Mark Schiefelbein/AP

Patrick McHenry of North Carolina (center) is serving as speaker pro tempore while fellow House Republicans seek to elect a new speaker following the ouster of Kevin McCarthy from the post.

Less than 24 hours after California Republican Kevin McCarthy was booted from the House speakership, the race to succeed him had already begun.

But the same factors that doomed Mr. McCarthy – hard-liners demanding confrontation over compromise, amid the inescapable need to work with a Democratic Senate and White House to pass anything – are all but certain to dog his replacement. Which begs the question: What will it take for anyone to lead this GOP House successfully?  

For now, the gavel is in the hands of Rep. Patrick McHenry of North Carolina, a McCarthy ally who became acting speaker pro tempore after being named by Mr. McCarthy in a predetermined succession plan. Last night, Mr. McHenry announced that Republicans would hold an election for a new speaker next Wednesday, with candidates making their case in a Tuesday forum. Until then, the House is in recess, while the rules surrounding Mr. McHenry’s powers as acting speaker – and how long he could stay in that post – remained unclear. 

Many members expressed frustration that the political chaos was costing them precious time for dealing with critical matters on the agenda. Congress is racing to finish writing appropriations bills before the government runs out of money in mid-November. Other unresolved matters include Ukraine aid – which now appears to be in serious jeopardy – and the crisis at the southern border.

Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

Kevin McCarthy speaks to reporters after he was ousted as House speaker by a members vote at the U.S. Capitol, Oct. 3, 2023.

And there’s no guarantee there will be a new speaker by next week, given the 15 rounds of voting Mr. McCarthy faced in January. Mr. McCarthy had to make a number of concessions to right-wing members in order to secure the gavel – including giving them the power to force a vote to remove him, setting the stage for what ultimately occurred this week. The next speaker will likely come under similar pressures.

When a combative posture may help

Some observers suggest uniting the Republican caucus may be more a matter of style than substance. A speaker who can mimic the rhetorical posture of former President Donald Trump, picking fights with Democrats and pushing for certain conservative priorities, might have more leeway to quietly compromise on other matters.

“I don’t think this is necessarily an ideological fight. I think this has more to do with personalities,” says John Feehery, who served as press secretary to former Republican House Speaker Dennis Hastert of Illinois. “With the right speaker, you can make it work.” 

There was a much wider ideological divide within the conference back in the early 2000s, notes Mr. Feehery, when House Republicans had an equally narrow majority. Some 30 to 40 Republican members back then favored abortion rights, he says, and others were in favor of raising taxes. Today, the GOP caucus is far more aligned on policy matters, but the personalities loom larger, which presents a different kind of challenge.

“There is a bigger disconnect between the base of the party and the congressional leaders than there ever has been,” says Mr. Feehery. “The base is much more populist, more anti-establishment, more willing to blow up the place. And the leaders are stuck having to lead.”

If not McCarthy, then who?

Thus far, three candidates are publicly vying for the speakership: House Majority Leader Steve Scalise of Louisiana; Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, chair of the House Judiciary Committee; and Oklahoma Rep. Kevin Hern, chair of the Republican Study Committee. All are pitching themselves as capable of doing what Mr. McCarthy could not. 

J. Scott Applewhite/AP

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise of Louisiana, joined at right by Majority Whip Tom Emmer of Minnesota, arrives for a Capitol Hill news conference, June 6, 2023.

Mr. Scalise, a popular conservative who gained national sympathy after being shot and badly wounded at a congressional baseball practice in 2017, has reportedly been eyeing the speaker’s job for years, and was floated as a possible candidate during the previous contest. As part of the current leadership structure, he starts with a built-in network and a base of support; Majority Whip Tom Emmer and a number of Southern Republicans have already voiced their support for a Speaker Scalise.  

“I have a proven track record of bringing together the diverse array of viewpoints within our Conference to build consensus where others thought it was impossible,” Mr. Scalise wrote in a “Dear colleague” letter announcing his run Wednesday afternoon. “This next chapter won’t be easy, but I know what it takes to fight and I am prepared for the battles that lie ahead.”

If Mr. Scalise is elected speaker, a ripple effect of promotions would occur. Mr. Emmer, currently the majority whip, has announced he would seek Mr. Scalise’s current job of majority leader, and Pennsylvania Republican Guy Reschenthaler, currently chief deputy whip, would seek Mr. Emmer’s role. 

