Standing outside his home in a residential street in Slough, west of London, tire shop owner Raja Ijaz recounts a conversation he had recently with the local Labour Party candidate in Britain’s upcoming general election. 

When Tanmanjeet Dhesi came to ask for his vote, “I told him bye-bye,” says Mr. Ijaz, showing the white of his palm. “I said, I’m not voting for you because you didn’t vote for the cease-fire in Gaza. My entire family has abandoned the Labour Party because of this reason.”

Some of his Muslim neighbors have broader concerns, equally unhappy with both leading parties, including the Conservatives.

“Neither of the two main parties has raised their voice about Gaza,” says Muhammad Salim, two doors down from Mr. Ijaz. “This is a really important issue for me because people are dying, and I’ll be raising my concern by voting for an independent.”

That would be music to the ears of a new organization, The Muslim Vote, launched six months ago to try to shape a Muslim voting bloc that will demand that politicians pay attention to Muslim concerns. Such a bloc, based on religious belief, is unprecedented in Britain, outside Northern Ireland.

“The Labour Party and the Conservative Party both have taken ... Muslim voters for granted and are not concerned with representing them or their views,” says Abubakr Nanabawa, the coalition’s spokesperson.

“This election signals a shift for Muslims – no more political apathy,” the organization proclaims on its website. “We will no longer tolerate being taken for granted. We are a powerful, united force of 4 million acting in unison.”

Ben Makori/Reuters

Sabia Akram is a former Labour Party councilor in Slough who resigned this month from her party over its stance on the war in Gaza.

Could Muslims make a difference?

Dismayed by the Labour Party’s tepid response to Israel’s military operation in Gaza, Mr. Ijaz and Mr. Salim have decided to vote for Azhar Chohan, an independent candidate who has made “stopping the Genocide in Gaza” a key part of his campaign. “It’s woken up the Muslim conscience,” says Mr. Chohan, who has been endorsed by The Muslim Vote.

Muslims make up more than a quarter of registered voters in Slough. If Mr. Chohan is able to galvanize the community, he could cause an upset. In February, the Workers Party of Britain leader, George Galloway, won a by-election in Rochdale by targeting Muslim voters, standing on an overtly pro-Palestinian platform. That victory has inspired many pro-cease-fire candidates to stand in the general election.

British Muslims, who account for about 6% of the total population and are heavily concentrated in urban areas, have historically tended to vote for the Labour Party. But a February poll by Survation showed that Muslim support for Labour had dropped by 26% since its leader, Keir Starmer, suggested that Israel had the right to cut off food and water to Gaza and then failed to back calls for an unconditional cease-fire.

At local elections in May, a BBC analysis showed that Labour’s share of the vote was down 21% in local council wards where more than one-fifth of the residents were Muslim.

The Conservatives are widely expected to suffer a crushing defeat at the general election on July 4. But the size of Labour’s majority may depend on whether independents endorsed by The Muslim Vote – only half of whom are in fact Muslims themselves – can turn events in the Middle East to their advantage on polling day.

Dominic Lipinski/PA/AP/File

Tanmanjeet Dhesi, Labour member of Parliament for Slough, once won unusual applause in Parliament for demanding that Boris Johnson apologize for comparing Muslim women who wear face-covering veils to “letterboxes.”

The Muslim Vote has identified dozens of constituencies where Muslims make up a large enough share of the electorate to potentially sway the result. In Newcastle Central & West, where Muslims form around 12% of the total electorate, the organization has lent its support to Yvonne Ridley, a journalist and broadcaster who converted to Islam in 2003.

“The Muslim community has seen the way that governments and leaders have reacted to Gaza, and we can all see what’s happening there for what it is, which is a genocide,” she says. “And yet our leaders condemn us for marching, condemn us for protesting and we know what we’re doing is the right thing.”

A “conspiracy” or democracy?

The Muslim Vote, and its effort to organize Muslims into a coherent political force, have attracted considerable controversy.

