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

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

Read these news briefs.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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