Mariam Zuhaib/AP

Supreme Court Police officers stand outside the Supreme Court Monday, July 1, 2024, in Washington. The court ruled 6-3 that presidents enjoy immunity for official acts in office.

In a historic ruling on Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court endorsed an expansive view of presidential immunity that appears to protect broad swaths of conduct by the commander in chief from judicial review.

The decision represents a significant victory for former President Donald Trump. Mr. Trump brought the case after lower courts ruled that the Department of Justice may prosecute him over his attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election before and during the deadly Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.

While the high court rejected Mr. Trump’s claims of absolute criminal immunity, it does say former presidents are entitled to “presumptive immunity” for official acts. The decision all but ensures that the Justice Department’s case won’t go to trial before the 2024 election, when voters again will be choosing between Mr. Trump and President Joe Biden. In the longer-term, the implications also could be quite significant.

The 6-3 decision broke along the court’s ideological divide, which on Monday seemed more like a chasm. The justices disagreed on not just the legal questions at issue, but the broader implications of the case. The public reaction to the ruling has echoed this ideological dissonance.

The court’s conservative supermajority, like GOP officials and right-wing commentators, describe the decision as a moderate and principled defense of executive power against political prosecution. The fiery dissents from the liberal justices, and the reaction from Democrats and the White House, paint the picture of a high court anointing the presidency as an office above the law in perpetuity.

There is no doubt that the decision in Trump v. United States immediately ranks as one of the Supreme Court’s most significant, and its ideological valence will likely affect public trust in the court. But what the ruling means for the central legal issue – the criminal immunity of former presidents – is still unclear.

“It’s a major shift in how we think of the executive branch. It’s more power in the hands of the president,” says Alison LaCroix, a professor at the University of Chicago Law School.

“This presumptive immunity concept that they came up with,” she adds, “really just invites all future presidents to take action and worry about litigation in the courts later, if ever.”

Protection against “enfeebling” the presidency

The Supreme Court has said for decades that former presidents are immune from civil lawsuits related to actions they took while in office. Previously, it has rejected claims that former presidents are immune from prosecution for unofficial acts. In Trump v. U.S. the court faced, for the first time, the question of whether a former president is immune from criminal prosecution.

In lower court proceedings, Mr. Trump argued that he had absolute immunity from the four criminal charges being brought by the Justice Department. Both a district court judge and a panel of judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit rejected his arguments. The appeals court panel ruled unanimously that “any executive immunity that may have protected him while he served as President no longer protects him against this prosecution.”

Jeffrey Phelps/AP/File

Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump enters at a campaign event, June 18, 2024, in Racine, Wisconsin.

The Supreme Court decision Monday struck a tripartite middle ground between Mr. Trump’s claims and the D.C. Circuit’s ruling. A former president has absolute criminal immunity for actions “within his conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority”; they are entitled to “at least presumptive immunity” for all “official acts’; but “there is no immunity for unofficial acts.”

The ruling offered limited guidance as to what may constitute an “official” or “unofficial” act. In the case of Mr. Trump’s prosecution, lower courts will now re-examine the case to see if his efforts to overturn the 2020 election fell within his official responsibilities as president. The effective result is that Mr. Trump is unlikely to stand trial for his role in the events leading up to Jan. 6.

“What a huge victory for Trump in that there’s basically zero chance that he’s going to be tried before the 2024 election,” says Dan Urman, a law professor at Northeastern University in Boston, who adds that he was “slightly surprised” at how “deferential” the majority was toward Mr. Trump’s behavior while in office.

Instead, the justices in the majority were more preoccupied by the possibility that its decision paralyzes future presidents from taking important and decisive action. In the majority opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts hit back at the claim that the court was bestowing monarchical powers on the presidency.

“Like everyone else, the President is subject to prosecution in his unofficial capacity. But unlike anyone else, the President is a branch of government,” he wrote. Ensuring that a president can “forcefully” exercise those powers, he added, “does not place him above the law; it preserves the basic structure of the Constitution from which that law derives.”

What Americans should worry about, Chief Justice Roberts warned, is an “enfeebling” of the presidency. With a weaker immunity doctrine, “prosecutions of ex-Presidents could quickly become routine” and trigger “a cycle of factional strife.” Thus, he added, a president “must” be immune from criminal prosecution for an official act unless the government can prove that the prosecution “would pose no ‘dangers of intrusion on the authority and functions of the Executive Branch.’”

Conservative commentators noted that the Trump v. U.S. decision insulates Democratic presidents as much as it does Republicans. A hypothetical federal prosecution of President Joe Biden would be more difficult to bring now.