“These elections are almost always decided internally by the relationships these members have with other members,” says Mr. Feehery. 

Still, some worry that Mr. Scalise, despite his conservative bona fides, might run into similar problems as did Mr. McCarthy in winning the gavel. The majority leader has also been undergoing cancer treatment, though he has assured members he is feeling well and has the stamina for the travel and long hours required for the speaker job. 

Jacquelyn Martin/AP

Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio speaks during the House Oversight Committee impeachment inquiry hearing into President Joe Biden, Sept. 28, 2023, in Washington.

Mr. Jordan, a onetime antagonist of Mr. McCarthy who later became a supporter, could complicate Mr. Scalise’s path. The former Freedom Caucus chair is a prominent Trump ally and was a leading choice among some of Mr. McCarthy’s far-right detractors in the January speakership fight, although on that occasion he declined to run. 

“I’ve had a lot of members reach out to us saying they think I’m the guy who can unite the conference,” Mr. Jordan told reporters while leaving a meeting of the Texas Republican delegation Wednesday, where all three candidates pitched themselves to members. “I think my politics are entirely consistent with where conservatives and Republicans are.”

Wild-card options

Other Republicans have expressed interest in the top job, such as Representative Hern, who chairs the largest group of House Republicans. It’s also possible the eventual new speaker could be someone not currently being discussed – a 2015-type situation in which members recruit a consensus candidate (like then-Rep. Paul Ryan) who reluctantly agrees to the job with serious stipulations. 

Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters

Rep. Kevin Hern of Oklahoma, chair of the House Republican Study Committee and a possible contender to be the next House speaker, talks to reporters at the U.S. Capitol, Oct. 4, 2023.

One fanciful idea put forward by some members is for former President Trump to become speaker. In a tweet Wednesday, Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene said Mr. Trump is the “only candidate” she is supporting, an idea echoed by Texas Rep. Troy Nehls and Florida Rep. Greg Steube. While the possibility may excite Trump supporters, such a ploy would almost certainly fail. Not to mention Rule 26 of the House Republican Conference Rules, which states that a member of Republican leadership “shall step aside” if indicted. When asked about the possibility outside a New York courtroom where he is on trial in a civil fraud case, Mr. Trump said his “sole focus” is becoming president again.

But the time for settling on a leader is limited, with government funding set to expire on Nov. 17.

Both Mr. McHenry and Mr. McCarthy have said they don’t plan to run for speaker. At a press conference Tuesday night, Mr. McCarthy was asked if he had any advice for whoever would succeed him.

He answered with a laugh: “Change the rules.”

A new antitrust suit against Amazon represents the Biden administration’s latest step to aggressively oppose what it sees as growing monopoly power in the United States, particularly in the technology sectors of the economy.

The Federal Trade Commission has already charged social media giant Meta (owner of Facebook) and search engine behemoth Alphabet (owner of Google) for monopolistic practices. The FTC’s new action against Amazon, filed with 17 states last week, may prove to be the commission’s toughest antitrust case yet. These moves reflect the administration’s determination to counter corporate power more aggressively than at any time in the past half-century.

The Amazon suit “is another important piece in a program ... to basically transform U.S. antitrust policy,” says William Kovacic, director of the Competition Law Center at George Washington University and a former FTC commissioner and chair. “They are seeking to restore a vision of antitrust law that prevailed from the early 1930s to the early ’70s.” 

Amazon represents a huge challenge for the agency, not only because of its size but also because of the sprawling nature of its business. As a retailer, it sells just about anything. It’s also a digital platform for other companies to sell their products.

The government’s suit alleges that Amazon has used this dual role to suppress lower-priced competition on rival platforms. 

“The focus is on the effect on consumers and effect on price: raising price, preventing discounting, interfering with consumer choice,” says Harry First, a New York University law professor and close observer of the FTC. “It’s not: You made it hard for small firms to compete on the Amazon marketplace. ... It’s not a complaint that you’ve suppressed wages in the Amazon warehouse. ... But it does try to wrap its arms around all of what Amazon does and then focuses on some specific aspects of its conduct.”

Alex Gallardo/Reuters/File

An Amazon delivery driver in Anaheim, California, in March 2020. A joint federal-state lawsuit alleges the company uses its clout to prevent suppliers from offering lower prices on other platforms.

