Story Hinckley/The Christian Science Monitor

The Snake River divides Oregon and Idaho, July 24, 2023, in Ontario, Oregon.

Hidden somewhere beneath the Snake River’s flowing brown water lies the exact dividing line separating one of America’s most liberal states from one of its most conservative.

But according to a group of rural, conservative secessionists, the Oregon-Idaho border should be moved 300 miles west. 

It may be a pipe dream, but the Greater Idaho movement has been picking up steam over the past few years to become the most active secessionist movement in modern America. These eastern Oregonians say their home state’s politics, dominated by infamously progressive Portland in the west, don’t reflect their values. So they’re trying to get their rural, conservative neighbor, Idaho, to absorb them. 

“If you stuck someone who’s lived in the city all their lives over here in the rural areas, they wouldn’t know how to survive,” says Toni Foster, who owns a wrecking yard and upholstery business in Harney County, the state’s most sparsely populated county, with fewer than 8,000 people. The state government in Salem is always telling the rest of Oregon “how they want you to live your life,” says Ms. Foster, taking a break from canning vegetables in her kitchen. “And that just makes rural areas angrier and more upset. We’re not being listened to.” 

Story Hinckley/The Christian Science Monitor

“If you stuck someone who’s lived in the city all their lives over here in the rural areas, they wouldn’t know how to survive,” says Toni Foster outside her home in Hines, Oregon, July 24, 2023.

With cities increasingly voting Democratic and less-populated areas increasingly voting Republican, this urban-rural divide has become a defining factor in U.S. politics. And as the political parties grow further apart ideologically, that gaping red-blue split isn’t just between states – but also often within them.

Almost nowhere in America is this dynamic starker than in Oregon, where the land west of the Cascade Range is characterized by rainy, dense fir forests and Democrats, while east of the mountains are dry high deserts and Republicans. And while it’s unlikely that Oregon’s border will ever actually move from the Snake River ­– such a shift would require approval from both states’ legislatures and the U.S. Congress – the Greater Idaho movement’s incremental successes of late show how deep the country’s urban-rural divide has become, and the lengths to which some voters may be willing to go to claw back a sense of power.

“We were forced into this grouping a long time ago, and it doesn’t make sense. Our communities are too different. It creates this feeling of, ‘You don’t understand us, you don’t respect us, and you don’t listen to us,’” says Matt McCaw, spokesperson for the Greater Idaho movement. “Unless we help people get the government they want, we’re going to have this bitterness.”

A values gap

Mr. McCaw moved from a Portland suburb to Powell Butte in 2020 with his wife and seven children. They had always felt a little different than their neighbors – more conservative, more religious. But when the state government took what they viewed as a “heavy-handed” approach to the COVID-19 pandemic, the McCaws, who own a wedding venue and math curriculum consulting business, decided they needed to move east, where people were similarly frustrated by the restrictions. 

Yet even after they settled in Crook County, which former President Donald Trump won by almost 50 points in 2020, they found themselves still feeling frustrated. 

“Eastern Oregon was forced into all of these pandemic policies that we didn’t want – and right next door in Idaho it was totally different,” he says. In Idaho, families were going to church and kids were going to school. So when Mr. McCaw heard about the Greater Idaho movement, “it clicked.” 

Story Hinckley/The Christian Science Monitor

Matt McCaw, spokesperson for the Greater Idaho movement, stands outside his home in Powell Butte, Oregon, July 23, 2023.

“If the government is going to have that much control over your life, you really need to make sure that that government matches your values,” he says from his home in Powell Butte, where the smell of juniper trees and sagebrush fills the air. “COVID brought the blue-red state divide into stark contrast.”

Other recent measures have heightened that sense of a values gap. Ballot Measure 110, which decriminalized possession of drugs like heroin, fentanyl, and meth, passed statewide in November 2020 despite opposition in the double digits from every eastern Oregon county. In 2022, Measure 114, which requires permits from local law enforcement to buy firearms and prohibits ammunition magazines capable of holding more than 10 rounds, passed with only six counties – three in and around Portland and three in and around Salem – voting in favor.

