Micki Witthoeft wipes a tear from her eye and apologizes.

“I’m sorry; it’s an emotional time,” says Ms. Witthoeft, standing outside the Central Detention Facility in Washington, D.C. 

She’s the mother of Ashli Babbitt, the rioter who was shot dead by law enforcement during the Jan. 6, 2021, storming of the U.S. Capitol by supporters of President Donald Trump. 

It’s a chilly Christmas Eve, and about 20 people are standing outside the Washington jail, taking part in the nightly vigil supporting those still being held here for their actions on that day. What does Ms. Witthoeft expect from President-elect Trump when he takes office again Jan. 20? 

“I believe he will keep his word, and he will start the process to either commute sentences or pardon people,” Ms. Witthoeft says. She began the vigils Aug. 1, 2022, after “Ashli talked to me in my dream.” 

That the nightly protests have lasted nearly 900 days is a testament to the participants’ passionate support for those sometimes known as J6ers. And they’re but one example of how Mr. Trump – even out of office – has been a uniquely dominant force in American public life since the day in June 2015 he rode down the golden escalator in Trump Tower to announce his run for president. 

By then, Mr. Trump was already famous as a New York real estate developer and reality TV personality. But when his story is fully told, it will be for ushering in a new era that has upended American life, both politically and culturally. 

Christopher Gregory/Getty Images/File

Donald Trump rides an escalator to a press event to announce his candidacy for the U.S. presidency at Trump Tower in New York, June 16, 2015. Since that moment, Mr. Trump has dominated American politics and, with four more years in office, is set to be one of the most significant leaders of the 21st century.

Ironically, by losing his first bid for reelection in 2020 – making way for a four-year “interregnum” with President Joe Biden, and then pulling off the first nonconsecutive presidential reelection since Grover Cleveland in 1892 – Mr. Trump has extended his public dominance by four years. 

At the launch of his second term, political analysts say, the stakes are even higher than when he took office eight years ago. 

“The times are more fraught globally and more fraught economically,” says Matthew Dallek, a political historian at George Washington University. “The divisions and level of rancor and vitriol and political violence have intensified since he was first in office.” 

Last summer’s two assassination attempts on Mr. Trump are high-profile examples. So, too, is the killing of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson on a Manhattan street in December. Several top Trump appointees have faced bomb threats, according to the president-elect’s transition team. Overall, threats against public officials have risen over the past decade.

More broadly, Mr. Trump has stayed in the public spotlight virtually nonstop since losing reelection in 2020, claiming repeatedly and falsely that the election was stolen, and then staging an improbable comeback in November. A clear example of Mr. Trump’s dominance came a year ago – well before clinching the 2024 nomination – when he lobbied successfully to kill a bipartisan Senate deal on immigration, effectively holding on to the issue for his campaign. 

The various criminal and civil cases against him also kept him in the headlines, and may well have helped him win last November as he cried legal persecution. With Mr. Trump now poised to become the 47th president, most of those cases have evaporated.

Linda Feldmann/The Christian Science Monitor

Micki Witthoeft, mother of Ashli Babbitt, the protester who was killed by a Capitol Police officer Jan. 6, 2021, started nightly group vigils outside a D.C. detention facility in 2022 to support “J6ers” still being held there.

It is within this atmosphere of ferment that long-simmering talk on the left of a potential “Trump dictatorship” persists. Mr. Trump himself seems to revel in the speculation, telling Fox News late in 2023 that he wouldn’t be a dictator if elected again – “except on Day 1.”

Indeed, the opening act of the Trump sequel promises to be momentous. The president-elect has said the message of his second inaugural will be “unity” – a sharp departure, if true, from the dystopian picture of “American carnage” he painted in his first. 

Next will come dozens of executive actions – at once typical for a new president, and in Mr. Trump’s case, expected to reflect the transformative intent of the second term. Beyond the anticipated pardons of J6ers, other measures include the closing of the U.S.-Mexico border, the start of mass deportations of unauthorized migrants, the removal of job protections for thousands of federal employees, and expanded oil drilling. (Explore more Trump promises for Day 1.)

When asked how the second term will differ from the first, a Trump insider – speaking not for attribution so as to speak freely – puts it this way: “He knows what he’s doing. This time around, it’s not just pie in the sky.”

The shock and awe of Trump 2.0

In fact, the shock and awe of Trump 2.0 began soon after Election Day. A string of highly controversial Cabinet picks consumed public discourse. Matt Gaetz, a now-former Florida congressman and Trump loyalist, withdrew from consideration for attorney general amid serious ethics concerns, including reports (later detailed in a House Ethics Committee report) of paying for sex with a minor and of drug use. 

Mr. Trump’s aggressive posture toward the mainstream media is perhaps just a foretaste of his pledge to seek “retribution” and prosecute so-called enemies, including President Biden, special counsel Jack Smith, and former Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney. 

In December, he settled a defamation lawsuit against ABC News and George Stephanopoulos for $15 million, after the host inaccurately stated that Mr. Trump had been “found liable for rape” in a civil case. Another lawsuit, against the Des Moines Register and others over a preelection poll that showed him losing in Iowa, will at a minimum cost the defendants in legal fees, if not have a chilling effect on less wealthy outlets going forward. 

