• U.S. stock market tumbles: The S&P 500 closed 9.3% below its all-time high reached in February. This came as President Donald Trump threatened to double tariffs against Canadian steel and aluminum, prompting Ontario to retreat from imposing a new surcharge on electricity exports to the U.S. On Wednesday, tariffs on all steel and aluminum imports increased officially to 25%.
• Ukraine-Russia ceasefire more likely: The Trump administration said it would immediately lift its suspension of military aid to and its intelligence-sharing with Kyiv. Ukraine also said it was open to a 30-day ceasefire, subject to Kremlin agreement. The announcements came as Ukrainian and U.S. officials began talks on ending Moscow’s three-year war against Kyiv and hours after Russia shot down over 300 Ukrainian drones, Ukraine’s biggest attack since Russia’s initial invasion. – The Associated Press
  • Related Monitor coverage: Near front line, Ukrainians brace for the impact of US aid cuts
• Duterte at ICC: Former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte will appear before the International Criminal Court at The Hague. The ICC had ordered Mr. Duterte’s arrest after accusing him of crimes against humanity over deadly anti-drug crackdowns he oversaw while in office. – AP
• Greenland votes: The center-right Demokraatit Party scored an upset victory in parliamentary elections, held in the shadow of President Donald Trump’s stated goal of taking control of the strategically located island “one way or the other.” Demokraatit and the second-place finisher Naleraq favor Greenland's independence from Denmark but differ on the pace of change.
• Spain and deepfakes: Spain’s government approved a bill March 11 imposing massive fines on companies that use content generated by artificial intelligence without properly labeling it as such, in a bid to curb the use of deepfakes. – Reuters
  • Related Monitor coverage: Can deepfakes be good for democracy? India’s attempts to balance risks and rewards of AI.

Dominance in international scientific research has long been a national, bipartisan priority that underpinned U.S. economic and military prowess. But amid the Trump administration’s war on government waste, this year has become a season of turmoil at institutions that rely on federal funding, with cuts that could curtail the kind of work that has led to significant scientific achievements. A broader strategy behind these cuts may emerge once the administration fills out the top ranks of science agencies. For now, the direction has been set by Elon Musk as he tries to shrink the federal bureaucracy, including the National Institutes of Health and, by extension, the elite universities it funds.

Chief Justice of the United States John Roberts made rising threats against and violence toward judges a focus of his 2024 year-end report. Judges and legal experts say the behavior is part and parcel of a growing hostility toward the judicial branch. In recent years, the number of explicit threats of violence toward judicial branch members has doubled. That’s made the rule of law now feel vulnerable to intimidation, something that could destabilize the government’s balance of powers.

As noted in our intro, a small number of Westerners see Russia not just as a conservative country, but as a place to build a better life. And Moscow, facing a demographic crisis, is opening its doors to those who want to realize that goal.

In 2009, Jason Brown was the highest-paid center in the National Football League and could have gone on earning millions of dollars more each year. Instead, he started a family farm that gives away most of its harvest, from corn to blueberries. It’s “not a journey for the lighthearted,” Mr. Brown says. “You truly have to believe in this. You have to operate by faith. You have to have some grit and perseverance.”

In our progress roundup today, we have recognition for the voiceless: Researchers uncovered the ignored history of South Africa’s World War I Black servicemen. In response, Cape Town’s oldest public garden now hosts 1,772 wooden poles that are etched with the names of men who have no known graves and whose history was nearly lost. This is just one highlight in this week’s Points of Progress. Find more in the link above.

A big challenge for democracies today is a decline in trust. The share of Americans who trust government, for example, has fallen from 77% to 22% since 1964. Throughout the West, similar trends are apparent.

Figuring out how to address this can be complicated. One helpful perspective lies in the seminal work “Democracy in America,” by 19th-century French political observer Alexis de Tocqueville. He marveled at how “Americans of all ages, all stations of life and all types of disposition are forever forming associations.” Yet a more recent observer, Robert Putnam of Harvard University, has found a decline in interconnectedness – or the tendency to join local groups or shared activities.

The latest attempt to build trust in the United States is a new online, state-run public forum called Engaged California. The effort aims to prompt, gather, and synthesize conversations about the state’s response to the Los Angeles wildfires into reforms. Longer-term goals are broader and more ambitious. When Taiwan began a similar program in 2014, approval for the government was below 10%. Within eight years, it was 70%, although other factors contributed.

The idea of designing civic spaces for civil dialogue has been best expressed in citizen assemblies. Two decades ago, for instance, British Columbia’s premier wanted to reform the electoral system but knew few people would trust the government to do it. So he recruited a wide-ranging group of citizens, asking them to devise a solution after listening to a diversity of experts.

Think of it like jury duty but for politics, or a next-generation town hall. Or what de Tocqueville called the “equality of condition” in a context of freedom.

Citizen assemblies have helped build mutual trust, found Stephen Elstub, professor of democratic politics at Britain’s Newcastle University. “Because [they] require participants to listen to each other’s views and debate in an informed and reasonable way,” he wrote in a blog post, “they can improve the quality of democracy.”

These assemblies have been used worldwide, most notably to help Ireland navigate fraught topics such as abortion. Before they worked in such groups, 72% of participants were dissatisfied with how democracy was working, according to a study by NORC, a nonpartisan research center. Afterward, dissatisfaction dropped to 54%.

No one solution will reverse the trend. But de Tocqueville might have argued that the rekindling of common bonds relies first on individuals extending trust to each other. “The health of a democratic society may be measured by the quality of functions performed by private citizens,” he wrote.

His greatest insight could be that the ultimate goal of trust-building is wisdom: “If it is a question of bringing to light a truth or developing a sentiment with the support of a great example, [Americans] associate.”