| For Texas town, reopening a detention center means jobs – and mixed emotions Posted: 27 Jul 2018 12:51 PM PDT ![For Texas town, reopening a detention center means jobs – and mixed emotions]( "For Texas town, reopening a detention center means jobs – and mixed emotions") One of the first sights on the edge of Raymondville are the crumbling brick walls and disintegrating roofs of packing sheds that used to employ hundreds of people helping store and ship the region's agricultural produce. Small towns across the Rio Grande Valley have struggled economically since America's farm belt moved further north in the late 1960s, and prisons – immigrant detention centers in particular – have helped fill the void for the near-border towns. Raymondville, about 100 miles southeast, is home to both a state prison and soon, for the second time, a privately-run immigrant detention center.
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| In Pakistan, a ‘yes, we Khan’ moment Posted: 27 Jul 2018 12:37 PM PDT ![In Pakistan, a 'yes, we Khan' moment]( "In Pakistan, a 'yes, we Khan' moment") In three elections so far this year – first Malaysia, then Mexico, and now Pakistan – voters have elected new leaders who not only overturned entrenched parties but whose main campaign pitch was against corruption. If there was a big difference among the three, it was in Pakistan. There the winner of a July 25 election, Imran Khan, an Oxford-educated former cricket star-turned-politician, also promised the opposite of corruption: accountable governance.
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| A system under strain: Is US democracy showing real cracks? Posted: 27 Jul 2018 11:35 AM PDT ![A system under strain: Is US democracy showing real cracks?]( "A system under strain: Is US democracy showing real cracks?") The great machine of American democracy has chugged along steadily since the US Constitution was ratified and took effect in 1788. It has been modified many times and faced monumental stresses, up to and including a terrible civil war. But today, after 230 years, the mechanism seems to many to be leaking oil and shedding important nuts and bolts.
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| ‘Why would anyone want to run this race?’ The question that prompted a story Posted: 27 Jul 2018 11:10 AM PDT !['Why would anyone want to run this race?' The question that prompted a story]( "'Why would anyone want to run this race?' The question that prompted a story") Runners understand stamina and the will to finish a race – whether it's a 26-mile Boston Marathon or a local 10K road race. The Monitor's Africa correspondent Ryan Brown's July profile of an "unlikely ultramarathoner" provides a glimpse of the real courage found in the runners at the end of the pack at South Africa's Comrades Marathon, the world's largest ultramarathon.
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