But while there is some merit in that fear that presidents could become magnets for criminal prosecution once they leave office, Professor LaCroix says there is a potentially darker consequence on the flip side of that coin.

“What they’re not foregrounding there is the concern about rule of law, about democracy,” she adds.

“Isn’t that just telling the president, ‘Go forward, do whatever you think, and maybe at some later date you’ll be held to account’?” she continues. “The founders also worried a lot about tyranny and despotism. ... The majority to me is not mindful enough of those concerns.”

“With fear for our democracy, I dissent”

The dissenting justices were mindful of those concerns.

In strikingly chilling language, Justice Sonia Sotomayor – writing for herself and Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson – described the devastating consequences she fears the ruling could have for American democracy.

The majority opinion “reshapes the institution of the presidency,” and “makes a mockery of the principle, foundational to our Constitution and system of Government, that no man is above the law,” wrote Justice Sotomayor.

“Whether described as presumptive or absolute, under the majority’s rule, a President’s use of any official power for any purpose, even the most corrupt, is immune from prosecution,” she added. “That is just as bad as it sounds, and it is baseless.”

Her dissent featured a list of “official” actions a president could take under the cover of presumptive immunity, from organizing a military coup, to taking a bribe in exchange for a pardon, to the now famous hypothetical of ordering Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival.

“The Court effectively creates a law-free zone around the President,” she wrote. Without the traditional “respectfully” wording, she concluded: “With fear for our democracy, I dissent.”

In a slightly lower-key separate dissent, Justice Jackson noted that the court went much further with its majority opinion than the case required.

In lower court proceedings, Mr. Trump claimed that former presidents had absolute immunity from criminal prosecution. Instead of taking up the case as a yes-or-no question, the court agreed to hear the case as to “whether and to what extent” a former president enjoys criminal immunity for official acts. On Monday, Justice Jackson wrote, the majority used that broader question to devise “an entirely new legal framework” for evaluating potential criminal immunity for former presidents.

“The Judiciary serves as a newfound special gatekeeper, charged not merely with interpreting the law but with policing whether it applies to the President at all,” she added.

The majority “seems to have put their trust in our Court’s ability to prevent Presidents from becoming Kings,” she continued. “I fear that they are wrong. But, for all our sakes, I hope that they are right.”

This charged rhetoric from the court’s liberal wing drew special attention from Chief Justice Roberts. He criticized the dissents as “fear mongering on the basis of extreme hypotheticals” and striking “a tone of chilling doom that is wholly disproportionate to what the Court actually does today.”

The opinion in Trump v. U.S. is instead, at bottom, a procedural one, claimed the chief justice. “At the current stage of proceedings in this case,” he wrote, “we need not and do not decide whether that immunity must be absolute, or instead whether a presumptive immunity is sufficient.”

Actually, says Claire Finkelstein, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School, the ruling is broader than that.

“It really flies in the face of most of the court’s other jurisprudence in this area. We have an unbroken line of cases ... in which courts are very clear that the president is not above the law,” she says.

Where Barrett differs from the majority

Two specific pages in the decision could be of huge consequence as the Justice Department’s prosecution of Mr. Trump returns to the district court. The court cast significant doubt on whether evidence pertaining to a former president’s official acts would be admissible in a criminal prosecution against him.

To allow a prosecutor to use such evidence would be “to eviscerate the immunity we have recognized,” wrote Chief Justice Roberts, before reinforcing the argument that former presidents should have heightened protection from the evidentiary processes other Americans are subject to.

“The prosaic tools on which the government would have courts rely are an inadequate safeguard against the peculiar constitutional concerns implicated in the prosecution of a former president,” he added. “Such tools may suffice to protect the constitutional rights of individual criminal defendants,” but presidential immunity interests “seek to protect not the President himself, but the institution of the Presidency.”

Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined the entire majority opinion except for that section. In a separate concurrence, she laid out – in more detail than the majority opinion – how a criminal immunity claim by a former president could be adjudicated. The Constitution, she wrote, “does not insulate Presidents from criminal liability for official acts.” 

The president can challenge whether or not an alleged criminal act was “official” or not, she added. “If that challenge fails, however, he must stand trial.”

As Republican-appointed justices divided sharply with Democratic-appointed justices on the Supreme Court, so too in the political realm.

Democrats expressed near-universal concern about the decision – and said it further raised the stakes of the 2024 election.

“It just puts a finer point on the fact that if Donald Trump gets anywhere near the Oval Office again, he will rule as a dictator, he will use his power to harm his political enemies, he will continue to incite political violence, and that is something that we cannot afford,” Quentin Fulks, deputy campaign manager for the Biden campaign said on a press call.

