Kevin Mohatt/Reuters

Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris attends a campaign event in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, Aug. 7, 2024.

Time was when Vice President Kamala Harris was seen as just a well-connected young lawyer in San Francisco, invited to all the right parties.

Then through a friend, she reached out to Mark Buell, a prominent Democratic donor. Thus began Vice President Harris’ path to a career in politics. 

Mr. Buell, in an interview, recalls their first lunch meeting in 2002 to discuss her idea of running for city district attorney. He wasn’t sure at first if Ms. Harris had what it took.

“The more I listened to her, the more I recognized that, one, she’s extremely smart. And two, she’s got enormous energy,” Mr. Buell says, speaking by phone from San Francisco. “It was clear she had fire in the belly.” 

By the end of the lunch, Mr. Buell had offered to be Ms. Harris’ finance chair in what turned out to be a successful race, defeating the incumbent. He worked with her, showing her how to ask donors for money. And she did, smashing expectations for a novice fundraiser – and putting herself on the California political map. 

George Nikitin/AP/File

San Francisco's new district attorney, Kamala Harris (right), with her mother Dr. Shyamala Gopalan holding a copy of The Bill of Rights, receives the oath of office from California Supreme Court Chief Justice Ronald M. George (left), during inauguration ceremonies, Jan. 8, 2004, in San Francisco.

Today, Ms. Harris stands on the cusp of history, quite possibly the next president of the United States. If she succeeds, she would be the first woman to reach that height, and a woman of color to boot.

Harris’ DNC test: defining herself to the American public

The consecutive barn-burner speeches by former President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, Tuesday night at the Democratic National Convention conveyed a sense that Ms. Harris is, in a way, the heir to the Obama movement. A sense of “hope and change,” the old Obama mantra, was in the air. Mrs. Obama didn’t mention President Joe Biden once.

Ms. Harris’ path to this moment, addressing the convention tonight as the party’s presidential nominee, hasn’t been easy. She stumbled early as vice president, including a botched, high-profile TV interview. Her habit of laughing awkwardly and uttering vague talking points set her up for unflattering memes. 

But when President Biden abruptly stepped down from his reelection bid a month ago, Ms. Harris seized the moment and hasn’t looked back. 

“She has found her voice,” says California Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna.

Now Ms. Harris faces her biggest challenge yet: the battle to define herself with Americans – before GOP opponent Donald Trump and his campaign get there first. 

More than one-third of registered U.S. voters say they don’t know what Ms. Harris “stands for,” according to a CBS/YouGov poll taken last week. 

The “change” candidate? 

Ms. Harris is addressing this challenge in the gutsiest of ways, pitching herself as the “change” candidate, despite her nearly four years as Mr. Biden’s vice president. The Trump campaign, meanwhile, is trying to lash the unpopular Biden record around her neck like an albatross, starting with “Bidenflation” and the immigration crisis. She’s been dubbed the “border czar,” an unflattering twist on her early assignment to address the root causes of illegal migration. 

Lacy Atkins/San Francisco Chronicle/AP/File

Kamala Harris (second from left) looks at poll results with family members at the Hotel Vitale, Nov. 2, 2010, in San Francisco, California.

Paradoxically, Ms. Harris’ early stumbles as VP might save her in a way. She took a lower profile, as Mr. Biden and his inner circle – Washington fixtures for decades – seemed to distance themselves from her. A turning point came in June 2022, when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the ruling that guaranteed a nationwide right to abortion. Ms. Harris became the administration’s point person on reproductive rights. 

Now, with abortion rights a top issue for some demographics, including suburban women and young voters, and appearing on the ballot in several key states, Ms. Harris is well-positioned to make it a central focus. It’s a tricky issue for former President Trump. He boasts of appointing the justices who helped overturn Roe, while also trying to distance himself from unpopular Republican efforts to ban abortion nationwide. 

The issue is galvanizing for Democrats across the country, but that alone won’t win the election for Ms. Harris. She needs to be prepared to speak comfortably on an array of issues when she sits for media interviews and in her debate with Mr. Trump on Sept. 10, political analysts say. 

Likability and the sexism challenge

Ms. Harris also needs to be “likable,” as former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton discovered the hard way when she lost the 2016 race to Mr. Trump, albeit only in the Electoral College, analysts add. 

Not only would Ms. Harris be the first woman president, she is a woman of color – a twofer in the effort to break the ultimate glass ceiling. As such, her tricky task is to speak with the authority necessary to project presidential power while not being perceived by some voters as off-putting. 

“She has to tread this line,” says Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University, noting the “trope of the angry Black woman.” 

In her debate four years ago against Vice President Mike Pence, Ms. Harris cut him off multiple times as he tried to interrupt her. “I’m speaking,” she said tersely, seeming to channel her past as a prosecutor.

Kevin Lamarque/AP

Vice President Kamala Harris works while flying on Marine Two, en route to Chicago O'Hare International Airport, Aug. 20, 2024.

She uses a similar line now on the campaign trail when pro-Palestinian protesters try to disrupt her events, and it plays well with the crowds. 

A larger question of sexism and misogyny also looms large over Ms. Harris’ historic run. Some say she may be a beneficiary of Mrs. Clinton’s prior campaign. 

“The advantage Harris has right now is that Hillary took a lot of incoming, and I think shamed a lot of people – and frankly a lot of people in the media – and taught them a bit about how to cover women in politics,” Ms. Walsh says.

Ms. Harris is also clearly benefitting from the relief many Democrats are feeling over her sudden rise to the top of the ticket – and the fact that she didn’t face the attacks of a competitive primary to get there. Her last presidential campaign, launched in 2019, began with great excitement at her opening rally, then fizzled amid infighting and a lack of clear political positioning. Her one bright spot was a tense exchange with Mr. Biden over race and busing.

Harris hones political skills – and joy

One supporter from her first presidential campaign – Jason Palmer – is here in Chicago as the candidate who beat Mr. Biden in March in the Democratic presidential caucuses in American Samoa. As soon as Mr. Biden dropped out of the race, Mr. Palmer released his delegates to Ms. Harris. 

Charles Rex Arbogast/AP

Vice President Kamala Harris hugs President Joe Biden during the Democratic National Convention, Aug. 19, 2024, in Chicago.

