The Middle East is seized by two conflicting moods this week: hope that a flurry of diplomacy has brought a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas within reach, and dread over the consequences should the talks fail.

With parallel talks being conducted in Saudi Arabia, Israel, Egypt, and Qatar, there is a sense of purpose, urgency, and hope for what is being described by diplomats as a “last best chance” for a Gaza cease-fire and hostage-release agreement.

Diplomats say the two parties have never been closer after weeks of stagnation, yet this positivity is marred by the concern that the alternative, should talks fail, would be a devastating Israeli military offensive into the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where 1.9 million Palestinians are seeking refuge.

The current proposal formulated by Egypt and Israel includes a 40-day sustained cease-fire, Hamas’ release of 33 civilian hostages in return for some 1,500 to 3,000 Palestinian prisoners, and displaced Gazans being allowed by Israel to return to their homes in northern Gaza.

The proposed agreement would also include two key Israeli concessions: withdrawal of forces from the corridor cutting off northern from southern Gaza, and a “sustainable calm” leading to a potential second phase of the cease-fire deal and an end to the war – issues that snagged previous talks. 

On Monday, Egypt said it was “hopeful,” and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken described the proposal as “extraordinarily generous” for Hamas, urging the militant movement to “decide quickly.”

Hatem Khaled/Reuters

Palestinians look out from a house damaged by an Israeli strike in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, April 29, 2024.

On Tuesday, Hamas was set to give its official response to the proposal and talks are expected to resume, with Mr. Blinken arriving in Israel.

With Israeli officials telling local media they are giving talks one “last chance,” and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insistent on an assault against Hamas positions in Rafah, Arab diplomats are calling this “the most decisive week of the war.”

Giving the talks additional incentive, Saudi Arabia on Monday reportedly advanced talks with the United States over normalized ties with Israel – long prized by Mr. Netanyahu – in meetings with Secretary Blinken in Riyadh.

According to Arab diplomats with knowledge of the talks, Saudi Arabia is conditioning normalization on an end to the war in Gaza and “tangible, irreversible” steps toward a Palestinian state.

On the sidelines of a World Economic Forum meeting in Riyadh, Sunday and Monday also saw meetings of Arab foreign ministers, American and European diplomats, and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to discuss moving forward a postwar plan for Gaza and paths to Palestinian statehood.

Beneath the expressions of optimism is deepening dread across the Middle East about the potential for a Rafah offensive.

Pressure from all sides is building on Israel and Hamas, which have balked before, to reach a deal this week.

Shannon Stapleton/Reuters

A protester calls for the immediate release of Israeli hostages held in Gaza since Hamas’ deadly Oct. 7 attack, in Tel Aviv, Israel, April 25, 2024.

Egypt and Qatar are pushing Hamas’ leadership to accept the deal, pointing out the Israeli concessions.

Families of Israeli hostages and their allies are increasing pressure on Mr. Netanyahu, who they believe has not made a deal a priority. They have held protests for the last four nights, galvanized by Hamas’ release of proof-of-life videos of multiple hostages.

Families are pressing the government to avoid a Rafah offensive that they fear may be a death sentence for the remaining hostages, many of whom are thought to be held in Hamas tunnels there.

“Let us finalize the deal that is on the table to bring home the hostages, end the hostilities, agree on a cease-fire, and allow us to celebrate our Israeli Independence Day next month with our loved ones,” Lishay Lavi-Miran, wife of hostage Omri Miran, said in a statement issued Monday by hostage families.

“I want to ask everyone to stop the talking and start the actions. We are losing people that are alive now, and there is no time to waste,” added Elan Siegel, daughter of hostage Keith Siegel.

Meanwhile, in Rafah, hope for a cease-fire deal is limited. Thousands are scrambling to find ways to leave the city ahead of what they believe will be an imminent operation.

Zayed Ibrahim Shaksha, displaced with his family in a tent in Rafah, views the offensive as Israeli leverage that, should talks collapse, may very soon become a reality.

“The reason for a Rafah incursion is to put pressure on the negotiations in order to release the hostages,” he says. “Eventually we all pay the price.”

Ghada Abdulfattah contributed from Rafah, Gaza Strip.

Disgraced film producer Harvey Weinstein won a legal victory last week when his 2020 convictions for felony sex crimes, including rape, were overturned by a New York Court of Appeals. But experts say the reversal falls far short of erasing the hard-won progress of recent years, including the passage of hundreds of state laws aimed at gender equity and workplace safety.