Specifically, the suit alleges that the company keeps its online sellers from offering lower prices elsewhere. Sellers used to have to formally promise not to do so until Amazon dropped that language from its contracts a few years ago. The FTC argues the company now enforces the same policy indirectly by, for example, burying sellers in its search results if they offer better prices on other platforms. 

The commission also accuses Amazon of forcing sellers to use its warehousing and shipping services if they list their goods under Amazon Prime, the company’s free shipping program that has 200 million subscribers worldwide. 

“The complaint tells an impressive story,” says Mr. Kovacic, the former FTC chair. “The important footnote to that is that Amazon is not going to take this lying down. We know that they will contest bitterly [the argument] that their behavior was bad for the economy.”

Many antitrust experts say it will be an uphill battle for the government because Amazon has bigger legal resources to fight back.

“It’s a bit of a scary thing to head to court and to be prepared to litigate against a well-funded target,” says Stephen Calkins, a law professor at Wayne State University and former general counsel for the FTC. “If the FTC loses, it will be a massive use of resources.” 

On the same day that the FTC filed its 172-page complaint against Amazon, the company issued a rebuttal. The government has it backward, it argues. By letting other retailers sell on its site, it’s enhancing competition, allowing customers to compare prices and products, general counsel David Zapolsky wrote. In June, the company said it was reactivating a program that would allow sellers to list under Prime shipping but handle deliveries themselves.

The suit threatens a vital part of Amazon’s business. While the company’s online sales have been growing slowly, revenues from its services to these third-party sellers grew at an annual rate of 18%, the company reported in August. That segment is Amazon’s second-biggest business after online sales.

The government’s lawsuit is well within the modern antitrust law, which since the 1970s has emphasized harm to consumers rather than how much of a particular industry is concentrated in the hands of a single company. This has led to criticism by some that FTC enforcement has become lax. But under President Joe Biden, the commission has signaled that it’s going to scrutinize mergers more rigorously for potential monopoly abuses – a throwback to the agency’s pre-1970s era, antitrust experts say.

Whether Amazon represents a monopoly depends on how one counts. In U.S. online sales, it had a 38% share last year, by one estimate, while Walmart was a distant second with 6%. But in overall retail sales, it still plays second fiddle to Walmart, although it could overtake the traditional retailer next year and grab 15% of the market by 2026, according to Ascential Digital Commerce.

To Amazon, this proves the online giant is not a monopoly. “Consumers today still buy over 80% of all retail products in physical stores,” points out Mr. Zapolsky, the company’s general counsel. “Amazon may not be the small business it once was, but we’re still just a piece of a massive and robust retail market with numerous options for consumers and sellers.”

The digital nature of large tech companies, such as Amazon, Meta, and Google, doesn’t make current law obsolete in prosecuting them, antitrust experts say. (The FTC has accused Meta of reducing competition through acquisition of one-time rivals Instagram and WhatsApp, and Google of using exclusionary practices to maintain its dominance in internet search.)

But new solutions may be needed if courts find the companies guilty. 

“The digital ecosystems (Amazon, Google, Meta, etc.) have very unique economic features,” Diana Moss, director of competition policy at the Progressive Policy Institute, writes in an email. They enjoy lower costs than their smaller competitors because of the vast amounts of analyzable data and computing power they amass. And the more users they attract, the more valuable these advantages become. “These features mean that more than one policy tool may be needed to promote competition.” 

One possible solution, she says, could be a digital sector regulator to set the rules and boundaries.

Courtesy of Nathan Graham Davis

Massachusetts-based writer Nathan Graham Davis recently polished up an action-comedy script titled, “Congratulations, It’s an Alien.”

Have Hollywood movies run out of original ideas? Not if Nathan Graham Davis can help it. As an alternative to the endless sequels, remakes, and familiar name brands, the screenwriter recently polished up a script titled, “Congratulations, It’s an Alien.”

The action-comedy is about a woman who gets pregnant during a one-night stand only to discover that the father is an alien in human form. She tries to find her lover. But an unstoppable killer is on her trail. In short, it’s “The Terminator” meets “Knocked Up.” Budget: $100 million.

The Massachusetts-based writer knows he’s unlikely to find a studio willing to midwife such an unconventional screenplay. But amid the writers strike – during which Mr. Davis completed two other unsolicited screenplays – he posted it online.  