Why did he support Ms. Harris back in 2019? 

“What stood out to me then is sort of what’s standing out to everybody else now,” Mr. Palmer says. “It’s that when she’s allowed to be herself, she’s kind of fun and joyful and interesting as a person.”

Mr. Palmer, an investor in startups, also appreciated the policy ideas in Ms. Harris’ 2009 book “Smart on Crime,” and is eager for her campaign to focus more on policy.

To those who have known Ms. Harris a long time, the steady improvement in her political skills has been visible – from her start as district attorney to becoming California attorney general, then U.S. senator, vice president, and now presidential nominee. 

“Her level of confidence about herself has just improved with every job she’s had since the beginning,” says Mr. Buell, the San Francisco donor, who has played a role in her other campaigns. “There’s a little less, almost no nervous laughter. She’s speaking slower, and in convincing ways. She’s her own self.” 

As a father of six children, Utah state Sen. Kirk Cullimore is no stranger to the joys and rigors of parenting. His youngest is 9 years old, and his oldest is 20, just entering early adulthood. 

And yet, as the years go by, one parenting challenge has remained stubbornly constant for him and his wife, Heather: their kids’ ever-present phones. 

When it comes to setting limits on his children’s screen time, Senator Cullimore says he has fallen short. The Republican lawmaker suspects he is not alone – and that’s just one reason he helped make Utah the first jurisdiction in North America last year to pass legislation attempting to limit kids’, and especially students’, access to social media.

“Some parents do think they’re doing a good job,” he says. “If you’re doing a good job, kudos to you and great job. But the reality is that there are many of us who are trying, and it’s too big of a problem.”

On a hot day in the suburban Salt Lake City district Senator Cullimore represents, five of his six children gather around a conference table in his law office to talk about their experiences. Their phones are nowhere in sight.

For the next hour they discussed the good, the bad, and the ugly of their social media habits. Ordinarily, they say, being without their screens would be an agonizing ordeal for them. 

But the family has just returned from an Alaska cruise that had spotty internet connection. The involuntary hiatus from the digital worlds they inhabit so often wasn’t easy. But they appreciate how it made them prioritize hanging out with each other and their cousins.

Jackie Valley/The Christian Science Monitor

Utah state Sen. Kirk Cullimore and his wife, Heather (at center), stand in his law office in Draper, Utah. They are surrounded by five of their six children: (from left to right) Kapri, Kobe, Kya, Keeley, and Kynda.

After the cruise, when they could finally get service at the airport, the allure of logging on to Instagram didn’t feel so strong, says 16-year-old Kapri. “I was like, ‘Cooool,’” she says slowly, with a pantomime of surprise. “It wasn’t that important.”

Her father knows these reactions might not last very long. And the discussion is important. But it’s going to take a lot more to address the amount of time young people devote to social media. “We need everybody,” Senator Cullimore says. 

New laws seek to minimize social media harm among young users

Indeed, more and more parents, educators, and lawmakers are starting to view the problem as an untamed beast. As a result, there has been a sea change in public sentiment across the United States and Canada, about kids and their smartphones. There’s been a growing sense that social media is changing, and in some ways robbing, children of their childhood. 

Utah’s pioneering efforts last year helped open the floodgates to a wave of legal efforts to address the amount of time children and teens spend glued to their phones.

Experts say it has been a watershed moment, akin to major shifts around other health issues such as tobacco use. By the end of last year, at least a dozen U.S. states had approved laws or enacted resolutions seeking to minimize social media harm among their youngest users, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Many other states are poised to pass even more this year.

“Like seat belt laws and tobacco regulations enacted years ago to protect our physical health, and especially our kids, today I’m calling on Utahans to join me in supporting commonsense solutions, working together to protect the mental health of our young people,” Republican Gov. Spencer Cox said in a speech in 2022. 

He signed the first restrictions into law in March 2023. They included banning kids under age 18 from using social media between 10:30 p.m. and 6:30 a.m. and requiring age verification for all new accounts. (Tech companies immediately challenged these in court, and they have since been revised.)

What has unfolded throughout North America since then has been a three-pronged strategy: legislation and school policies that attempt to reduce the time children spend on their phones, lawsuits against social media companies, and broader awareness campaigns for parents and kids.

Jacob Turcotte/Staff

“There are different models of accomplishing change, and I think we’re going to need all of them here, legislative, public, school boards, litigation, everything that can be brought to bear on this to create the change that we need to see,” says Duncan Embury, lawyer for a coalition of school boards in Ontario suing social media companies in a first-of-its-kind case in Canada.

Lawsuits place blame squarely on social media companies

Nancy Crawford is the chair of the Toronto Catholic District School Board, and for the past 14 years she’s watched how students have been changing.

She says their attachment to tech is something that has worried her again and again. From her office in the building of the Cardinal Carter Academy for the Arts, she describes observing high schoolers crouched over their phones outside at the end of a school day. Even in the warmth of late spring, she says, this takes priority over talking to their peers face-to-face.

She worries about the ever-present technology that surrounds her grandchildren as they grow up in this era. 

“What happened to books?” she says. “What happened to them running around outside? It’s become increasingly obvious that something’s not good here.”

So Ms. Crawford’s Catholic school district has become one of 12 public school boards and two private schools in Ontario that have joined Canada’s first school-driven lawsuit against social media companies. 

The lawsuit, filed this spring, accuses three tech giants of knowingly creating addictive social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok. These 14 Ontario schools and school boards allege these applications have compromised students’ ability to learn and are creating increasing mental health harms.

“Most court cases don’t affect this many people, this deeply,” says Mr. Embury.

So far, Ontario has been the only Canadian province to take such action. But in the U.S., such litigation has exploded over the past year.

At least 44 U.S. states have filed lawsuits against social media companies. Separately, more than 200 American public school districts have also filed similar lawsuits. 

The legal arguments are generally similar: They accuse the Big Tech companies of intentionally designing highly addictive products and then marketing them to children and teens, those most vulnerable to emotional manipulation.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford, a successful businessman, thinks the school board lawsuits are unnecessary and that schools should focus on education. “Let’s focus on math, reading and writing,” he said in the spring when the Ontario case was filed.