Mr. Trump has made it clear in recent months that if he wins, he plans to erode the traditional independence of the Department of Justice.

In an April TIME Magazine interview, Trump said he might fire U.S. attorneys if they refuse an order from him to prosecute someone. His allies have drawn up plans to pack the DOJ with stalwart allies who would be unlikely to reject controversial orders from Mr. Trump and restructure the department to empower political appointees rather than career officials.

Mr. Trump has said he would appoint a “special prosecutor” to “go after” President Biden and his family. He also spent years saying that Hillary Clinton should be in jail, leading "lock her up" chants, though he didn't attempt to follow through on that threat during his presidency.

During the final days of his presidency, Mr. Trump attempted to appoint Jeffrey Clarke, a little-known DOJ official, as acting attorney general in order to help further his attempts to stay in office. He only backed down when a number of his top attorneys threatened to resign in protest. (Because it concerns an official appointment, experts believe this episode will likely be considered official conduct.)

If he does return to the White House, any federal prosecution of President Biden may now struggle to launch. But after the Supreme Court ruling on Monday, at least, Mr. Trump and his allies were giddy.

“BIG WIN FOR OUR CONSTITUTION AND DEMOCRACY. PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN!” Mr. Trump posted to his Truth Social account.

France finds itself facing unprecedented political uncertainty after the far-right National Rally (RN) party made historic gains in the first round of snap legislative elections Sunday.

Pulling in 33% of the national vote, Marine Le Pen’s party capitalized on fears of immigration, crime, and falling purchasing power to make its strongest-ever showing in a French election. Meanwhile, President Emmanuel Macron’s Renaissance party failed to ignite enthusiasm among his supporters, trailing behind a newly formed left-wing coalition, the New Popular Front (NFP).

Now, as France looks ahead to a second round on July 7, many moderate voters say they fear the RN will win an outright parliamentary majority, obliging Mr. Macron to rule in a “cohabitation” government alongside an opposition prime minister.

Faced with the prospect of an RN government, leaders of the NFP and Mr. Macron’s Renaissance group are each calling on their candidates to stand down in constituencies where the other party has the better chance of beating the RN, pooling the anti-RN vote.

But even if a significant number of politicians respond to that call, it is unclear how voters might respond. The election campaign has been one of the most antagonistic in recent history and the French are more divided than ever. Can they come together in time to block a far-right win?

Twenty years ago, Socialists backed the conservative Jacques Chirac for president against Ms. Le Pen’s father. “The country joined hands against the far right,” says Pierre Bréchon, professor emeritus of political science at Sciences Po Grenoble. But today “the atmosphere in France is very different.”

“The far right is well-established, the major political parties have dissolved, and people are no longer loyal to a single party,” he says. “We’re in uncharted territory.”

Yves Herman/Reuters

Ms. Le Pen reacts to partial parliamentary election results in Henin-Beaumont, June 30.

“Not one single seat for the RN”

The RN’s star has continued to rise in the last two decades, sharing in a global shift toward more radical policies, such as tightened restrictions on immigration, climate denial, and anti-”woke” sentiment. Italy, Holland, and Hungary have all recently elected far-right leaders, and France’s far right has profited from their success.

“More moderate leaders have not delivered on their promises,” says Oleg Kobtzeff, a professor of history and political science at the American University of Paris. “They’ve taken from the middle classes and not given back. Traditional parties have completely lost credibility. So we can’t just say far-right voters are ‘deplorables’ and leave it at that.”

In 2017, the RN won eight seats in parliament; in 2022, it became the largest opposition party with 89 seats. Some polls suggest that on Sunday it could win 230 seats or more in the 577-seat National Assembly.

Still, the second round remains clouded. Three-way races will be held in as many as 244 constituencies, depending on how many candidates step down and throw their votes to a stronger anti-RN candidate.

The leader of the far-left France Unbowed (LFI) party, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, was unequivocal in his call to halt the RN’s momentum, saying Sunday night, “our directive is clear: not one single vote, not one single seat for the RN.”

But Mr. Mélenchon has spent much of his campaign vilifying Mr. Macron, and his supporters may balk at supporting the president’s party on election day.

And while Prime Minister Gabriel Attal called on Renaissance party candidates to step out of the race to block the RN, other senior members of his coalition have refused to advise its supporters to vote for the left-wing bloc if its candidate belongs to the anti-capitalist LFI.

“This blurs the message for voters, and those who want to oppose the RN will be confused,” says Célia Belin, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations in Paris. “Ultimately, it has a demobilizing effect. If people don’t like the choices before them, they might just decide not to vote at all. And not voting helps the RN win big.”