During an eight-week period before the election, Mr. Trump attacked the media publicly more than 100 times, according to the group Reporters Without Borders. 

Evan Vucci/AP/File

President Trump delivers a prerecorded statement after rioters stormed the Capitol building during the Electoral College certification of Joe Biden as president, Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington.

Another eyebrow-raising episode came in late December, when Mr. Trump revived the first-term idea of having the United States buy Greenland, a territory of Denmark – and of reclaiming control over the Panama Canal, which the U.S. began to cede to Panama in 1977. Such headline-grabbers may be just talk, designed to create leverage toward other goals. Indeed, Mr. Trump’s suggestion that Canada become the 51st state is widely seen as a joke, albeit one aimed at trolling the U.S.’s northern neighbor as the president-elect threatens tariffs. But at the very least, all the expansive suggestions present Mr. Trump as an empire-builder, astride the world stage. 

More central to Trump 2.0 has been the rise of world’s-richest-man Elon Musk as both a sidekick and a governing force. Before the holidays, it was Mr. Musk who led the charge in Congress, via his own social platform X, killing the first attempt at a compromise bill to keep the government funded – hours before Mr. Trump weighed in. A later bill passed, averting a shutdown. 

Mr. Musk so dominated the shutdown narrative that critics dubbed the duo “President-elect Musk” and “Vice President-elect Trump.” The actual president, Mr. Biden, has receded publicly as he approaches retirement. 

Damian Dovarganes/AP/File

Donald Trump, a producer and the star of NBC’s “The Apprentice,” waves to his fans at the unveiling of his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in Los Angeles, Jan. 16, 2007.

Mr. Musk’s stated role in the second Trump term is to co-lead, along with entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, a new advisory commission called the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. The intent is to recommend massive cuts in the federal bureaucracy and regulations. 

But Mr. Musk has also been more than just an adviser to Mr. Trump. He’s effectively become part of the Trump family, taking part in phone calls with world leaders, reportedly weighing in on Cabinet choices, and often appearing with Mr. Trump at his Florida estate and at public events. 

Can the bromance last? It’s impossible to say. A schism within the MAGA movement has emerged over the South African-native Mr. Musk’s support for granting visas to skilled foreign workers. Die-hard Trump supporters oppose all types of immigration. Late in December, Mr. Trump suggested support for H-1B visas for immigrant workers, but the issue remains an open question. 

For now, the Musk factor looms large. The DOGE king’s megaphone is arguably as big as Mr. Trump’s, given the multibillionaire’s social media, and he has a much vaster bank account. Mr. Musk has also made clear he’ll deploy his cash in the 2026 midterms to take on Republican members of Congress who defy the president. 

Evan Vucci/AP

Former President Donald Trump hugs billionaire and outspoken supporter Elon Musk at a campaign rally at the Butler Farm Show in Butler, Pennsylvania, Oct. 5, 2024.

Isolationism, protectionism, and nativism

The rise and return of Mr. Trump haven’t happened in a vacuum. The world over, populists and strongmen have come to power amid continuing postpandemic economic disruption, increasing inequality, and growing anti-immigrant sentiment. 

David M. Kennedy, a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian at Stanford University, remembers the words of President George W. Bush in an Oval Office meeting with scholars back in 2006. 

“‘There are three things happening in this country that really bother me, and I’d like to hear your perspective: isolationism, protectionism, and nativism,’” Professor Kennedy recalls President Bush saying. 

“Well, here we are, 18, 19 years later, and you could name the same three items today,” Dr. Kennedy says. 

But the Stanford scholar suggests that the idea of the U.S. sliding toward authoritarian rule is a stretch. 

“The great preoccupation of the founders was the containment of power – the power of the legislature, the power of the executive, the power of the courts,” Dr. Kennedy says. “They built a system to guarantee that too much power would never end up in one place.” 

Historian Tevi Troy, a senior aide in the second Bush White House, says he doesn’t see Mr. Trump as a “dictator,” instead pointing to a trend toward greater presidential power that began well before the Trump era. 

“Congress has just ceded power over the past 20 years, and presidents have accumulated power as Congress cedes it,” says Mr. Troy, a senior fellow at the Ronald Reagan Institute. 

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images/File

Then-Rep. Matt Rosendale refuses to talk with Mr. Trump on a phone being offered by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene during the last moments of a contentious debate over a new speaker of the House at the U.S. Capitol, Jan. 7, 2023.

Still, Mr. Trump’s ability to enact his agenda will have its limits. Elements that need to go through the newly seated House of Representatives will face the smallest margin of control in modern history, with just a four-seat Republican majority after the resignation of Mr. Gaetz. And the Senate is far from the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster, with a 53-47 Republican majority. The new GOP Senate leadership has promised to keep the filibuster in place.  

Actions by Mr. Trump that wind up in federal court could well face a Biden-appointed judge; the president gained confirmation of a record 235 federal judges during his term. The Supreme Court’s 6-3 conservative majority can be expected to help Mr. Trump, but offers no guarantees.

Julia Azari, a political scientist at Marquette University in Wisconsin, also sees limits to the idea of absolute Trump rule, given the closely divided Congress. And despite Mr. Trump’s claims of a mandate, his victory last fall was not a sweep. He fell just short of a majority of the popular vote.

