海角大神

Plots against elected officials tend to rise around big political events, like next week鈥檚 midterms. But the overall trend is stark: Threats against members of Congress have increased tenfold over the past five years.

America seems split into two rigid partisan camps. Is it possible, in the right place, with the right issues, to dissolve this model and form coalitions with previously antithetical groups of voters? In Utah, one candidate is trying to do just that.听

Russia鈥檚 chaotic mobilization of troops has ended, its goals largely met. But the public is still coming to grips with the psychological stresses of the process 鈥� and of the ongoing war in Ukraine.

The world鈥檚 climate change and population problems may seem daunting, but this Heart of a Nation Teen Essay Competition winner offers practical, bite-size solutions that could make a big difference. To read other winning entries, visit Teens Share Solutions to Global Issues.

Joy doesn鈥檛 take a timeout with age. Older women in Colorado find it on the field.

At a time of concern about a global erosion of the rule of law, some of the world鈥檚 youngest democracies are offering evidence that the ideal of government by the people is both resilient and enduring. The latest example is Brazil, where a tense presidential election concluded Oct. 30 in a peaceful vote for change.

The result defied predictions of political violence. It showed that, even in the most deeply divided societies, credible democratic institutions provide a bulwark against the destabilizing effects of disinformation.

鈥淚f there is anything Brazilians should appreciate tonight, it is the efficiency and reliability of their voting system,鈥� Valentina Sader of听 the Atlantic Council wrote after the vote. 鈥淚t allowed for confidence in the results being released within hours of voting sites closing, effectively constraining any credible questioning of the result.鈥�

The election pitted the hard-right incumbent president, Jair Bolsonaro, against Luiz In谩cio Lula da Silva, a socialist former president. Both are controversial. Mr. Bolsonaro鈥檚 critics decry his harsh security tactics, dismissal of the pandemic, and policies that accelerated deforestation of the Amazon rainforest. Meanwhile Lula, as he is popularly known, was convicted and imprisoned for corruption (the charges were vacated by Brazil鈥檚 Supreme Court in April 2021, but he was not exonerated). Voters on both sides expressed a shared desire for integrity in their leaders. For months leading up to the election, which started with a first round on Oct. 2, Mr. Bolsonaro predicted widespread ballot fraud, without evidence, and vowed not to accept defeat. In the end, Lula won by 1.8 percentage points. Notably, although Mr. Bolsonaro had yet to concede by midday Oct. 31, his top allies in Congress accepted the outcome without hesitation.

The campaign saw an uptick in violence from 2018, the last presidential election year. One source of mistrust was widespread disinformation and wild accusations by the campaigns shared on social media. The Superior Electoral Court, a panel of judges that oversees Brazil鈥檚 elections, reported a 1,671% increase in complaints about false posts and videos compared with municipal elections two years ago.

Election officials deployed several measures to counter that trend. In July, they forged a pact with social media platforms to moderate false content. When that did not work, they imposed their own measures to block the spread of information that they found demonstrably untrue. They took other measures, too, including an 鈥渋ntegrity test鈥� of voting machines across the country on election day morning. Those trials measured electronic and paper test ballots for accuracy.

Ahead of the first round of balloting four weeks ago, Justice Edson Fachin, a member of the electoral court, said, 鈥淚 have the unshakable certainty that democracy bends, but does not bend or break with fake news.鈥�

In Brazil鈥檚 elections, much of the world saw the future of the Amazon at stake. But the peaceful, transparent vote provides a lesson for countries striving to preserve the integrity of their own ballots.