• Earthquake recovery: Rescue efforts continue after a 7.7 magnitude earthquake shook Myanmar and neighboring Thailand March 28, killing more than 1,700 people. Relief efforts have been hampered by buckled roads, spotty communications, and the challenges of operating in a country in the midst of a civil war. On Sunday, a 7.1 magnitude earthquake hit near the Pacific nation of Tonga. An initial tsunami warning was lifted hours later. – The Associated Press
• Tehran rejects U.S. overture: Iran’s president said Sunday that Tehran has rejected direct negotiations with the United States in response to a letter from President Donald Trump over its rapidly advancing nuclear program. President Masoud Pezeshkian also said: “It has been emphasized that the path for indirect negotiations remains open.” – AP
• Wisconsin court drama: The Wisconsin Supreme Court refused Sunday night to hear a last-minute attempt by the state’s attorney general to stop Elon Musk from handing over $1 million checks to two voters. Two lower courts had rejected the legal challenge. Mr. Musk argued he was exercising free speech rights. On Tuesday, Wisconsin holds a hotly contested Supreme Court race. Majority control is at stake. – AP
  • Related Monitor story: Tuesday’s election will also be a key early test of which party is more energized, Cameron Joseph reported last week.
• U.S. military pivot to Asia: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth cited an urgent need to strengthen defense cooperation with Japan and the Philippines – two key U.S. treaty allies – and with other regional allies to deter what he called a severe threat from “communist Chinese military aggression.” Mr. Hegseth said “America first does not mean America alone.” In Tokyo, he announced the development of a joint force headquarters aimed at strengthening coordination between the two militaries. Japanese Defense Minister Nakatani Gen hailed an agreement to accelerate and expand joint missile production and intensify joint training. – Staff
• Latin American birth rates decline: A growing number of Latin American women are choosing to forego motherhood. Latin America and the Caribbean have experienced the most dramatic decline in birth rates of any region globally since 1950, according to data from the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean. – Reuters
  • Related Monitor stories: After a century in which the global population grew almost fourfold, a turning point awaits. In 2024, the Monitor explored the decline in birth rates with a three-part series.
• Men’s Final Four set: Auburn beat Michigan State Sunday to complete a sweep of No. 1 seeds advancing to the Final Four of the men’s NCAA Tournament. Auburn joins Florida, Duke, and Houston. It’s the first time all top seeds have reached college basketball’s Final Four since 2008, which was the only previous year of all No. 1-seeded semifinalists since seeding began in 1979. – AP

Syria’s Alawite ethnic minority considers March 7 the start of a genocidal campaign. To the Sunni majority, it marked operations to quash a coup. The violence that swept the coast aggravated sectarian divides and inflamed dehumanizing narratives, claiming perhaps thousands of lives in Syria’s bloodiest episode since the toppling of Bashar al-Assad. Sunni Islamist authorities have since sought to calm the situation and restore order. Regaining trust will not be easy. Preventing more violence will be a key test for the new Syria. 

The energy around two special elections coming up Tuesday in Florida, the epicenter of Republican Party power and funding, suggests that the Trump administration’s aggressive launch, marked by a rapid overhaul of the federal government, could affect GOP electoral prospects. Democrats here are eager to make a statement and to craft winning messages for other races. Republicans want to protect the president’s legislative leverage and agenda. Voters, many of whom seek change but not chaos, are asking how to end polarization.

Mass protests and mounting arrests – of nearly 1,900 people by some reports – have continued in Turkey’s main cities. Unrest erupted on March 19 in protest of the arrest of Istanbul’s Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, an opposition leader and a key rival of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. A crackdown on media followed moves against political activists. Past demonstrations have not been enough to make Mr. Erdoğan back down. Have the weekend’s demonstrations changed the political calculus in Turkey?

Cavendish bananas, the world’s most popular type, are under threat from a fungus that has wiped out other varieties. Monocropping has its own inherent problems. But the island of Tenerife may have just the conditions to make banana-growing work. Ash provides needed potassium when mixed with fertile earth. Eruptions kill pathogens. “Every time there’s a lava flow, time resets to zero,” says a professor of soil science and geology. The life of the banana plants “starts again.”

One of our Washington, D.C.-based writers has been tuning up for the Winter Olympics in Italy next year – preparing for coverage of the Games, that is. This past weekend she came up to Boston for the World Figure Skating Championships. Reigning champions and challengers competed in one of the sport’s last big events before the 2026 Games. Olympic hope has reverberated through TD Garden this week, as the U.S. shows it – finally – could have what it takes to medal in figure skating after a decadeslong dry spell. A report from rink-side.

Soon before Claudia Sheinbaum became Mexico’s first female president last October, a clergyman pleaded with her to listen to the mothers of thousands of “disappeared” Mexicans. Such a step, said Catholic Bishop Francisco Javier Acero Pérez, would help mend the country’s “broken social fabric.”

His request came after Dr. Sheinbaum stated she did not share the church’s “pessimistic evaluation” of violence by organized crime in the country.

In March, the new administration finally did show a readiness to act – after news broke of an “extermination center” run by a drug cartel at a ranch and reportedly used for mass killings.

President Sheinbaum and her attorney general have now announced reforms to deal with the estimated 120,000 missing persons in Mexico. The reforms include a legal change that will treat forced disappearances as kidnappings. Officials have also cataloged items recovered from the ranch for identification by families and have allowed limited public access to the site.

Across Mexico, scores of groups known as madres buscadores (searching mothers) have persevered to find missing loved ones in the face of inaction, corruption, and cartel threats. As one mother of four disappeared sons told the United Nations last year, “This struggle is very, very painful, but it is a struggle based on love, and that love is what sustains us.”

The power of such love and the yearning for truth seems to have moved Dr. Sheinbaum to be more empathetic and to help the families of missing persons. Yet perhaps not enough. Numerous mothers groups around the country have signed a statement saying her actions are insufficient.

The mothers’ insistence on finding the truth reflects what has helped other conflict-burdened societies move from hate to reconciliation. If Mexico needs a model, it might be Colombia. Since it achieved a peace pact in 2016 ending a civil war that left some 120,000 missing, “Dozens of former rebels, officials, forensic anthropologists and religious leaders now work side-by-side in finding their country’s disappeared,” reported The Associated Press.

As Juan Santos, Colombia’s president during the pact’s negotiations with the rebels, said, “Truth will make you free. ... More than being a biblical quote, this statement is a summary of a reality that may change the future of our nation forever.”