“The political minority is setting the agenda, and that sets us up for very deeply contentious politics,” Professor Azari says. That is true not just in partisan terms, but also demographically, she says, noting Mr. Trump’s inroads into both the Hispanic and Black communities. 

Ultimately, she says, “Trump has created a political environment in which, even when he hasn’t commanded a national majority, people have to respond to him.” 

Alex Brandon/AP

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump departs a campaign event at the Butler Farm Show in Butler, Pennsylvania, Oct. 5, 2024.

“We are neighbors; we are civil people.”

Linda Jew is “overjoyed” by the 2024 election result. 

“I said prayers every night for Donald Trump that he would be our president again,” says the Republican from Parker, Colorado. 

Ms. Jew can trace her family back to a Chinese merchant who arrived in the 1800s. Now, in the city’s latest immigration chapter, Denver has tracked the arrival of nearly 43,000 migrants since late 2022. At home in Parker, some 20 miles south, Ms. Jew says illegal immigration is a chief concern. She doesn’t like how federal funds have been spent on migrants, including for temporary shelters.

“Biden is just giving away all our money” to unauthorized immigrants, she says. “And not helping the American citizens.”

Newsmax, Tucker Carlson, and Steve Bannon help her make sense of a changing world; she’s watched her state in recent decades trend from red to purple to blue. She says Mr. Trump’s campaign stop in Aurora, where he pledged to crack down on “migrant crime,” made her feel less alone. 

The retired dental hygienist recalls one patient, years ago, scolding her for being conservative. He told her she was supposed to be a Democrat – as a woman and minority. 

“You just reduced me to a stereotype,” she recalls replying. The man’s assumption cemented her beliefs all the more. 

Sarah Matusek/The Christian Science Monitor

Linda Jew, standing outside her home in Parker, Colorado, Dec. 12, 2024, says she was “overjoyed” when Donald Trump won. “I said prayers every night for Donald Trump that he would be our president again."

Still, it’s hard to talk with loved ones who disagree. Like the time a family member called Mr. Trump “Hitler” over the phone. Ms. Jew hung up. But that didn’t feel right. So she called back. 

Farther west, in San Francisco, Kimberley Rodler is also still processing the election that was. During the campaign, the architect-turned-art-teacher traded in years of frequent flyer miles to travel to battleground states, from Nevada to Michigan to Pennsylvania, and canvass for the Democratic ticket. This reporter met her last fall in Florida, where abortion rights were on the ballot. 

In all, Ms. Rodler says later on the phone, she knocked on 2,460 doors, and has no regrets – not that she loved every interaction. She recalls canvassing in Nevada the day of the Trump assassination attempt in Pennsylvania.

“I was confronted at two doors by Trump supporters with guns,” Ms. Rodler says. “I was wearing a Biden-Harris T-shirt or button, and this woman comes up and says, ‘Five minutes, if you’re not off my property, you’re shot!’” 

Now Ms. Rodler is immersing herself in poetry and art, clinging to happier memories from the campaign, like the first-time voters she met who were grateful to be heard. 

“I saw so much of the beauty of the people,” she says. “We are neighbors; we are civil people.” 

Linda Feldmann/The Christian Science Monitor

Kimberley Rodler (left) poses with Marji Sachs in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, September 2024. Ms. Rodler canvassed across the country for the Harris-Walz ticket and says she is still processing Trump's victory.

Polls, in fact, show that Americans share much common ground, at least on issues if not on candidates. A preelection survey in six battleground states and nationally by the University of Maryland found bipartisan consensus on a range of issues – from the cost of living to reproductive rights to the border. 

Still, the nation’s closely divided politics promise to make enacting the Trump agenda more difficult than he has suggested at times, from reducing inflation and cutting taxes to fixing the broken immigration system. As Inauguration Day approached, Mr. Trump sought to tamp down expectations. 

For decadeslong Trump observers, this is a moment to take stock. Looking back to his days as a publicity-minded Manhattan businessman and reality TV performer, few could imagine the historic figure he’d become. 

When Gwenda Blair was writing her 2000 book chronicling three generations of the Trump family, she says she grasped that Donald Trump had “a really acute understanding of American culture, politics, economics, the whole schmear, and was acutely laser-focused on what a large number of people really felt and really wanted to hear.”

“He is a consummate salesman,” says Ms. Blair. And in Mr. Trump’s final campaign, she says, she saw an understanding of the American psyche that has reached “a whole other cellular level.” 

Back at the Washington Central Detention Facility on Christmas Eve, the mood outside on the sidewalk dubbed “Freedom Corner” is hopeful, even festive. Mr. Trump is about to retake office, and one of those imprisoned expresses optimism in a call to a participant’s cellphone, amplified for the assembled supporters to hear.

The U.S. Capitol, the scene four years ago of one of the most shocking episodes in American history, is just 2 miles down the road. But on this night, it feels a million miles away. 

Staff writer Sarah Matusek contributed to this report from Parker, Colorado.

As Israel’s Cabinet finally seals a ceasefire and hostage release deal with Hamas, an outpouring of happiness, sorrow, and delayed grief is coming to the fore across Israel and the Gaza Strip.