“There’s a lot of buzz that original scripts might have a little bit of a boom and be coming back,” says Mr. Davis, whose action movie screenplay “Aftermath” was filmed last year. “We’ll see if that happens.”

Hollywood is gearing up to make the greatest comeback since Norma Desmond. This week, the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists resumed its negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. Screenwriters are back at work following a successful contract resolution. On the production side, idea pitches and script sales are back on. So are power lunches at Soho House in Los Angeles. 

However, it isn’t business as usual. Hollywood is struggling to tamp down runaway production costs and also trying to figure out how to make streaming profitable. At a time of contraction, many believe Hollywood will be tempted to get back on track with familiar formulas.

Courtesy of Jeff Vintar

Jeff Vintar, a screenwriter for the 2004 film "I, Robot," on the picket line for the Writers Guild of America in June 2023. Mr. Vintar says Hollywood studios are less interested in original stories than they once were.

On the surface, conditions may not seem ideal for original storytelling. But the convection currents of creativity deep in the mantle of Hollywood continually create tectonic shifts. Sometimes it’s a gradual movement of the plates. Other times it’s an earthquake that reshapes the landscape. 

“Twenty years ago it was a lot of the same lamentation and rending of garments about, you know, ‘There’s nothing original and everything is sequels; it’s all presold, and there’s nothing new under the sun,’” says Dade Hayes, the business editor at Deadline, a Hollywood trade publication. “Hollywood just is continually wrestling with that question.” 

Studios have long banked on movies based on recognizable characters such as Tarzan, Robin Hood, and, well, Moses. During the 1930s and ’40s, they invested in franchises such as “The Thin Man” and “Lassie.” At the same time, American cinema developed into a vitally creative art form for original stories, often influenced by European film. The 1970s brought what some call a golden era for highbrow masterpieces by auteurs such as Stanley Kubrick, Francis Ford Coppola, and Martin Scorsese, as well as inventive popular blockbusters by the likes of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg. The two strands, sometimes intertwined, lasted through the 1990s.

“I broke into this business in 1995 by selling three original spec feature film scripts within the span of six months,” says Jeff Vintar, a screenwriter for the 2004 Will Smith blockbuster “I, Robot,” in an email. “Now if that sounds like a whole different world, it really and truly was. ... Original work, challenging screenplays, great motion pictures are simply not a goal of the major studios the vast majority of the time.”

The tension between conservatism and risk played out at the U.S. box office this past weekend. The top earners were the latest entries in the kid-friendly “Paw Patrol” franchise and the definitely not kid-friendly “Saw” franchise. By contrast, the sci-fi film “The Creator” fell short. So did “Dumb Money,” a true story about an upstart investor who beat Wall Street at its own game.

But the macro picture of the 2023 box office presents a more complicated picture. Many recognizable properties – “Guardians of the Galaxy,” “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,” and “Fast & Furious” – performed well. But audiences were less enthused by the latest from the “Indiana Jones,” “Mission: Impossible,” and “The Flash” franchises. Instead, they flocked to Barbenheimer – with original stories about a doll (“Barbie”) and a nuclear scientist (“Oppenheimer”) scoring more than $1 billion and $800 million worldwide respectively. The most improbable box office hit of the summer: “Sound of Freedom,” a biopic about combating human trafficking.

“Audiences are really signaling that they want more original content, but they do like tried-and-true as well,” says Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Comscore. 

Some producers work within those commercial parameters to develop inventive blockbusters. “Barbie,” which is campaigning for best original screenplay at the Academy Awards, is one example. “Joker,” a psychological portrait of a villain in the Batman universe, is another. 

Junior executives and talent agents are constantly on the hunt for original scripts, sometimes on behalf of actors seeking challenging material.

Courtesy of Dean Bakopoulos

Writer Dean Bakopolous (HBO’s “Made For Love”) penned two scripts during the work stoppage.

“What was missing during the writers strike is that the thrill of discovery was gone from the business,” says writer Dean Bakopolous (HBO’s “Made For Love”), who penned two scripts during the work stoppage. “For the producers and creative executives, discovering a new writer, discovering a new project, or finding a writer you’ve worked with who’s done something that’s mind-blowing – that’s what everyone wants.”

