Tens of millions of Americans turned out for a mostly calm Election Day, after a surge of early voting that could point to another high-turnout presidential race.

Some states reported technical problems and bomb threats to polling stations, spurring counties in Georgia and Pennsylvania to extend voting hours. In Florida, a state website where voters can find their polling locations crashed, as did some county websites, though election officials said this should not affect ballot casting and counting.

But most voters went to the polls on Tuesday without incident and walked away having marked ballots for federal, state, and local candidates after a presidential campaign of high drama, record-high spending, and charged rhetoric.

Nearly 85 million citizens cast votes early, taking advantage of in-person voting and postal ballots, the use of which was expanded during the pandemic election of 2020. In many states, this led to shorter-than-expected lines at polling stations and fewer reports of delays in casting ballots than in past elections.

In Michigan, which expanded voting options in 2020, nearly half of all registered active voters cast ballots early, according to Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson. North Carolina has also seen higher levels of early voting, including in western counties slammed last month by Hurricane Helene.

Reba Saldanha/Reuters

Tony Ehrman shows his shirt after voting in the presidential election on Election Day, in North Woodstock, New Hampshire, Nov. 5, 2024.

“I don’t want to say it’s a slow day, but it’s a reflection of so many people that have already voted,” Jay Young, senior director of voting and democracy at Common Cause, a nonprofit, said at a press briefing.

Mark now, scan later

In Republican-leaning Cambria County in Pennsylvania, a critical swing state, precinct ballot scanners failed to function correctly on Tuesday, forcing voters to mark paper ballots that officials said would be scanned later. The county board of elections obtained a court order to extend voting access for two hours, until 10 p.m.

Two polling locations in the Atlanta area of Georgia, another swing state, will also stay open later tonight by 30 minutes after early-morning evacuations over bomb threats that Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said had originated in Russia. Law enforcement sweeps found no sign of explosives at Fulton County sites, which reopened to voters. Noncredible bomb threats were also reported at schools in Maine.

Nevada is closely contested in both the presidential race and the seat held by Senator Jackie Rosen, a Democrat. On Tuesday, Laura Beth Gwiazdowski cast her ballot at a polling station in Las Vegas, having decided not to vote early. She said it felt more secure than using a ballot box.

Like many voters, Ms. Gwiazdowski said that she has concerns about the post-election process, given the polarized debate over the presidency and the potential for violence. “I’m hoping that the country can start to have conversations about politics again without name-calling, without calling them the enemy within, and things like that,” she says. “We’ve got enough that divides us. It’s time that we start acting like human beings again.”

Douglas R. Clifford/Tampa Bay Times/AP

Faith Denison holds her son, Lincoln, moments after casting her vote at the Centre of Palm Harbor, Florida, for the 2024 general election on Nov. 5.

In Mesa, Arizona, Doug Ellis said that he felt a similar foreboding. Retired from the fire department, he’s an independent who voted early for Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, primarily to support abortion access. But his nerves were still jangling, he said on the eve of Election Day.

Divided voters are tired of arguing

“Scared – oh my gosh, my heart is just bleeding,” he says. “How we can become polarized and enemies – and hatefulness that drips from it.”

He says that the animosity mainly was from Republicans, citing a row he had with a man with whom he plays racquetball, who called Ms. Harris “evil” because of her stance on abortion. “I had to step back,” he says. “I want abortion. Am I evil? We have this divide that cannot be solved.”

Around 244 million adults are eligible to vote in the 2024 election, which will determine who will occupy the White House and which party will control the chambers of a narrowly divided Congress. In 2020, turnout was 66.8%, the highest in decades, according to U.S. Census data. In 2022, midterm elections also drew higher-than-normal participation, including in states in which abortion rights were on the ballot after the Supreme Court ended the federal right established by Roe v. Wade.

The two presidential contenders have been placing bets on high turnout within their coalitions. For former President Trump, that means primarily working-class men who don’t vote regularly but align with his pugilistic politics. For Ms. Harris, the focus has been on voters of color as well as suburban women who support reproductive rights, including moderate Republicans.

Yuki Iwamura/AP

Volunteers check the ballots at the Bronx County Supreme Court in New York on Election Day, Nov. 5, 2024.

Turnout rates in elections vary by age and class. Low-income citizens are less likely to cast a ballot than upper-middle-class voters, and younger voters are also less inclined to vote. In 2020, turnout among voters with incomes of $100,000-$149,000 was 81%; among voters who reported earning $30,000-$39,999, that proportion fell to 64%, according to the U.S. Census.

Campaigners in North Carolina had feared Hurricane Helene’s impact on voting in some of the 25 counties in the mountainous west of the state after towns, bridges, and roads were swept away or inundated there. State election officials expanded options for registering voters and for early voting in the Republican-leaning region. Communities used tents on Tuesday as polling stations, as some schools and fire stations where voting often takes place were either damaged or stocked with relief items.