At almost the same time, however, his administration embraced the legislative approach, passing province-wide rules that limit students’ use of their smartphones. 

As of this September, these rules will require that all phones in Ontario schools be kept on silent and hidden from view, except between classes and during lunch. In elementary schools, phones must be silent and out of view the entire day.

Rick Bowmer/AP

A ninth grader places her phone into a holder on the wall as she enters class at Delta High School in Delta, Utah, Feb. 23, 2024.

Arming parents with digital literacy know-how

Paul Davis, a social media expert and activist in Ontario, has made a living talking about the dangers these applications pose to children. But he says lawsuits like those the Ontario school districts have filed are frivolous, and he’s been a critic of a lot of the legal efforts happening. 

He worries that the province’s new smartphone ban is less restrictive than the rules some principals have already implemented – thus undermining local efforts already underway. 

“We don’t need a lawsuit,” says Mr. Davis, taking a pause at a coffee shop outside Toronto before heading into back-to-back presentations scheduled later in the day. “We need no phones in elementary school, zero tolerance. And we need no kid on social media until 13.”

He’s been sharing this message for the past 13 years, visiting schools and talking to kids and educators about the risks phones pose and what to do about it. And he’s clear on who must take control: parents.

“We are giving our children far too much at a young age,” says Mr. Davis, who’s delivered a TED Talk on the topic. “Parents don’t quite understand how much power is in that device that’s in their child’s hands.”

Jacob Turcotte/Staff

Matthew Johnson, director of education at MediaSmarts, a digital literacy organization in Ottawa, Ontario, also focuses on parents. He says they are in part to blame. Many don’t regulate their own social media habits, let alone their children’s. 

Two-thirds of young people report it was their parents who gave them their first phone, his organization’s latest annual survey found. The reason most give is so parents can contact them at any time.

But the concern for the safety and location of their children clashes with the unintended side effects these powerful communication devices create, he says. This includes the isolation of phone use in lieu of exploring physical spaces.

“At first parents were more often concerned about quite uncommon and extreme experiences like stranger contact and online predators,” he says. “And that changed over time to be focused on the more common but fairly significant things like cyberbullying and online disinformation and hate content. 

“And more recently, we’re seeing concerns just generally about simply the amount of time they’re spending on their phones,” Mr. Johnson says.

Andres Kudacki/AP

Two teen sisters keep their smartphones close while having dinner in New York, Jan. 27, 2024.

Some see in the current reactions to social media the same kind of moral panics in both countries at the onset of television or, more recently, video games. And while parents are no longer going it alone to limit their children’s access to social media, some critics argue they should be: This is a matter for the home.

Experts like Mr. Johnson also worry about the focus on addiction, which he believes distracts people from the real issues.

“Unfortunately, there is a tendency to default to the addiction framing,” he says. “And this is a really counterproductive framing, because what it really does is it absolves us of responsibility,” he says. “It says that the device or the app is the problem, not us. It says that we have no control.”

Why one teen gave up her smartphone entirely

When Liddy Johnson was in seventh grade in South Weber, Utah, right at the top of her Christmas list was, no surprise, a smartphone. She was overjoyed when her parents obliged.

They restricted her from every social media app except Pinterest, however. Her parents felt the popular app had a good enough reputation as an “inspiration board” for cooking and crafts.

These stringent parental restrictions also included a digital curfew. But what began as occasional scrolls through Pinterest soon morphed into hours of surfing each day, says Liddy, now 16 years old. And it wasn’t long before she discovered how to post videos on the site.

“All of a sudden, people were noticing me,” she says. The “likes” were emotionally intoxicating, fueling a need for what she describes as “fake validation.” She began to withdraw from family and friends. She watched her grades suffer. She started fighting more with her parents. 

“Everyone was just so angry at me for not wanting to do anything,” she says. “And I was angry at myself.”

Then, in her first few months in high school, she reached a breaking point. After an argument with her mother one morning, she confessed to breaking her parents’ phone rules. She was constantly craving access to social media, she told her, all while feeling depressed to the point of thoughts of suicide. 

Her mom took her for a drive. They ended up at a diner, where the high school first-year student sobbed over eggs. She handed her phone to her mother, and agreed to go to therapy.

This moment, after nearly two years of watching her daughter slip into isolation, provided some clarity. She had a serious social media addiction. 

“It all clicked,” says Corinne Johnson, Liddy’s mother. “Of course. This makes complete sense,” she remembers thinking after her daughter’s confession at the diner.

Jackie Valley/The Christian Science Monitor

Liddy Johnson (at left) holds up the flip phone that replaced her smartphone after she confessed to her mother, Corinne Johnson (at right), that she felt addicted to social media.

The senior policy adviser for a Salt Lake County Council member, Ms. Johnson is also the president and co-founder of Utah Parents United, a conservative advocacy group for parental rights. She’s been working to support Utah’s legislative efforts to address what she’s experienced firsthand as a serious problem.

Normally, her nonprofit seeks to keep the government out of decisions that it believes should be reserved for parents alone. But now it’s become a mantra for Ms. Johnson, the governor, and other lawmakers: This problem is too big for parents alone.

“We did, as an organization, realize there are times and places where we need the support of our government to hold Big Tech and billion-dollar companies, who view our children as products, accountable,” Ms. Johnson says.

Surgeon General warns parents about teen consumption of social media

The U.S. surgeon general, Dr. Vivek Murthy, issued an advisory last year that warned of the “growing evidence” that links growing mental health problems to the amount of social media children and teens consume.

Nearly one-third of adolescents report using screens until midnight or later on weekdays, mostly scrolling social media, the advisory noted, citing a number of published studies. One-third of girls reported that they felt “addicted” to their social media apps. 

On top of that, nearly half of all children between ages 13 and 17 say social media makes them feel worse about their bodies. Another two-thirds report they’re often exposed to hate-based content on their apps.

Given this growing evidence, Dr. Murthy this summer called for a surgeon general’s warning label to be posted on social media platforms. 

Jacob Turcotte/Staff

The surgeon general’s advisory also coincided with the publication of Jonathan Haidt’s “The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness,” a New York Times bestselling book that observers say has put a chill in parental hearts.