Accusations against Mr. Weinstein had accelerated the #MeToo movement, which has focused attention on protecting – and believing – survivors of sexual violence, and on combating workplace harassment.

Even after last week’s legal reversal, experts in workplace safety and culture point to substantive gains that are tough to undo and likely to outlast Mr. Weinstein. Those gains range from societal shifts that empower survivors of sexual assault and misconduct, to legal changes that support workplace safety and gender equality.

“Whether our laws are adequate to address harassment and whether companies are implementing good systems to prevent and respond to harassment, that’s all independent of Harvey Weinstein,” says Elizabeth Tippett, a professor at the University of Oregon School of Law. “The #MeToo movement never really did rise or fall on the one person.”

For many women, the reversal in New York has added weight, given recent restrictions and churning around reproductive health care across the United States. Mr. Weinstein’s victory underscores their concerns on a slate of issues related to women’s agency, safety, and equality. 

Those who saw Mr. Weinstein’s convictions as victories, more broadly, for the rights of women and survivors of sexual assault, have responded to the news with dismay, saying the successful appeal betrays #MeToo’s legacy. Women need to pay attention, they say – and get organized. 

Chris Pizzello/AP/File

Attorney Gloria Allred addresses reporters after Harvey Weinstein was found guilty of rape at a Los Angeles trial, Dec. 19, 2022.

“We have to keep pushing forward,” says Gloria Allred, the women’s rights attorney who represented one of the key prosecution witnesses in Mr. Weinstein’s New York trial. 

The former Hollywood heavyweight is still serving a 16-year sentence for a 2022 rape conviction in California.

How Weinstein verdict was overturned 

Mr. Weinstein’s legal team successfully argued that the New York trial judge had erred in allowing witness testimony about prejudicial acts for which the defendant was not charged. The appeals court also agreed that that testimony should not have been a basis for cross-examination, as allowed by the trial court. Mr. Weinstein chose not to take the stand and face those questions. 

“The synergistic effect of these errors was not harmless,” reads the appeals court opinion. It goes on to say, “The only evidence against defendant was the complainants’ testimony, and the result of the court’s rulings, on the one hand, was to bolster their credibility and diminish defendant’s character before the jury. On the other hand, the threat of a cross-examination highlighting these untested allegations undermined defendant’s right to testify.”

Weinstein attorney Diana Fabi Samson describes the appeal as a matter of black-letter law around evidentiary procedure.

“The rule is simple. You don’t prove that someone commits a crime by proving they have a bad character,” says Ms. Samson, who asserts the ruling does not diminish #MeToo. “The #MeToo movement had a lot of laudable goals, and they still obtain. Women should not be the victim of crimes or even civil wrongs. ... And they should seek vindication in the civil courts where that’s the case, and I don’t think anything about that changes.”

Ms. Allred, for her part, says that despite the setback, women’s rights advocates can move forward – and calls on women to mobilize.

“People speaking out in court of public opinion matters. Legislators hear that,” she says, adding that progress is never a straightforward march. “Nobody ever gives women any rights. ... We always have to fight to win them.”

The reversal comes at a time of significant upheaval in access to reproductive health care as states renegotiate policies around birth control, abortion, and the definition of life.

In the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022, half of states have banned abortion or increased restrictions on it. Several states have passed laws banning abortion even in cases of rape and incest.

Seth Wenig/AP/File

Harvey Weinstein arrived at a Manhattan courthouse for his trial in New York Feb. 24, 2020. New York's highest court overturned Mr. Weinstein's 2020 rape conviction last week and ordered a new trial. He is still serving a 16-year sentence in California for a separate 2022 rape conviction.

The #MeToo influence on state laws and workplaces 

The #MeToo movement sparked a wave of legislation – at the state level more than the federal. Between 2016 and 2022, state legislatures introduced more than 3,000 bills that supported gender equity and workplace safety among other related matters. Lawmakers passed 382 of them. 

Those laws shored up gender equity and workplace safety on a number of fronts: pay equity, requirements for harassment training, procedures for reporting harassment, leave policies, and the elimination of nondisclosure agreements. 

The cultural changes are long-lasting, says Professor Tippett, who tracked and analyzed post-#MeToo workplace legislation with a team of researchers. 