Stormy weather, early voters

In Hobart, Wisconsin, the weather wasn’t too inviting on Tuesday, but at a polling station inside a sports bar, there was a steady stream of voters. Many arrived early before heading to work, braving rain and wind as a cold wind tore through the woods outside Green Bay, yet another closely fought swing district in a state decided by tight margins.

Eddie Smith had stayed up to vote after finishing his shift at 4 a.m. as a blackjack dealer at the Oneida Casino. A Democrat, he voted for Ms. Harris and described Mr. Trump as “dangerous,” citing his rhetoric and intent to “weaponize the government.”

Chris Gresham, who works at a printing plant in De Pere, also showed up early to vote in person. He voted for the third time for Mr. Trump, whom he said “is concerned about the same things the average American is concerned about, which are the border and the economy.”

For Jenna Jamgochian, a first-time voter in Dearborn, Michigan, Election Day was a day of excitement. She went to the polls with her twin sister and her father, Todd, who called the experience “exhilarating.”

“I was telling my dad I feel so important because everyone is watching Michigan,” says Ms. Jamgochian. “It definitely feels like I have a say in this election.”

Staff writers Sarah Matusek, Jackie Valley, and Sara Miller Llana, and special contributor Richard Mertens contributed to this report from Mesa, Arizona; Las Vegas; Dearborn, Michigan; and Hobart, Wisconsin.

A disaster of a debate. A party in panic. A nearly successful assassination attempt of a former president on the eve of his party convention. A candidate switcheroo. Another assassination attempt. A hurricane that devastated swaths of two key swing states. The successful hacking of one campaign and an aggressive disinformation campaign against the other – linked by investigators to Iranians and Russians, respectively. A deluge of dire warnings from both candidates about grave damage to the United States if the other side wins.

If this election were the third installment of a movie series, critics would say it had jumped the shark.

Only 131 days have passed since President Joe Biden’s disastrous presidential debate set off a chain of events that forced him from the race and reshaped the battle for the White House. The intervening four months – especially the 107 days since he dropped out of the race and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as his replacement on the ticket – have been one of the more frantic campaign stretches in recent memory.

Whichever candidate wins will make history, for better and worse.

Ms. Harris would be the first woman, the first person of Indian descent, and just the second Black person to become president. She would also be the first major-party presidential nominee in more than a half-century to get there without first having to run the gauntlet of a primary campaign. Democrats fell in line fast behind Ms. Harris’ campaign following Mr. Biden’s late departure and immediate endorsement. The last candidate to be nominated by a major party without winning over its voters in primary elections was Democrat Hubert Humphrey, who went on to lose the presidency to Richard Nixon in 1968.

Former President Donald Trump would become just the second president in U.S. history to return to office after losing – and the first since Grover Cleveland in 1892. He’d also become the oldest president to enter office – he turned 78 in June and would be a few months older than President Biden was when he was inaugurated in 2021.

He also would be the first convicted felon to assume the presidency, having been found guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records related to hush money payments to keep adult film star Stormy Daniels’ allegations of an affair under wraps. The judge in that New York case delayed sentencing until Nov. 26. That date looms if Mr. Trump loses this election.

It’s likely that two other criminal cases against Mr. Trump for his actions following the 2020 election – one a federal case, the other in Georgia – would begin to move once again as well. The specter of legal peril – and likelihood that if he wins it all goes away – raises the personal stakes of this election for the former president in a way that’s never existed before in American politics.

Two “change” candidates?

Ms. Harris’ late entrance into the race, and Mr. Trump’s well-defined image from four years in office and a decade in the political arena, made for an unusual dynamic in which both candidates sought to claim the change mantle.

Mr. Trump and his team fought hard to tie Ms. Harris to Mr. Biden and voters’ frustration with the high inflation that cropped up during his term, running ads with clips of her praising “Bidenomics.” They also sought to paint her as an extreme liberal, spending heavily on ads with clips of her during her 2019 presidential primary calling for federal prisons to offer gender-affirming care to incarcerated transgender people. Those ads concluded with the line “Kamala is for they/them. President Trump is for you.” They also hammered her on border security, citing the high number of border crossings for much of the Biden-Harris administration.

Ms. Harris’ team prioritized introducing her to voters early in the race. Their first ads focused on her middle-class upbringing and sought to improve voters’ views of her economic priorities with spots promising she’d work hard for the middle class. She also pivoted hard on immigration, with ads highlighting her work as California attorney general prosecuting transnational gangs.

Her campaign attacked Mr. Trump for appointing the Supreme Court justices who ended the longstanding national right to abortion access, while flaying him for promising more tax cuts to wealthy people in a second term and highlighting the numerous former Trump administration officials who have said he shouldn’t be given another term in office.