“It doesn’t look good”

France’s two-round voting system has historically benefited the party leading after the first round, and some analysts suggest that the RN could win as much as half the vote on Sunday. The party would need 289 seats to win an outright majority, in which case Mr. Macron would be obliged to appoint Jordan Bardella, the RN president, as prime minister.

Louise Delmotte/AP

People gather at Republique plaza in Paris, June 30, to protest the National Rally, after the extent of the far-right party's success in the first round of parliamentary elections became clear.

The alternative, says Dr. Belin, would be a hung parliament, in which no party gains an absolute majority.

“In that case, we could see a coalition” of moderate parties uniting around a prime minister other than Mr. Bardella, Dr. Belin suggests. “But I don’t necessarily believe in it. I think we’d see votes of no confidence at every turn. I can’t predict the future, but it doesn’t look good.”

Still, some observers say there is time to turn the situation around and bring the public together against the far right, partly because the situation in France is not necessarily as grim as far-right leaders make it out to be.

“The reality of France as a whole is not that bad,” says Douglas Webber, professor emeritus of political science at INSEAD, a business school. “We’ve reduced the level of unemployment, advanced France’s agenda in Europe, and gotten through the COVID crisis.”

The far right has nevertheless capitalized on everyday fears such as terrorism, immigration, and the cost of living crisis and, says Dr. Webber, and the National Rally enjoys one major advantage: having never been in power, it cannot be blamed for the current state of affairs.

“In the last 30 years, France has tried the moderate right and the moderate left,” says Dr. Webber. “They haven’t tried … the far right.”

Despite the doubt, one thing is clear. Voters will turn out en masse for the second round. The first-round vote saw exceptionally high voter participation: at 67%, the highest since 1981.

That gave Mr. Macron one justification for his decision to dissolve parliament and call snap elections, a choice widely criticized for the uncertainty into which he has thrown the country.

“The high participation during the first round,” he said Sunday evening, “is testimony to the importance of this vote for all citizens, and to the necessity of clarifying the political situation.”

Go Nakamura/Reuters

Asylum-seeking migrants wait to be transported at a staging area, after President Joe Biden announced a sweeping border security enforcement effort, in Jacumba Hot Springs, California, June 6, 2024.

In recent months, a string of national security figures has warned Congress there is a heightened threat of a terrorist attack on U.S. soil.

“Looking back over my career in law enforcement, I’d be hard-pressed to think of a time when so many different threats to our public safety and national security were so elevated all at once,” FBI Director Christopher Wray testified this spring. Part of that, he said, is an elevated threat of foreign terrorist organizations attacking the United States following the Hamas cross-border raid on Israel Oct. 7. “Obviously, their ability to exploit any point of entry, including our southwest border, is a source of concern,” he said in December.

Former President Donald Trump and Republican members of Congress argue that on President Joe Biden’s watch, the border crisis has become a major national security threat facing the U.S. Among other things, they have noted a spike in migrants from China crossing the southern border illegally since 2021, many of them military-age males. 

Some dismiss such rhetoric as racist and/or politically motivated fearmongering, arguing that terrorists and spies have the resources to try entering the country legally, while the vast majority of unauthorized migrants are driven by a hope of better socioeconomic conditions. “They’re here to chase the American dream,” says Sam Schultz, a relief worker at the California-Mexico border. “They don’t want to blow it up.”

But some top Democrats also express concern. Here we look at the evidence.

What evidence is there that terrorists may be crossing the border?

The U.S. Border Patrol is encountering a far higher number of individuals on the terrorist watch list, with the annual total increasing from single digits during the Trump administration to 172 in fiscal year 2023. That’s not just a result of increased illegal immigration; the proportion of encounters involving someone on that watch list grew more than tenfold, from 0.0007% to 0.008%, according to government data. That’s a tiny fraction of total flows, but experts point out that just a handful of people can carry out significant attacks.

This spring, Mr. Wray warned Congress of the potential for a “coordinated attack” in the U.S., similar to the one that killed 145 people at a Moscow concert hall in March. The Islamic State (ISIS) claimed responsibility for that attack. The U.S. linked it to the Afghan branch of the organization, known as ISIS Khorasan (ISIS-K), which killed 13 U.S. service members and nearly 200 Afghans at the Kabul airport during the U.S. pullout in 2021. Russia identified four suspected assailants, all from Tajikistan.