“I don’t think we’re going to go back to a culture where some people think that they can get away with it, and now they can just harass people indefinitely and never face any kind of accountability,” she says.

Other societal gains empower survivors of sexual misconduct and assault with a culture of support. 

High-profile convictions of men like Mr. Weinstein and Bill Cosby, whose criminal case was also overturned, opened the door to people believing survivors, says Terri Boyer, founding director at Villanova University’s Anne Welsh McNulty Institute for Women’s Leadership. 

“That #MeToo piece, the whole purpose of it was to bring the stories to the fore so people understand that it does happen,” she says. “Do people believe that [Mr. Weinstein] did what happened? I think people do. And perhaps that’s the win here, is that people believe it.”

Jasper Davidoff/The Christian Science Monitor

Ash Farley, a high school senior in New York, says restrictions on social media companies could make it harder to find relevant content online.

Will American teens lose their access to TikTok? Should they?

A new law that could ban the video app – a platform especially popular with youth – unless it is sold by Chinese owner ByteDance, moves the former question closer to an answer. But the latter remains less clear.

Public officials are increasingly concerned about teenage screen time and social media use. And, though with mixed feelings, teens are, too.

Grace Jung is one of them. The high school sophomore readily acknowledges that, alongside homework, time on her phone plays a pretty big part in keeping her up at night. “Every time I try turning it off, there’s another app that’s trying to get me on it,” she says.

At her New York City school, “confessions” groups are making a comeback. Classmates have been posting anonymously on Facebook and Instagram with jabs and observations about how their peers look, who they’re friends with, the latest rumors. Grace cites one friend who’s suffered as a result of comments about her online.

“This could have been avoided or regulated in the first place, so she wouldn’t have to go through this in real life,” she says. “I feel like people always have to walk on eggshells.”

Help might be on the way. Through legislation and lawsuits, her home state is becoming a testing ground for how public officials are trying to help address rising concerns about the effects of unchecked digital immersion on young people’s development. 

As with parallel efforts in other states, it’s not yet clear if actions emerging here will succeed in addressing families’ concerns. But officials nationwide see the links between social media and adolescent well-being as an increasingly urgent issue, especially after a 2023 Surgeon General’s advisory found “harmful content” exposure and “excessive and problematic” social media use have become primary drivers of youth mental health concerns. 

Jasper Davidoff/The Christian Science Monitor

Grace Jung in New York, April 19, 2024. The high school sophomore says homework and time on her phone play a big part in keeping her up at night.

“This is something that lawmakers have experienced firsthand themselves,” says Kris Perry, executive director of Children and Screens, a nonprofit that studies the impact of digital media on child development. “Many of them are parents or grandparents, and they are shocked and alarmed at what has unfolded in this past decade.”

Here in New York City, Mayor Eric Adams’ administration sued five social media companies earlier this year for “fueling” a youth mental health crisis. The state’s attorney general last fall joined a national lawsuit against Meta, Facebook’s parent company, over youth mental health. Meanwhile, the New York state Legislature is considering bills that could rein in the interactions social media platforms can have with minors – either by restricting corporations or by empowering parents and children.

New York’s actions mirror bipartisan efforts in a number of states to tackle the downsides of addictive social media. Lawmakers in red and blue states have passed laws regulating youth social media use, including in Arkansas, California, Florida, Texas, and Utah. Maryland passed legislation earlier this month. 

Social media legislation for kids 

The TikTok law that sailed through Congress this week was primarily driven by national security concerns over the Chinese government potentially reaping data on 170 million American users. 

Left unaddressed in Congress: a wider strategy on social media and teen mental health. Federal and state lawmakers face a decision on whether to make tech companies more responsible for safety and well-being issues, or to put that onus on parents and guardians. 

The Kids Online Safety Act, a bipartisan U.S. Senate bill reintroduced in February by Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut, and Tennessee Republican Marsha Blackburn, includes “duty of care” clauses that make platforms liable for addressing harmful content. 

But civil rights groups like the American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation have warned those provisions could lead to increased censorship and loss of First Amendment free speech rights.

The proposals on the table in New York lean more toward parental oversight. The Stop Addictive Feeds Exploitation for Kids Act, or SAFE Act, would ban the use of feed algorithms for pushing content at users under 18. Instead, youth would get a default chronological feed, unless parents consent otherwise. The measure would also allow parents to block their children’s access between midnight and 6 a.m., as well as giving them the opportunity to limit their total usage.