There’s an online venue for remarkable screenplays that haven’t found a home. It’s called The Black List. Hollywood insiders nominate and vote on overlooked scripts in an annual survey. In 2019, Harvard Business School associate professor Hong Luo studied the box office performance of Black List scripts that ended up getting made. She found they tended to generate 90% more revenue than other movies with a comparative budget.

“Less-experienced [writers] are actually much more likely to be on the list than experienced people, which is not entirely surprising, partly because experienced people are less likely to write spec scripts to start with,” says Professor Luo in a video call. 

Some predict that Hollywood will be awash with original features and pilots created during the nearly five-month writers strike (which is allowed by the Writers Guild of America). But when strike captain Jessica Sharzer chatted with her agents at United Talent Agency last week, they told her that perhaps only 10% of their clients wrote scripts during the work stoppage. Most were too exhausted by daily marches on picket lines. For their part, studios and streaming companies may be cutting back on expenditures. To the extent that they are spending on acquisitions to make up for lost production time, it’s on independently produced movies that were hits at festivals such as in Venice and Toronto.

Indie films, often made for less than the tire budget of a “Fast & Furious” movie, remain a vital outlet for truly original stories. For example, “Everything Everywhere All At Once,” “CODA,” and “Nomadland” all won best picture at the Academy Awards. A24 Films is a big player in this space. So are streaming companies. The likes of Amazon and Apple TV+ have helped audiences who don’t venture to art-house cinemas develop a taste for more adventurous fare. Case in point: Netflix will release “May December,” directed by Todd Haynes and starring Oscar winners Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore.

“They shot it in 26 days,” says Mr. Hayes, the Deadline editor, whose most recent book is “Binge Times: Inside Hollywood’s Furious Billion-Dollar Battle To Take Down Netflix.” “It was very much an indie production. Of course, it ended up getting acquired for $20 million and made a big noise at the festivals.”

Mr. Davis, a former bank employee, spent years submitting scripts to social media before he scored a breakthrough. “Aftermath,” about terrorists who commandeer Boston’s Tobin Bridge, was made for $10 million and is now seeking distribution.

“That $5 [million] to $15 million spot is a range where movies get made and they’re still profitable,” says Mr. Davis, who posted “Congratulations, It’s an Alien” on his website as a writing sample. “They can pay a writer well enough that they might actually have a chance at making something approaching a living.” 

Oleksandr Humaniuk and his team start their day looking high over the Oskil River in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, so they can identify which villages are getting pummeled by Russian artillery, mortar, and missiles.

“Every day we come here, the horizon burns,” says Mr. Humaniuk while surveying the plumes of smoke that rise from the yellowing hills. “There is fierce fighting going on for the villages on the other side of the river.”

The mission of his “Rose in Arm” volunteer group is to go to those villages and try to convince the elderly people there who have refused to flee their homes that conditions in the city of Kharkiv, just 80 miles away, will prove safer than in front-line regions that are constantly getting hit. 

Mr. Humaniuk and his team are part of a broad constellation of volunteers who keep wartime Ukraine running and help save lives daily. Evacuating senior holdouts from front-line regions is a particularly tricky – and at times thankless – task. It’s an exercise that requires courage, patience, humor, and top-notch diplomatic skills. “This job is like being a salesman,” he says, flashing a winning smile while slipping into a flak jacket. “I tell them that they will have a nice room, be comfortable.”

But senior Ukrainians are hard to persuade. With their lives tied to their homes and a willingness to weather even the hardest times, they see little reason to relocate.

Dominique Soguel

Oleksandr Humaniuk (right) stands with a teammate in front of the damaged city council building in Kupiansk, Sept. 17, 2023. “When I look back, I feel like my entire life prepared me for this,” Mr. Humaniuk says.

“I’ve never considered evacuation,” says Anna, a retired nurse in the village of Kivsharivka, as Mr. Humaniuk visits. “I worry my home will be looted. If the shelling intensifies, then maybe we will leave. Very few people are left here. Those with children have left. Those who love themselves have left. I am tough and used to the harsh conditions of life. Winter will be hard, yes, but I survived World War II and hopefully I’ll survive this war, too.”

Mr. Humaniuk jokes that she barely looks a day past 40, leaving her with his business card and a huge smile. “If I consider evacuation, I will call you,” she promises.