So when news emerged June 11 that U.S. authorities had arrested eight Tajiks who had crossed the southern border over the past year and had potential ISIS ties, it sparked a new round of warnings about a possible terrorist attack in the U.S. The concerns were further amplified with a subsequent NBC report that more than 400 migrants, some of whom had been deported but others whose whereabouts were still unknown, had been brought into the U.S. by an ISIS-affiliated smuggling network.

Is the threat increasing?

Historically, there is little evidence that unauthorized immigrants carry out attacks. A University of Maryland project on radicalization lists only 21 of 3,528 offenders as being an “undocumented resident.” A 2019 academic paper found that a correlation between migration and terrorism in Western Europe was driven in part by right-wing groups aggrieved by the influx. 

Until recently there was no empirical evidence that foreign terrorist groups were crossing the U.S. border. Now that is shifting, however, amid increased flows and a broader range of nationalities crossing illegally.

“Al Qaeda and their affiliates, ISIS and their affiliates, have all identified this as a vulnerability in the United States’ defense,” says Christopher O’Leary, an FBI counterterrorism veteran now serving as senior vice president of global operations with The Soufan Group. “You have massive waves of people coming across; it’s certainly reasonable to think that you could blend into that.”

Where does terrorism rank among national security concerns?

“There’s no issue I’m watching more carefully,” Democratic Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, Senate Intelligence Committee chair, told journalists at a Monitor Breakfast on June 18. “I’m monitoring it very, very closely.”

Another congressional leader, GOP Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas, says it’s part of the broader geopolitical context.  

“When you project weakness, you get conflict and war,” says Mr. McCaul, who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee and previously led the Homeland Security Committee. “The last line of defense is the border.”

He points out that when the U.S. abruptly left Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan in 2021, thousands of ISIS-K prisoners were freed. And he’s concerned that conflicts in Europe, the Middle East, and the Pacific could spiral into another world war.

Part of the challenge is how to allocate U.S. resources. Mr. O’Leary, who worked on FBI counterterrorism investigations for more than two decades until stepping down last fall, says the government has pivoted away from the terrorism threat to focus on Russia, China, and great-power competition. He stresses the need to stay alert, 20-plus years into the global war on terror, with U.S.-designated terrorist groups, such as Al Qaeda and ISIS, growing. For example, Al Qaeda’s core membership increased approximately tenfold from 2001 to 2018, according to estimates.

“We know what’s going to happen if we close our eyes and turn away and hope the bogeyman is going to go away,” he says.

What is being done?

According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, when Border Patrol agents encounter migrants crossing the southwest border illegally, they screen and vet those individuals. Agents ask for names, birthdates, and other biographical information, and take fingerprints and retinal scans. This biometric data can help establish a migrant’s identity if they use an alias or don’t have an ID. Their information is then checked against law enforcement and national security databases for “derogatory” information. 

No such information turned up during the initial screenings of the eight Tajiks. If such information comes to light later, as it did in this case, “enforcement action” will be taken accordingly, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said June 26 in Tucson, Arizona. “The safety and security of the American public is indeed our highest priority.”

Reports from the department’s inspector general, however, identify gaps in screening – from Customs and Border Protection being unable to access biometric data from a Department of Defense watchlist, to not having a dedicated procedure to screen asylum applicants whose cases drag on, to obtaining but not sharing information from the FBI’s Terrorist Screening Center, which resulted in the release of a migrant on the terrorist watch list. 

Another gap is the inability to screen “gotaways,” hundreds of thousands of whom have been detected crossing by cameras and sensors, or by border agents too occupied to respond. 

So, what can be done? The president has taken executive action to stem the tide. CBS News reported today that encounters are down to their lowest level since 2021, citing preliminary data.

On the law enforcement front, the Department of Justice announced in June that a high-ranking leader of MS-13 was arrested on terrorism charges. Less than a week later, the FBI announced “the dismantlement of the largest ISIS online propaganda network and infrastructure” in the world, thanks to coordination with European partners.

A key line of defense is maintaining good ties with communities where potential terrorists may try to blend in, says Daniel Byman, senior fellow with the Warfare, Irregular Threats, and Terrorism Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He notes that Muslim American communities have tipped off law enforcement to many suspected Al Qaeda and ISIS terrorists, including Omar Mateen, who later killed 49 people in the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida. 

“Something to think about with all this,” he says, “is when you start to demonize different migrant communities, they tend to be less willing to go to the police.”

Staff writer Francine Kiefer contributed reporting from the border at Jacumba Hot Springs, California. 

Growing up in this working-class city of 600,000, Sophie Johnson has long wanted her Scotland to be independent from the United Kingdom.

So impassioned was she that, at 16 years old, Ms. Johnson and her older sister were regular fixtures at Scottish pro-independence rallies. One gathering became a face-off against a sea of British unionists, who were amassing in a public square in Glasgow. Ms. Johnson and her older sister planted themselves in the middle along with a Scottish flag.