Grace agrees that restricting notifications could help. But she says giving parents too much blanket power to decide what their children can and can’t see could do more harm than good.

“Honestly, I don’t think I would trust my parents to regulate my social media use,” she says. “Even though parents do want what’s for the best, I don’t think they can understand what their children do.”

That’s an attitude Andy Jung, her dad, happens to share. He believes in serving as a role model on how to use the internet responsibly. But he’s not interested in weighing in on how she can or can’t use Instagram. 

“I’m not 100% sure how she’s spending most of her time when she’s using her cellphone or the internet,” he says. “All I can say is I trust my daughter. That’s all I can do. I cannot monitor what she’s doing all day.”

Will constraining social media companies help?

The New York Child Data Protection Act, meanwhile, would prohibit websites from collecting or sharing any minor’s personal data without informed consent, including parental consent for those younger than 13. That’s a particularly valued step for civil rights groups, Ms. Perry says, because it has less of a chance of curtailing teens’ free speech but does more to restrict harmful algorithmic manipulation, as well as companies’ abilities to sell the information they collect. 

“The less we allow companies to monetize the child’s experience, the less motivated they are to put products in front of children,” Ms. Perry says. And, perhaps, the less children will be inclined to overuse social apps.

Both New York bills are still under committee consideration. In several other states with youth social media laws, NetChoice, a tech industry group, has succeeded in suing to delay implementation. 

Any move that constrains the algorithms appears bound to be unpopular among teenagers. It’s the feature that’s made apps like TikTok and YouTube so eerily proficient at presenting content that captivates.

And only 46% of teenagers support requiring parental consent for minors to create social media accounts, compared with 81% of U.S. adults, according to Pew Research Center. 

Ash Farley, a high school senior in New York, says teens are well aware platforms are raking in their data. But Ash, who uses they/them pronouns, says restrictions could make it harder to find anything from content that inspires their art to online resources that help teens explore their developing identities away from prying eyes.

“You’d miss out on a lot that you’re interested in,” Ash says. “There’s not a lot of ways to get that stuff, other than social media.”

Ash’s mom, Jennifer Watters-Farley, has tried to take an approach of maximizing communication and enabling good judgment with her children.

“We try to be very candid without scaring them, but at least giving them enough information to know what to look out for and how to act, and to always let us know if something was happening that they were really uncomfortable with,” Ms. Watters-Farley says. “That we wouldn’t be upset with them – we would just want to try to help them handle it.”

Anne Marie Albano, a psychologist at Columbia University Irving Medical Center, says the ideal solution might not be to give parents or legislators more direct control over social feeds, but to ensure that parents have more resources to prepare their kids to make healthy decisions. 

“Our kids have to learn how to become independent beings,” she says. 

Tom Fox/The Dallas Morning News/AP/File

Adults learners, like this one at Literacy Instruction for Texas in Dallas, are seeking assistance with reading and writing. Help can be difficult to find, and often focuses narrowly on those who are seeking new jobs.

Shawntell Fitzgerald is convinced that with the right kind of help in school, she could have learned to read. Instead, she says, teachers in Milwaukee’s public schools moved her on from grade to grade, even filling in her answers on tests at times.

Now 49 years old, Ms. Fitzgerald is struggling to reclaim a lost education. Through sporadic tutoring sessions at Literacy Services of Wisconsin, a program for adults, she has made steady progress in learning how to sound out words. Ms. Fitzgerald has many goals to motivate her: helping her children and grandchildren with their homework, passing her driver’s license exam, reading the Bible on her own.

Limited reading skills are “stopping me from going where I want in church,” she told me, “and in life.”

Lower on her list of goals: finding a job. Ms. Fitzgerald works occasional gigs cleaning and in home health care when she needs the income.

Yet for the 1 in 5 adults in the United States who struggle with reading, help is not only scarce but also all too often rigidly focused on those who are seeking new jobs. Federal spending on adult education programs declined over the first two decades of the 2000s, according to ProLiteracy, which advocates for the programs.

At the same time, what funding exists is more narrowly limited than ever before to adult learners seeking employment. Black, Latino, and Indigenous adults are disproportionately affected by this mass disinvestment. They are more likely to receive an inadequate K-12 education, and therefore are more likely to need continued education to thrive in adulthood. Wisconsin, the state where I focused my reporting on adult learners, has the largest Black-white gap in student reading performance.