Mr. Haidt argued that this generation, smartphone in hand, is at once the most overprotected and the least protected. Overprotected from the “real world” but left alone in a vast, wild, and dangerous world online.

In February this year, Liddy testified about the dangerous spiral she experienced before a Utah House committee, sharing her story in support of legal restrictions on social media use. She’s hoping to spare others from what she experienced.

“It costs government more money when you have kids with major mental health issues,” says Aimee Winder Newton, senior adviser to Governor Cox and director of the Office of Families. “And when you have people who end up in the criminal justice system or end up in poverty and homelessness, those are drains on government.”

Liddy says she feels fortunate to have climbed out of her social media obsession. These days she owns a basic flip phone featuring a flowery case. She rarely texts her friends. But she’s even more old-school than that now: 

“Instead, I plan times to hang out with them,” she says.

Removing temptation with magnetically-locked phone pouches

Granger High School in West Valley City, Utah, has implemented a relatively new approach to restricting the use of smartphones: locking them away in a specially designed pouch that students keep with them.

Jake Crandall/Montgomery Advertiser/USA Today Network/Reuters/File

A pouch made by the California-based company Yondr sits in a student’s backpack at Percy Julian High School in Montgomery, Alabama.

Tyler Howe, principal of the 3,500-student school, does not want this innovative approach to be labeled a “ban,” however. That wording denotes a negative connotation, he says. The reality might be very positive for students, and he hopes the locked pouches will create a “phone-free environment” that spans bell to bell. 

Designed by the California-based company Yondr, these soft pouches seal students’ phones inside with a magnetic lock. While Granger requires students to keep their phones locked the entire school day, in other schools, students can disengage these locks at designated “unlocking bases” in unrestricted areas. These pouches have also been used at concerts and comedy clubs. 

But Mr. Howe hopes he will see fewer students bowing over their devices in the hallways and at lunch. In other words, it’s not just about reducing distractions in the classroom.

“We want to see healthy, embodied relationships and the communication that happens face-to-face, smile to smiles,” he says.

While school districts have been in many ways leading the litigation against Big Tech companies, they have also been at the forefront on the ground in trying to find the right policies to limit access to social media during school. 

States are trying to help, again with legislation. Florida last year passed a law requiring all public school districts to ban cellphone use in the classroom. Louisiana and South Carolina did the same. States such as Indiana, Ohio, and Virginia require districts to have policies limiting student phone use. 

Many school districts are acting on their own. Large school districts in Las Vegas and Los Angeles have announced more restrictive cellphone policies. New York City, the nation’s largest school district with 1.1 million students, is planning to ban all cellphone use during the school day, starting next year. State leaders in New York, too, are considering similar statewide measures.

Keith Srakocic/AP/File

Students at Washington Junior High School use the unlocking mechanism to open their magnetically-sealed phones, in Washington, Pennsylvania.

NetChoice and the tech company backlash to social media restrictions

But the tech companies are fighting back. At the end of last year, under the aegis of the trade group NetChoice, the companies countersued Utah’s pioneering laws, arguing that while well-intentioned, their restrictions were unconstitutional, restricting access to public content, compromising data security, and undermining parental rights.

This forced Utah to scale back some of its efforts to limit kids’ use of social media in the evenings and require age verification measures. “Whether we had the perfect bill or not, we expected legal challenges,” says Senator Cullimore, a floor sponsor for the legislation.

The revised bill requires social media companies to disable addictive scrolling features, boost privacy settings, and arm parents with more tools to monitor and limit their children’s time on the apps.

Opponents haven’t backed down. NetChoice updated its lawsuit after Utah’s revised legislation this year.

“Utahans – not the government – should be able to determine how they and their families use technology,” said Chris Marchese, director of the NetChoice Litigation Center, in a statement announcing its revisions.

At the end of July this year, however, the U.S. federal government joined the massive fray when the Senate overwhelmingly passed 91 to 3 a bill that would force social media companies to take reasonable steps to prevent harm and exercise a “duty of care” to protect children.

Despite this lopsided bipartisan support, the bill faces fierce resistance from tech companies. It also has drawn deep concerns from free speech advocates like those at the American Civil Liberties Union, who argue these measures would chill individual expression and harm marginalized groups. 

Young people remain divided on social media controls

Earlier this year, Canada, meanwhile, introduced its own nationwide Online Harms Act, which attempts to reduce harmful content on social media sites.

Some younger people, not surprisingly, are also a bit skeptical of the absolutes they are hearing in the debate. Canadian Liv Miller knows how powerful social media is. As a middle schooler, when she got her first digital device, she remembers having to navigate new social norms in friend groups.

Some of the lessons were hard. She was harassed online after she founded a mental health initiative called Bridges of Hope. But today she works for Jack.org, a charity empowering youth to tackle mental health challenges, and she uses social media often to advocate for mental health resources for young people.

It has been a lifeline for LGBTQ+ communities in rural areas, for example. And schools and workplaces increasingly demand a high level of social media savvy. 

“I think we should be empowering youth to be part of these conversations, giving them space to say, ‘Well, actually, that is what my boundaries are,’ because they are experts in their own experience,” Ms. Miller says.

American Charlie Bartels, heading to Ohio University this fall, agrees that apps are not the problem. She recalls scrolling on social media for up to six hours a day in middle school, fixating on photos of women who seemed impossibly thin. She wished to be like them. But she says these are conversations for parents, teachers, and kids.

“If your kids are struggling with body issues and your first concern is, ‘What’s wrong with the app?’ and not, ‘Why didn’t they feel like they could talk to me?’ – that’s a problem,” Ms. Bartels says. 

“When politicians are like, ‘This app is ruining my kids’ – have you talked to your kids this week? Have you had a meaningful conversation this week?”

At the Cullimore household in Utah, conversations about social media arise more often than the senator’s kids probably want. But they’re still allowed to use their phones. 

For the younger children, that generally means surfing YouTube. The older siblings have progressed to mostly using Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat.

Jacob Turcotte/Staff

Kynda, now 18 years old and in college, says she supports the Utah legislation her father sponsored. “I feel like that could be really helpful with a lot of things,” she says, mentioning the ability to complete homework without constant distractions.