Very different closing messages

The final weeks of the campaign brought a sharp contrast in tone. Mr. Trump faced heavy criticism for a campaign rally at Madison Square Garden in New York City where he and multiple other speakers used harsh, controversial rhetoric – with one line from a comic calling Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage” breaking through. On Sunday, Mr. Trump seemed to joke about journalists being killed and said he “shouldn’t have left” office in 2021. Ms. Harris delivered her closing message with a carefully orchestrated rally on the National Mall where she rhetorically reached across the aisle – and an ad in which she promised to be a “president for all Americans.”

In the era of modern polling, a presidential race has never appeared this close. Polling averages have regularly missed the actual result in recent presidential cycles. This year, there’s a real chance that polls could be understating the support for either candidate.

They might be missing supporters of Mr. Trump who aren’t eager to interact with establishment pollsters. Or they might be underestimating Ms. Harris’ coalition, possibly missing support from pro-abortion-rights women furious over the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.

But if the polls are right, it could take a long time to figure out who won this race, especially in key swing states like Arizona, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Nevada, where counting ballots can take longer. And if Ms. Harris narrowly prevails, Mr. Trump and his team have signaled that he is likely to claim victory on election night, and, as in 2020, may try to overturn a close election loss.

That would mean the 76 days from now until the presidential inauguration could be even more turbulent than the past few months.

Rachel Wisniewski/Reuters

A Board of Elections staff member demonstrates the extraction process, in which return envelopes are opened and the secrecy envelope is removed, during a walk-through of the ballot counting center in Philadelphia, Oct. 25, 2024.

Americans’ trust in the electoral process has fallen steeply in recent years, fueled in part by the fact that many don’t have a clear understanding of the steps involved in mailing, tracking, securing, and counting ballots. 

To that end, the Monitor took a closer look at the entire life cycle of a ballot in Pennsylvania, one of the most contested states in the 2020 presidential election. 

Though Pennsylvania’s legislature had adopted mail-in voting just prior to the pandemic, the state – particularly the Democratic stronghold of Philadelphia – became a focus of complaints from then-President Donald Trump and Republicans that a rapid scaling up of mail-in voting amid the pandemic made the election less secure.

Mr. Trump brought dozens of lawsuits to bolster his claims that the election had been “stolen,” but none proved fraud.

Voting processes are highly localized in the United States. But examining the process in Philadelphia will give a sense of methods and procedures for securing ballots. This explainer is based on interviews with city commissioners, a tour of an election warehouse, and publicly available government information.

Applying for – and returning – mail-in ballots

In Pennsylvania, any registered voter can apply for a mail-in ballot, without providing a specific reason for why they want it. Nonpartisan election staffers review these applications and send a list of approved voters to a printing vendor, The Phoenix Group of Companies. The Phoenix Group prints a ballot for each green-lighted application. 

Caitlin Babcock/The Christian Science Monitor.

The inside of an election warehouse in Philadelphia is seen in a quiet moment, Oct. 25, 2024. On Election Day, poll watchers stand inside this gated area as they watch votes being counted.

When an application is approved and a ballot is mailed to a Pennsylvania voter, election workers enter a record of that ballot into a statewide database. Voters can track their ballots on the Department of State’s website, and find out when their application is processed, when the ballot is put in the mail to them, and when the voted ballot has been safely returned. 

Mail-in voters in Philadelphia County can drop it off in person at an election office, return it in the mail, or leave it in one of 23 drop boxes monitored with 24/7 video surveillance. A County Board of Elections team daily picks up ballots and drives them in a city car to an election warehouse. Ballots that voters submitted at an election office are also driven to that warehouse daily, and the U.S. Postal Service delivers ballots returned in the mail directly there. 

Spotting mistakes – and giving voters a chance to correct them

At the warehouse, election staffers check ballots for problems that could prevent them from being counted. They put ballots through sorting equipment that measures their thickness to ensure they have a secrecy envelope, inside which voters are supposed to seal their ballot. The equipment also checks for a signature. Then, staff members check the outer envelopes of ballots to make sure voters dated them with the date they filled out the ballot.

Each Pennsylvania county has its own rules about what to do when it finds mistakes. 

In Philadelphia, election officials will reach out directly to voters if they have their email on file. The county also posts a list of voters whose ballots had errors on its website. Sometimes political parties or campaigns check these websites and reach out to the voters directly. 

If a voter finds out that their ballot had a mistake, they can try to fix it by sending in a replacement ballot or by filling out a provisional ballot on Election Day. 

Each ballot is tied to a specific barcode, which prevents a voter from voting twice. 

A provisional ballot is like a placeholder – it records the voter’s choice, and if counted it would replace a voter’s defective mail-in ballot. 

Rachel Wisniewski/Reuters

A Board of Elections staff member prepares a street list at the ballot counting center in Philadelphia, days before the 2024 election.

