2018
April
25
Wednesday

Monitor Daily Podcast

April 25, 2018
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Mark Sappenfield
Senior global correspondent

A reader recently sent me a link to a lovely story. It’s about how the people of Kauai have responded to help one another after catastrophic flooding on the Hawaiian island. “It’s an incredible outpouring of people wanting to help other people,” said one volunteer. “It’s just heartwarming to see these people.”

That same spirit was present in Detroit, when police and truck drivers lined up 13 semitrucks under a bridge after a man threatened to jump to his death. Had he jumped, he would have fallen only about 10 feet, thanks to their large hearts and quick thinking.

The photo of those trucks, lined up side by side, tells a bigger story, just like those strong Hawaiian backs do. They are rebellions repeated countless times the world over. Unity can seem an elusive ideal these days. But it is not, really. It is all around us. The Atlantic’s James Fallows just finished a multiyear tour of the United States. His conclusion? “Americans don’t realize how fast the country is moving toward becoming a better version of itself.” Focusing on disunity, he says, we miss the good that is going on.

Division is largely a matter of choice. We can choose to weigh divisions of sex, race, religion, and nationality more than unity. Or not. Emergencies sweep away the etceteras of life and leave us naked in front of one another. Then, it is the human spirit that overflows. But it is always there, just waiting to rumble into action like 13 semitrucks on a Michigan highway or a heartwarming chorus of Hawaiian chainsaws. 

Here are our five stories for today, which touch on the hope of an American dream, new faces of enthusiasm in politics, and a school where truly no student is allowed to be left behind. 


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Today’s stories

And why we wrote them

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff
Bassam 'Sam' Jalhoum, a Syrian immigrant, sits in his Foxborough, Mass., apartment April 23, with photos of his family behind him. Mr. Jalhoum, who has lived in the US for 18 years, is hoping his children will get visas to migrate to the US. One daughter is already in Michigan; one son is in Kuwait. His wife has a green card but is with their other son and daughter in a refugee camp in Lebanon. Jalhoum works seven days a week at a gas station to save money for his family.
SOURCE:

US Refugee Processing Center, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

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Jacob Turcotte/Staff
Brian Snyder/Reuters
A woman carries a sign reading 'Science' in the style of a campaign bumper sticker as demonstrators march along Boston’s Commonwealth Avenue to the March for Science rally on Boston Common last year.

Points of Progress

What's going right

The Monitor's View


A Christian Science Perspective

About this feature

A message of love

Markus Schreiber/AP
Germans of various faiths donned kippas (or yarmulkes), during a demonstration against anti-Semitism in Berlin April 25. They had gathered to denounce an attack on a young man wearing a kippa in the city earlier this month. The man attacked told Deutsche Welle he was an Israeli Arab who had worn the kippa to disprove the idea, put forward by a friend, that it had become unsafe to wear one in Germany. Men and women cheered, The Washington Post reported, when Berlin Mayor Michael Mueller told them: 'Today, we all wear kippa. Today, Berlin is wearing kippa.'
( The illustrations in today’s Monitor Daily are by Jacob Turcotte. )

A look ahead

Thanks for spending some time with us today. We hope you'll come back tomorrow when we look at Russia's peculiar response to a democratic uprising on its doorstep in Armenia. Perhaps, Russia is not as anti-democracy as some thought. Perhaps, it's more anti-NATO. 

More issues

2018
April
25
Wednesday
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