For war-weary Israelis, there is cautious hope for a return to normal life. For Palestinians in Gaza, who awoke Friday to the unsettling sounds of renewed Israeli airstrikes that have killed scores in recent days, Sunday’s ceasefire is a means to simply stay alive.

All is overshadowed by uncertainty.

“This war proved that our lives are cheaper than ever, and this is due to all the leaders who left us suffering,” says Suad Ghoula, a nurse from Gaza City living in a tent in Deir al-Balah.

Even the small celebrations that erupted in Gaza Wednesday and Thursday, amid an Israeli military offensive that has killed more than 46,700 Palestinians, are a sensitive subject for many.

“I was really upset with the people who started to celebrate. Happiness is not like this. Many people were killed, and many are still in the rubble,” Ms. Ghoula says.

For Palestinians, joy over an impending halt to the airstrikes is intertwined with sorrow over loved ones killed in a conflict that rights groups and United Nations experts have called genocide, a designation Israel rejects. Gazans describe the last two days of waiting for the ceasefire under shelling and missiles as among the “most difficult” of the war.

Ghada Abdulfattah

Suad Ghoula, a nurse who still clings to the keys of her home in Gaza City, says she’s “happy to return home no matter how destroyed it is,” though she fears not seeing the same landmarks she grew up with.

Uncertainty hangs in the air in Tel Aviv, too, as the families of hostages and other Israelis watch and wait to see if the war is truly over, and which hostages return alive.

“We want Hamas to be defeated, but we can’t live our lives in endless war,” Yoni, who withheld his full name, says from a Tel Aviv café. “We are all hurting in Israel and need to turn the page.”

Afraid to hope

For exhausted hostage families who have waited more than 460 days for their loved ones’ return, the deal was a sign their struggle may soon conclude – but not necessarily as they hoped.

The first three hostages are to be released Sunday as part of a staggered release of 33 in the first phase of the ceasefire. On Friday, the Israeli government informed the families of the 33, but Hamas has refused to say who is alive and who is dead. Another 65 hostages are not included in the first stage.

Zohar Avigdori, a high school teacher and uncle of 12-year-old Noam Avigdori, who was released by Hamas with her mother, Sharon, in November 2023, is still waiting for the release of a cousin.

“To say we have mixed emotions is a huge understatement,” he says from Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square. “Hope is something you learn to be afraid of.”

Janis Laizans/Reuters

A woman reacts as she listens to family members and supporters of hostages deliver statements in Tel Aviv, Israel, Jan. 17, 2025.

As they are for Palestinians in Gaza, Israeli worries are widespread.

“We are going to have difficult days ahead,” says Yair Keshet, uncle of hostage Yarden Bibas. Mr. Bibas; his wife, Shiri; and their two young children were kidnapped from their home in Kibbutz Nir Oz by Hamas and remain in Gaza. Whether they have survived is unknown.

Mr. Keshet holds out hope that his great-nephews, 5-year-old Ariel and 2-year-old Kfir, kidnapped as an infant, are still alive and will be released in the first weeks. The children’s and their mother’s names are among the 33.

But he fears the deal will not last. “These phases are 40 to 60 days. Every day a crisis can happen, and it can fall apart. No one can guarantee anything.”

Absence everywhere

For many Palestinian families, the absence of killed loved ones looms larger than ever – as delayed grief sets in after months of living in survival mode.

Hanan al-Girjawi immediately thought of her mother, father, four brothers, and sister who were killed, along with more than 10 nephews and nieces, in an Israeli airstrike that collapsed their northern Gaza apartment building in November 2023.

Ghada Abdulfattah

Hanan al-Girjawi, standing with her children in their tent in Deir al-Balah, lost her parents and siblings in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City in November 2023.

“The coming days will be difficult for me as I think of my family who have been killed. I saw them dying, still under the rubble, and my mother’s hands reached out to me,” Ms. Girjawi says.

“I can’t go back to Gaza City and see them under the rubble. I want to go there and hug them, kiss them.”

Her lone brother who survived the missile strike has gone missing over the course of the war.

“Sometimes I think, Is he alive, feeling cold or warm? Is he dead? Is he hungry? Is he looking for me?” she says. “When I receive phone calls from strange numbers, I think, ‘Maybe it’s him.’”

Returns, reunions

Others, like Khadija Abu Thurayya, are busy packing. Even amid the Israeli missiles, thousands of Palestinians were preparing to leave behind displacement camps and return en masse to homes in Gaza City and the north.

As of Thursday, Ms. Abu Thurayya was busy in her makeshift tent, doing laundry and packing to leave Sunday for Gaza City and, eventually, their home in Jabalia.

There will be more challenges after the war, Ms. Abu Thurayya says, “but at least the bloodbath will have stopped.”

“I’m afraid that if I allow myself to be happy, something will happen at the last moment and everything will change,” she says. “I can’t trust Israel; they might change their minds.”

Ghada Abdulfattah

Khadija Abu Thurayya packs up her tent, like thousands of other Palestinians eager to leave the displacement camps and return to their homes in the northern Gaza Strip.

She is looking forward to being reunited in Gaza City with her eldest daughter, Amal, whom she hasn’t seen in more than a year.

