• Israeli offensive: Israel launched a “limited ground operation” to retake part of a key corridor in northern Gaza. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz warned that if hostages held in the territory weren’t freed, “Israel will act with an intensity that you have not seen.” The ceasefire was broken March 18 after Israeli airstrikes killed more than 400 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Additional airstrikes followed today, and the Israeli military restored a blockade on northern Gaza, including Gaza City.   – The Associated Press
  • Related Monitor story: After the ceasefire ended, we found Israelis divided on war.
• Sober economic forecast: The Federal Reserve kept its benchmark interest rate unchanged March 19 and signaled that it still expects to cut rates twice this year, though other policymakers forecast fewer cuts. The Fed expects the economy to grow more slowly this year and next than it did three months ago. – AP
• Turkish opposition leader arrested: Ekrem İmamoğlu, Istanbul’s mayor and a main rival of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, was arrested March 19 as part of an investigation into alleged corruption and terror links. Prosecutors issued warrants for some 100 other people. Authorities banned demonstrations in an apparent effort to prevent protests. – AP
• French citizen freed in Iran: Olivier Grondeau, imprisoned in Iran for more than 880 days, was freed Thursday, according to French officials. His release comes as France and the rest of Europe try to pursue negotiations with Iran over its advancing nuclear program. Mr. Grondeau’s detention began amid protests after the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman who died after being detained over not wearing Iran’s mandatory headscarf. – AP
• What Kennedy papers show: President John F. Kennedy’s assassination in 1963 – and the secrecy around it – has long generated conspiracy theories and intense speculation. With the release of the final batch of classified documents this week, historians are seeing a larger picture. As expected, no evidence has emerged challenging the conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone assassin. Rather, the secrecy itself is the story. President Kennedy’s killing, U.S. dishonesty on the Vietnam War, and the Watergate scandal all created “a breeding ground of suspicions that lead to this fear of a deep state,” historian Steven Gillon tells The Wall Street Journal. – Staff
• EU reins in Google, Apple: Europe’s antitrust regulators continued a crackdown against Big Tech, hitting Google with two charges of breaching landmark European Union rules. Apple was ordered to help rivals connect with its iPhones and iPads. The move by the European Commission came despite threats from the U.S. president to levy tariffs against countries that impose fines on U.S. companies. – Reuters
• Rethinking the bullfight: Mexico City, home to the world’s largest bullfighting arena, is rebalancing tradition and animal welfare. Lawmakers voted to ban the version of bullfighting imported to Latin America from Spain in the 1500s, which typically ends in injury or death for the bull. The approved law advocates “bullfighting without violence.” It allows for the traditional red capes used to lure the bull, but bars the killing or wounding of bulls and limits “fights” to 15 minutes. Proponents of the tradition see an effort to “distort the essence” of its origins. Others hail a win for animal rights. – Staff

Staff writer Cameron Joseph takes us inside a long, tense town hall held Tuesday night just outside Washington, D.C. Voter after voter in Democratic Rep. Glenn Ivey’s majority-Black Maryland district pushed Mr. Ivey on what more he could do to fight President Donald Trump, even with his party in the minority in Congress. Already troubled by what many in attendance see as democracy being ripped down around them, they were furious that their leaders failed to leverage the threat of a government shutdown. Many are federal workers, and had been through painful shutdowns before – and yet everyone who spoke with the Monitor said they would have chosen another rather than let Republicans pass their funding bill last week. 

Across Syria, the new interim government is struggling to provide both security and services. But local civil society groups are stepping in to help, building the country’s postwar future by providing municipal services and keeping the peace. In the city of Douma, the volunteer council formed a reconciliation committee to resolve disputes. Grassroots groups are even eyeing political participation – but veteran activists caution that the country’s new rulers have not ceded space, so far, for political groups.

“Data Center Alley” in northern Virginia houses enormous warehouses of interconnected computer servers, miles of fiber-optic cables, and a massive network of cooling pipes. And it needs more power – specifically, a giant 70-mile-long, 500,000-volt extension cord, the preferred route for which runs right through Dwight Baugher’s 150-year-old Maryland farm. As our need for more power and connectivity bumps literally into people’s backyards, the issue is becoming critical across the United States. A recent Virginia report underscored data centers’ “essential role” in daily life, business, and the world’s digital infrastructure. But, it added, “The industrial scale of data centers makes them largely incompatible with residential uses. ... And industry trends make future residential impacts more likely.”

Monhegan Island, which lies 10 miles off the coast of Maine, is a scant square mile in size. That doesn’t mean you are at liberty to underestimate it. It has captivated visitors for centuries. Yet most day-trippers and adventurists are probably completely unaware of an important backstory of this charming spot: its history of environmental renewal and resilience. Monhegan enthusiast Jennifer Wolcott shares how Indigenous artifacts, maps, and scientific research, and the creations of a range of artists help tell the story in a new exhibit.

There’s a reason certain foods become iconic. Despite its reputation as the punch line of jokes, Spam found its way onto dinner tables around the world – and into the heart of our writer, Samantha Laine Perfas. She admits to shock when her Filipino husband confessed, “I love Spam!” The pink block of meat sold in the familiar blue-and-yellow cans, she asked? Yup, that was the one. Her curiosity piqued, especially since she’s a native Minnesotan (like Spam), she started to investigate the surprisingly long history of this quirky food.

Sauli Niinistö wanted to shake Europe awake. The former president of Finland submitted a report to the leaders of the European Union last October, imploring them to think differently about defense.

Post-World War II peace had allowed Europe the space to build nations based on rule of law and the protection of individual rights. But it also led to a lack of vigilance, he said.

“Security is the foundation of everything we hold dear,” his report stated. “A change in mindset is needed to build the trust that allows us to [defend ourselves better] as the whole of society.”

In recent weeks, Europe is showing signs of listening.

On Thursday, dozens of European military leaders willing to commit troops to a potential Ukraine peacekeeping force will meet in Britain to iron out details. In a related step, the German parliament on Tuesday approved an ambitious defense spending plan, passed by the huge margin of 513-207.

Earlier this month, Poland’s prime minister announced plans to more than double the army to 500,000 soldiers. He has noted the illogic that “500 million Europeans are asking 300 million Americans to defend them against 140 million Russians.”

As Mr. Niinistö insists, the goal is not war but watchfulness and a commitment to defend the values that need defending. His Finnish homeland, which shares an 800-mile border with Russia, has not been afforded the luxury of complacence. While other European nations have built more expeditionary forces, Finland has focused on defending itself. It also has a large, well-trained reserve, a result of staying outside NATO until 2023.

“Essentially, Finland’s mindset needs to be applied across the European Union,” journalist Erkki Bahovski, whose native Estonia has faced similar threats from Russia, wrote in Postimees last November.

The past month has brought an invigorating new sense of European identity – a “can-do spirit,” The Economist wrote. Since World War II, Europe has defined itself mostly as an economic bloc. Defense was largely left to the Americans. Now, a new Europe is beginning to coalesce around this shared sense of preparedness.

Ukraine has strongly felt this purpose since the outbreak of war. “Kyiv as the capital of Ukraine is the beating heart of today’s European values,” said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in 2023. “Ukraine is on the front line of the defence of everything we Europeans cherish: our liberty, our democracy, our freedom of thought and of speech.”

Europe is coming to see how much larger its role can be in that fight.