2017
December
14
Thursday

Monitor Daily Podcast

December 14, 2017
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Yvonne Zipp
Features Editor

Most of us have experienced the scary sensation of running out of money before payday. To help employees dealing with short-term emergencies avoid predatory lenders, Wal-Mart is using an app that gives its 1.4 million workers early access to their wages – free of charge, eight times a year.

Proponents point out that people have already worked the hours, so these aren’t loans. It’s just giving people access to money they’ve already earned.

One Florida employee interviewed by The New York Times says she was suspicious at first, but has been pleasantly surprised – and appreciates the real-time estimate of how much she has left to spend.

Critics argue that Wal-Mart could help its employees more by giving them raises. Its starting wage is $9 an hour, $1.75 above the federal minimum wage, but lower than $11 at Target or $13 at Costco.

The question of how to best help low-income workers continues to loom over the economy. The roaring stock market doesn’t help the 48 percent of Americans with no money in it. More than one-third of Americans working full time have no access to pensions or 401(k)s, according to the Pew Charitable Trusts.

According to the World Inequality Report, which was released today, in the United States, “the average annual wage of the bottom 50 percent has stagnated since 1980 at about $16,000 per adult (adjusted).”

Or as Todd Vasos, chief executive officer of Dollar General, put it in a Dec. 5 interview with The Wall Street Journal, explaining how the company has grown 27 years in a row by targeting those who make less than $40,000 a year: “The economy is continuing to create more of our core customer.”

Here are our five stories for the day, showing the need for trust, questions about what really constitutes power, and space drama – real and fictional.


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Today’s stories

And why we wrote them

Where is strength – in going it alone or building and preserving alliances?

Breakthroughs

Ideas that drive change

How NASA researchers discovered an unseen solar system

Our next story can be summed up as AI meets E.T. The Kepler telescope, NASA's planet hunter, dumped on scientists a data trove that they’ve been going at with a proverbial pair of tweezers for a few years now. We simply didn't have the means to sort through the mountain of data. Now, NASA says they’ve found a new way to use artificial intelligence to quickly sort through the trove to find the diamonds.

SOURCE:

NASA Exoplanet Archive

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Jacob Turcotte/Staff
Jorge Cabrera/Reuters
Salvador Nasralla (r.), presidential candidate for the Opposition Alliance Against the Dictatorship, listens to Leticia Henriquez, deputy official of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal, while formally requesting to annul the results of the still-unresolved presidential election, in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, Dec. 9.

After a two-weeks-and-counting election fracas, Hondurans are expecting concrete efforts from the government to restore trust. But many also say they have an individual responsibility in their daily lives to uphold values like honesty and fairness.

Russia's 2018 presidential election will likely not be a cliffhanger. What happens in 2024, when President Vladimir Putin could end an unprecedented fourth term, is far less clear. “Nobody wants to see a chaotic transition,” says one expert. “But over many years of talking about it they have failed utterly to find a formula for an orderly one.”

On Film

Mario Anzuoni/Reuters
'Storm Troopers' march in front of fans during the world première of 'Star Wars: The Last Jedi' in Los Angeles Dec. 9. The film begins to open more widely on Thursday.

As the new "Star Wars" movie opens today, NASA is taking avoiding spoilers to new heights: "The Last Jedi" will be screened for astronauts aboard the International Space Station, giving new meaning to the term "space opera." 


The Monitor's View

Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP
This image provided by the North Korean government Nov. 30 shows leader Kim Jong Un, third from left, and what the government calls the Hwasong-15 intercontinental ballistic missile.

As it has done many times, the United Nations Security Council will again take up the issue of North Korea’s nuclear threat on Dec. 15. The meeting comes less than three weeks after North Korea fired a rocket that seems capable of striking the mainland United States. If past were prologue, not much might come of this latest gathering.

Yet, instead of an atmosphere of more threats and counter-threats, diplomats are speculating that the US and North Korea may be ready to trade brinkmanship for “blinkmanship.” They might be ready to negotiate after years of estrangement, if only to “talk about talks”?

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson hinted at such a possibility a few days ago by saying the US is open to unconditional talks. “Let’s just meet. We can talk about the weather if you want,” he said. And Jeffrey Feltman, the UN political affairs chief, returned from a trip to Pyongyang saying, “I think we’ve left the door ajar” to a negotiated solution.

The reasons for such hope keep piling up. The US appears satisfied that it has arranged very tough sanctions against the regime of Kim Jong-un and that its allies, along with China, have formed a solid front. At the same time, Mr. Kim declared that the latest missile test marked the completion of his country’s nuclear arms program – even though it has not demonstrated all technical aspects of a nuclear and missile capability.

In addition, both sides may have a face-saving opportunity coming up that will allow them to show they are open to compromise.

The US and South Korea are considering delaying a scheduled joint military exercise scheduled for February during the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea. Such a delay, while only a gesture, may be enough for North Korea to reciprocate with a temporary freeze on its nuclear program. If that happens, then this “freeze for a freeze” trade could be an initial step in creating enough trust for serious talks.

While such a scenario seems far-fetched given the rhetoric on both sides, it is necessary for the world to support it. Fears of a war in Northeast Asia keep rising.

Both sides may now realize that not talking will no longer serve as a form of pressure or punishment. And that more sanctions or more military enhancements will do little. Blinking together and opening talks could be the right course.


A Christian Science Perspective

About this feature

Each weekday, the Monitor includes one clearly labeled religious article offering spiritual insight on contemporary issues, including the news. The publication – in its various forms – is produced for anyone who cares about the progress of the human endeavor around the world and seeks news reported with compassion, intelligence, and an essentially constructive lens. For many, that caring has religious roots. For many, it does not. The Monitor has always embraced both audiences. The Monitor is owned by a church – The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston – whose founder was concerned with both the state of the world and the quality of available news.

It isn’t always easy to know what to do about violence. Anger may be the first reaction when we hear of an attack on the innocent. We may be frightened if we or our loved ones face some injustice. But today’s contributor has found that prayer can be practical, a powerful way to find protection and peace when dealing with threats to safety. When we begin our prayer with God – infinite, all-powerful Love – our thought is lifted to what God sees and knows: only good. This is not ignoring violence; it is humbly affirming that God’s creation, which includes all of us, is spiritual, eternal, pure, safe, and free of evil, because that is the nature of divine Love. This means that violence is not inevitable, and that no one is destined to commit or suffer acts of violence. This kind of living prayer – grounded in divine Love – is the very foundation of the right kind of action.


A message of love

Sergei Grits/AP
A meteor streaks across the sky during the annual Geminid meteor shower over an Orthodox church near the village of Zagorie, some 70 miles west of Minsk, Belarus, Dec. 13.
( The illustrations in today’s Monitor Daily are by Karen Norris. )

A look ahead

Thanks so much for joining us! Come back tomorrow. We'll have a story about how Italian-Americans in New York are wrestling with questions about statues of Christopher Columbus and what he meant to their identity when they were a persecuted minority themselves.

More issues

2017
December
14
Thursday

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