The mob shouted abuse and threw bottles at the young women, prompting the police to remove them for their own safety. But ultimately the police arrested the Johnson sisters for obstruction.

The incident went viral, and the sisters became a symbol of Scottish independence. “It was a very exciting time, and there was a lot of emotion,” says Ms. Johnson.

The independence movement that rallied people like Ms. Johnson a decade ago has plateaued since the defeat of the 2014 referendum by a 55% to 45% vote. The Scottish National Party – whose leaders had put forth that referendum – is losing its once-unchallenged grip on power after being battered by a cost-of-living crisis and a series of leadership changes and scandals. The Labour Party is projected to knock the SNP out of the majority of Scotland’s seats in the July 4 parliamentary elections, potentially reducing the SNP to just a quarter of its current total.

Yet at the same time, more Scots today think of their identity as Scottish than as British – 72%, a jump of 15 points from 2012. With another independence referendum unlikely anytime soon, and the SNP significantly weakened, the movement will need to find a new way forward. That future may end up being one separate from political parties, as their utility for the movement has proved limited.

“The SNP is the big 800-pound gorilla in the nationalist movement. It dwarfs everybody else,” says Murray Leith, a social scientist at the University of the West of Scotland. “There’s no doubt that when the SNP does less well, it will have an impact on the fortunes of the independence movement. It will have an impact on people’s positivity, but [the movement] is not going to go away.”

Lenora Chu

"When you go to England they call you 'a joke' and say they don't like us," says independence supporter Billy Kerr. "We don't need to be a United Kingdom."

“The movement for independence needs to adjust”

After the 2014 referendum failed, Ms. Johnson vacillated between hope and disappointment, cycling through those emotions over and over. She thought another referendum might be around the corner. It wasn’t. Ultimately, it became clear the movement had lost steam after multiple failed attempts to get a second referendum and the declining fortunes of the SNP.

“I went through a long period of sadness about it all, because it was quite crushing. We’d been so, so close,” says Ms. Johnson of the 2014 referendum, which drew a turnout of 85%.

Ms. Johnson came to feel that SNP leaders weren’t committed to pushing through on independence, as their strategies seemed nonsensical or impractical. The party curried favor with big business and institutions – for example, via policies to keep British sterling and to stay in NATO – instead of making the breaks required to achieve independence. But she has remained involved with pro-independence organizations while she pursues a master’s in Scottish history.

Ray James, a former SNP branch officer, shares Ms. Johnson’s doubts. “The SNP was interested in using the ‘yes’ [to independence] movements and the independence campaign for its own political ends – it was the horse they used to get them into power and to keep power,” says Mr. James, who is now running for Parliament as a member of the pro-independence Alba Party.

Without the party as its North Star, the independence movement is left asking where to go next, says Michael Heaney, a political scientist at the University of Glasgow. “The idea that the movement will have to work outside the SNP is very hard for people to wrap their minds around, but they’re starting to do it. It doesn’t mean the cause for independence is weaker. It just needs a new strategy.”

Part of the problem is that movements in Scotland are used to attaching themselves to a party. That’s unlike in the United States, where there’s a culture of organizing, says Dr. Heaney. “In America, there’s all these movements and interest groups and lots of ways to pressure the government from the outside,” he says, pointing to Black Lives Matter as a force that pushed police departments to change their treatment of Black Americans.

“In the United Kingdom, it’s much more that your politics gets channeled into the party,” he says. “The Scottish National Party is going through some hard times, and the movement for independence needs to adjust to that.”

Lenora Chu

Stephen Cooper (left), a business owner, and Neil Primrose, a musician, say that they do not support Scottish independence. "You don't just have to remain in Scotland and be all 'independent' to be Scottish," says Mr. Primrose.

An inclusive sense of identity

Meanwhile, the closer people feel to their Scottish identities, the more likely they are to support independence.

“People are feeling a strong Scottish identity. So they want Scotland to be independent,” says Dr. Heaney. “Scottish identity really drives, really drives this movement to a large degree.”

There’s a lot about Scottish identity to be proud of, analysts say. Scotland has a distinctive canon of literature, folk music, and strong traditions that are shared by many.

“Scotland has a very significantly identifiable culture, and it’s a very positive one,” says Dr. Leith. “Nationalism – especially right-wing nationalism – comes with very negative connotations. But Scottish nationalism is a left-wing, progressive, and inclusive sense of identity. The official argument in Scotland is that if you live here and you find yourself to be Scottish, you can be Scottish.”