In Slough, the incumbent member of Parliament and front-runner in the election, Labour’s Mr. Dhesi, has accused Mr. Chohan of “trying to toxify” the town and “divide our diverse community by importing the toxic politics of persuading people to vote based on religion.”

Right-wing populist Nigel Farage has gone further, accusing Muslims of indulging in sectarian politics and of not sharing British values.

For some, these criticisms are rooted in a historical malaise. “Every single time the Muslim community ... tries to organize, it’s the same old,” says Anas Altikriti, an adviser to The Muslim Vote. “It’s all of a sudden a conspiracy and an attempt to take over. And that pertains to a much bigger and deeper and older problem that has roots in the ... colonial perception of the other.”

The themes of sectarianism and disloyalty to Britain have emerged in many discussions about the Muslim electorate, according to Faisal Hanif, a researcher at the Centre for Media Monitoring who tracks the way Muslims are portrayed in the British media.

“Muslims deciding what they care about and who they want to vote for,” he says, “is seen as threatening.”

Patrick Semansky/AP/File

Donald Trump and Joe Biden participate in their final presidential debate four years ago, Oct. 22, 2020, at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee. Now locked in a 2024 rematch, the two will debate this week in Atlanta.

President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump meet head-to-head Thursday at CNN’s Atlanta studios for their first debate of the 2024 campaign season. The televised debate comes months earlier than those of previous presidential election seasons. 

There will be no live audience. The microphone of the candidate not meant to be speaking will reportedly be muted. The event will be history-making: It was not organized by the bipartisan Commission on Presidential Debates, which has managed debates since the 1988 presidential election. 

Will sparks fly? Perhaps. Debates have produced iconic moments in American politics, from the seven epic Lincoln-Douglas debates in 1858, to the televised drama of Kennedy-Nixon in 1960, to the zingers that pass as takeaways in the debates of our times. 

Here are six questions about presidential debates, which Gail Russell Chaddock posed as podcast host to veteran Washington reporter Peter Grier, who retired this month. This Q&A is derived from our 2023 podcast interview from around the time of the GOP primary debates. It has been updated, edited, and condensed.

Do debates matter?

In general, debates don’t matter that much for presidential votes. Debates are important in inverse proportion to the importance of the office. So, for instance, in presidential debates, most voters know already who they’re leaning to vote for because of political polarization. But if you get down to, say, congressional seats, they may not know as much about members of Congress, and so they learn more about the individual candidates. Presidential primaries can have large fields of candidates. Voters may not know a lot about each one, and so there is an opportunity for a candidate to say something, or to act in a way that sticks in voters’ minds and makes them think more positively about them.

Can winning a debate win elections?

Losing a debate can lose elections. That is part of the problem for those who participate in them. So for instance, you can, as President Gerald Ford did, suddenly “free Poland” in a 1976 debate, accidentally saying it was a free country. And that can be a mistake that the press harps on. But that brings up a point in that it is often the press coverage of debates that matters more than the debates themselves. With Gerald Ford, the press hit on this as a means to say: “Well, Gerald Ford, a nice guy, not really up to the mental demands of the office.”

Take the flip case: Can a comment in a debate make a career? 

Well, a comment in a debate can make a career, but it doesn’t necessarily win an election. For instance, in the vice presidential debate between Lloyd Bentsen and Dan Quayle, Lloyd Bentsen had the well-remembered line: “I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you’re no Jack Kennedy.” I can quote it to you almost verbatim. Yet, of course, Lloyd Bentsen and presidential candidate Michael Dukakis lost that election.

What do we actually learn about politicians from watching them in a debate setting? 

Well, you can learn a lot. Often a debate will pin them down on a position, and they’ll say it in public perhaps for the first time. What can happen is that the answer will provide a baseline for them to actually act upon if they win. That’s an important side effect of debates and really one of their most substantive outcomes nowadays. Debates can just be interesting studies of human behavior.  There are bright lights and some debate moderator peering down from on high. And it’s important to learn how a candidate would behave under such pressure.

Are there any debates in recent American history that you see as especially significant?