Utah’s new social media restrictions are set to be in place Oct. 1 this year. Kapri’s not so sure schools need to entirely banish phones, though.

“In class, I get it because it’s kind of disrespectful,” the 16-year-old says. “But I feel like if we’re just having our free time, we should be able to have our phone.” Still, she adds, “When we’re with our friends, we try and not be on our phones.”

Unless they’re filming a TikTok dance.

Staff writer Danish Bajwa contributed reporting from Boston.

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School choice, civil rights, and a possible Project 2025 agenda are fueling debates in the U.S. about public schooling. Monitor education reporter Jackie Valley explores how education is playing out in the 2024 presidential race?

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One obstacle keeping people from careers in teaching is the cost of training. Can a trade school model work for educators?

Kids as cooks and dog walkers? How one elementary school encourages independence.

What does being independent look like for children? A school in Las Vegas encourages students to take on hobbies and activities on their own – in hopes of building more confidence and growth.

Kevin Mohatt/Reuters

Supporters of hostages kidnapped during the Oct. 7 attack demand their immediate release, protesting outside a hotel where U.S. Secretary of State Blinken stays in Tel Aviv.

This week’s urgent push for a cease-fire in Gaza has underscored a paradox that is straining America’s most important alliance in the Middle East: its bond with Israel.

As U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken emphasized to reporters on his latest Mideast mission, Washington’s commitment to Israel’s security has remained rock-solid since Hamas’ killing and abduction of more than 1,000 Israeli civilians last Oct. 7.

But the war raging in Gaza for the past 10 months has pushed that relationship in a different direction, adding significantly to political tensions that have been building during Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s 16 years in power.

The result could be a lasting redefinition – and a loosening – of a decades-old partnership.

Much will depend on how long the war lasts, how it ends, whether the plight of Gaza’s Palestinian civilians can be relieved, and whether a wider regional conflict can be averted.

Also decisive will be whether Mr. Netanyahu remains in power, and whether U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris retains the Democratic Party’s hold on the White House this November. Both of those outcomes look decidedly more possible than they did just a few weeks ago.

But while America’s security commitment is not about to weaken, the broader fabric of a relationship that both sides have defined as resting on shared values, as much as on common interests, is showing every sign of fraying.

Kevin Mohatt//Reuters

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is greeted by Qatari Minister of State Dr. Mohammed bin Abdulaziz Al-Khulaifi, in Doha, Qatar, where he attended Gaza peace talks.

One reason for Washington’s reinforced military support since Oct. 7 – some $14 billion, in addition to the nearly $4 billion in annual U.S. assistance – has been President Joe Biden’s emotional attachment to an earlier period of political kinship with Israel.

But the security connection runs far deeper. It has been built on years of close cooperation on military matters, intelligence, strategy, and technology – buttressed by shared security priorities during the Cold War and, more recently, the threat posed by Iran and its allies.

As Mr. Blinken stressed this week, the bond also serves an immediate U.S. interest: to deter any Iranian move that could spark direct conflict with Israel and a regional war.

And the security commitment retains broadly bipartisan support in the United States.

But that’s become less true of the wider U.S.-Israeli relationship. And the growing political strains between Washington and Israel over Gaza could bury the prospect of such a consensus for the foreseeable future.

That’s a change that began to take root more than a decade ago, in which Mr. Netanyahu played a central role.

While the U.S. was the first nation to recognize Israel in 1948, the partnership that both sides came to see as a “special relationship” began after the Six-Day War of 1967, in which Israel defeated the armies of three Arab neighbors that rejected its right to exist as a state.

There have been periodic strains since then. But Israelis on both left and right, along with the country’s military and security establishment, always agreed on the importance of safeguarding the broadest, strongest possible partnership with its most important overseas ally.

That began to change under Mr. Netanyahu, especially during Barack Obama’s presidency.

Where Israel had previously cultivated bipartisan U.S. ties, Mr. Netanyahu focused on galvanizing support from America’s political right and from Republican leaders in Congress.

The most dramatic sign came as Washington was finalizing a multilateral agreement with Iran to limit its nuclear program. Mr. Netanyahu accepted a Republican invitation to address a joint session of Congress, where he argued against the deal.

The tension that caused with Washington resurfaced more recently, when Mr. Netanyahu chose in late 2022 to rely on a pair of anti-Arab parties for his parliamentary majority. That obliged him to support permanent Israeli rule over the occupied West Bank and to seek to limit the independence of Israel’s Supreme Court.

The war in Gaza has further exacerbated the strains.

Late last month, Mr. Netanyahu again accepted a Republican invitation to address a joint session of Congress, amid election-year divisions within Mr. Biden’s party over policy on Gaza.

J. Scott Applewhite/AP

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu waves before addressing a joint meeting of Congress to seek support for Israel's fight against Hamas and other adversaries.

There has also been growing tension over the urgency of securing a cease-fire, the level of civilian casualties, and, above all, Mr. Biden’s longer term vision for Gaza and the Middle East.

Mr. Biden is determined to forge a joint project with Israel and key Arab allies, including Saudi Arabia, to reconstruct Gaza, reopen the possibility of an eventual two-state peace between Israel and the Palestinians, and cement a regional partnership to constrain Iran and its allies.

With Mr. Netanyahu’s majority dependent on his extreme-right partners, it is far from clear he’ll be willing to give the ground necessary for that to happen.

Instead, he could be counting on being able to avoid difficult policy choices should Donald Trump return to the White House.

That could repair relations with Washington, as long as both men remain at the helm.

But it might also cement a lasting change in the nature of the U.S.-Israel relationship.

The term both sides sometimes used in years past – “special relationship” – had echoes of America’s ties to Britain. That bond has endured regardless of which party is in power in Washington or London, because it is based not just on security interests, but also on history, culture, and shared political institutions and values.

The security bond between the U.S. and Israel does still seem likely to stay strong.

But just how special the relationship remains could now be at the mercy of the political winds blowing in both countries.

No woman has ever been president of the United States. And Kamala Harris is only the second in history to be a major political party’s nominee for the post.