That includes Britons, refugees, and people of all ethnicities, says Dr. Leith. The recently former leader of the SNP, Humza Yousaf, was born to Pakistani immigrants.

And that Scottish identity might be the simmering force that continues to drive independence.

Billy Kerr wants independence “because I want my own identity.”

“I was born in Scotland. I want Scotland just to be Scotland. We don’t need England. Ireland did it no problem,” says Mr. Kerr, who worked in communications in Glasgow before caring for his mother full time.

Conversely, Scots who don’t support Scottish independence are more likely to see themselves as both Scottish and British. Musician Neil Primrose says, “I feel very Scottish. I feel very British. I feel very wanting to be part of the world. But I don’t sit back and go, ‘I’m just Scottish.’”

Ultimately, the independence movement’s next steps could be to separate the question of independence from political parties. That could help activists attract a wider population to the cause.

“It’s not about the SNP as the standard-bearer anymore,” says Dr. Leith. “People feel a very strong sense of Scottish national identity, but that doesn’t automatically translate into a specific vote, either for the party or for the constitutional question.”

With its dome shape and spiky tail, the horseshoe crab might at first look like a fearsome visitor from another planet. But for artists like Heidi Mayo, the ancient creature is an approachable muse.

A collection of 13 brightly painted horseshoe crab shells hangs along her back fence here. On her kitchen table sits a novel she wrote, inspired by encounters with the living fossil. Upstairs, in the top-floor studio where she teaches art classes, two spiny molts serve as figure-drawing models. 

“They’re really part of my life,” she says. “A reverence for them – that’s what I have.” 

A few miles away, at the Plymouth Center for the Arts, the public can see more of her work – and that of other artists, similarly inspired – at a new exhibit, “The Horseshoe Crab: Against All Odds.” 

The exhibition, featuring representations in watercolor, metal, and textiles, is part of a broader effort to save and conserve the once-misunderstood sea animal, which is now facing new threats. 

“The essence of this show [is] that horseshoe crabs are in trouble,” says Joan Pierce, one of the curators, her silver horseshoe crab earrings swaying as she speaks.

Although the creatures are no longer eradicated as pests that disturb a bucolic summer beach scene, fishers use them as bait for whelk fishing, and pharmaceutical companies use their unusual blue blood to test products for toxins. 

Oli Turner/The Christian Science Monitor.

Artist Heidi Mayo stands near the fence in her backyard in North Plymouth, Massachusetts, where she hangs dried-out horseshoe crabs after painting them.

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission reports that the Northeast horseshoe crab population is currently in a “neutral,” or stable, state. But the population remains vulnerable, according to advocates. On March 19, the Massachusetts Marine Fisheries Advisory Commission approved protections preventing the harvest of horseshoe crabs during their spring spawning season.

Those championing the creature are captivated by the lessons it has to offer about resilience. 

“They’ve been around for 450 million years, and so they have clearly evolved strategies for taking advantage of what’s available to them,” says Sophia Fox, an aquatic ecologist at the Cape Cod National Seashore. 

The horseshoe crab isn’t actually a crab, despite its name. More closely related to ticks and spiders, it walks on 10 spindly legs in the coastal shallows, feeding on worms, algae, and other inhabitants of the ocean floor. The long, pointed tail protruding from its hardened exoskeleton is often mistaken for a stinger. At times, the public has seen them only as a nuisance, hauling them away or killing them on sight – not understanding that their eggs, which migratory shorebirds eat, help the coastal ecosystem.

Oli Turner/The Christian Science Monitor.

Origami artist Andrea Plate holds her paper horseshoe crab creation, which appears in the exhibition "The Horseshoe Crab: Against All Odds," at the Plymouth Center for the Arts, June 21, 2024.

But the tide is turning. The curators of “Against All Odds” felt an urgency to raise awareness about the crabs’ plight. They issued invitations to artists to highlight “the beauty of these ancient creatures, their ecological importance, and the threats they face.” They hoped for 35 submissions. Then more than 160 offerings rolled in from more than 70 artists. Of those submitted, 74 works made it into the final show.

The exhibition pairs art with educational content from Mass Audubon, New England Coastal Wildlife Alliance, and the Cape Cod Museum of Natural History. Some of the images are meant to be provocative: In one, a horseshoe crab, bronze and gleaming, lies belly up, stretching its legs toward the sky. 

“This is not just pretty pictures on the wall,” Ms. Pierce says. “This is about education and advocacy. ... We want to see stricter regulations about harvesting.