“Maybe we will think about evacuation”

At the end of August, Ukrainian authorities ordered a mandatory evacuation of front-line villages around the city of Kupiansk, at the eastern edge of the Kharkiv region. One of those villages is Kivsharivka.

The majority of those who have disregarded the evacuation orders are older people, a handful of whom appear serene sitting on benches and soaking in the afternoon sunlight outside a row of midrise buildings. But they are troubled.

A yellow flower laid on the ground between two benches hints at the tragedy endured by Nataliia and Olena, who like many Ukrainians didn’t want to give their full names. They were sitting on the very same bench one month earlier when a mortar exploded nearby, killing Olena’s husband and wounding Nataliia. Still, neither of them is considering evacuation, even though Russian strikes remain routine in the area and the prospect of a second Russian occupation is not far-fetched in the assessment of Mr. Humaniuk.

Jacob Turcotte/Staff

“We do not worry about [the Russians],” says Nataliia defiantly. “We are the salt of this earth. If the water and electricity get cut here, then maybe we will think about evacuation.”

Mr. Humaniuk presses a business card into each woman’s hand, urging them to call should they change their mind. He did not come with the expectation of evacuating people this day as much as to build trust so that they reach out without hesitation when the time comes. And he believes it will come, despite all his faith in the Ukrainian armed forces.

“When I look back, I feel like my entire life prepared me for this,” he says, recounting a colorful résumé comprising stints as a salesperson, cargo loader, and bodyguard to a local oligarch, among other jobs. All experiences left him better equipped to undertake the mission of ushering old people to safety.

“That is why we do this now,” he shares. “We know the risks will be 80% greater later.” The risks are already high. Just a day after this visit to Kivsharivka, eight people were killed in the area when another volunteer team evacuating people was struck by a Russian rocket.

Speaking in his apartment, middle-aged Oleksii is willing to give evacuation some serious thought. But he is limited by his bedridden mother, Anna, and his determined-to-stay mother-in-law, Tamara, both of whom live with him. The village still has electricity and water, they’ve collected firewood for the winter, and they still get humanitarian aid. But staying proved a choice costly to his 4-year-old son, Maksym, who was struck by shrapnel and now has nerve problems that cause his legs to cramp.

Dominique Soguel

Mikhail, a 92-year-old retired colonel who served in the Soviet Army, stands with the support of a desk and cane in a dormitory for displaced people in the city of Kharkiv, Sept. 18. Those in the dormitory are struggling with the aches and pains of old age, amplified by the physical and mental traumas of war.

While Tamara tries to tune out the stress of war by watching television shows, the boy takes a restorative nap. Nighttime battles have robbed him of countless nights of sleep. “He climbs into my arms, petrified,” whispers his frustrated father. “It’s very loud at night.”

Outside on the street, Mr. Humaniuk continues his sales pitch with an equally tough crowd at an adjacent building. “What will I do there [in Kharkiv]?” asks Claudia Shevchenko, eyebrows arched in skepticism. “How long can I stay?”

“Until it is safe here,” Mr. Humaniuk reassures her.

“The only plan we have is to go home”

Those who do evacuate end up in dormitories scattered around Kharkiv, unless they have relatives they can join in other parts of Ukraine.

Nadia Kozlova was brought by volunteers to Kharkiv from the village of Vovchansk, which spent eight months in 2022 under Russian occupation and remains in the crossfire. “The situation became unbearable,” she says of her decision to finally call for help. “I hesitated because I didn’t want to leave my house. I thought that the situation would calm down. But in the end, I felt encircled. The bombs were landing closer and closer, so I decided to go.”

Ivan Kozyrev was rescued along with his wife after his leg broke. Russia’s strikes on their village of Kucherivka drove them to seek shelter in an outdoor basement in the middle of the night. He, however, took a nosedive down the shelter’s stairs after failing to notice its door was already open. “All I remember is that I could not feel anything when I was evacuated,” he says with tears. “The clock in the car said 3 a.m.”

Dominique Soguel

Ivan Kozyrev sits in bed with a broken leg in a dormitory for displaced people in Kharkiv, Ukraine. He incurred the fracture while scrambling for shelter amid Russia’s strikes on his village of Kucherivka in the Sumy region.

“Don’t worry, dear – we will have our golden anniversary soon and dance together again,” his wife, Zoya, reassures him gently. “The only plan we have is to go home as soon as possible.” In addition to worrying about her husband, she frets for two grandchildren on the front line, especially after seeing a neighbor robbed of his life by a Russian missile.