“We have just watched western Oregon get more and more progressive,” says Sandie Gilson, a small-business owner and fifth-generation eastern Oregonian. 

At first, she says, she was inclined to shrug it off. “It was like, ‘Well, just let them do what they want to do.’” But increasingly, Ms. Gilson says, it feels like the state’s progressive policies are becoming a threat to their lives. Where she lives in Grant County, which is slightly smaller than the state of Connecticut, the police are often hours away. If she were to face a situation like a home intrusion or an approaching cougar or wolf, “I’m supposed to run back in my house, unlock my safe, find my bullets, load it, before I can save somebody? We just live a totally different lifestyle,” she says.

Jacob Turcotte/Staff

In November 2020, eastern Oregon’s Jefferson and Union counties approved ballot measures requiring county commissioners to hold meetings about relocating the Oregon-Idaho border. Over the next three years, 10 more counties approved similar measures, including most recently Wallowa County, which voted in May to require biannual meetings on the subject. 

The ballot measure failed in two southwest Oregon counties, leading the Greater Idaho movement to redraw its original proposed map that would have included them. Now, its “Phase 1” map focuses only on Oregon east of the Cascade Range (while carefully carving out Bend, a fast-growing liberal city in central Oregon). And a possible “Phase 2” would include rural parts of Northern California and southeast Washington. 

Is a boundary redraw possible?

Advocates like Ms. Gilson say they are confident they can get there. When she went door to door in Grant County gathering signatures to make it onto the ballot, she says 3 out of every 4 people signed her petition before she even finished her pitch.

But passing a ballot measure that simply asks local officials to discuss the idea is a far cry from persuading two state legislatures as well as the U.S. Congress. 

“There are so many barriers to getting it done that there would have to be a strong feeling across the board that we need new boundaries,” says Francis Buckley, a professor at George Mason University School of Law and author of the 2020 book “American Secession: The Looming Threat of a National Breakup.”

State boundaries have been moved before. Virginia and West Virginia split over disagreements during the Civil War. In 1958, Congress passed a law approving a slight boundary change between Oregon and Washington to track with a shifting river. A few years later, a similar law was passed for the boundary between Minnesota and North Dakota.

But Mr. Buckley thinks a statewide secession from the United States is actually more likely at this point in American history than a boundary redraw – he posits that California, for example, might consider seceding if Mr. Trump wins in 2024. Still, he says movements like Greater Idaho aren’t necessarily a bad thing, “if the goal is to sort ourselves out better.” 

For that to happen, Republican lawmakers from eastern Oregon would have to agree to lose a chunk of their own constituents (and hence their own power) while Democrats in western Oregon would have to be convinced there are “political gains to be made” by lopping off such a big swath of land and voters. Both seem highly unlikely, says Mr. Buckley, given that Democrats’ statewide control isn’t currently threatened by the hundreds of thousands of Republican voters to the east. Oregon has had a Democratic governor for over three decades and Democratic supermajorities in at least one chamber of the state legislature for 10 of the past 20 years. Portland has more residents than all of eastern Oregon combined. 

But Greater Idaho advocates are convinced that their proposal is a win-win. Idaho would gain around 400,000 new residents who vote similarly to the rest of the state (these Oregon counties voted for Mr. Trump in 2020 at similar rates to Idaho’s statewide average), and Oregon could “cut their losses,” as Greater Idaho’s website puts it, by getting rid of the half of the state they currently subsidize with tax dollars. 

What’s more, Greater Idaho President Mike McCarter and his colleagues say that while they are pursuing this divorce from Portland and Salem civilly and peacefully, their efforts act as a kind of pressure valve for stronger frustrations roiling beneath the surface.

And it’s not just in their own state. Mr. McCarter says he’s been contacted by rural voters in both North Carolina and Illinois who want to pursue something similar. He’s been in touch with secessionists in Atlanta who want to break away from the city.

Story Hinckley/The Christian Science Monitor

Founder of the Greater Idaho movement, Mike McCarter, stands with his dog, Sable, at La Pine State Park, July 23, 2023, in La Pine, Oregon.

