2024
August
28
Wednesday

Monitor Daily Podcast

August 28, 2024
Error loading media: File could not be played
 
00:0000:0000:00
00:00
Mark Sappenfield
Senior global correspondent

We’ve all had that feeling. Do I really want to talk to this person? Will we find anything to agree on? Should I bring a bodyguard?

All these questions came up before William Akley met with Mothers Out Front, a critic of his New England utility. The women of Mothers Out Front didn’t start with high hopes, either. But from that meeting came not only a fruitful partnership but also a pioneering experiment in clean energy.

Yes, Doug Struck’s story today is about clean energy. But it’s also about the humility and openness that make our societies run better.  


You've read 3 of 3 free articles. Subscribe to continue.

Today’s stories

And why we wrote them

Restoring trust in elections in the wake of the contentious 2020 vote is a pressing challenge in battleground states like Wisconsin. Part of a series on the issues that may tip key swing states: ArizonaGeorgiaMichigan, Nevada, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania

Today’s news briefs

• Jan. 6 case: Special counsel Jack Smith files a new indictment against former President Donald Trump over his efforts to undo the 2020 presidential election.
• Sudan food shortages: Sudan is struggling to feed millions of people in its war-torn nation suffering one of the world’s most severe food shortages in years.
• Parent stress: The U.S. surgeon general issues a public health advisory about the impact of modern stresses on parents’ mental health, calling on government, businesses, and community organizations to provide them with more support. 
• Paralympics opens: The Paralympic Games opening ceremonies will be held Aug. 28 as some 4,400 athletes with disabilities, permanent injuries, or impairments prepare to compete for 549 medals across 22 sports over 11 days.

Read these news briefs.

In tiny Estonia, where memories of living under Soviet rule still linger, volunteers are finding purpose in weaving camouflage nets for Ukraine’s front-line fighters, to protect them against Russian attack.

A deeper look

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff
Zeynab Magavi, executive director of the nonprofit HEET (the Home Energy Efficiency Team), poses for a photo July 25, 2024, in Boston. Ms. Magavi worked with Massachusetts’ largest gas utility on a pilot program to power a neighborhood with geothermal energy.

Utility companies and environmental activists are often pitted against each other. In this case, the two sides worked together to build the first program in the United States in which a major utility delivers clean geothermal energy.

Ken Makin
The new John Lewis statue in Decatur, Georgia, was unveiled on Aug. 24, 2024. It stands on the site of a former Confederate monument.

Georgia unveiled a statue to the late Rep. John Lewis. Where it stands may be just as symbolic as the sculpture of the civil rights icon itself.

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff
Volunteers listen to maintenance coordinator Emily Carvalho (left) and steward Declan Devine (center) before working in the garden at Boston Nature Center’s food forest.

In Boston, a network of tiny forests collectively provides climate resiliency, spaces to forge connections between neighbors – and food for anyone to come in and pluck.


The Monitor's View

Reuters
An employee with Mexico's federal judiciary dresses as "Lady Justice" during a Aug. 25 protest against court reform in Ciudad Juarez.

Autocrats need friends. Venezuela’s strongman is finding it harder to find them.

Last week, the country’s highest court affirmed that President Nicolás Maduro – who holds “undue influence” over the court, according to the United Nations – won a third term in the July 28 election. Reaction was swift.

Ten governments in Latin America as well as the United States jointly rejected the ruling. Two of Mr. Maduro’s most sympathetic neighbors, Brazil and Colombia, had already expressed “grave doubts” about the official outcome. Only his fellow authoritarians in Nicaragua, Cuba, and Bolivia have stood by him.

Mr. Maduro’s growing isolation in the region fits a trend. In one election after another, voters throughout Latin America have tossed out incumbents in a restless search for honest governance. Their frustration over corruption and impunity may be the force behind a renaissance in judicial independence.

In recent years, “authoritarian leaders have had a hard time getting their way, as the judiciary in several Latin American countries has proved itself to be the best line of defense against democratic backsliding,” noted Rebecca Chavez and Taraciuk Broner in Americas Quarterly last September.

Integrity on the bench has become a political hot button across the Americas. In the U.S., Democrats seek to impose term limits and congressional oversight on the Supreme Court to counter what they see as ideological drift and unethical conduct by some justices. In Chile, as the U.N. noted, judges have acknowledged a need for greater equality in the way courts handle cases for richer and poorer defendants.

Battles over legal reforms elsewhere show the depth of public concern for the role of courts in protecting democracy. In Mexico, outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has proposed a constitutional amendment that critics say would make courts and judges vulnerable to political patronage. The reforms have sparked a broad public backlash. In Peru, legislators are locked over a bill that would put judges under congressional oversight. Last week, courts in Guatemala rejected a third attempt by a notoriously corrupt chief prosecutor to oust the democratically elected president.

These debates mark a welcome shift in direction after decades with “little to no track record of independent Latin American judiciaries that stand in the way of authoritarian governments,” noted a Stanford study published in the Journal of Democracy in January. The authors wrote that in recent years, Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia “have produced robust institutions able to check leaders with authoritarian tendencies, with high courts playing a fundamental role.”

Something similar may now be gathering momentum in Venezuela. Last week, a U.N. fact-finding mission said that Venezuela’s Supreme Tribunal of Justice and the National Electoral Council lack independence and impartiality. The latter institution called Mr. Maduro the winner on election night. Neither the court nor the council has released ballot tallies.

But citizens have. In a plan carefully coordinated by opposition leaders, citizen monitors collected and posted on social media the official counts from nearly every polling station on election night. Those figures, widely viewed as accurate, showed that Mr. Maduro lost the election by a wide margin.

Autocrats strengthen their grip on power through institutional armor. In a decade of rule, Mr. Maduro has co-opted the courts and appointed military brass to Cabinet posts. One member of the electoral council, Juan Carlos Delpino, has rejected the verdict of his peers. “This decision is based on my commitment to electoral integrity,” he said.

In their joint rejection of the court’s decision last week, the regional governments stated that they “continue to insist on respect for the sovereign expression of the Venezuelan people.” As more citizens embrace rule of law, their demands for integrity may be cracking the edifice of an autocrat’s dishonesty.


A Christian Science Perspective

About this feature

When we open our hearts to God’s ever-present goodness, peace replaces anxiety and solutions come to light.


Viewfinder

Kent J Edwards/Reuters
Tourists kiss on the iconic Brooklyn Bridge in New York City, Aug. 28, 2024. The bridge is a major attraction for visitors to the Big Apple, who numbered roughly 62 million in 2023.
( The illustrations in today’s Monitor Daily are by Karen Norris. )

A look ahead

Thank you for joining us today. Please come back tomorrow when Stephanie Hanes considers the question, What’s really the connection between extreme weather and climate change? There are some knee-jerk assumptions that aren’t always accurate, but also some very solid evidence for climate connections.

More issues

2024
August
28
Wednesday
CSM logo

Why is Christian Science in our name?

Our name is about honesty. The Monitor is owned by The Christian Science Church, and we’ve always been transparent about that.

The Church publishes the Monitor because it sees good journalism as vital to progress in the world. Since 1908, we’ve aimed “to injure no man, but to bless all mankind,” as our founder, Mary Baker Eddy, put it.

Here, you’ll find award-winning journalism not driven by commercial influences – a news organization that takes seriously its mission to uplift the world by seeking solutions and finding reasons for credible hope.

Explore values journalism About us