Ms. Abu Thurayya’s daughter Suad, meanwhile, is driven by the thought of returning to her job as a kindergarten teacher, yet is weighed by the knowledge that three of her pupils were killed along with their families.

“I’m happy to return home no matter how destroyed it is,” says Ms. Ghoula, the nurse, dangling her house key in her hand. She has been told her home was converted into an Israeli military outpost and is still standing. “But I’m afraid of not seeing the same landmarks and features of Gaza City that we grew up with.

“I lost many friends and colleagues during the war. I’m afraid of the moment we go back home and cannot find our people – friends, neighbors we took for granted.”

On both sides, all agree that even should Sunday’s ceasefire lead to a long-term end of the war, healing is far in the distance.

“If you lose a home, you can build your home again. But losing family members is not easy. Who can return them to me?” says Ms. Girjawi. “During this war, entire families have been wiped out. They have tried to annihilate all of us, the good people and the bad people – they are all gone.”

“Oct. 7 isn’t one day, and it hasn’t stopped. It is continuous,” says Mr. Keshet, awaiting news of his nephew’s family.

“There can be no healing, no resurrection, no restoration of Israeli society until everyone is back home,” says Mr. Avigdori, the teacher. “The younger generation will live in the shadow of Oct. 7 for decades to come.”

Francine Kiefer/The Christian Science Monitor

The “Greetings from Altadena” mural shines on the wall of Grocery Outlet, which survived the Eaton Fire, as seen on Lake Avenue in Altadena, Calif., on Jan. 10, 2025.

On Jan. 10, three days after the Eaton Fire first started, I drive to Lake Avenue, the commercial heart of Altadena, just a few miles from where I live.

The surreal scene strikes me as a Hollywood set. This must be some post-apocalyptic film, playing out with spectacular special effects. Almost the entire section of the upper business district is gutted – restaurants, churches, the post office, and a bank. I somehow think that in a few weeks, when filming is done, the avenue and its shops will reappear.

No residents are allowed here yet. It’s too dangerous. Power lines are down. Fires still smolder, and gas seeps. Toxic lead, asbestos, and arsenic lurk unseen in the ruins. My press pass gets me past the first checkpoint, manned by California’s National Guard. Then a second. Then a third.

I roll slowly up the long hill toward the magnificent San Gabriel Mountains, where the conflagration began on Jan. 7. On my right is Eliot Arts Magnet, a public middle school for the arts. The art deco building looks untouched, its rectangular tower still rising triumphantly into the blue sky.

I look more closely. The roof is nothing but blackened rafter beams. I note to myself that the daughter of my book club friend goes here. She’s supposed to play the wicked witch in the school’s spring musical, “Shrek.”

I drive by Aldi, the grocery store. My husband shops here for bratwurst. It’s completely hollowed out. Just up the boulevard is his other go-to, Grocery Outlet. It lies unscathed.

Francine Kiefer/The Christian Science Monitor

The Eaton Fire razed the Everest burger place on Lake Avenue in Altadena, Calif., shown here on Jan. 14, 2025.

The store’s “Greetings from Altadena” wall mural shines in the afternoon sun. The town name is spelled out in postcard letters that depict images of this eclectic enclave and its rich history. This town is a small mosaic within the much larger mosaic of Los Angeles County. I wonder how Altadena will survive as a community with so many pieces now missing.

That mosaic came to life at Grocery Outlet, which was filled with neighbors of all types: engineers from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, artists just scraping by, seniors who shopped to Muzak they recognized, young people picking up trail mix for a hike. They came in all races: Black, Latino, Asian, white.

I park the car and walk to our favorite burger joint, Everest. No! No! No! It’s a pile of rubble, one wall standing. This is where we would stop on the way back from a scenic drive in our little convertible, or from a hike, or when neither of us felt like cooking.

I continue on foot toward the intersection of Lake Avenue and Altadena Drive. Chimneys are all that remain of an apartment house. The hardware store is obliterated, as are the quirky Bunny Museum and three churches near the intersection.

Only the Christian Science church, which I have attended on occasion, still stands. Once it reopens – no one has yet had a chance to inspect it – members plan to make their New England-style edifice available to other congregations.

It’s beginning to sink in. This is not a movie.

The list keeps growing

“The uncertainty is the brutal part of it,” says my book club buddy, Tracy Van Houten, whose daughter attends Eliot Arts. The school is heavily damaged and closed, but she texts later that the musical is on! Ash and soot blanket the inside and outside of her family’s Altadena home, and they can’t move back yet. But the house is intact.

That can’t be said of many others. Like the rocket scientist she is, Tracy is keeping a spreadsheet of homes destroyed and the friends and neighbors who lost them. She has about three dozen homes on the list, checking in with folks as she can. The list keeps growing.

So far, 16 people have been killed, and more than 7,000 structures have been confirmed destroyed in the Eaton Fire. The brunt of it has been borne by Altadena, a community of 42,000 people just above Pasadena, where I live and where homes also burned.

Although the Eaton Fire acreage is smaller, the damage so far is roughly twice that of the fire in Pacific Palisades, where there were eight confirmed fatalities and 3,500 structures destroyed. All the tallies are expected to rise as inspections continue.