“People ask me, ‘Well, if you want to be a part of Idaho, why don’t you just pick up and move to Idaho?’” says Mr. McCarter, as his dog, Sable, splashes in the banks of the Deschutes River. He and his fellow members say it’s not that simple. This is where they own property and have families, and they shouldn’t have to move just because western Oregon is silencing their voice.

“Our movement is trying to offer a solution,” says Mr. McCaw. “It will lower political tension, and I think we can create a road map out here in Oregon for other places where it makes sense.”

“I happen to love Oregon”

Of course, not all eastern Oregonians are on board with the idea of merging with Idaho.

“I really do appreciate the concept, but I happen to love Oregon,” says Doris Davison, sitting outside the laundromat she owns in Hines with her two grandsons. 

Some locals here point to potential downsides. Oregon’s minimum wage is nearly double that of Idaho’s – a change that could hit workers here hard. They’d also lose the benefits of Oregon’s lack of sales tax.

Then there’s the growing business of legalized marijuana. Ontario is an Oregon border city of fewer than 12,000 that airs Idaho news stations and shares a time zone with Boise. But last year, it produced more than $100 million in cannabis sales, second only to Portland’s Multnomah County. That growing source of revenue would be illegal in Idaho.  

Giving rural economies like Ontario’s, where the poverty rate is almost double the national average, more of a share of cannabis tax revenue could help ease some of east Oregon’s frustrations, says Antonio Sunseri, vice chair of the Malheur County Democrats.

Story Hinckley/The Christian Science Monitor

The Greater Idaho movement has grown in response to Democrats' increasing inability to speak to rural voters, says Antonio Sunseri, vice chair of the Malheur County Democrats, in Ontario, Oregon, July 24, 2023.

The Democratic Party also needs to do a better job of appealing to voters here, particularly young ones, and particularly around the issue of guns, he adds. Gun ownership is a part of rural life, says Mr. Sunseri, who is also a member of the Democratic Party of Oregon’s Gun Owners Caucus.

Mr. Sunseri, a fifth-generation resident of Malheur County with its rolling expanses of onion farms, is part of a group currently campaigning to get a repeal measure on the ballot in 2024 for a “revote” on the border relocation issue. But if it fails, he says he’ll likely drop the effort.

“If that vote fails and the majority of people in my county really want to join Idaho, I’m just going to have to change my mind about it because I’ve lived here my entire life,” says Mr. Sunseri. “It’s more important to me that this place is my home than one state or the other.”  

It was the one place she should have been safe.

Monalisa’s small apartment was on the third floor of a tidy building in Buziga, a sleepy suburb a few miles south of the Ugandan capital Kampala. In almost three years of living there, she’d never encountered any trouble.

Then, on March 21, Uganda’s Parliament passed one of the world’s harshest anti-LGBTQ+ laws, igniting a crackdown against a fledgling community.

That same night, police raided Monalisa’s flat, arresting her and her flatmate, both of whom were assigned male at birth but identify as transgender and queer, respectively. 

“They came about 10 or 11 p.m.,” says Monalisa, who has gone by the pseudonym since 2016 – when she transitioned – for fear of retribution. “Our neighbors had complained. The police said they were arresting us because we were a danger to society.” 

The police bundled Monalisa and her roommate onto a pickup truck and drove them to a police station in the capital. They were charged with sexual practices “against the order of nature” and remanded for three nights. 

“The police assaulted us, subjected us to anal tests, and touched us inappropriately,” recalls Monalisa, still visibly shaken four months later. “It was degrading, dehumanizing, and traumatizing. I felt cold ... and angry.” 

And Monalisa knows it could have been even worse. This month, the country’s directorate of public prosecution charged a man with “aggravated homosexuality” – punishable by death under the new Anti-Homosexuality Act.

The man has been remanded in prison since Aug. 18, after being arrested for allegedly having “carnal knowledge” of a male with a “physical disability and of unsound mind” in eastern Uganda, Ageca Oscar Gregg, a police spokesperson, told The Christian Science Monitor. The accused pleaded not guilty, and a trial date has yet to be set.