In Ms. Mayo’s piece, “Timelines,” 42 sketches of the horseshoe crab appear alternately right side up and upside down. She compares them to the phases of the moon, each one in its own patterned square, suspended in rows by miniature clothespins. They seem, at once, delicate and enduring.

Courtesy of Mark Rea

Ceramicist Mark Rea specializes in horseshoe crab sculptures, which are molded from deceased horseshoe crabs that he collects on Cape Cod beaches. Mr. Rea began selling the ceramic creatures at local galleries 18 years ago and now crafts about 600 each year.

Elsewhere in New England, other artists are also trying to raise awareness. In Rhode Island, another horseshoe crab hub, multidisciplinary artist Eli Nixon hopes that learning about the animal can create a new culture of compassion and responsibility. Mx. Nixon’s 2021 illustrated manual and field guide “Bloodtide: A New Holiday in Homage to Horseshoe Crabs” celebrates the longevity of horseshoe crabs. “Who else is a better teacher of how to survive than this one?” Mx. Nixon says. 

To honor them, Mx. Nixon often wears a homemade cardboard horseshoe crab costume to parades, which becomes a point of connection between perfect strangers. Everyone, it seems, has a story to share.

Back in Massachusetts, Mark Rea remembers in his youth, before tourism swept the shores of Nantucket, when horseshoe crabs drifted along the seafloor undisturbed. 

“It was ... this otherworldly thing on the beach,” he says. 

Oli Turner/The Christian Science Monitor.

A visitor studies the artwork in "The Horseshoe Crab: Against All Odds" exhibition. Curators hope to raise awareness about the plight of the often-misunderstood sea creatures.

For the past 18 years, Mr. Rea has made ceramic casts of the exoskeletons of horseshoe crabs when he finds their remains on Cape Cod beaches. He fires the lifelike molds, glazing them with vibrant, glossy colors. While most of his creations look peaceful, several of them depict the toll the bait and pharmaceutical industries have had. Creating the ceramic horseshoe crabs is now his full-time job – he makes 600 a year and sells his work online and in local galleries.

In her home studio in North Plymouth, Ms. Mayo sticks out one red flip-flopped foot to show the bright-blue horseshoe crab tattoo on her ankle. A silver pin in the same shape gleams on the shoulder of her dress.

“I’ve always felt akin to horseshoe crabs,” she says, recalling her childhood on the beaches of nearby Duxbury, Massachusetts. “Then I became an advocate ... without even meaning to.” 

AP

Supporters of Sri Lanka's President Ranil Wickremesinghe watch a televised speech in Colombo, June 26. The president announced debt agreements with Japan, India, France, China, and others.

More than half of low-income countries as well as five major European nations bear distressing levels of debt. The problem has been exacerbated by the high interest rates many central banks have imposed to slow inflation. Yet agreements reached last week between lenders and two borrowing states mark a promising trend in the other direction.

On June 26, Sri Lanka announced it had reached a deal with India, France, Japan, and China to restructure how it pays back the billions of dollars it owes them. Two days later, Ghana announced it had reached a similar arrangement with the International Monetary Fund. 

The agreements open a critical path toward economic stability in the two countries. Both defaulted in 2022, sparking severe shortages and popular unrest. But the agreements also show that on at least one critical global issue, the international community is forging more cooperation than conflict.

“The progress achieved so far shows how the world can work together to reduce risks,” the IMF noted last week. “These improvements are possible in part because stakeholders have developed more experience working together ... [and] building trust.”

That new cooperation, allowing deals to be reached in months rather than in years, owes its vigor in part to two factors. Western creditors are gradually finding more ways to either coax more transparency from the world’s more opaque lenders – China, India, and Saudi Arabia – or work around them. Just as important, they are helping to nurture more civic confidence in debt-burdened societies by partnering with governments to address corruption.

In Sri Lanka, for example, Japan has launched initiatives with lawyers and prosecutors to boost the country’s ability to counter money laundering. In Ghana, the IMF is helping strengthen standards for tax administration and boost transparency in state agencies. The agreement to restructure $5.4 billion in debts involves both the Paris Club, made up of Western donors, and China.

The deals reached in Sri Lanka and Ghana give both countries access to critical additional funding as both show progress in reforming their economies. They provide a model for more efficient cooperation on debt relief in other fragile nations, such as Ethiopia. For ordinary citizens, that may eventually translate into stable prices and greater opportunity.

A recent meeting in Ghana illustrates perhaps an even more transformative effect. When traditional leaders in the country’s northwestern region met with Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia, they acknowledged his “principles, honesty, accountability and transparency in governance and devotion to duty.” Those qualities, they said, gave them confidence. Restructuring economies starts with renewing civic faith through integrity.