This paltry support for adults persists amidst a national reckoning in terms of how we teach reading. The vast majority of states, including Wisconsin, have passed legislation aimed at reemphasizing phonics, or the sound structure of language. School districts across the U.S. are investing in training teachers in what the science says about how children learn to read.

With nearly 50 million struggling adult readers, many of them victims of subpar schooling, it’s clear that we need reading reparations for grown-ups as much as we need reading reform in our elementary schools.

“It feels like I’m on my own”

Since President Lyndon Johnson authorized the nation’s first significant investment in adult education in 1964, the money has been tied to workforce development goals. That linkage has only become stronger over time. The Obama-era Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act of 2014, for instance, reinforced the idea of increasing participants’ income in the short term. That effectively prioritized advanced readers whose job and career goals can be addressed with comparative ease: those who need help preparing a résumé for a job application, for instance, or learning a new computer program.

Courtesy of Kermaine Petty

Milwaukee native Kermaine Petty, an accomplished software developer, realized a few years ago that he had gone through school with an undiagnosed learning disability. He is engaged and dreams of reading to his future children, so he decided in 2021 to seek out tutoring.

A decade ago, nearly 20 adult literacy programs across Wisconsin received at least some funds through the federal Adult Education and Family Literacy Act. That number has dwindled to six, according to Wisconsin Literacy, a statewide adult and family literacy coalition.

Last year, lawmakers rejected a proposal that would have provided nearly $750,000 in state funding for adult literacy programs, leaving many of them operating on small, five-figure budgets and the generosity of volunteers.

Even for people who can afford to pay for tutoring, help can be hard to find. Milwaukee native Kermaine Petty, an accomplished software developer, realized a few years ago that he had gone through school, including the Milwaukee School of Engineering, with an undiagnosed learning disability. He only received minimal help learning to read.  

His prodigious memory and work ethic allowed him to advance despite his limited ability to sound out new words. “When I’m faced with a lot of text,” he explains, “my head still goes ‘huh?’”

Mr. Petty, 34, who is engaged, dreams of reading to his future children. So he decided in 2021 to seek out tutoring. For six months, he advanced with the help of two $60 sessions each week at the Dyslexia Achievement Center in a Milwaukee suburb.

But when his teacher retired, Mr. Petty struggled for over a year to find a tutor. “It feels like I’m on my own,” he told me in late 2022. “I’m disappointed over the lack of resources. When you reach out, no one responds.”

Needed: more funding, and a different goal

Adult literacy programs undoubtedly need more money: Enrollment in “basic education” programs for adults dropped by more than 50%, or more than a half-million students, between 2000 and 2020, partly because of funding challenges. But their role and purpose should also be reimagined.

We need to upend the long-standing narrative that adults mostly need reading skills for one overriding purpose: to work. “Even if we got 15 or 20 million more [dollars] in funding, I don’t see what difference that is going to make if it is solely devoted to getting higher-level learners into jobs,” says Erik Jacobson, a professor at Montclair State University whose research focuses on adult education.

Mr. Petty eventually connected last spring with a new tutor at the Dyslexia Achievement Center, and he continued working on his reading speed and skills. He had to step back in the summer because of job demands. But he hopes to resume tutoring soon. He will consider the labor successful when he doesn’t have to agonize over drafting emails, can enjoy a book for pleasure, and doesn’t live in dread of someday reading to his children. “My friends all fear becoming parents because of the cost of child care,” Mr. Petty says. “For me, it’s about reading to my kid.”

Ms. Fitzgerald, like Mr. Petty, has found that job and family demands often get in the way of focusing on her reading. That, and discouragement at the slow pace of progress. She takes some comfort, however, from serving as an ally at her church to parents of struggling readers.

Ms. Fitzgerald knows, after all, that with help for adults in short supply, this might be their only chance.  

Sarah Carr is an independent journalist and author of “Hope Against Hope” about New Orleans schools. Her reporting on literacy issues in Wisconsin has been supported by the Lubar Center for Public Policy Research and Civic Education at Marquette University Law School. 

For Laura Veirs, cycling was a time for crying.