The Anti-Homosexuality Act has attracted global criticism. The law imposes life imprisonment for anyone engaging in homosexuality and the death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality” – defined as engaging in same-sex sexual activities with minors, people with disabilities, or people over 75 years old. It stipulates seven years for anyone attempting homosexuality and 20 years for anyone “promoting” homosexuality.

But amid the rise in hate crimes, a small group of activists has vowed to continue its work. “It is sad what is happening,” says Williams Apako, who identifies as a transgender man and also runs an LGBTQ-friendly clinic in Kampala. “They [the police] are not even following the law. They are arresting people on suspicion they are gay.” 

Mr. Apako says he has no intention of closing down his clinic, despite the increasingly hostile environment. “There is more to me than my sexual organ. I’m somebody, and there is a lot I can contribute to my country,” he says defiantly.

Death penalty

Like much of Africa, Uganda has long been unsafe for gender and sexual minorities – who are routinely lumped together by virtue of being outside traditional, largely conservative values – who try to live freely and openly. Things took a turn for the worse at the start of this year. In January, unfounded reports that gay people were “recruiting” schoolchildren into homosexuality triggered widespread public hysteria. Parents and church leaders protested, and politicians seized the populist moment. 

By March, a draconian anti-LGBTQ+ bill had been introduced in Parliament. All but two of Uganda’s 389 lawmakers voted in favor of the law. President Yoweri Museveni signed the bill in May.

Ronald Kabuubi/AP

The Ugandan Parliament votes on a harsh new anti-LGBTQ+ bill, March 21, 2023. Ugandan lawmakers on May 2, 2023, passed a new version of the bill that removed a clause that appeared to criminalize identifying as LGBTQ+.

While Uganda is the latest in a string of countries around the world enacting punitive laws that curtail the rights of LGBTQ+ people, more than half of the 64 countries that criminalize homosexuality are in Africa. Western condemnation has been swift, if so far ineffectual. In August, the World Bank suspended all new loans to Uganda, saying the law contradicts its values. U.S. President Joe Biden says Washington is considering sanctions against officials involved in human rights abuses.

President Museveni has declared that Uganda is “resolute” in its decision, adding, “Nobody will make us move.” Lawmakers have doubled down, framing the bill as a pushback against colonial powers and a means of reclaiming national pride. The purpose of the law is to preserve African values, and protect the sanctity of the family and “our children from the homosexual ways of the West,” says Anita Among, the speaker of Parliament and a vocal proponent of the bill. 

This is not the first time that such a law has been passed in Uganda, says Sylvia Rosila Tamale, professor of law and human rights activist in Kampala. A similar bill was signed into law in 2014, before rights activists successfully lobbied for its repeal. But such crackdowns are likely to continue globally.

“Populist politicians around the world have used queer sexuality as a weapon to distract attention from government failures and gain cheap popularity,” Ms. Tamale says. 

Meanwhile in Uganda, arbitrary arrests, evictions, and harassment of LGBTQ+ individuals have escalated. The Human Rights Awareness and Promotion Forum, a nonprofit that advocates for marginalized groups, recorded 40 cases involving violence against LGBTQ+ (or suspected LGBTQ+) persons in the first month after the bill was passed. The true number, rights activists say, is likely to be far higher as many victims are afraid to report such incidents. 

“Transgender and beautiful”

After her arrest, Monalisa was too scared to return to her old apartment. She borrowed money, looked for another house, and relocated with the help of a trans support group. 

With many landlords worried that the law will target them simply for sheltering LGBTQ+ people, dozens have evicted their tenants, according to rights groups. In most cases, though, the effect of the law is more subtle – if no less chilling. 

Anna Morena, who identifies as a transgender woman, has deactivated all her social media accounts. She will not leave her house, fearing arrest if she steps foot outside. “I need to go to work. I need to go to the market. I need to eat. But the situation is tense,” she says.   

Back in her new home, Monalisa says she takes comfort in knowing that sexual minorities have existed since the beginning of time, while laws come and go.

