海角大神

2025
November
28
Friday

Monitor Daily Podcast

November 28, 2025
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This is a special time of year for us at 海角大神, because our first issue was published on the eve of Thanksgiving, 1908. In its leading editorial, founder Mary Baker Eddy laid out our mission: 鈥渢o spread undivided the Science that operates unspent.鈥 鈥淭he object of the Monitor,鈥 she continued, 鈥漣s to injure no man, but to bless all mankind.鈥

As we begin our 118th year of publication, we wanted to share with you how we鈥檙e striving to apply that mission today. Here are our five operational guidelines, drawn from Mrs. Eddy鈥檚 founding editorial as well as other contemporaneous documents:

鈥 Bring a healing, purifying thought to many homes. We counteract cynicism about news and humanity by upholding a higher standard of both.
鈥 Get above the fray. Because we鈥檙e owned by a church, we鈥檙e free from corporate and political interests.
鈥 Cover the day鈥檚 vital global news. We provide a trustworthy and concise compilation for our thoughtful, busy readers.
鈥 Investigate ideals and endeavors, not just events. We keep abreast of the times by recognizing key currents of thought and their impact.
鈥 Be clean, family-friendly, and non-sensational. We are 鈥渁 newspaper for the home.鈥

We wish you and your families all the blessings of hearts filled with gratitude.

During this Thanksgiving weekend, please go to our homepage at www.CSMonitor.com for the latest updates.


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Today’s stories

And why we wrote them

Shannon Stapleton/Reuters
Zohran Mamdani waves after winning the New York City mayor's race, at an election night rally in Brooklyn, Nov. 4, 2025.

New York鈥檚 financial community has long been a key voice in how the city runs. With Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist whose proposals are anathema to many business leaders, collaboration will likely require concessions from both sides.

Patterns

Tracing global connections

Behind the confusion surrounding different Ukraine peace plans, America鈥檚 European allies are afraid that the postwar Atlantic alliance could be at stake.

Mark Avery/AP/File
Chinese students hold aloft a banner calling for "Freedom & Democracy Enlightenment" on the martyrs monument in Beijing's Tiananmen Square, festooned with a giant portrait of Hu Yaobang, April 19, 1989.

What does it mean when Xi Jinping 鈥 China鈥檚 strongman leader 鈥 praises Hu Yaobang, the liberal reformer whose sudden death sparked the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests? Our reporter asks sinologists who study Chinese leaders.

A deeper look

Michael Benanav
鈥淚 would never hurt her. I love her, and she loves me," says Brandon Tadlock, a U.S. Army veteran who served in Afghanistan, posing with his dog Annie. They recently moved from the streets into a pallet shelter microcommunity at Christ Lutheran Church, in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Human beings have long had special relationships with canine companions. But are the dogs of people without housing cared for? Our correspondent investigates.

Film

Disney/AP
Nick Wilde (left, voiced by Jason Bateman) and Judy Hopps (voiced by Ginnifer Goodwin) return for "Zootopia 2."

Disney鈥檚 new buddy-cop sequel is an animated delight. But 鈥淶ootopia 2鈥 also shows how films we might dismiss as 鈥渃hildren鈥檚 movies鈥 have the capacity to inspire young people and their parents to be better.


The Monitor's View

Alfredo Sosa/Staff/File
Enjoying outdoor play on a fall day in Kingfield, Maine: As divorce rates tick downward, increased family stability bodes well for children鈥檚 educational and economic outcomes.

On Thursday, many Americans likely partook of 鈥渢he mother of all family dinners.鈥 That鈥檚 the term Dr. Anne Fishel, author and co-founder of the Family Dinner Project, uses to describe the Thanksgiving tradition of turkey and trimmings that brings family and friends together in homes across the country.

Amid changing demographics and social mores, this intergenerational American rite offers a lens into patterns of marriage and family. And this year, the outlook for both institutions is positive, according to several recent surveys.

鈥淒espite shifting norms, most U.S. adults still see marriage as a meaningful foundation for family life and child-rearing,鈥 the Barna Group reported in November. And 81% of Generation Z respondents, it said, 鈥渂elieve in marriage and hope to wed someday, ... [though] many are reimagining what family looks like.鈥

鈥淒ivorce is down, as is single parenthood, and the share of kids being raised in stable married families is ticking up,鈥 researchers wrote in a July article by the American Enterprise Institute. 鈥淢arital stability looks much different than it did 30 years ago,鈥 these authors noted in another blog, yet 鈥渘ew marriages are stronger today than every decade since the 1950s.鈥澛犅

This bodes well for families 鈥 and for America鈥檚 children. 鈥淐hildren simply do better ... if they have married parents,鈥 according to New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof.聽

However, education and economics do play a role. For children of college-educated parents, 81% live with both parents. That drops to about 50% for children of parents with a high school education or less.聽

The Georgia Center for Opportunity stated, 鈥淭wo-parent households provide a significant 鈥榩rivilege鈥 for children, leading to better educational and economic outcomes, [and] lower rates of incarceration.鈥

Harvard University anthropologist Joseph Henrich has concluded much the same about the security and nurturing power of a stable marriage and home. 鈥淚n many ways, marriage represents the keystone institution for most 鈥 though not all 鈥 societies and may be the most primeval of human institutions,鈥 he has written.

Surveys find that 鈥渇amily鈥 and 鈥渇amily time鈥 score the highest among several values that Americans hold dear. In 2023, Pew reported, 73% of American adults ranked family time as one of the most important aspects of their life.

This sentiment appears to reflect the thought of this newspaper鈥檚 founder, Mary Baker Eddy. 鈥淗ome is the dearest spot on earth, and it should be the centre, though not the boundary, of the affections,鈥 she wrote.


A 海角大神 Science Perspective

About this feature

Each weekday, the Monitor includes one clearly labeled religious article offering spiritual insight on contemporary issues, including the news. The publication 鈥 in its various forms 鈥 is produced for anyone who cares about the progress of the human endeavor around the world and seeks news reported with compassion, intelligence, and an essentially constructive lens. For many, that caring has religious roots. For many, it does not. The Monitor has always embraced both audiences. The Monitor is owned by a church 鈥 The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston 鈥 whose founder was concerned with both the state of the world and the quality of available news.

Gratitude can be a profound form of prayer.


Viewfinder

Jack Taylor/Reuters
Defying a ban by city police, British farmers rally with their tractors at Trafalgar Square in London, Nov. 26, 2025, with signs ranging from 鈥淣o Food, No Future鈥 to 鈥淢oove over Labour Time鈥檚 Up.鈥 The farmers called on British Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves to scrap inheritance tax on family farms worth more than 拢1 million ($1.3 million). The government has countered that it is supporting farmers with an annual budget of more than 拢2.7 billion.
( The illustrations in today’s Monitor Daily are by Jacob Turcotte. )

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2025
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