Tracy says that her various Facebook community groups and chats are filled with conversations about how to rebuild and recapture Altadena’s essence, its beauty, and its free-spirit vibe.

“I’m very hopeful in that sense,” she says. But the question is how to do it. “How do we maintain what made this community so special when so much of it is gone?” she asks.

Francine Kiefer/The Christian Science Monitor

A firefighter from Sanger, California, looks for a place to apply water in a burned-out building on Lake Avenue in Altadena, Jan. 10, 2025. The building, gutted by the Eaton Fire, was radiating heat, indicating fire beneath the rubble.

Altadena is a microcosm. There’s a mix of incomes and races here. There’s open wilderness and a funky, small-town feel. There’s a country club establishment and a visible counterculture. There are new residents and those whose families have been here for generations.

Decades ago, Black families moved here, funneled into an area west of Lake Avenue by an era of redlining. It grew into one of the most thriving Black middle-class communities in the country.

The mural at Grocery Outlet highlights Black artists who lived here, such as Charles White, a painter, and Octavia Butler, a science fiction writer.

The area west of Lake is gentrifying, and the Black community is smaller than it used to be. Many Blacks have sold their family homes after their parents died and moved to less expensive places like Las Vegas.

Still, they make up nearly 20 percent of Altadena’s population, and when the fire raged, about the same percentage of residents affected were Black.

Heartbreaking times, persevering spirits

I call my next-door neighbor, Gail Taylor. She and her sister, Janyce Valentine, own Woods-Valentine Mortuary, a third-generation family business and one of the oldest Black-owned businesses in the area.

Many of Gail’s family and friends have lost their homes, she tells me. She introduces me to one of her dear friends from childhood, Tonita Fernandez, who grew up in Altadena.

On Tuesday, Tonita and I talk. She has raised 12 children, some adopted and others fostered. Six years ago, health challenges began to mount, and the educator says she looked to the future – not her own, but her children’s.

Thinking ahead, she decided to remodel her home for her family, including her two boys, ages 12 and 15. She added a backyard dwelling for her adopted daughter, who she hoped would keep the property for coming generations. The project ended up draining Tonita’s retirement savings.

Francine Kiefer/The Christian Science Monitor

Tonita Fernandez, whose newly remodeled home burned to the ground in the Eaton Fire, gets help with a map showing fire destruction locations from K. Sackrider of the California Highway Patrol, in Altadena, Calif., Jan. 14, 2025.

Still, this Christmas, she celebrated in her new place. The boys got new bikes. She was excited for them. She only had to wait for a final inspection to update her insurance.

That never happened, and days later, everything burned to the ground. It’s heartbreaking, but she has a persevering spirit. I ask whether I might take a photo of her. We agree to try to reach her burned-out place, which she hasn’t seen since she evacuated in a panic.

I drive us to the checkpoint on her street. My press pass, however, can’t get her into the restricted zone, even for press photos, so we’re turned away. I later learn that Tonita was finally able to see her house. Nothing’s left but the stairs, banisters, and porch railing.

“I’m hoping and praying that I can raise enough money to rebuild what I just lost,” Tonita says. “My biggest hope is that we all come together, especially the Black and brown community.” Like so many whose houses burned, she has a GoFundMe page.

But developers are already swooping in, urging people to sell. She understands the reasons some people would see this as a lifeline.

“I’m just hopeful they don’t let this money thing get in the way of rebuilding their home,” she says of the pressure on Blacks and Latinos to sell.

But rebuilding is hard, she says, speaking from her own experience with requirements and permits. “The process of building with the county is so taxing. My concern is no one will weather the storm.”

Resisting developers, pursuing dreams

At a community meeting just days after the Eaton Fire, residents voice concerns about developers possibly changing the face of Altadena as they try to scoop up land.

Francine Kiefer/The Christian Science Monitor

A California National Guardsman directs traffic at a checkpoint on Lake Avenue in Altadena, Calif., on Jan. 10, 2025, just days after the Eaton Fire tore through the area. Dangerous conditions prevented residents from entering the evacuation zone.

The possibility worries Marialyce Pedersen, an environmentalist and zero-waste expert.

After the meeting, she talked proudly about her 100-year-old Spanish-style house in Altadena, which she bought from a childhood friend. The house was destroyed in the fire, but she managed to save her camper, car, and cats. She, too, has a GoFundMe page.

“Apparently, people are getting messages from vultures wanting to ‘buy fire-damaged properties,’” writes Ms. Pedersen in an email exchange after the meeting. “We are trying to encourage everyone to resist.”

She wants to preserve Altadena’s character. She’s thinking of a “barn-raising,” sweat-equity model of rebuilding that involves the whole community and is sustainable.

Perhaps now is also the time to pursue her dream, she says.

“For a long time, I’ve wanted to create the rock-and-roll old folks home.”

She envisions homes for different income levels surrounding a community space that includes a library and music. She could even build three or four cottages around her pool for friends. “It’s going to be fun.”

Yes, I think. And so very Altadena.

Editor's note: This story was updated on Jan. 17, 2025 to reflect the most recent numbers of structures destroyed.

