of the hope, the spirit, the belief in a better future.”

More significant, perhaps, than what he promised was what he did not. “Changing a country,” he said, “is not like flicking a switch.” It was going to “take a while.”

But by governing “especially” for those who didn’t vote for Labour, and by putting the country before his party, he said he hoped to restore trust in governance.

Too many people, he added, had lost confidence that Britain would be “better for your children.”

“So my government will fight, every day, until you believe again,” he promised.

That will be a tall order.

But the stakes are just as high, in Britain, as in the U.S. and a number of other Western countries: is it still possible to repair and revive people’s bedrock trust in democratic government? 

The world’s most unpredictable play only had one performance. It was staged inside a prison. The comedy, “Breakin’ the Mummy’s Code,” is about a man from ancient Egypt who embarks on a time travel adventure. Along the way, he encounters Robin Hood, Roman gladiators, cowboys, Hamlet, pirates, and – because why not? – Freddy Krueger from “The Nightmare on Elm Street.” It included a Shakespeare soliloquy – plus dance numbers. 

“Breakin’ the Mummy’s Code” was created by incarcerated men inside Sing Sing Correctional Facility in New York. It received a standing ovation in Cellblock B. Now, a new movie explores the play’s legacy: the healing effect it had on its participants.

“Sing Sing,” directed by Greg Kwedar, reenacts the making of “Breakin’ the Mummy’s Code.” It even stars one of the play’s original actors. Already generating Oscar buzz, the movie, which rolls out in theaters starting July 12, chronicles a budding friendship between two incarcerated men. Thematically, it’s about identity. The characters live in a hypermasculine environment that venerates bravado, toughness, and aggression. But the amateur actors come to discover that empathy, vulnerability, and tenderness are strengths, not weaknesses. The movie makes a case for the rehabilitative impact of arts programs inside prisons.

“I was a witness to it,” says Mr. Kwedar, who taught an acting class in a prison with his creative partner, Clint Bentley, as part of their research. “I think the greatest teacher is what it’s like to step into another character and move in their shoes and step outside of yourself. That is a process of empathy. ... It gives you a prism to look at all the relationships in your life and to see perspective.”

“Sing Sing” is Mr. Kwedar’s second movie. His debut, “Transpecos,” a thriller about Border Patrol agents, received rave reviews in 2016. He then spent seven years developing “Sing Sing” with Rehabilitation Through the Arts (RTA), the nonprofit that runs the theater program.

Courtesy of A24

From left, Paul Raci, Sean San José, Colman Domingo, Sean “Dino” Johnson, and Mosi Eagle star in "Sing Sing."

There are dozens of similar theater projects across the United States. Perhaps the most well-known is Shakespeare Behind Bars. That program, which operates in three prisons in Kentucky and in one in Michigan, boasts a 6% recidivism rate for those who have participated in its productions. The Monitor was the first publication to write about that program. Then it became the subject of an award-winning 2005 documentary, “Shakespeare Behind Bars.” 

“Prisons function on shame and guilt,” says Shakespeare Behind Bars founder Curt Tofteland, who has longtime collegial connections with the RTA. “But shame and guilt doesn’t change behavior. Why? Because shame and guilt doesn’t change thinking. And the only way that you change behavior is to change thinking.”

These programs don’t set out to “fix” incarcerated men. As Mr. Tofteland puts it, “I’m an artist who does work that’s therapeutic. I’m not a therapist who does work that’s artistic.”

When change does happen, it’s a result of the actors exploring questions that the scripts raise, including “Who am I?” 

The two men at the heart of the story – John “Divine G” Whitfield (played by Colman Domingo) and Clarence “Divine Eye” Maclin (who portrays himself) – had to grapple with those existential questions. As the film unfolds, the audience learns that Mr. Maclin was one of the most feared men in the prison. Acting freed him to shed the gangster identity he’d clung to. The program helped him learn to express emotions. He even cried onstage. Now, he’s a natural performer on screen.

“In conversation with our cinematographer Pat Scola, the big revelation we had early on in our process was, ‘This is a movie about the landscape of the human face,’” says Mr. Kwedar. “It’s about drawing close to someone and looking them in the eyes and hearing their stories, and to know their names. And when you do that, it’s impossible to see that person as anything less than human.”

“Sing Sing” was filmed inside a recently decommissioned prison in New York. Its cast of established and first-time actors includes 13 RTA alumni. The production employed community-based filmmaking. For starters, it had a nonhierarchical pay structure. Everyone on set, including Mr. Domingo – who recently won an Emmy for the TV show “Euphoria” and was an Oscar nominee this year for “Rustin” – was paid the same rate. The cast and crew are profit participants in “Sing Sing.” It means that the formerly incarcerated men in the movie “have literal ownership over their own story,” says Mr. Kwedar.

Last month, the director screened the movie inside the Sing Sing facility itself. He calls it the most profound theatrical experience of his life. After the credits had rolled, RTA alumni got up on the stage.

They were able to “talk directly to this incarcerated audience and present a vision for them of what’s possible,” says Mr. Kwedar. “That they’re needed to be out there, making this world a better place.”

AP Photo/Odelyn Joseph

Haitian Prime Minister Garry Conille listens to a colleague at his swearing-in ceremony in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, June 3, 2024.

In the three years since the assassination of Haiti’s last elected leader, warring gangs have overrun the capital, displacing more than half a million residents and spiking the murder rate. Their violent grip underscores the challenge of stabilizing the Western Hemisphere’s poorest and least secure country.

Yet the Caribbean nation’s newly appointed prime minister, Garry Conille, offers a different perspective. “Please do remember that two thirds of the country, close to 10 million Haitians, live in ... circumstances that are relatively peaceful,” he told NPR last week. They deserve leadership “that reflects their courage, that reflects their generosity and certainly their commitment to hard work and change.”

For ordinary Haitians, their new leader’s comment may strike a welcome chord of humility. It reflects a lesson learned slowly in recent decades from other faltering states. Restoring governance is more likely to succeed if it begins at the roots rather than at the top. Ordinary citizens, as Keith Mines and Kirk Randolph of the United States Institute of Peace put it, are “force multipliers.” Tapping their resilience requires earning their trust.

Programs in Somalia and Yemen, for example, show that nurturing trust between communities and local authorities strengthens public confidence that governance can be honest, inclusive, and collaborative. It can lead to reduced violence and greater respect for women.

Rebuilding Haiti starts from scratch. The last elections were eight years ago. Parliament sits empty. Poverty increased to as high as 58% last year, according to the World Bank. The country sits persistently at the bottom of global corruption rankings.

The international community has raised a modest multinational police force led by Kenya to help rein in the roughly 200 armed gangs in Port-au-Prince. But Mr. Conille, a soft-spoken doctor who spent 25 years working for the U.N. and other aid agencies, seems to recognize that his country’s recovery depends more on the force of integrity and transparency. “He’s delivering something people have been asking for, which is communication,” Wolf Pamphile, founder of the Washington-based Haïti Policy House, told The New York Times Tuesday.

The goal for Haiti’s new government is to prepare the country for elections in February 2026. That involves a long list of formidable tasks, from rebuilding a broken justice system to restoring basic public services. “For the response to be adequate to the challenge, the effort will have to mobilize Haitian society on a level never before seen,” Mr. Mines and Ms. Randolph wrote last month. “Citizens will need to be empowered to do more, and all indications are that they are more than prepared to play such a role.”

By equal indications, they now have leaders who are also willing to follow.