However, Germany has already been led by Angela Merkel and the United Kingdom by Margaret Thatcher, Theresa May, and Liz Truss. Giorgia Meloni, Mette Frederiksen, Ingrida Šimonytė, and Evika Siliņa are the current heads of government for Italy, Denmark, Lithuania, and Latvia, respectively. And Ursula von der Leyen was just tapped for another term in one of the European Union’s most powerful positions, president of the European Commission.

So why has female political leadership become so normalized in Europe, when it remains so rare, particularly at the highest levels, in the U.S.?

The answer, experts say, comes from a mix of factors embedded in both European and American media and culture. Partly it lies in Europe’s focus on work-life balance, gender quotas in government, and proportional representation – which allows parties to choose female leaders rather than the public needing to directly elect them.

Media treatment of women is also a significant factor. Around the globe, female candidates generally get fewer mentions than men, and when U.S. media do focus on female candidates, they are more likely to highlight personal traits rather than professional achievements. That can reinforce gender stereotypes and complicate how women politicians navigate the political environment.

“The difficulties that American female candidates face – it is a laundry list. It is so incredibly pervasive, the many ways in which they are challenged,” says Laurie Nsiah-Jefferson, director of the Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy at the University of Massachusetts Boston. “The focus is on physical appearance, tone, background. And voters are perfectly willing to vote for a man for a high office that they think is qualified, that they don’t necessarily like. But they’re not as willing to vote for women they think are qualified, that they don’t like.” 

Liesa Johannssen/AP

Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel attends an event in Berlin, May 23, 2024.

A supportive environment in Europe

European countries generally have strong welfare states, which emphasize economic safety nets, work-life balance, social equality, and other policies that help ease the path for women to run for office.

“The important difference is the structure of the welfare state, such as high-quality child care, high-quality public education, high-quality eldercare, and the kinds of things that are especially important for women in order to be able to have a working life and a family life,” says Lena Wängnerud, a political scientist at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden. The Scandinavian countries have particularly strong welfare states, she says, and women have also had the most success in achieving high political positions there.

Proportional representation – in which parties must gain only a plurality, rather than a majority of votes, to win the seat – also helps boost female politicians in Europe, she says. Under this system, parties can deploy strategies to run more than one candidate per district, or reserve “every second seat for a woman,” or some such gender quota to achieve higher levels of female representation, says Dr. Wängnerud. 

Majoritarian systems like those in the U.S. and the U.K. “tend to have fewer women elected, because then women need to be not only the winning candidate for the party, but the winning candidate in the district,” she says.

Additionally, the first-past-the-post voting model used by the U.K. and the U.S. raises a financial barrier that particularly affects women, says Kristina Wilfore, an elections specialist and co-founder of the advocacy group #ShePersisted. “It takes $8.9 million to run for a congressional seat” in the U.S., and men are more easily able to tap sufficient fundraising networks, she says. 

Vincent Thian/Reuters

Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni attends a meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Beijing, July 29, 2024.

Media representations of female candidates also matter. In the U.S., media are more often privately owned enterprises with profit directives – and hence an incentive to be more sensational. This is in contrast with European countries like Germany, where many media houses receive state funding. 

And while negativity and stereotyping is rampant everywhere, U.S. media might be more prone to repeating these kinds of messages about female candidates, argues Dr. Nsiah-Jefferson.

“There are huge levels of racism in Europe, you know, France, India, Germany, and everywhere else. My sense of the difference is, How much attention is this getting in the news? It doesn’t get as much of a media flurry as it does [in the U.S.].”

Overall, women everywhere also get fewer mentions in the media than their male counterparts. This “underreporting” leads to perceptions that make them seem less likely to win, writes Amanda Haraldsson, a social sciences researcher based in Vienna, in an email.

And in the U.S., when women do get media coverage, they are usually billed as new and unusual candidates who are made to seem very exceptional, “putting pressure on these female candidates to be perfect,” says Dr. Haraldsson.

“Think of [Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez] – any small misstep she takes will be given a lot more attention than a male counterpart, including clothing or makeup choices, or the type of emotion she displays.”

John Locher/AP/File

Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton speak during the second presidential debate of 2016 at Washington University in St. Louis, Oct. 9, 2016.

Sexism and media scrutiny

Despite Europe’s wide representation on the list of countries that have had women leaders, European female politicians still face a far-from-perfect landscape.

There’s a large variation across the Continent, with women in Scandinavian countries faring best. And when women in Europe do run for office, their treatment by the media and by society hasn’t always been positive. 

When Annalena Baerbock was announced as the German Green party’s candidate to replace Chancellor Merkel in 2021, the gendered attacks began immediately. She was frequently targeted with sexist tropes and misinformation campaigns that claimed she would ban household pets and eliminate widows’ pensions.

The British tabloids have been notoriously sexist as well. In 2017, the Daily Mail published a picture of Nicola Sturgeon, the first minister of Scotland, and Ms. May, the British prime minister, sitting in knee-length skirts next to the headline “Never Mind Brexit, who won Legs-it!”

“Many European countries have seen women elected to the highest level of office, [but] sadly this does not mean that female candidates in Europe are much better off,” writes Dr. Haraldsson.

In terms of identity, Ms. Harris has more factors working against her than did 2016 presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, says Dr. Nsiah-Jefferson. “Women of color are twice as likely as white candidates to be singled out in terms of misinformation, disinformation, and also sort of these violent threats online. And on top of that, you’ve got the internet and social media at another level than when Hillary was running. You’ve got [right-wing social media platforms] Truth Social, Rumble – these particular sites are influential and somehow pipeline to mainstream media.”

On a positive note, sexist treatment of Mrs. Clinton actually had the effect of encouraging more political engagement among young women, says Dr. Haraldsson.

“So there is some hope that, both in America and Europe, young women can be politically activated when they see female role models treated in a sexist way,” she says, “and perhaps lead them to take the plunge into politics themselves in the future.”

Brian Snyder/Reuters

Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. addresses the Libertarian Party's national convention in Washington, May 24, 2024.

President Joe Biden’s abrupt exit from the 2024 presidential race right on the heels of the Republican National Convention last month put an immediate halt to former President Donald Trump’s momentum. Now, a third-party candidate may return the favor by stepping on the Democrats’ gathering just as it ends. 

Independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s campaign has announced he will make a major speech about the future of his race on Friday, the day after the conclusion of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Multiple publications have reported that he plans to drop out – and that he is in discussions to endorse Mr. Trump. That would be the first good news for Mr. Trump since Mr. Biden abandoned his campaign and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris a month ago.

Mr. Kennedy, a former Democrat whose late father and uncles are iconic figures in the party, could help bring a majority of his remaining supporters into the Republican fold.

Dennis Kucinich, a former Democratic congressman and presidential candidate who ran Mr. Kennedy’s campaign until last October, says he thought his friend’s exit from the race could help Mr. Trump significantly in such a close race.

“It has the potential to be very helpful for President Trump in battleground states where a point or two separates him and Vice President Harris,” he says. “Kennedy has support among populist Republicans, and I’m sure he’ll be able to bring them back in the fold for Trump.” 

Gaining a strong following – then fading

Polls have shown for months that Mr. Kennedy is now more popular with Republicans than Democrats. At one time, he had been siphoning slightly more voters from Democrats, according to national and state polls. But since Vice President Harris moved to the top of the ticket, she pulled back many Democratic voters who had previously been unhappy with their major-party choices – including many Kennedy supporters.

Mr. Kennedy’s support has been slowly eroding from a high of around 15% in national surveys. He was polling at 8% in mid-July and is down to 4% now, according to the New York Times’ polling average. The majority of those still supporting Mr. Kennedy now are more likely to back Mr. Trump than Ms. Harris if he leaves the race. That could make a big difference in a presidential election that polls currently show is a coin flip.

Mr. Kennedy came into the race with some big assets. First and foremost, his legendary name helped draw interest and press curiosity. He’d long been a popular environmentalist; later he became a more controversial figure due to his vocal public skepticism of vaccines. His antiestablishment stance attracted many voters who’d grown distrustful of institutions, particularly in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Whom RFK Jr. supporters might vote for now

Not all of Mr. Kennedy’s supporters would be keen to vote for Mr. Trump, despite a possible endorsement.

Ray Tretro, a New Jersey retiree, voted for Democrats in the past two presidential elections but had planned to vote for Mr. Kennedy this time around. He says he would “lose respect” for Mr. Kennedy if he endorses Mr. Trump, and would “most likely” vote for Ms. Harris instead.

Vicki, a retiree in upstate New York who had planned to vote for Mr. Kennedy, says she’d already voted for Mr. Trump twice and she “really didn’t want to do it again, because the lesser of two evils don’t work for me.” But now, she’s likely to cast a reluctant vote for Mr. Trump. 

Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Trump have been in talks for more than a month about Mr. Kennedy dropping out and endorsing the Republican ticket. Mr. Kennedy’s son posted a video to X of the two speaking by phone in mid-July, right before the Republican National Convention. “We’d love you to do something. And I think it’ll be so good for you and so big for you. And we’re going to win,” Mr. Trump can be heard saying to Mr. Kennedy. The two then met in person in Milwaukee. 

On Tuesday, Mr. Kennedy’s running mate, billionaire Nicole Shanahan, said that she and Mr. Kennedy were debating whether to stay in the race and “risk” a President Harris or drop out and “join forces” with the Trump campaign. 

Mr. Trump told CNN on Tuesday that he “probably would” consider giving Mr. Kennedy a role in his administration.

“I like him a lot. I respect him a lot,” Mr. Trump said. “He’s a very different kind of a guy – a very smart guy. And, yeah, I would be honored by that endorsement, certainly.”

What Democrats are saying about RFK Jr.’s departure

Democrats for their part downplayed how much impact Mr. Kennedy’s exit would have on the race.

“He was a spoiler from the beginning,” former Democratic National Committee Chair Tom Perez says with a shrug.

“I didn’t think he was going to have that much of an impact. And eventually, I think he realized he wasn’t going to have that much of an impact,” former New York Rep. Joe Crowley says. “I think [his exit] probably cuts both ways to some degree.”

Mr. Crowley says he knew Mr. Kennedy a bit back when he was a state legislator from Queens, and Mr. Kennedy was an environmental activist working alongside folk music icon Pete Seeger to try to clean up the Hudson River.

“I gotta think Pete Seeger’s rolling in his grave right now with what Bobby Kennedy’s doing politically,” he says. “It’s just antithetical to everything Pete Seeger ever stood for.”

Ironically, Democrats had spent more than a year flaying Mr. Kennedy and his campaign because they were concerned about his ability to draw votes away from their nominee. 

Democrats fought to keep Mr. Kennedy off the ballot in numerous states, worried that he could be a spoiler for their chances. The Democratic National Committee has been sending regular blasts attacking him, and the liberal group MoveOn has highlighted his controversial views and connections to Mr. Trump.

“As we’ve been saying for months, RFK Jr. is a tool for Trump,” MoveOn Political Action Executive Director Rahna Epting said in a statement.

Staff writer Story Hinckley contributed to this report.

The song coming from the St. Mary Orthodox Church meeting room in Cambridge, Massachusetts, has never been heard before. And it will never be heard again. 

Fourteen singers stand in a circle of metal folding chairs, improvising an organic cacophony of harmonious and discordant sounds. Some tap their feet, sway, or bob their heads to the rhythm – but no two people engage with the music in quite the same way. 

In CircleSinging, there’s no sheet music, no director, no pitch pipe. There’s an art to it, but not a pretentious one. 

“It’s really all about following. Following well,” organizer Peter McLoughlin explains to the group between exercises. Mr. McLoughlin is not a teacher or a director. He gently sets the group in motion, and then blends into the circle as a participant. 

“Everybody’s welcome, and we’re not as concerned with whether you’re an excellent singer or you are an excellent harmonizer,” he says before the rest of the singers arrive. 

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

Organizer Peter McLoughlin conducts a song during a CircleSinging meeting Aug. 18, 2024, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He is not a teacher or a director, but gently sets the group in motion, then blends into the circle as a participant.

The Boston area’s CircleSinging community – tucked away in church meeting rooms in Cambridge, Arlington, Somerville, and the Jamaica Plain neighborhood – is part of an international network of CircleSingers who delight in the spontaneous art form. 