She has started calming techniques such as deep breathing and meditation to help her reduce stress. “I love to laugh, party, and have fun. Of course, I can’t do those now. So, I will meditate, think about my life, and pray,” she says. 

And on most days, she taps into one of the secret online support groups that members of the trans community have created to uplift one another. There, they share stories, dole out free advice, and help relocate members who have been evicted.    

“It is hard, but we know that we shall overcome,” she says.

Meanwhile, Monalisa and Mr. Apako are among many who hope the punitive law will be repealed, as happened following the outcry against the 2014 law. 

“Why can’t they see us for who we are and not limit us to who we sleep with?” says Mr. Apako.

But no matter what happens, Monalisa remains positive. “I am transgender, I am beautiful, and nothing can change that because this is who I am,” she says.

Hadeer Mahmoud/Reuters

People walk through the popular Khan el-Khalili tourist market area in old Cairo, April 11, 2023.

Making ends meet has hardly been tougher for Egyptians.

In July, Egypt logged a record annualized rate of inflation of 38.2%, after setting the previous record (36.8%) in June. The annualized figure for food prices was 68.4%. The Egyptian pound is in free fall and has lost 50% of its value against the dollar since March 2022.

There is a shortage of currency as the cost of imported goods, particularly wheat, keeps going up.

With meat, poultry, and eggs now out of reach for the average family, the government is encouraging citizens to eat chicken feet – which, at times, can be hard to find due to demand.  

The heavily indebted country, the International Monetary Fund’s largest borrower, is on the brink of defaulting; 40% of Egypt’s budget services its debt. A badly needed $3 billion loan from the IMF is stalling over the government’s refusal to implement reforms.

And Russia’s pullout from the Black Sea grain deal last month dealt yet another blow to a country that received 80% of its grains and wheat from Ukraine and Russia.

What does it mean that a country of nearly 113 million people is nearing economic collapse?

Whom do Egyptians fault for the crisis?

For many, the blame rests on the shoulders of autocratic President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who seized power in a 2013 counter-revolution and promised stability and prosperity, wooing donors in the West and Persian Gulf.

General Sisi embarked on a series of ambitious and costly megaprojects. Using borrowed funds, the government built a reported $58 billion administrative city in the desert and an $8.2 billion Suez Canal expansion, as well as highways and coastal tourism zones. The projects benefited military-owned companies and allies, cementing his patronage network and hold on power, analysts say.

With a heavy debt load and shrinking private sector, the country was vulnerable to the economic shocks from the pandemic and Ukraine war. As poverty soars and families struggle to feed themselves, criticism of the president is at an all-time high.

Social media posts and graffiti criticizing Mr. Sisi – acts punishable by life in jail – are proliferating. Public figures are urging Mr. Sisi not to run for a third term. Pro-regime newspapers, pundits, and even members of Parliament are openly criticizing his economic policies, prompting the president to call in to talk shows to defend his record.

Yet Egyptians, 12 years removed from a revolution that ousted former President Hosni Mubarak, are unlikely to rise up against the president, analysts say. Political groups, civil society groups, and activists have been banned, exiled, jailed, or killed.

How are Egyptians reacting instead?

Already, 2022 saw a record 22,000 Egyptians migrate to Europe, mainly by boat, with Egypt becoming the top country of origin for irregular migration to Europe, according to the International Organization for Migration.

Experts say this number is set to be eclipsed in 2023.

“The situation is increasingly seeming hopeless, which is why we are seeing an uptick of irregular immigration from Egypt, which we never had before,” says Timothy Kaldas, deputy director at the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy, a Washington-based think tank.

In June, an estimated 200 Egyptians were among the more than 600 dead in the Adriana boat capsizing tragedy near Greece, the deadliest migrant boat disaster in recent history.

Despite the deaths at sea, Egyptians are still reportedly selling homes and land and taking loans to pay the $4,000 to $5,000 fee for smugglers to traffic them from Libya across the Mediterranean to Europe.

Since April, Egypt has hosted an influx of 250,000 Sudanese refugees; amid price shocks and inflation, Egypt tightened its borders in June, restricting the entry of Sudanese fleeing war.