Those in the dormitory are struggling with the aches and pains of old age, amplified by the physical and mental traumas of war. “Stress, stress, stress,” says Valentyna Tkachenko, the day’s de facto administrator after directing people toward bread-distributing volunteers while simultaneously calling paramedics to help a man who appears to be in distress. It’s like running a hospice or a mental institution, she says, minus the qualified staff.

Outside, a different Valentina takes a relaxed stroll. She is grateful to be there and to have known whom to call when the shelling intensified around her home in August. Volunteers had posted their numbers on every door of her village. A car right in front of theirs was hit, its passengers killed, while she evacuated. It was a close call, so she counts herself fortunate.

“It is very dangerous work these volunteers are doing,” she says with deep appreciation. “Every minute can be the last for them, and no siren will warn you.”

Reporting for this story was supported by Oleksandr Naselenko.

I used to love seeing the world in shades of gray through my viewfinder. But for many years now I’ve worked in full color, only occasionally dabbling in black and white. Sometimes when I’m on vacation, I prefer to leave the camera aside with work. But whenever I visit Mexico, I can’t stop taking photos. I’m constantly inspired.

On a recent trip to San Miguel de Allende and Guanajuato, I was overtaken by color.

Ancient weathered doors in turquoise pop against walls of amber and burnt orange. A mural garden of pink and yellow flowers makes its way up an outdoor stairway.

Market displays of plastic toys, candies, yarn, or house goods become works of art. Traditional women’s and men’s blouses, the fabric in their skirts and pants, stand out against an azure background during a dance performance. Intricate beaded bracelets are offered in a stall – how can one ever choose which to buy?

Nowhere I’ve been is more colorful than Mexico – where it seems that everyone has a bit of an artist inside them.

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

AP

Armenian lawmakers attend a session Tuesday during which they voted to join the International Criminal Court. That tribunal has indicted Russian President Vladimir Putin for war crimes connected to the deportation of children from Ukraine.

The Soviet Union, with its 15 states, collapsed more than three decades ago. Yet for 14 of those states, the struggle to escape Russia’s orbit and autocratic ways continues. The latest example is Armenia. Its parliament voted Tuesday to join the International Criminal Court, joining 123 other nations and obligating Armenia to arrest Russian leader Vladimir Putin on war crime charges if he sets foot in the country.

Like most former Soviet states, Armenia was shocked at last year’s invasion of Ukraine. It also saw how Russia, a treaty ally, failed last month to prevent Azerbaijan from taking by force an ethnic Armenian enclave within the recognized Azerbaijani border. Joining the International Criminal Court is Armenia’s way to deal with both events.

“Large parts of Armenian society, particularly young people, feel betrayed by Moscow and will probably drift out of Russia’s sphere of influence,” writes Alexander Gabuev, director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center in Berlin, in the Financial Times.

As former Soviet states keep making moves to distance themselves from Moscow, Mr. Putin is becoming more isolated. In September, he was forced to visit the pariah state of North Korea to ask for military aid. “The world is getting smaller for the autocrat in the Kremlin,” said Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission.

Since the Ukraine invasion, Moldova has beefed up its defenses against Russian disinformation. In the Central Asian nation of Uzbekistan, many parents worry that Russian-language schools will teach Kremlin propaganda. Other countries in that region have sought to broaden ties with the West. In New York last month, Joe Biden became the first American president to meet the heads of state of the five Central Asian countries – Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. Last year, many of those states welcomed tens of thousands of young Russian men fleeing the military draft.

In Kazakhstan, Russia’s war in Ukraine “has been jarring for many Kazakhs, including those whose first language is Russian,” sociologist Azamat Junisbai told The Beet news site. As a result, many Russian speakers in Kazakhstan are learning the Kazakh language in a sign of civil loyalty.

“The Russian war of aggression against Ukraine showed how values of democracy and civic engagement can unite people of different backgrounds and overcome heavy colonial legacies,” Botakoz Kassymbekova, a historian at the University of Basel, told The Beet. “Kazakh Russians play a pivotal role in post-colonial healing and a decolonized future, just as those who identify themselves as Kazakhs do.”

The responses to Russia’s aggression vary in its borderland states. Yet almost all are affirming an independence within even as they cope with a threat without.