It was 2018. Few would have suspected that the songwriter’s life was unraveling. Two years earlier, a supergroup collaboration with Neko Case and k.d. lang had elevated her profile. Her latest solo album, “The Lookout,” had wowed critics. It exemplified her talent for creating lyrical images of nature, like a plein-air painter utilizing a folk-rock palette. One song included her two young children on backing vocals. The title track was a tribute to her music producer husband. 

She hadn’t anticipated her marriage would end. 

At the time, Ms. Veirs found out that two friends were preparing for a 100-mile bike ride. A query: Could she join them? She bought a bike and started training. That’s when she’d release pent-up tears.

“Biking is the main thing that helped me process my divorce,” says Ms. Veirs, hands cradling a hot drink outside a coffee shop near her Portland, Oregon, home. 

It also heralded a fresh life cycle. The songwriter is constantly reinventing herself. This month, Ms. Veirs released her first live album, “Laura Veirs and Her Band (Live in Brooklyn).” It’s self-produced. She has embraced other firsts, such as adopting a dog, learning to dance, and practicing French on a language app (“I have a 275-day Duolingo streak,” she says, beaming.) Those activities replenish the groundwaters of her creative wellspring, often finding fresh channels for artistic expression.

“I’ve always held Laura Veirs as a model of creativity and invention, definitely in her approach to songs, but also in the ways she lives her life – always observing, always learning, always challenging herself, always expanding what it means to live a life in music,” writes songwriter Laura Gibson in an email. Ms. Gibson’s acclaimed 2009 album, “Beasts of Seasons,” featured Ms. Veirs. “She is curiosity personified – this comes across in her music, just as much as in her various undertakings.”

“A free exploratory state”

Ms. Veirs released her eponymously titled debut 25 years ago. Twelve more solo albums have followed. She’s been running her own cottage industry, Raven Marching Band Records, while raising two kids. That inspired a podcast, “Midnight Lightning,” in which she interviewed other mothers about balancing music careers with having children. Amid the warp and weft of recording, touring, and parenting, her marriage started to fray.

Alfredo Sosa/Staff

Laura Veirs says she is careful not to judge ideas when they arrive. Her process is to finish a draft in one sitting. Then she returns to edit, sculpt, and refine her writing.

“I gave way too much of myself away and ended up in a pretty dark place,” she says, describing the inspiration behind “Seaside Haiku,” one of the highlights on the live album. “It’s a warning call, especially to women who end up often giving a lot more of themselves than they maybe should, to someone who may not be reciprocating that.”

That song originally appeared on “Found Light,” the postdivorce record that she coproduced with Shahzad Ismaily. As its title implies, it’s not a “straight-up rage album,” says Ms. Veirs. She was keen to reveal beauty on the other side of the marriage split. It spurred self-discovery. For instance, when she and her children moved into a new home, she took up painting to populate the bare walls with artwork. Now she hosts a painting group once a week. 

“It’s more of a free exploratory state, which I aspire to find with music,” she says.

Ms. Veirs has a tip for entering that frame of mind: Get up from the chair. 

“I don’t know if it’s the physical movement – or being on a train or in a car, the movement of yourself in space – but something about that movement does prompt for me creative flow, which then I will take and capture on my phone in the Notes app,” she says.

Ms. Veirs is careful not to judge ideas when they arrive. You can block your own way with self-doubt, she says. Her process is to finish a draft in one sitting. (Her album “Phone Orphans,” released last year, was curated from unreleased demos.) Then she returns to edit, sculpt, and refine ideas. Having something waiting for her helps offset fear of the blank page.

“What I find really beautiful about Laura’s way of working is that she’s one of those rare artists ... that are eminently aware of both structure and emotion in songwriting in a simultaneous way,” says Mr. Ismaily, who plays drums on the new album. “And secondly, she has a killer sense of groove and time.”

When Ms. Veirs teaches songwriting classes, she finds that many of her students have struggled to complete songs. 

“I think that the root of that is fear of commitment,” she says. “Commitment to themselves.”

For 2018’s “The Lookout,” Ms. Veirs invented her own card deck. The cards offered lyric and music prompts such as “Include a church” or “Write in 5/4 time.” The idea is to spark disciplined creativity. Ms. Veirs utilizes her patented Kaleidoscope Creativity Cards while teaching. She remembers one Zoom workshop in which students were tasked with finishing a song in 45 minutes. One person asked whether he absolutely had to use the prompt on his card.