Is there any relief in sight for Egypt?

Not much. The IMF and Gulf countries insist Egypt carry out structural reforms and introduce a flexible exchange rate before they provide it with additional funds, measures Mr. Sisi is unable or unwilling to do.

Rather than lessening the army’s hold on the economy, a key IMF requirement, the government is expanding it, with military subsidiaries recently buying a 20% stake in local energy company Taqa.

Gulf states, which have poured $40 billion into Egypt since Mr. Sisi’s rise to power, are balking at buying the country’s state assets. Egypt is struggling to raise cash.

“It is hard to throw money at a corrupt regime that has lit an enormous sum of money on fire and has shown little interest in changing their approach, the basic step towards reform,” says Mr. Kaldas.

“There is no appetite for bailouts, and why would there be?”

Instead, allies and neighboring states have shown a willingness to provide just enough aid to stave off collapse, but not enough to enable Mr. Sisi’s policies.

One lifeline is an agreement with United Arab Emirates’ Abu Dhabi Fund for Development for a $400 million grant to help pay for wheat imports through the fall. Yet much of that aid is partly offset by the 8.6% rise in global wheat prices caused by Russia’s pullout from the United Nations-backed grain deal.

With no billion-dollar saviors in sight, whether Egypt is “too big to fail” will be put to the test in the months ahead – as will Egyptians’ resilience.

Tucked deep within the mountainous landscape near the Adriatic Coast in southern Italy, a language and a culture dating back 500 years are at risk of disappearing.

Roughly 1,000 people in the towns of Montemitro, San Felice, and Acquaviva Collecroce speak Slavomolisano – or na-našo (pronounced “na-nasho”) as it is known in the language – a blend of ancient Croatian and the local Italian dialect of the Molise region.

Created from the blend of Italian culture and the language spoken by 15th-century Croatian refugees, na-našo, meaning “our way,” and its associated traditions have been passed down for generations. But as the towns’ populations have dwindled over the years and Italian has overtaken na-našo as their primary language, that heritage has looked near its end.

Older members of the community have mostly accepted the possibility that their language will die out within the next few decades. But others, particularly younger people, are determined to see their culture preserved. Even though they may not speak na-našo as fluently as their forebears, they are a driving force behind efforts to celebrate and conserve their blended heritage.

“Growing up in a linguistic Croatian minority is unique. ... Our language is something to be preserved,” says Marco Romagnoli, a 22-year-old resident of Montemitro and na-našo speaker. He is one of the founders of Discover Montemitro, an Instagram account and blog created by the town’s youths to shed light on Montemitro’s history and culture. “We want to preserve, conserve, and pass down this beautiful language.”

From Croatia to Molise

Na-našo would never have existed if the Ottomans had not invaded the Balkan Peninsula in the 1400s, driving thousands of refugees toward the coast of Croatia and eventually across the sea to Italy. By the end of the 15th century, hundreds had landed along Molise’s coast, according to Giovanni Piccoli, a native of Acquaviva and former professor of Latin, Italian, and history at local universities.

Karen Norris/Staff

At that time, Montemitro, Acquaviva, and San Felice had been abandoned due to an earthquake in 1456. So “the feudal lords, desperate to repopulate their lands, invited the refugees to inhabit these abandoned towns,” says Mr. Piccoli. After arriving in Molise, these refugees mixed their language with the local one, creating na-našo, and married the cultural and religious practices they had brought with them with local traditions.

But that was centuries ago. Today, the town that is arguably the most active of the three when it comes to speaking na-našo is also the smallest: Montemitro, with only 200 full-time residents. That may be because Montemitro was poorly connected and isolated, which allowed its people to preserve the language for longer, says the Rev. Angelo Giorgetta, a local parish priest.

Even today, Montemitro retains some of that rugged remoteness. The streets encircling the town are unpaved, and tall grass and wildflowers grow in abundance along their sides. Like many in Molise, the people of the towns coexist with the wild landscape, often making their living off the land as farmers.

