2024
September
20
Friday

Monitor Daily Podcast

September 20, 2024
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Mark Sappenfield
Senior global correspondent

What stands out to me about today’s story by Taylor Luck and Erika Page is how effectively they explore the matter of responsibility in climate change. They avoid the scolding tone or simplistic blame game that so often tempts the media. But their story raises hard questions. In Tunisia, families desperate to stay in the rural communities they love are no longer able to eke out a living from the parched dirt.

Who is responsible for fixing that? 

Climate change is a new kind of challenge, because the responsibility is collective and the solution is collective. There is no lack of ways forward. But they all begin with a more honest sense of responsibility, both as individuals and in a way that transcends borders.


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Today’s stories

And why we wrote them

A deeper look

Jihed Abidellaoui/Reuters/File
A boy walks on the cracked bed of a Chiba dam in Nabeul, Tunisia, April 1, 2023. Severe drought – coupled with political and economic woes – has driven many Tunisians from their homes in search of work.

In an age of global migration, Tunisia offers a window into key stressors driving migrants from their homes: political instability, inequality, and climate change.

Today’s news briefs

• Middle East attacks: United Nations peacekeepers in Lebanon urge immediate de-escalation as hostilities rumble on at the Lebanese-Israeli border, following Israel’s most intense airstrikes in nearly a year of conflict with the Iran-backed Hezbollah. 
• Early voting in U.S.: In-person voting for the 2024 U.S. presidential election begins in three states – Virginia, South Dakota, and Minnesota.
• Pennsylvania polls: Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump remain deadlocked weeks before the U.S. presidential election, according to new polls that also show a tight race in the key state of Pennsylvania. 
• Sri Lanka vote: Sri Lanka’s presidential candidates wrapped up their campaigning this week, pledging to fix the island country’s ailing economy as it struggles to recover from a debilitating financial crisis. The election is Sept. 21.
• Europe flood aid: The European Union will make billions of euros available to help Central Europe recover from severe floods, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen says. 

Read these news briefs.

Congress scrambled to pass an emergency spending bill to ensure veterans continue to receive benefits. Questions linger over why costs are rising so quickly and whether spending is best meeting the needs of veterans.

Riley Robinson/Staff
John Giles, mayor of Mesa, Arizona, speaks with the Monitor in his office. Mr. Giles, a Republican, has endorsed Democratic nominee Kamala Harris for president.

Some prominent Republicans have endorsed Democrat Kamala Harris in her quest for the presidency. John Giles, a conservative mayor in a border state, says it’s about moving beyond party affiliations and working in “the middle.’’

Podcast

Smartphones at school: Inside a not-so-simple debate

It’s often yet another binary battle: Cellphones at school are either out-and-out distractions that drag down learning or they’re needed tools, and lifelines in emergencies. Two Monitor writers set out to explore the middle, then joined our podcast to discuss the assignment.  

A Fight Over Students’ Phones

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In Pictures

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff
IN THE FAST LANE: Travis Engen, driving his 2005 Audi R8 LMP, lines up for the start of a competition at Watkins Glen International racetrack.

Historic sports cars exude an allure that is second only to the thrill of watching them compete. Fans at Watkins Glen International track can’t get enough of races featuring these magnificent machines.


The Monitor's View

Mark J. Rebilas, USA TODAY Sports
Arike Ogunbowale (left) of the Dallas Wings celebrates with Caitlin Clark of the Indiana Fever and Allisha Gray of the Atlanta Dream after making a three-point shot in the WNBA All-Star Game in Phoenix, July 20.

As games, basketball and baseball have little in common other than they both involve a ball. It is possible that Caitlin Clark and Shohei Ohtani don’t share many fans. Yet the people packing stadiums to watch these two athletes in motion may be drawn for similar reasons.

On Thursday, on a baseball field in Miami, Shohei Ohtani put up one of the greatest performances ever seen in a single game: six hits in six at bats, three home runs, two stolen bases, and 10 runs batted in. All of that merely marked the final footsteps to a stat-shattering achievement: In the same game he became the first player in pro ball history to hit 50 home runs and steal 50 bases in a single season. Before Mr. Ohtani, who plays for the Los Angeles Dodgers, only five players had ever notched 40 and 40.

In women’s basketball, meanwhile, Ms. Clark has notched her own unique impact. In her rookie year, the Indiana Fever guard set more than 20 league or franchise records. Among them: most assists in a single game, most 15-point/five-assist games in a season, and most assists in a single Women’s National Basketball Association season.

All that “assisting” explains why women’s basketball is rapidly gaining popularity. “Teamwork. It’s unselfish play,” Diane Devor, a Fever fan, told the Martinsville Reporter-Times, an Indiana newspaper. “They look for the opening and then they share the ball. They spread the love.”

In a postgame interview after she scored 31 points in a recent matchup, Ms. Clark used the word “we” 13 times in less than 30 seconds, according to USA Today.

Despite the celebrity status of elite professional athletes, many fans are more apt to cite the qualities of character that they relate to in their favorite players than the unicorn abilities they have with the ball.

In Mr. Ohtani’s home country of Japan on Thursday, fans reacted to his record-breaking day with gratitude. Some recalled how he cleaned public bathrooms in high school to help the family finances. His new record honored what Japanese fans value in baseball, such as perseverance, discipline, and humility.

Among basketball fans, the most passionate debate is not over who was the greatest player but over who was the greatest passer. “It’s the selfless stars who shine the brightest and who never fade with time,” observed Walt Rakowich, who writes on leadership. He was writing about Nikola Jokić, the MVP in last year’s NBA championships honored for his “humble, team-first approach to the game.”

When players dazzle with the ball, they draw fans through selfless qualities as much as through athletic excellence.


A Christian Science Perspective

About this feature
Dominic Cram/Moment/Getty Images

Even when hatred has grown to a violent extreme, we can turn to God as Love and find the safety we need.


Viewfinder

Michael Probst/AP
Fog frames a flock of birds taking flight on the outskirts of Frankfurt, Germany, Sept. 20, 2024.
( The illustrations in today’s Monitor Daily are by Jacob Turcotte. )

A look ahead

Thanks for joining us today. On Monday, we’ll look at Nebraska, where the Supreme Court heard arguments this week on whether a recently passed law allowing former felons to vote violates the state’s constitution. Twenty-six states and the District of Columbia now allow former felons to vote – but challenges to those laws are cropping up.

More issues

2024
September
20
Friday
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