• New airstrikes on Gaza: Israel launched dozens of attacks across the Gaza Strip, ending a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he ordered the strikes because of Hamas’ rejection of a proposal that it release half its remaining hostages in exchange for a ceasefire extension and a promise to negotiate a lasting truce. – The Associated Press
• Support for Ukraine peacekeeping: A “significant number” of countries are willing to provide peacekeeping troops in Ukraine in the event of a peace deal with Russia, a spokesperson for British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said. Some accounts put the number at 30. Russia has repeatedly rejected the idea of soldiers from NATO countries being stationed in Ukraine. The U.S. and Russian presidents were to talk Tuesday. – Reuters
  • Related Monitor story: The Kremlin has expressed interest in a Ukraine ceasefire, but on what terms?
• Drop in federal minimum wage: President Donald Trump has rescinded an executive order issued by his Democratic predecessor that required businesses that contract with the federal government to pay workers a minimum wage of $17.75 an hour. Federal contractors, including many of America’s largest companies, employ roughly 20% of the U.S. workforce. – AP
  • Related Monitor story: Last year, we reported on a push to raise base pay. Some businesses said the increases pushed them to the brink.
  • Also: Some Democrats are demanding a more aggressive approach to countering President Trump’s agenda. 
• Cleanup begins after U.S. storms: Residents and work crews in the South and Midwest began to clean up and survey the destruction from a series of storms that kicked up wildfires, tornadoes, and dust storms. The severe weather first developed Friday and barreled across seven states. – AP

Civilian control of the military is essential. But where is the line between having appropriate control and building a military with fealty to one man? That question is at the center of debate around President Donald Trump’s recent moves to fire Defense Department leaders. He says he is prioritizing military readiness over “woke-ism.” But several former defense secretaries see a dangerous precedent. We look through history at moments when presidents and their military leaders clashed to see similarities, differences, and consequences.

Recent violence in Syria shows the urgent need to chart a unified future among the country’s many ethnic groups. A new deal to bring a major Kurdish force into the national army represents a big step forward. But there remain significant questions about how that will happen – and how serious Syria’s Arab leaders are about embracing Kurds, who make up 10% of the population. The deal is “a win-win,” says one expert. “But does it mean they addressed the divide between Arabs and Kurds? No.”

The story of Altadena, California, is in some ways the story of Asheville, North Carolina, or of Fort Meyers, Florida. When the wildfires stop or the storm passes, how do residents reassemble lives? The Monitor will be following the stories of people on one block of Olive Street in Altadena to chronicle how neighbors rebuild, how communities change, and how resilience appears in the aftermath of disaster. This is the first installment.

A string of rebellions has ravaged the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo for more than three decades, fueled by vast mineral wealth, ethnic conflicts, and bad governance. Inevitably, those who suffer most are the region’s civilians. At one point, Sylvie Baziga wondered if she should take up a weapon to fight for her country, the way some of her friends did. Then she realized she already had a weapon: her pen. Poetry has allowed her and other young Congolese the rare space to speak freely and face their anger and fear.

In our weekly roundup of progress around the world, we highlight the pursuit of new science as well as adaptations of older technology. Chinese astronauts are learning about microgravity from zebra fish in space, while residents in Rio de Janeiro are planting green roofs to battle heat and pollution. In culture, too, strength begets strength: Witness the growth of the literary ecosystem across Africa that is allowing writers to succeed at home without the support of Western publishers.

Much of the international aid community is in a panic, forced to meet the world’s rising needs with much less. For one, President Donald Trump has essentially shut down the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Meanwhile, Britain and France are cutting foreign aid by at least a third. In 2023, the European Union shifted €2 billion (over $2 billion) from development to defense and migration.

These cuts by wealthier countries, predict many aid experts, are having dramatic consequences for the world’s most vulnerable people. At the same time, others see the crisis as a moment for people in aid-recipient nations to reinvent how they can help each other.

“Despite [the USAID] order and its confusion, we are seeing excitement from ordinary citizens and frontline communities,” Elizaphan Ogechi, executive director of the Kenyan community foundation Nguzo Africa, wrote on his organization’s website.

Mr. Ogechi sees an opportunity to tap local philanthropy and other resources, relying on African values of collaboration and empathy. Governments that have depended on foreign assistance, he added, can step up and deliver quality services to their citizens.

Long before Mr. Trump took office, a reckoning over foreign aid was already underway. While international health programs have certainly been transformative, the value of other efforts has been less clear. To many, foreign aid empowers corrupt local elites, imposes unwelcome agendas, and maintains a cycle of dependence.

“This arrangement prevents an absolute catastrophe, but creates a permanent emergency; it keeps people alive, but props up the very regimes that exploit them,” wrote aid expert Joshua Craze in The New York Review of Books.

The changes in foreign aid are “something close to a mental liberation,” The Economist stated, citing past and present African leaders. Rwandan President Paul Kagame, for example, spoke of shaking off “the low expectations that have been attached to Africans.”

Yet a long-expected shift to more self-reliance by many countries has proved difficult. The 2001 Abuja Declaration committed 42 African nations to spending 15% of their budgets on health. Average health spending remains less than half that, The New York Times reported.

In recent years, the international aid community has tried to shift more responsibility for decision-making to local communities, with mixed results. Now that appears likely to happen by default. Some leaders seem ready. Nigeria will have to manufacture its own HIV drugs and test kits, its health minister told the Times. “It may not be as fancy, but at least it will serve.”

In Kenya, Mr. Ogechi is eager to support a necessary mental shift: “It is time to re-imagine the new international model that serves communities with dignity and respect.”