Our first story looks at Washington State’s new system for dealing with gun owners who may be at risk of injuring themselves or others. It’s not a perfect solution, but a few states say it offers a sensible path to safety without revoking Second Amendment rights.

A unique health-care experiment is starting for Kentucky’s poorest: It’s intended to foster self-reliance, accountability, and independence. In this state, if you want government-funded health care, you will have to be a full-time student, work at least 20 hours a week, or be involved in “community engagement.”

The poorest residents of Texas live in "colonias," informal settlements on the fringes of cities. Most of these Texans are here legally and aren’t looking for government handouts. They just seek permission to be self-reliant and improve their own homes and neighborhoods.

The response to a crime spree by Sudanese-Australians (many of whose families are refugees) is turning from recrimination and fear into a more productive effort to address the causes of youth disengagement.

From a history of the war in Afghanistan to a story about a 1950s road race in Australia to a young adult novel about a teen who loves crossword puzzles, here are our staff picks for the best new reads coming out of the shortest month. Of particular interest: Harvard psychology professor Steven Pinker, author of “The Better Angels of Our Nature,” once again waves the flag for progress with “Enlightenment Now.” This time he broadens his scope, putting the astonishing decline of violence on Earth in the context of what he sees as the stirring extent of progress humans have achieved since the 18th century.

Unlike in Las Vegas, what happens in Syria refuses to stay in Syria. The country’s long war, sparked by pro-democracy protests in 2011 against a dictator, has created millions of refugees. The resulting power vacuum has sucked in dozens of foreign forces with competing interests. Yet out of Syria’s tragedy may come one benefit for the world.

How the war eventually ends could highlight which moral standards of the global order are embraced by the big powers. Peace in Syria, when it comes, will be defined as much by shared values as by the peculiar interests of each nation. Realpolitik must yield to real principles.

This week, one principle at stake in Syria has been the protection of nearly 400,000 civilians being targeted by the regime of President Bashar al-Assad in Eastern Ghouta near Damascus. On Feb. 24, the United Nations Security Council ordered a 30-day cease-fire to allow humanitarian relief to reach the civilians. Yet all eyes turned to Russia, whose military now holds the most sway in Syria, to enforce the order.

On Tuesday, Russia called for a “humanitarian pause” to let the trapped civilians escape the fighting. Russia, in other words, seemed to respect the sovereignty of innocent individuals over the national sovereignty of its ally, the Assad regime.

For President Vladimir Putin, that was a step up. He has opposed a principle, endorsed in 2005 by the UN General Assembly, that individual lives have a higher value than national sovereignty. The concept, known as “responsibility to protect,” was endorsed by the UN out of a collective guilt over the world’s failure to stop the mass atrocities in Rwanda and Bosnia in the mid-1990s.

In recent days, Russia was reminded of the concept by Western leaders as it dawdled over whether to seek a pause in the fighting. “France and Germany call on Russia to assume its full responsibilities,” said French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel in a joint statement.

Such actions reflect the diplomatic momentum toward including civilian protection in any peace deal. They also reflect the steady advance of the international order established in 1945 after World War II, such as the obligation of nations to uphold rules of conduct in a conflict. Many wars since then have set back the principles of peacemaking while others have helped cement them in the thinking of world leaders.

One concept still needs work. It is the idea that national sovereignty cannot be an excuse to take innocent lives, either by guns, bombs, or in the case of Syria, chemical weapons. That country’s war must not only end in peace soon but with an ending that lifts more nations to embrace the principles that keep global order.