I think some of the debates that former President Donald Trump has been involved in have been significant. They did sway at least a few votes. Much of that has to do with Mr. Trump’s behavior in them, as much as anything that he said. For instance, with Hillary Clinton, he ... physically followed her around the stage in a way that some people may have seen as an exertion of dominance, but many others saw as creepy. 

Do you see debates as a good indicator of a candidate’s state of mind? 

I’d say not really. They’re good evidence of candidates’ performative skills. But I’m also a believer in the axiom that there is no such thing as authenticity in politics. There are only different levels of inauthenticity. In that sense, we’re not ever going to really know their actual state of mind. We know their public state of mind, the way they’d like to present themselves to the voters.

Gloria González has been caring for others since she was a child. From the age of 7, she was expected to tend to her little brother and make charcoal to sell.

Like many women in Colombia, Ms. González has frequently struggled to balance the burden of unpaid care duties with the need to work a job to pay the bills.

But two years ago Ms. González, who now cares for her grandchildren, came across a newly renovated building in Engativá, her low-income neighborhood in Bogotá. Inside, the bustling Manzana del Cuidado, or Care Block, changed the course of her life, after dedicating decades tending to others at the expense of her own professional experience and schooling.

“This place reminded me I wasn’t alone,” says Ms. González, beaming from a bench in a flower-filled garden in the multibuilding complex.

In 2020, Bogotá’s municipal government opened its first-ever Care Block in an attempt to recognize the vital, often unpaid work of caregivers like Ms. González. Each of the city’s 23 Care Blocks offers a dizzying range of free services specifically for caregivers, the vast majority of whom are women.

The idea is to recognize and lighten their load, and potentially break down gender stereotypes around who can – or should – provide caregiving. There are on-site laundromats, offices with legal aid and psychological support, sexual health clinics, yoga and dance sessions, and classrooms for study, as well as day care to watch children or relatives while their caregivers use the facilities. 

Peter Yeung

Gloria González, a caregiver who uses the Engativá Care Block in Bogotá, Colombia, is shown in February 2024. More than 30% of Bogotá’s female population – 1.2 million women – provides care full time without being paid, according to City Hall.

After just four years, already there are plans to expand the blocks, not only within Bogotá, but also in other Latin American countries.

“These women are the heartbeat of society,” says Diana Rodríguez, Bogotá’s former women’s affairs secretary, who helped develop the initiative. “We rely on them to raise us, to feed us, to clean up after us. That’s why we have to support them.”

Women shouldering unpaid labor

More than 30% of Bogotá’s female population – 1.2 million women – provides care full time without being paid, according to City Hall. Their work has the estimated value of the equivalent of 13% of the capital’s gross domestic product. 

It’s a similar picture worldwide. There are 647 million full-time unpaid caregivers globally, and nearly 95% of them are women, according to a 2018 report by the International Labor Organization. Women and girls provide 12.5 billion hours of care every day, Oxfam estimates, an output that if valued at minimum wage would be worth $10.8 trillion a year – over double that of the global tech industry. Analysis of data for 89 countries last year by UN Women found that women spend 2.8 more hours than men on unpaid care and domestic work every day.

Bogotá’s Care Blocks – which were created by former Mayor Claudia López, the city’s first female mayor – have been hailed as a groundbreaking effort to address that gendered care gap.

The services are clustered under one roof, and the centers are distributed evenly across the city. That means caregivers here can maximize their limited time instead of having to walk long distances, get stuck in traffic, or make multiple stops for different activities and services.

Peter Yeung

An infant is tended to at the on-site day care at the Engativá Care Block in Bogotá, Colombia, in February 2024. These centers offer child and elder care while their often unpaid, full-time caregivers are temporarily freed up to take classes or tap into resources like legal aid.

The Care Blocks are “a pioneering project in the region,” says Ana Güezmes, director of the gender affairs division of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), because they “address structural challenges that limit gender equality and women’s autonomy.”

Broadly, the program’s three main goals are to raise recognition of the importance of caregiving among the general public and caregivers themselves, to reduce the overall care burden, and to encourage redistributing caregiving duties from women to men.