Until a few decades ago, na-našo was the primary language of the three towns. Mr. Piccoli and Mr. Giorgetta, for example, learned Italian only when they attended elementary school. But na-našo is not taught formally in schools. It was perceived by parents as an obstacle to learning Italian, says Mr. Piccoli, who attempted to set up na-našo education for the towns’ youths between the 1970s and 1990s.

Asia Palomba

Built in the 1930s near Montemitro, The Chapel of Saint Lucy is where locals honor the oral legend that the first Croatian refugees arrived in the area one Friday in May hundreds of years ago.

Mr. Piccoli says the decline in the number of speakers is due, in part, to the authorities recognizing them as a linguistic minority only in 1998. “For the Italian state, we did not exist, and teaching our language in public schools was not allowed.”

Shining a light on na-našo

Today, the towns and their people are attempting to make up for lost time.

Some, such as the youths behind Discover Montemitro, communicate their pride in their town and its culture by capturing the ordinary moments of Montemitro’s quiet, unassuming beauty. Others organize associations and host cultural events to safeguard their heritage.

The Discover Montemitro Instagram account is filled with snapshots of the town’s winding stone streets; centuries-old wooden doors, balconies, and doorsteps overflowing with flowers and dripping with succulents; wild cats basking in pockets of sunlight; and laundry strung on clotheslines between buildings.

Photos show that the small, ancient town has a panoramic view of the surrounding valley from around almost every corner; street names are written in both Italian and na-našo; and a smattering of benches in main squares are painted in vibrant colors, with local sayings and poetry verses in Italian and na-našo handwritten across the slats.

The account also shares recipes for local dishes inspired by ancient Croatian cuisine. There’s kolači, a ring-shaped dessert filled with jam and dark chocolate; varak, a dish of boiled legumes and cereals; and džrklje, a dessert of fried dough and anisette.

As for cultural associations and event organizers, Fondazione Agostina Piccoli is perhaps the community’s most prominent. Founded in 1999 to protect the Molise Croatian culture, it holds conferences and exhibits, and publishes a cultural magazine in Croatian and Italian. Last September, the foundation held a three-day forum in Montemitro to deepen young people’s understanding of their culture. It consisted of arts and crafts, discussions, musical performances, and guided tours.

In the summer, on balmy nights loud with the chirp of crickets, the foundation hosts an annual poetry reading competition in which locals read poems written in na-našo to an audience, flexing their artistic mastery of the language.

The towns’ cultural associations also recently banded together to create an artistic residency for Croatian artists with the aim of valorizing their cultural heritage through art. And there are tentative plans to host an artistic residency several times a year to coincide with the towns’ cultural and religious events, says Mr. Romagnoli, the young Montemitro resident. “I view this as a positive thing, not only because it shines a light on my town, but also on the others.”

These cultural efforts have also stretched across the sea to involve Croatia. Three Croatian presidents have visited the towns, most recently in 2018, to acknowledge the link Molise and Croatia continue to share despite five centuries of change.

For members of the younger generation in Montemitro, Acquaviva, and San Felice, partaking in such events means protecting and honoring the legacy of the generations that came before them.

“This heritage was passed down to us from our ancestors hundreds of years ago,” says Mr. Romagnoli. “I don’t want to lose it.”

Smoke escapes from a hut in front of the mangroves of Alburquerque, on the Philippine island of Bohol. The pleasant smell of wood, coconut, and salt burning over a slow fire signals that the making of artisanal salt has begun. 

The process, which had been passed down for generations, results in a product known as asin tibuok. It’s an oval piece of salt compacted into a clay mold that has been partially broken by the intense heat of the fire. Asin tibuok is only produced in this small coastal town of about 11,000 inhabitants. 

“For the next few days, we’ll be taking turns so that we can watch the fire 24 hours a day,” says Nestor Manongas, who keeps his eyes on the pile of smoldering wood in the center of the hut. “We will have to be pouring seawater [in] to prevent the flame from igniting so that the coconut shells are slowly consumed,” he says. “We can’t get distracted because the process could be ruined.”