Incoming President Donald Trump says he will make ending the war in Ukraine a top priority in his administration, and that it will end quickly.

Many Western experts cast doubt on his assessment. But there’s another, perhaps more surprising party who disagrees: Russia itself.

The Russians are clearly signaling that they find the jumbled ideas they hear coming out of the Trump camp, at least so far, to be mostly nonstarters. And while Mr. Trump, as his inauguration approaches, has revised his timeline for a settlement from “24 hours” to as much as six months, that doesn’t address the yawning gulf between Moscow and Washington over how they understand the war.

Both disagree sharply on the war’s causes, the shape of a possible compromise settlement and, especially, what kind of independent Ukrainian state – if any – might emerge from a deal. And that could result in the war continuing far longer than would square with Mr. Trump’s promises.

Diplomacy first?

One thing both Russian President Vladimir Putin and Mr. Trump’s people agree on is that a summit between the two leaders is desirable; talks about setting one up are reportedly underway. That’s more complicated than it sounds. There has been virtually no high-level or political dialogue between Moscow and Washington for about three years, so any preparations will have to start from scratch.

“A lot of advance work will have to go into it,” says Dmitry Suslov, a foreign policy expert with the Higher School of Economics in Moscow. “The contours of any possible deal will have to be elaborated through painstaking efforts by working groups at lower levels, and I wouldn’t underestimate how difficult that is going to be.”

Russian analysts say that the impetus from Washington to revive diplomacy represents a potential sea change. Mr. Putin recently welcomed the idea of talking with Mr. Trump “without preconditions,” other than a mutual desire to resolve issues through dialogue.

The new emphasis on negotiation “means that this yearslong effort to isolate Russia, to deal a strategic defeat to it, is over,” says Sergei Markov, a former Kremlin adviser. He argues that a Trump-Putin summit should focus on restoring diplomatic engagement as much as possible, and leave the much thornier Ukraine settlement until later.

“The threat of U.S.-Russia war is the most serious danger right now, and that’s what needs to be taken off the table,” Mr. Markov says. “Once we have resumed dialogue, we may create conditions for further negotiations. The main thing now is to end this diplomatic war, which has made it virtually impossible to get anything done.”

Evgenia Novozhenina/Reuters

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov speaks during an annual press conference in Moscow, Jan. 14, 2025.

A new, divided world order

The Russians have previous experience with Mr. Trump in the White House, which they remember as a time of crushed hopes and wasted efforts. Hence, expectations of his return seem subdued in the Russian media and commentariat.

Few in Moscow seem to take seriously Mr. Trump’s startling rhetoric about a possible U.S. annexation of Greenland, the Panama Canal, and maybe even Canada.

Media commentary tends to treat it as an implied vindication of Russia’s own claims of primacy in its former Soviet region. Some argue that Mr. Trump’s ambitions to strengthen the U.S. grip on its own hemisphere heralds a new, divided world order, in which great power blocs dominate their own areas and compete for global dominance.

“I don’t think this turn to the Monroe Doctrine and a more classical type of U.S. imperialism is just Trump’s idea. It’s an emerging mood,” says Mr. Suslov. “We are certainly looking at an intensification of the struggle for the Arctic,” while in the process shredding previously sacred ideas such as the sovereignty of smaller nations, he says.

As for Ukraine, recent statements by Mr. Putin and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov make it clear that Russia is unlikely to accept any temporary ceasefire, even as a prelude to wider negotiations. In an interview with the official TASS news agency at the new year, Mr. Lavrov insisted that “what we need is reliable and legally binding agreements that would eliminate the root causes of the conflict and seal a mechanism precluding the possibility of their violation.”

With Russian forces grinding forward inexorably along the 1,000-mile front line, there seems little incentive for Moscow to stop until it gets what it wants.

Mr. Putin has frequently alluded to the abortive peace deal reached between Russian and Ukrainian negotiators back in April 2022 as a starting point for any future talks. That agreement would have required Ukrainian neutrality, substantial demilitarization, and the provision of cultural and linguistic rights for the Russian-speaking population of Ukraine. At that time, Russia made no major territorial demands, and would even have left the issue of Crimea open.

Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters

A man walks near a damaged store after a Ukrainian military strike in Russian-controlled Donetsk, Ukraine, Jan. 10, 2025.

What kind of Ukraine will emerge?

Now, Russia has already officially annexed the four regions of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia at a high price in blood (though the only region of those that they fully occupy is Luhansk). Analysts say it will require all those lands to be ceded to Russia under any peace agreement.

Territory is not Moscow’s primary concern, they add, but rather it is the orientation of the Ukrainian state that emerges from any settlement. “Russia accepts the existence of a sovereign, independent Ukraine,” says Mr. Markov. “We oppose a Ukraine that’s an anti-Russia Western client state.”

In addition to neutrality, Russian analysts argue, a new Ukraine will need to accept effective demilitarization and acquiesce to being part of a Russian sphere of influence. They say that would probably involve subservience in foreign policy, and openness to Russian capital flows, as well as cultural and political influences.

That is probably the biggest sticking point for the incoming Trump administration. While Mr. Trump has conceded in various statements that Ukraine may have to sacrifice territory and at least defer NATO membership, he does seem to agree with the idea of “armed neutrality” for a Ukraine that would be otherwise aligned with the West.