Feeling free – and valued

The city spends $800,000 annually on the project, and the new mayor, Carlos Fernando Galán, has pledged to continue the work. That includes plans to nearly double the number of Care Blocks to 45 locations by 2035.

Meanwhile, ECLAC is working with federal governments in Chile, Colombia, and Brazil, and with municipalities in Mexico, to design “comprehensive care systems” inspired by Bogotá’s Care Blocks. 

“The creation of concentrated service areas are relevant for any urban context,” says Ms. Güezmes of ECLAC.

But there is still plenty of work to be done.

A 2023 study by the University of the Andes in Bogotá found that Care Block users often gained “a new meaning to care and their role as caregivers” and that the employment support had helped some women, though not many, find paid work.

The greatest challenge, however, has been getting men to take up care work, according to the researchers.

Peter Yeung

A drone offers a view of the Engativá Care Block in Bogotá, Colombia, in February 2024. These centers across Colombia's capital offer on-site laundromats, offices with legal aid and psychological support, sexual health clinics, yoga and dance sessions, and classrooms for study, as well as day care to watch children or relatives while their caregivers use the facilities.

“When we spoke to the caregivers, we noticed there was a change in [that] they saw their work as valuable,” says Natalia Ramírez Bustamante, co-author of the report. But redistributing the “work is much more difficult. It depends on the will of the husbands.”

The researchers also found challenges to accessibility for people with severe disabilities, and that some caregivers still have to travel great distances to reach the nearest Care Block.

And yet, the services have proved popular. Between January and March 2024, more than 45,000 women tapped into the centers’ resources, according to Bogotá’s City Hall. That includes 2,648 caregivers receiving employment training; 743 earning diplomas for information technology literacy and English, among other skills; and 1,822 using the free, on-site washing machines. 

Ms. González regularly does yoga, Pilates, and salsa classes, and uses the laundromat, and she took an entrepreneurial course to help her find work. As of last year, she runs a small shop selling fragrant herbs and essential oils, inspired by her grandmother.

“I have worked all kinds of jobs during my life,” says Ms. González. “But now I feel free; I feel valued. And I have a support network. It’s totally different.”

Solange Martinez visits the Engativá Care Block for English classes while her 18-month-old baby is looked after in the on-site day care. Before discovering this space, “I could barely leave the house,” says the young mother.

“Every day new women arrive to sign up,” says Jenny Paola Molina, coordinator of the Care Block in Engativá. Some centers have proved so popular that women must rotate in and out of the system once every three months so that everyone gets a turn. “Sometimes we have to turn them away,” she says.

On a recent sunny morning in Engativá, a salsa class is kicking off, with music blasting from the sound system. Ms. González is in the mix, moving to the rhythm among dozens of dancers.

“We women,” she says, “are stronger together.” 

Jackie Valley/The Christian Science Monitor

Fifth graders (from left) Deven Doutis, Lana Luu, Parker Poelma, and Kaidence Dees stand in front of a wall highlighting their Let Grow projects at Dennis Ortwein Elementary School in Las Vegas, May 7, 2024. The initiative encouraged them to try tasks or activities independently rather than rely on adults.

Walking the dog. Wrapping a package. Cooking dinner.

For adults, these activities often represent mundane to-do list tasks. But for fifth graders in Las Vegas, they offered something different this past school year – a taste of independence. 

“I can do things by myself more instead of having my dad or my mom do them,” says Deven Doutis, who learned his dog goes a little nuts when he spots another canine out for a stroll.

The small steps toward greater – and lasting – independence came about in a very intentional way. Deven’s teacher, Amy Wolfe, sensed students were entering higher grades with more needs than in past years. Some couldn’t open a water bottle, for instance, or navigate minor conflicts with their peers. So when Ms. Wolfe heard about a program called Let Grow, she decided to pilot it within select classrooms at Dennis Ortwein Elementary School in Las Vegas.

The program’s premise is simple: When children gain independence, they grow into more confident and capable people.