“I was like, ‘You don’t have to, but if you’re afraid, if there’s something bothering you about it, it’s probably worth looking at,’” Ms. Veirs recalls. “His card was ‘Write about a family member that’s not living anymore.’ He finished a song and it was about his daughter who had passed away 10 years ago. He’d been trying to write about her for 10 years. ... We were all tearing up, and it was beautiful.”

Going with the flow

Surprisingly, Ms. Veirs reveals that she’s at an existential juncture about whether to continue writing songs.

“It’s not calling me,” she says. “The thing is it always called to me and I’m like, ‘Well, also, who says you have to be a songwriter?’”

That doesn’t portend the end of her music career. She’s working on an instrumental album. Tours are always in the offing. But her boyfriend, a college music professor, starts a sabbatical in June. She’s going to join him. They’re planning on taking roller-skating classes. In the meantime, she’s already exploring fresh endeavors.

“I just borrowed a couple of power saws from my friend because I want to make some tables,” she says. “I just go with the flow of where my life is instead of being like, ‘Well, you’re a songwriter, so you have to sit here and grind at this for eight hours a day for the rest of your life, because that’s all you get to do!’” 

She pauses to laugh, then adds, “That’s not how I see creativity.”

AP

Colombian President Gustavo Petro at a swearing-in ceremony for Attorney General Luz Adriana Camargo, March 22.

As violent organized crime spreads more widely across South America, events in two countries – Ecuador and Colombia – illustrate how the region has become a laboratory for divergent approaches to peace and security.

In Ecuador, voters overwhelmingly endorsed expanding military and police powers in a referendum last week to quell the country’s worst cartel-fueled violence in a generation. A few days later, in neighboring Colombia, something more modest happened. The country’s new attorney general suspended arrest warrants for a handful of paramilitary commanders due to their agreement to talk peace.

Asked by the magazine Cambio Colombia if she agreed with easing up on violent guerrilla leaders in exchange for dialogue, Luz Adriana Camargo said, “It has nothing to do with whether I’m open to it or not. ... It’s the law that permits that.”

Ms. Camargo’s response underscores an important distinction separating the two approaches and the futures they portend. Latin America is the world’s most dangerous region due to cartel and gang violence. It has 9% of the global population but one-third of the world’s homicides, according to the World Bank. Kidnapping and extortion are on the rise – and affecting a wider stretch of places.

The trend is driving a turn toward increasingly militarized solutions. El Salvador, for example, has incarcerated some 75,000 people – nearly 2% of its population – in recent years on suspicion of being involved in gangs. Such mano dura (“strong hand” in Spanish) tactics are gaining regional popularity by all but erasing murders. Children can play in public parks again.

Yet such measures have eroded democratic norms like a presumption of innocence for the accused. Most of those incarcerated in El Salvador have not been formally charged. A new law allows 900 suspects to be tried at once. In Mexico, meanwhile, deploying the military to combat organized crime has had the opposite effect. From 2018 to 2022, according to national statistics, arrests fell by an order of magnitude while cartel activity expanded.

In Colombia, by contrast, exchanging the threat of arrest for dialogue is a key part of the government’s painstaking strategy of negotiating peace simultaneously with some 20 armed factions to end 60 years of conflict. That process, known as Paz Total (“total peace”) and launched less than two years ago by President Gustavo Petro, has been marked by reversals and unintended effects. But a key distinction lies in its emphasis on both empathy and the rule of law. It depends on building communities and the democratic institutions that they require, such as courts to resolve land disputes.

The strategy’s first example of “restorative incarceration,” launched earlier this month, shows how. In exchange for admitting guilt for violent acts and seeking forgiveness from victims and the families, 48 military and former guerrilla leaders are now serving “sentences” by planting trees and helping heal the communities they once dominated through fear. “We’re going to sow life to try to make amends and build peace,” Henry Torres, a former army general, told Le Monde.

Few observers think Mr. Petro will achieve his goal in the single four-year term allowed by the constitution. But he may be laying a foundation. Peace requires patience, said Juan Manuel Santos, a former president who negotiated a 2016 peace accord with Colombia’s main guerrilla faction that still serves as a template for Mr. Petro’s broader peace plan. “You need to convince, to persuade, to change people’s sentiments, to teach them how to forgive, how to reconcile,” he told The Harvard Gazette.

Or, as Colombia’s new attorney general put it, “our mission will be ... a mission for the dignity and well-being of our people.”