The election warehouse where ballots are stored

Once a mail-in ballot has been registered and checked for mistakes, clerks time-stamp it and lock it with other ballots in a large cage until Election Day. Only clerk supervisors can unlock them, which requires their badge ID and an access code.  

Election staffers count mail-in ballots in the warehouse on Election Day, and a mandatory postelection audit takes place here afterward. Fences and camera surveillance protect it year-round, and when ballots start coming in, security guards are brought in. 

Election Day: letting ballots out of their cages

In Philadelphia, poll workers look voters up by name in poll books as they come in, and check that they’re in the right precinct and haven’t already voted by mail. First-time voters in the precinct have to show identification, though this doesn’t have to be a photo ID. Voters fill out ballots privately, and submit them into an ExpressVote XL voting machine. The machine will detect problems with ballots – say, if the voter selected two presidential candidates – and alert the voter. 

When polls close at 8 p.m., teams from the Philadelphia Police Department pick up ballots from polling places. An election judge, who oversees operations at a polling place, will have prepared two bags for the police teams – one large sack containing the ballot bags from each voting machine, sealed with a string, and a smaller zippered vinyl bag with the USB sticks that store the voting machines’ electronic records. The judge waits at the polling place until the police arrive. Each team of police will pick up ballots from several polling places and drive them back to the election warehouse. 

Meanwhile, election staff will have taken mail-in ballots out of their cages in the warehouse at 7 a.m. Around 150 election workers – a blend of temporary staff, full-time civil servants, and voting machine vendors – start the process of preparing these ballots for counting. In one cluster of desks, staff members scan outer envelopes for any mistakes that weren’t caught before, and then put them through an extractor that slices open the tops of the envelopes, revealing the secrecy envelopes inside. 

After repeating this process for a tray of ballots, election staffers walk the bundle of secrecy envelopes down to a separate set of tables a few steps away, where they are similarly sliced open. The reason the secrecy envelopes are moved is to make sure that no staff member can see both the outer envelope, which has the voter’s identifying information on it, and the corresponding ballot. Finally, staffers flatten the ballots by hand, and scan them through the same voting machines that are used in polling places. 

Rachel Wisniewski/Reuters

The secure ballot storage can be seen at the ballot counting center in Philadelphia, Oct. 25, 2024.

If a voting machine detects a problem with a mail-in ballot, it’s up to full-time election staffers to decide whether it can be counted. Their decisions, along with a photo of the ballot, are displayed on a screen so that poll watchers – representatives of a political party or candidate who are authorized to observe the election process – can observe how the decision was made. If they disagree with a decision, they can bring a challenge to the election judge. 

Electronic results, then a hand-counted audit

Once ballots have been scanned, the Board of Elections posts the electronic results – the results on the machines’ SD cards – in batches on its website. Until election results are certified, the ballots are stored in a second cage. Accessing that cage also requires a badge ID and a code.

Before certification, the ballots go through a mandatory audit within 20 days of the election. That consists of county employees counting a random sample of ballots by hand and making sure their total matches the electronic results. 

Once the audit is done, the Board of Elections sends these results to the Department of State to be certified. After certification, ballots are moved to a back room in the warehouse and stored for 22 months, according to federal law. 

Then the ballots are put in an acid bath, destroying any trace of them. 

On a 1,000-acre plot of land in New Albany, Ohio, 15 miles northeast of Columbus, dozens of cranes tower in the sky, their jibs and booms moving while hooks swing back and forth. They are building, and their work will beget more work for many years to come. Intel is coming.

The semiconductor behemoth based in Silicon Valley is building two chip manufacturing plants at a cost of $20 billion. The company estimates they will bring 3,000 new jobs to this Rust Belt state.

“Ohio is benefiting from reshoring that’s happening in the U.S., and [with] the investment that’s happening at a federal level as well as the state level, there’s no doubt about it,” says Scot McLemore, executive-in-residence at Columbus State Community College.

Like an NFL general manager, Intel has cast a wide net to recruit talent to fuel its workforce. CSCC is one of several community colleges that Intel has partnered with in Ohio to build curriculum. The company donated $50 million to these schools and other education initiatives across the state.

“We are becoming more focused on that talent demand, and we’re identifying barriers that are preventing us from getting more individuals in our communities into those pathways,” Mr. McLemore adds.

Columbus is the fastest-growing city in the state, and Intel is one of several Fortune 500 companies that have made major investments in the surrounding area. To prepare for its arrival, Intel wants to be sure that it has workers ready to go when the new campus opens in 2027 or 2028. In partnerships like the one with CSCC, the company has shared information on its chipmaking process with schools and designed curriculum to ready students for entry-level positions that require anything from a certificate of completion to an associate degree or higher.

This is a major step in moving the dial on postsecondary career and technical education, or CTE. It comes during a nationwide push to bolster middle-skill labor, and get Americans to work. It also coincides with companies dropping degree requirements for certain positions, and more Americans being skeptical about the high cost of a college degree.