“Kids are kids, right?” she says. “They’re only going to do what they’ve been taught or what they’ve been allowed to do.”

But what, exactly, are kids allowed to do by themselves nowadays? Terms such as “helicopter parent” or “overparenting” have become shorthand to describe adults who are overly involved, sometimes to the detriment of their child’s developmental growth. While certainly not all parents fall into those categories, experts say a societal shift has led to a tighter leash being imposed on children.

A poll conducted last year for C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital at the University of Michigan found that three-quarters of parents say they have their children do things for themselves; however, the percentage of parents who report their children do specific activities independently is lower. Only a third of parents, for example, allow their 9-to-11-year-old child to walk or bike to a friend’s house. A similar portion say they encourage their 5-to-8-year-olds to decide how to spend their own gift or allowance money.

Courtesy of Giwan Istefan

For one of her Let Grow projects, Aria Istefan wrapped a family member’s birthday present by herself.

Safety concerns emerged as the top reason those same parents don’t allow their children more free rein. The results did not come as a surprise to Lenore Skenazy, president of Let Grow and author of “Free-Range Kids.” For years, she has been on a mission to unleash children in a society where they increasingly have little independence in the physical world. In 2008, she penned a column about letting her then-9-year-old son ride the subway by himself. It horrified some readers.

She says the backlash stems from a pervasive, heightened sense of danger built by media narratives and litigious tendencies. 

“It’s just a culture that rewards excessive fantasizing about danger,” Ms. Skenazy says. “And that has become so common that it doesn’t feel like a fantasy anymore. It just feels like prudence.”

In a commentary piece published by The Journal of Pediatrics last year, researchers pointed to evidence showing a correlation between children’s dwindling independence and increasing mental health problems over several decades.

“We are not suggesting that a decline in opportunities for independent activity is the sole cause of the decline in young people’s mental well-being over decades, only that it is a cause, possibly a major cause,” the authors wrote. (The lead author, Peter Gray, is a research professor in psychology at Boston College and a founding member of Let Grow.)

In Ms. Wolfe’s classroom each month, students chose an independent activity, loosely tied to a theme, and completed it by themselves. Then they reported back to their classmates and teacher about the experience. There were no grades or critiques. If Ms. Wolfe asked any probing questions, it was to suss out how her students felt after, say, baking a cake or pulling weeds.

Her hope is that their newfound confidence carries into the academic realm, especially considering the American education system is built around increasing independence through elementary, middle, and high school.

“It’s more about developing the conversations with students to where they see independence ... as a value,” she says.

Schools can be a part of a “collective solution,” Ms. Skenazy says. Rather than feeling alone in granting their children independence, parents will be doing it together and seeing the benefits.

For her first project, Giwan Istefan’s 11-year-old daughter, Aria, decided to make miniature lemon-and-blueberry cheesecakes. Ms. Istefan says it turned into an exercise in parental restraint as well.

“I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I see the disaster happening,’” she says. “But I had to step back. It was growth not just for her, but it was growth for also myself.”

Even so, Ms. Istefan says she supports the idea of fostering more independence among children. She remembers playing outside as a child until the streetlights turned on. Nowadays, she sees kids engrossed in their electronics, playing video games or endlessly watching YouTube videos. She hasn’t allowed her daughter – a fifth grader this past year at Ortwein Elementary School – to have a cellphone yet for that reason.

She worries about the long-term ramifications if younger generations aren’t forced outside their technology bubbles.

With summer starting, Ms. Skenazy encourages parents to set aside unstructured playtime for their children. Maybe neighbors could band together, she says, and leave Friday afternoons open for their children to play outside.

Parker Poelma, another recent fifth grader at Ortwein Elementary, discovered a new outdoor hobby through the project. He finally decided to give skateboarding a try – even if it initially meant falling off multiple times.

His takeaway: “I am surprisingly tougher than I thought.”