This controlled combustion will result in gasang, a highly salt-concentrated ash, which is then placed in a funnel-shaped tank made of bamboo, where the salt is filtered out of the ash by pouring in more seawater. The resulting brine, called tasik, will be used to cook the asin tibuok pieces.

Oscar Espinosa

Sito (left) and Popong work inside a pond that is designed to fill with seawater at high tide. The coconut shells, which are used to make the salt, soak there for three months.

Mr. Manongas is one of the last remaining makers of this salt. But thanks to the determination of his family, this old trade, which had fallen into oblivion, has been revived.

“Against all odds, we kept going because we were determined to give it a new life,” says Crisologo Manongas, Nestor’s brother. He recalls how, little by little, asin tibuok became known, with university students making it the subject of their research, chefs from Manila discovering it, documentaries being made, and in 2017 a Filipino American entrepreneur based in California deciding to import the product to the United States. “The rest is history,” Crisologo says.

Their first shipment to the U.S. was 1,200 pieces, which took them a whole year to produce. The salt’s popularity worldwide has grown, and with it, interest in preserving the labor-intensive craft. 

Nestor’s face shows his fatigue after having spent the first night staying awake to supervise the fire. “It’s not a job for lazy people,” he says.

Oscar Espinosa

Nestor Manongas lights a bonfire that will be consumed slowly as the coconut shells are cooked.

Oscar Espinosa

A thick plume of smoke escapes through the roof of the hut, giving off a pleasant smell of wood, coconut, and sea.

Oscar Espinosa

The controlled combustion results in "gasang," a salty ash, which is filtered by pouring in more seawater to obtain brine.

Oscar Espinosa

Pina Sumingat (right) learned to make clay molds for "asin tibuok" from her grandmother. Today, she is passing along the family tradition to her granddaughter, Anne Marie.

Oscar Espinosa

The next day, after they have cooled overnight, the pieces of "asin tibuok" that have stuck together are carefully separated.

Oscar Espinosa

Mr. Manongas holds a piece of "asin tibuok," also called “dinosaur egg." The process of making the salt was passed down to him by his father. He and his family have recovered an old trade that had been lost for almost three decades.

Reuters

Semen Kryvonos, director of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU), speaks with a reporter in Kyiv, Ukraine, Aug. 18.

One shock for Ukrainians from Russia’s invasion last year was that their once-brotherly neighbor did not see Ukraine as a sovereign equal. Moscow’s war has now reinforced Ukraine’s internal struggle to expand equality – in rule of law, between the sexes, even in taxes.

A decade before the war, only 3% of Ukrainians said the law is equal for everyone. Oligarchs were untouchable. Organized criminals acted with impunity. Yet after two democratic revolutions, the war, new tools for honest governance, and an invitation to join the European Union, Ukrainians have changed their attitude to ensure everyone is equal before the law.

This week President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced he would double down on curbing a prime source of inequality – official corruption – with new reforms that would harden punishments for corruption crimes. “We have to implement systemic changes,” he told an interviewer. “This is the way to fight corruption.” One example: Ukraine plans to offer a reward to whistleblowers who report corruption.

That legal front against graft is as critical and closely watched as the war front. In a survey by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, Ukrainians said curbing corruption is second in importance to winning the war. There’s a reason for their conviction. The share of people who consider corruption to be “very widespread” fell by more than 20 percentage points compared with 2018 and 2021.

“In the fight for Ukraine’s national identity,” stated a report this year by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, “transparency and accountability may be as important as missiles and artillery.”

The report also notes this: “With the war, collaboration between Russian and Ukrainian organized crime interests became impossible due to the political situation. ... Many Ukrainian crime bosses chose to leave the country, as did many oligarchs.”

Mr. Zelenskyy admits progress against corruption has been slow, yet made more urgent with almost monthly cases of corruption exposed in military recruitment and procurement as well as humanitarian aid. Still public trust in the police and anti-corruption bodies has risen.

In the war with Russia, Ukraine’s other front – a campaign for equality before the law – has made progress similar to that by the country’s military counteroffensive: slow but steady. War reporting isn’t always dodging bullets and telling tales from the battlefield. It is also tracking strategic shifts in thought.