Doral Chenoweth/The Columbus Dispatch/USA TODAY Network/Reuters/File

Work continues on the Intel chip manufacturing facility in New Albany, Ohio. When completed, Intel's two plants will employ 3,000 workers. In addition, some 7,000 construction jobs are expected to be created.

“They want to revitalize Ohio back to the manufacturing hub that it once was,” says Mark Mahoney, assistant dean of the engineering technologies department at CSCC. Dr. Mahoney says that a big company like Intel coming to the area brings attention, and that attention will bring other companies. That’s already happening in Ohio.

Honda, which has had plants near Columbus going back to the early 1980s, announced a $700 million investment to retool them for production of electric vehicles. Additionally, the car company announced a $3.5 billion investment/partnership with LG Energy Solution to produce the batteries to power them, via a new plant in Fayette County, 40 miles southwest of Columbus. Biotech and pharmaceutical companies also are opening offices in the Columbus area.

“The whole fabric of society rests upon labor”

To capture the ethos of the area, look no farther than Front Street, near the entrance of the 14-story-tall Ohio Supreme Court building. The marble building has an inscription guarded by two female lions that reads, “The whole fabric of society rests upon labor.”

The state legislature in Ohio has invested millions in postsecondary CTE, such as the program at CSCC. These programs can be in the form of boot camps and one-time certificate-level accreditation for employees to get their foot in the door, or degree programs at community colleges. This helps fulfill the middle-skill jobs that President Joe Biden has repeatedly touted. Bolstering the economy with skilled workers has been a bipartisan theme. This comes as colleges are facing an expected enrollment cliff: Over the next 10 years, 15% fewer college-aged students are projected to enroll in universities.

Skylar Eastman and Addison Swartz are among those looking for a different path. When the high schoolers emerge from lockers in the welding lab at the Delaware Area Career Center, they already look like professionals. They wear fire-resistant jackets; helmets with auto darkening to protect against ultraviolet and infrared rays, as well as flying sparks; and welding caps to protect their hair. To add flair, Addison shows off inch-long pink-and-white nails that she designed herself.

The only two girls in the welding program are standouts, chosen as ambassadors for their community college and already capable of crafting metal chairs and barbecue smokers. Both of them want to get straight to work.

“My parents have the money for me to go to college, but one thing that I looked at was if I’m going into welding and I’m guaranteed a job, and I’m guaranteed to be working for the rest of my life,” Skylar says. She will be moving to Nashville, Tennessee, after graduation to work with her aunt and uncle at their welding business.

Addison is also sold on welding.

“I wouldn’t want to spend thousands of dollars and put myself or my family in debt,” she says. Neither of her parents attended college, and she says that they built good lives for themselves. Addison feels as if she got a leg up by learning a trade in high school. She and Skylar are set to graduate with three different welding certificates and one for operating a forklift.

“If you have the opportunity to go to a trade school for high school, it’s definitely a lot cheaper for people and it’s a way better experience because you’re able to go out into the field and make that money back,” Addison says.

Ira Porter/The Christian Science Monitor

Columbus State Community College Professor Chris Dennis announces to his semiconductor fabrication class that Intel is moving ahead with building two plants that it will be looking for local workers to fill.

Building an Intel curriculum

The Intel model for CSCC came with a $2.8 million grant to build out curricula for instructors to share with other community colleges. Industry experts from Intel saw what CSCC taught in its engineering technology program and added specifics to introduce students to life at Intel. Intel subject matter experts and faculty created new classes – manufacturing fundamentals, semiconductor fabrication, and vacuum systems technology. Students can get certificates in one year of study or associate degrees in two. They also have the opportunity to scale up later, which can lead to higher earning potential.

“It’s just not Intel coming along. Manufacturing is a multifaceted system, so when a big company comes, they are going to have to have support companies. They might not be as popular or well known, but these companies will basically work on the equipment that Intel uses, and that company will have a company that supports them, and it ends up being a domino effect,” Dr. Mahoney says.

That domino effect could go on to fill the 7,000 job vacancies in the manufacturing sector in Ohio that were listed as recently as 2020. The money invested is impressive. Under the CHIPS and Science Act, which Congress passed in 2022 to increase domestic production of semiconductor chips, the U.S. Department of Commerce gave $8.5 billion to Intel in direct funding and another $11 billion in loans. Ohio is getting its share of the investment, as are plants in Arizona. Other U.S. companies are building plants in Utah and Texas.

Can CTE shake its past stigma?

CTE started off as a vehicle to catapult people into the middle class more than a century ago, when it was still called vocational education. In 1917, Congress passed the Smith-Hughes Act to plug workforce labor gaps and amplify precollege education in agriculture and trades.