Under a moonlit sky, a chorus of singing and drumming rises from the forested hills of the Mescalero Apache Reservation. Masked and body-painted crown dancers circle around a raging bonfire. Representing the mountain gods, they offer blessings and protection to Seaven Martinez, a 13-year-old who herself is dancing inside the tipi behind them. For four days and nights, she performs traditional rites of passage that will usher her into womanhood.

Mescalero Apache coming-of-age ceremonies are typically conducted from late spring through autumn and are only for girls. Banned from 1883 to 1978 by the federal government, which sought to coerce Native Americans into the Christian mainstream, the ceremonies were performed rarely, and in secret, for decades. Today, they are held openly for family and friends to celebrate and support the young women of their tribe. 

Throughout the ceremony, Seaven wears a buckskin dress adorned with beads and little metal cones that jingle. Among the rituals she performs, the one most central is the dancing. Over three nights, she learns and practices her steps, for hours, inside what is called the “big tipi.” On the fourth night, she dances from dusk until dawn, to the rhythms of rattles and songs. 

“We sing about everything,” chanter Byron Blake says. “The cattle hide she dances on, the tipi poles, the rattles, the mountains, the sky, and all of the animals – on land, under the ground, in the air.”

At its heart, the ceremony teaches girls to draw on the inner strength they never knew they had and gives them the knowledge that, “when they feel weak, they can pick themselves up and push through it,” says tribal member Courtney Naiche. Ms. Naiche was hired to help cook for the ceremony’s feast. 

Women who have gone through the ceremony themselves look back and say that it changed them. As one elder, Donalyn Torres, reflects, “It’s brought me this far; it taught me how to live.”

Michael Benanav

What’s known as the “big tipi” is erected at sunrise before the ceremony begins.

Michael Benanav

Huge amounts of food are prepared for the throngs of people who have come to support Seaven during the ceremony.

Michael Benanav

Medicine woman Uretta Platta stands behind Seaven Martinez on the first morning of Seaven’s coming-of-age ceremony.

Michael Benanav

One of the masked crown dancers, representing the mountain gods, performs near a bonfire during the ceremony.

Reuter

Consumers check products – and prices – at a wholesaler in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Nearly seven months after taking office, Argentine President Javier Milei has begun to tame one of the worst economic crises in Latin America. His spending cuts and currency reforms have drastically cut high inflation. The government has seen its first budget surplus in 16 years. And with a strong mandate from voters, he has made some progress in Congress to pass reforms – despite his party being in the minority.

Much still needs to be done, such as reducing nearly $400 billion in foreign debt and privatizing state-owned enterprises. Yet, concludes a paper by the United Kingdom-based Economics Observatory, the changes so far mark “the first time since the turn of the century that Argentina is purposefully addressing the deep-rooted cause of all its economic struggles.”

To a large degree, Argentina is following the path of Greece, which faced a similar financial crisis 15 years ago. Greeks endured years of economic austerity, aided by a renewal of official honesty – such as data transparency and better tax compliance – and the resilience of individual citizens.

Mr. Milei’s biggest challenge may be in keeping a political consensus for his difficult reforms. He has brought key opposition figures into his Cabinet. And in a June 13 vote in the Senate, he won incremental changes that mix spending cuts with measures to strengthen cooperation between national and local officials.

In March, Mr. Milei asked ordinary citizens for their “patience and trust.” The reforms enacted so far have exacerbated hardships. The percentage of people living in poverty has reached the highest it’s been in 20 years (57.4% nationally). Yet two polls this month found that as many as 63% of citizens are willing to stay the course.

Their confidence may rest on a willingness of Argentina’s political leaders to work together with transparency. “It was crucial that he showed that he can work with the opposition to get something approved,” Eugenia Mitchelstein, a political analyst at the University of San Andrés in Buenos Aires, told The Wall Street Journal. “If everything is a conflict, and no negotiation, he won’t get anything done.”

Mr. Milei received similar advice this week during a brief visit with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. While Argentina makes far-reaching economic reforms, it is important to protect “social cohesion,” Mr. Scholz said. Greece won that key battle. Argentina seems ready to do the same.