The improvisational singing technique was developed by jazz musician Bobby McFerrin, best known for his 1988 hit song “Don’t Worry, Be Happy,” the first a cappella song to go No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Mr. McFerrin’s vocal jam sessions relied on a call-and-response model, in which a leader improvises one vocal part at a time and other singers repeat those “loops.” Any singer can volunteer to lead a composition.

Cambridge organizer Mr. McLoughlin started the first of the four Boston-area circles in 2015 on Meetup.com, inspired by Mr. McFerrin’s “magnificent” rendition of Psalm 23. The looping choruses and complex harmonies reminded him of the music surrounding his own Catholic upbringing. He was hooked.

Mr. McLoughlin learned the technique from Mr. McFerrin himself, attending his weeklong workshops once a year for seven years. Then CircleSinging Boston was born in Mr. McLoughlin’s living room.

Each of the four Boston groups, run by different organizers, holds two-hour meetings that prioritize openness. One Boston CircleSinger, Maureen Root, says her favorite exercise starts by singing a random word – not for its meaning, but for its sounds.

“So it’s like these different vibrations and things come out,” Ms. Root says. “It’s almost like you’re bypassing the mental circuitry. ... It gets me out of my self-conscious mind.”

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

Destiny Cooper, a Boston Children’s Chorus conductor, guides a CircleSinging group in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Aug. 18, 2024. Ms. Cooper started attending CircleSinging events after college when she moved to Boston and didn't know anyone.

Some CircleSingers have no prior musical or singing experience, like Ms. Root, a retired medical technologist and yoga and meditation instructor of more than 30 years.

“To me, this is a really beautiful opportunity to observe one’s habits and tendencies and also how one interacts with groups,” she says.

Some singers vocalize with the roundness of choir vowels; others make primal noises with their mouths and tongues. During the July 14 circle, when one singer jokingly ad-libs in French in honor of Bastille Day, others giggle through their notes. 

Less-experienced singers like Ms. Root share a circle with vocal professionals like Boston Children’s Chorus conductor Destiny Cooper, who moved to Boston after college, “knowing not a soul.” In experimental CircleSinging, a far cry from her familiar structured choirs, she found belonging.

“Most of the members are significantly older than me, but nonetheless, I think that community was really important to give me a sense of home,” Ms. Cooper says. Since joining the group about five years ago, she never missed a circle until the pandemic.

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

J.P. Sevilla and others in a CircleSinging group meander inside the circle during one of the songs.

The singers have coalesced into an intergenerational network of friendship. While the group harmonizes, Rebecca Booth-Fox’s 5-year-old daughter dances around the perimeter of the room or occupies herself with coloring and stuffed animals. Many singers have known Ms. Booth-Fox since before her daughter was born.

“Seeing life changes – that’s what makes the group really special, and seeing people still come together with those life changes,” Ms. Cooper says.

Before and after having a child, Ms. Booth-Fox found “pure joy and pleasure and support” in CircleSinging, a rare free activity.

“It’s really nice to know that I was accepted and valued to just come as I am,” she says.

Arlington CircleSinging organizer Lynn Rosenbaum leads her meetups with all singers in mind.

“I tend to think of the arc of where we start and where we end, and bringing people along, building their confidence and their skills,” says Ms. Rosenbaum, a seasoned improv singer herself. “There’s usually a big difference between the beginning and the end, especially for new people – in their level of comfort and how much they’re willing to take risks.”

Just as singers of diverse experience levels are welcomed into the fold, so are singers of varied backgrounds, including those who are blind or have other disabilities.

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

Organizer Peter McLoughlin creates a "word cloud" with words that resonate with participants after a CircleSinging session.

“Singing together and playing together – I say ‘playing’ as in ‘playfulness’ – it just creates a connection among people,” Ms. Rosenbaum says. “It’s a common denominator that we can all connect to.”

Ms. Rosenbaum kept the group alive during the pandemic by organizing virtual circles. 

“[CircleSinging is] just this opportunity to express our full range of emotions and letting it out through our voices and our bodies,” Ms. Rosenbaum explains. “There’s not always a lot of opportunities in everyday life to do that, so this creates a safe space for people to be silly and explore and take risks and express joy.”

Reuters

A bulldozer in Formosa, Argentina, removes trees from a forested area in the Gran Chaco last year.

A vast woodland at the heart of South America called the Gran Chaco is home to a dizzying diversity of plants and animals as well as humans who have long relied on its abundance. It also has one of the world’s highest rates of deforestation. Now this wilderness, which stretches across four countries, is attracting interest for something else: a court ruling aimed at saving the integrity of the forest in order to save the integrity of human society, especially its most vulnerable.

On Monday, a judge in Argentina temporarily suspended all logging activity in the Gran Chaco area within that country’s borders. A final ruling awaits an investigation into an alleged corruption scheme involving government officials and timber companies. Yet even in her initial ruling, Judge Zunilda Niremperger noted this reason for the suspension: “The felling of a tree could mean not only harm to the global environment. ... Environmental damage has specific relevance for indigenous peoples, children, people living in poverty, people with disabilities, minorities, and the differentiated impact it has on women.”  

Worldwide, forests are shrinking annually by an area roughly equivalent to the size of Ohio. Roughly half of global deforestation results from illegal logging, a highly profitable crime that requires bribery at almost every link in the supply chain from timberlands to lumberyards.

In recent decades, global measures to label the origin of forestry products have helped importers to at least identify illicit supplies more easily. Now, however, the urgency of climate change is driving more cooperation to address what’s sometimes known as green corruption with greater transparency. Earlier this year, for the first time, the annual conference of countries that have signed on to the United Nations Convention Against Corruption focused on environmental crime.

That focus on firming up a norm of honesty in forestry coincides with trends shaping the world’s response to climate change. Global agencies are supporting local investigations of forestry corruption in countries such as Ghana, Indonesia, and Ukraine. Similar efforts are sharpening scrutiny of graft in the mining of metals.

Tackling climate-related corruption, according to Transparency International, is a way to ensure that governments are held accountable, allow broad public participation in decision-making, and release official data.

In her ruling, the judge in Argentina has put the focus on the way to sustain a forest for all forms of life that live off it. Trees are not just about clean air. They are also a living indicator of honest governance.