In the past, vocational education had a legacy of racism and classism, shuffling students of color and disadvantaged students into low-quality programs with little earning potential. Students who went to trade school had little chance for upward mobility, says Jeff Strohl, director of Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce, citing past research.

Dr. Strohl believes that changing attitudes about the return on investment of four-year colleges could be a moment for CTE to thrive. However, he adds, more money needs to be invested to be competitive with other countries like Germany, whose dual system includes intensive secondary vocational education and apprenticeships. He adds that postsecondary CTE education needs to be trumpeted so job seekers can get some skills and education in degree-based programs, which push earnings higher. And while plumbing and other trades have led to recent headlines about millionaires wearing tool belts, he says it’s dishonest to push the notion that every middle-skill job will pay six figures.

Nor is CTE without criticism, with experts concerned that students could be pigeonholed in one trade, without the ability to pivot if the labor market shifts.

“My basic concern is that CTE might substitute for solid basic skills and might not give students the ability to adapt when the demands of the labor market change,” writes Eric Hanushek, an economist and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University who has written extensively about the economics of education, in an email.

Ira Porter/The Christian Science Monitor

Addison Swartz and Skylar Eastman – the only girls in their welding class at the Delaware Area Career Center in Ohio – plan to skip college and go straight into their trade.

Dr. Hanushek says that the lack of adaptability was a key finding in a study he wrote that compared employees who had finished apprenticeship programs in 11 countries. It showed that while they started off with better job prospects than people with general education, over time their pay did not increase as high and they found themselves out of work after skill requirements changed.

“This lack of adaptability was the key finding,” Dr. Hanushek adds.

“Remember those positions? ... They’re ready.”

A month into fall semester at CSCC, the college held its annual Major Fest, when undeclared students learn about potential programs. The engineering and technology program placed a table in the center of campus, near where students played cornhole and ate snacks.

Christa Wagner stopped by to chat. She took the semiconductor fabrication class last year and is considering taking the other two.

“With the opportunity that Intel presents, I did want to add those courses onto my regular degree so that I will have those skills available,” Ms. Wagner says. She enrolled at CSCC after working 20 years in customer service and hopes the new skills she’s learned will lead to better-paying work. She is set to graduate before the Intel plants will be complete.

“I want to go out and get some experience in my major now, but when that opportunity becomes available, I would be able to transition into that,” Ms. Wagner says hopefully.

That hope is spreading. Since the Intel program revamp, enrollment in the engineering program has risen 20% per semester. Students and administrators at CSCC grew worried that Intel would pull out of the Ohio deal and sell the plants to another company after construction was delayed. But at Chris Dennis’ evening semiconductor class on a recent night, everyone was all smiles. He shared a newspaper headline about a multibillion-dollar partnership between Intel and Amazon to design chips for Amazon’s central Ohio data center. He also shared an update about Intel internships that caught students’ attention.

Ira Porter/The Christian Science Monitor

William Muir, a student at Columbus State Community College, listens and takes notes in a semiconductor fabrication class.

“Remember those positions that we’ve been talking about in Arizona?” he asks. “They’re ready.”

William Muir is interested in Arizona or Ohio, whichever is ready for him first. He’s a line cook at a French restaurant in Upper Arlington, his hometown, just outside Columbus. Mr. Muir is back at CSCC after starting 18 years ago and dropping out.

“It feels really good to be back in school and working toward something that has a higher potential, because before I would go to work and be like, ‘Why am I doing this if I’m not happy?’” Mr. Muir reflects.

He heard about Intel’s move to Ohio during a ride to work.

“My Uber driver and I were talking about how we weren’t making that much money,” Mr. Muir remembers. “She told me about the plant coming, and that they were investing billions of dollars.”

He visited campus a week after that conversation and started the enrollment process. Now he’s three semesters in, hoping to finish an associate degree next year. His teachers have told him he could start at close to $80,000 a year. That’s about $50,000 more than his current salary. He and his girlfriend could marry.

“Ever since I passed the 50% mark in this program, the whole thing seems a lot more doable,” he says. “I realize what I’m doing is pretty neat, and not only that, but I’m fully capable of being able to do it.”

Ira Porter’s reporting for this story was supported by the Institute for Citizens & Scholars’ Higher Education Media Fellowship.

Ahmad Aminu has been too frightened to advance his formal education. Though the 17-year-old finished secondary school and would like to go to college near his village in Zamfara state, this region of northwestern Nigeria bears the brunt of attacks by bandits who kidnap students for ransom.

“All the big schools are in the forest,” Mr. Aminu says by phone in Hausa, the dominant local language. “So many of us aren’t willing to take that risk.”

Last year, for example, armed gangs stormed three hostels used by Federal University Gusau on the outskirts of Zamfara, abducting a few dozen students. Earlier this year, a boy was killed and two people were kidnapped in an attack on Mr. Aminu’s remote village, Dalba. “The bandits almost entered our home,” he recalls. “It was about midnight, when most people were asleep.”