“I doubt that Trump has much capacity to make concessions,” says Mr. Suslov. “He does not want to appear weak. And we have already seen how he comes under pressure from all sides when he seems conciliatory toward Russia.”

Mr. Suslov says it’s likely that talks will begin while the fighting still rages, and probably a lot remains to be decided on the battlefield.

“At least we may see negotiations taking place, and that is good. But they will likely be tense and difficult, and most likely accompanied by escalation of war and sanctions. I do not see much reason to be optimistic.”

Can a 500-year-old mosque, made almost entirely of mud bricks, offer a way to deal with climate change? In Agadez, a city in the heart of Niger that is often called the gateway to the Sahara, Amma Attouboul certainly thinks so.

Better known by the title Sarkin Magina (“King of the Builders”), Mr. Attouboul was appointed by the region’s sultanate to take care of the mosque, which consists of an 89-foot-tall minaret surrounded by several prayer chambers. Every two years or so, the entire structure is caked with a fresh layer of banco: a muddy mixture of water, soil, and straw that dries in open air. “These walls are exceptionally heavy,” Mr. Attouboul says as his wrinkled hands gently tap the thickset walls. “Because of this, sunlight struggles to penetrate. And inside the mosque, the chambers stay cool and comfortable.”

In the Sahel region, a semiarid belt of land stretching from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea, temperatures are expected to rise 1 1/2 times faster than the global average, according to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cool nights are becoming increasingly rare, and blazing-hot days are lasting longer. A revival of traditional mud-brick houses could help protect Agadez and its people, resident Abdourahman Ibrahim notes.

On the outskirts of town, Mr. Ibrahim is overseeing the construction of a residential compound entirely built out of mud bricks. “This is a modern site,” he says while laying row after row of the bricks, all freshly baked under the desert sun. “There’s electricity and a water connection. I think we should keep building our houses like this, for our culture and for the climate. ... We are still living here like our ancestors did. And hopefully, our children will do the same.”

Guy Peterson

WALL-TO-WALL CONSTRUCTION: A worker carries a mud brick at a building site for a new house on an estate on the outskirts of Agadez.

Guy Peterson

HANDLER WITH CARE: Amma Attouboul, the caretaker for the Agadez Mosque, walks through the structure’s narrow passages.

Guy Peterson

BUILDING BLOCKS: A builder uses a wheelbarrow to collect freshly made mud bricks to use in the construction of a house on the outskirts of Agadez.

Guy Peterson

COLD COMFORT: A man passes through the entrance of his house in Agadez. Mud-brick structures can offer respite from stifling temperatures.

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

AP Photo/Mike Caudill

Michael Vick holds a whistle around his neck after he is introduced as the head coach of the Norfolk State football team, Dec. 23, 2024 in Norfolk, Va.

When he hired Jackie Robinson to break the racial barrier in baseball in 1947, Branch Rickey, president of the Brooklyn Dodgers at the time, described having two things on his mind. “My only purpose is to be fair to all people,” he said, “and my selfish objective is to win baseball games.”

The marriage of equality and excellence in American sport has been a gradual and uneven project ever since. While racial barriers have fallen on the field, integration has taken far longer to reach the manager’s office. Two recent hirings mark how that is changing.

In December, two historically Black schools, Delaware State University and Norfolk State University in Virginia, each tapped a former professional player to run its football program. The appointments confirm something of a trend. Five years ago, Jackson State University, a historically Black school in Mississippi, hired former NFL star Deion Sanders as head coach.

Like Mr. Sanders, DeSean Jackson and Michael Vick were hired to fix losing teams. Like Mr. Sanders, they start with little coaching experience. But they bring – as Mr. Sanders did – personal records of broken records. In just two years, Mr. Sanders led a team that had six consecutive losing seasons to a 12-1 record in 2022.

Delaware and Norfolk are hoping for similar transformations. Their desire to build winning programs is rooted in a deeper purpose. According to the National Collegiate Athletics Association, the number of Black football head coaches “is only about a third of what one might expect given the share of Black student-athletes in football.”

The country’s HBCUs were created to cultivate academic excellence and promote advancement for formerly enslaved people and their descendants. The schools now hope to achieve the same outcomes in athletics. As Bishop Kim Brown, a member of Norfolk’s board of visitors, said when Mr. Vick was introduced, “Today, we put on full display the mission of HBCUs, especially our school. We provide opportunity.”

Leveling opportunity in sport, on the field as well as on the sidelines, writes David Grenardo, a law professor at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota, breaks down barriers by showing that excellence has nothing to do with identity. It is innate in all individuals, as Mr. Sanders tells his players, and is nurtured through discipline, humility, and selflessness.

“Sports provide a reflection of society and its many facets, which include racism,” Professor Grenardo wrote in the Harvard Journal of Sports & Entertainment Law in 2021. “Sports can also reflect the beauty of society through healing and transforming the world in a positive manner.”

On Monday, the University of Notre Dame’s Marcus Freeman will be the first Black head coach to lead a team into the national college football championship. That milestone might have held a particular poignance for Branch Rickey. When everyone has an equal opportunity to succeed, all of society wins.