But for the past year, Mr. Aminu has found a different way to further his education. Using the Flowdiary e-learning platform at home, he has been able to take – for free, or at very little cost – courses in various digital skills in Hausa. He is becoming a well-known graphic designer within the community surrounding Dalba.

“The payment depends,” says Mr. Aminu, the excitement clear in his voice. Designing an invitation card, for example, earns him about 2,000 Nigerian nairas, about $1.25; doing video editing, up to 3,000 nairas.

“In a month, I make as much as 30,000 naira,” he says. “I really thank God.” His mother makes almost 50,000 nairas a month running a convenience store from their home, and his brother earns the same installing solar panels.

Mr. Aminu is the sort of student whom Muhammad Auwal Ahmad had in mind when he created Flowdiary two years ago as a 23-year-old attending Federal University Gashua in northeastern Yobe state. He says Flowdiary now has more than 8,000 students enrolled from far-flung, impoverished areas across northern Nigeria; on average, almost one-fifth of those are active weekly users. The platform’s name refers to opportunities flowing to young people who might not normally have them.

“We have students from regions affected by terrorism and banditry ... that we train and mentor,” Mr. Ahmad says, noting that students who speak only Hausa struggle to find online courses in digital skills in their language.

An early dream fulfilled

Mr. Ahmad’s dream began in Bayamari, a village in Yobe state that has only two small schools, a health center, and a police outpost. As a curious tween growing up there, Mr. Ahmad started researching digital technology when his father brought home a mobile phone and, later, a computer. Gradually, Mr. Ahmad started troubleshooting and soon had ambitious digital goals.

“The thought of how to create something like Google or Wikipedia never left my mind,” he says.

Nathaniel Bivan

Muhammad Auwal Ahmad wears a cap and shirt with the Flowdiary logo during a meetup in Kano, Nigeria, with some of the app’s tutors and students.

After unsuccessful attempts at building a couple of online businesses as an undergraduate computer science student, Mr. Ahmad set up Flowdiary in March 2022. It started as a team of tutors, who included some of his friends, teaching digital skills on Telegram to other young people across northern Nigeria at low cost.

By that November, students could access the Flowdiary website. In February 2023, the app’s release became official. Paying as little as 1,200 nairas per course, students could register to learn web development, graphic design, and other digital skills. Tutors net half of the proceeds from course fees, and the rest goes toward operational costs such as maintaining the app and helping link Flowdiary students with career opportunities, Mr. Ahmad explains.

Registered as a business, not as a nonprofit, Flowdiary has struggled to find other funding and has been unable to acquire office space for its tutors and activities such as mentorship program events. But Mr. Ahmad says he is set to obtain some much-needed funding after winning the 2024 Yobe State Research and Innovation Challenge, a prestigious regional competition organized by the Biomedical Science Research and Training Center of Yobe State University, in partnership with Yobe’s state government.

Babazau Larema, administrative officer for the center, says Flowdiary is making an impact in society. “This is why they won,” he explains. Flowdiary also has clear evidence of teamwork because it resulted from the efforts of 10 tutors, rather than having been started by one person who built it up alone, Mr. Larema notes.

A learning lifeline

In 2011, Al’amin Dalha Suleiman and his seven family members abandoned their home in Maiduguri, the capital of northeastern Borno state, because of the Boko Haram insurgency there. They fled to Kano, more than 500 kilometers (about 310 miles) away, mourning the deaths of neighbors and friends as well as the loss of the family’s hat shop. But discrimination in Kano against outsiders forced them to return three years later to Maiduguri, where Mr. Suleiman struggled to revive the family business. He hawked yams on the side, and then offered manicures, a mobile service that earned him a paltry 50 nairas per customer because he lacked expertise. He has only a secondary school education.

Through a friend on Facebook, Mr. Suleiman heard last year about Flowdiary. He enrolled in several courses, including video editing, web development, and graphic design. There was a major challenge, though – the need for wireless data and a laptop. For months, Mr. Suleiman struggled to finish the courses over his phone, but the payoff – the skills he has acquired – has been worth it.

“I’m trying to build an app right now,” he says proudly.

Turning skills into careers

Mr. Ahmad currently teaches computer science in northwestern Kebbi state as part of his National Youth Service Corps requirement. His vision after the one-year program is to expand the Flowdiary platform to reach more young people and – crucially – to help them grow their skills into careers.

The end of online training for each student does not necessarily mean goodbye at Flowdiary. The Flowdiary team recently set up a mentoring and internship program; any student who takes a course can apply to work with companies that Flowdiary has forged a relationship with. As of late September, 20 students had secured internships – including two with Abdul Gusau, the owner of Abdoul Shoe Ventures in Zamfara.

“It is impressive to see how effective Flowdiary is through the work the interns are putting in my store,” Mr. Gusau says. “The graphic designer has not yet entered the intermediate class, and yet his work is excellent. The same goes for the social media manager, who runs effective ads.”

Mr. Ahmad takes pride in such feedback. At a recent meetup with a few Flowdiary students and tutors in Kano, he sports a cap and T-shirt with the Flowdiary logo. He says he hopes that the future for Flowdiary’s students, especially those with internships, is bright.

“We are hoping some of those companies will retain them,” Mr. Ahmad says. “My [first] goal is to impact youngsters like myself so they can develop. The second is helping them find direction.”

The remote city of Nelson, in British Columbia, boasts on its website that it “has been called the prettiest small town in Canada.” With over 350 buildings lovingly restored to reflect the city’s founding in 1897 during a silver rush, Nelson attracts its fair share of artists seeking refuge in its charm and movie directors looking for the quintessential “small town” as a backdrop.

That restoration work also drew our photographer Melanie Stetson Freeman for this photo spread while I was on a larger reporting trip in the area. She admits that she was underwhelmed at first. Downtown Baker Street, set amid the dramatic Selkirk Mountains and glacier-fed Kootenay Lake, is as charming as any Main Street can be, but many designated “heritage” homes are spread out, mixed into the surrounding neighborhoods. This lends Nelson a feel of authenticity, Melanie came to see through her lens. It’s not a preserved tourist attraction but a living, breathing place with an evolving history that has also drawn Christian pacifists from Russia, known as Doukhobors, and Americans who sought to avoid the Vietnam War draft.

Melanie’s favorite building is the one that housed P. Burns and Co., once the largest meatpacking company in western Canada. She points to the artistry of a sculpture of a cow’s head that is featured above the “1899” engraving at the entrance – a three-dimensional adornment rarely seen on facades today. “You can tell this used to be an affluent town because of the intricate carvings and decorations” on many buildings, she says. “They don’t build them like this anymore.”

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

NICE TO MEAT YA: A sculpture of a cow’s head is featured above the entrance to a building that housed P. Burns and Co., once the biggest meatpacking company in western Canada.

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

ONE FOR THE AGES: Bealey Block is the oldest confirmed commercial structure on Baker Street. It was built in the 1890s and restored nearly a century later.

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

SILVER STAR: Nelson, as seen from Gyro Park, is set amid the dramatic Selkirk Mountains. The city was founded in 1897 during a silver boom.

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

MAIN ATTRACTION: Baker Street, the main commercial street in downtown Nelson, is filled with designated “heritage” buildings that have been lovingly restored.

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

GOLDEN OLDIE: The Bank of Montreal, a High Victorian building with Italian influences, was constructed in 1899. It features terra-cotta inlays with the bank’s insignia.

For more visual storytelling that captures communities, traditions, and cultures around the globe, visit The World in Pictures.

AP

Volunteers and residents remove mud after floods in Paiporta, Valencia, Spain, Nov. 5.

A nation polarized by politics is having a clarifying moment. A week after an intense storm battered its eastern coast, Spain has seen thousands of volunteers come from all directions to help towns devastated by floods. Many traveled miles by bicycle or on foot.

“Humanity is still capable of forgetting its differences,” said Toni Zamorano, who spent hours on the roof of his submerged car in the town of Sedaví. “Here, race or economic level don’t matter. This solidarity makes you feel great,” he told The New York Times.

Political differences in Spain bore little relation to the unity felt by ordinary citizens during the disaster. That may be because most Spanish citizens rally around priorities such as dealing with the effects of climate change, according to Miriam Gonzalez and Begoña Lucena, founders of España Mejor, a civil society group. “Polarization is a major distraction,” they stated in the European Business Review last year.

The storm’s impact brought a visit by King Felipe VI on Sunday to the city of Paiporta, where floods had swept away thousands of homes and businesses. Some residents pelted him and his entourage with mud and insults out of anger over the government’s slow response to the disaster.

In an address a few days earlier, the king spoke of the need to build coherent societies based on dialogue and concern for the common good. “It is ... the obligation of institutions, but also [of citizens], to fight against everything that separates, even one iota, from that integral respect that we owe to the person, to any person, to the dignity of any human being,” he said.

In Paiporta, the king showed what that can look like in practice. His security detail begged him three times to leave the throng. He and Queen Letizia stayed. They listened, hugged, and wept with residents. Anger softened. In a poll published Tuesday in the online newspaper El Español, the townspeople expressed their gratitude for the monarchs’ visit. They acknowledged the risk they had taken to be there. Back in Madrid, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez Pérez-Castejón said his government should have done more sooner.

Spain’s unity at this moment is from the bottom up. Or, as Spanish professional soccer player Ferran Torres wrote on social media, “The people are the ones who save the people. ... Long live Spain.”