• Meta in court: A blockbuster antitrust trial against social media giant Meta began Monday in federal court. Federal regulators claim Meta has monopolized the social networking sector through the acquisitions of smaller rivals. The case focuses on the conglomerate’s popular apps Instagram and WhatsApp. If the government wins, Meta could be forced to sell the apps off. The company disputes that the decade-old deals created a monopoly. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has reportedly lobbied President Donald Trump to force a settlement. The case will likely take years to resolve. – Staff
• Harvard says no: Harvard University said Monday that it won’t comply with a list of demands from the Trump administration as a condition for it to receive almost $9 billion in funding. The demands are part of the Trump administration’s effort to investigate antisemitism at universities. They include government and leadership reforms, as well as a requirement to institute what the administration calls “merit-based” admissions and hiring, and an audit of views on diversity. The government said last night it would freeze more than $2.2 billion in grants and contracts. – The Associated Press
• Where China seeks to trade: Chinese leader Xi Jinping called for stronger ties with Vietnam on trade and supply chains amid disruptions caused by U.S. tariffs, as he attended the signing in Hanoi of dozens of cooperation agreements between the two communist-run nations. The visit was a stop on a wider trip in Southeast Asia. – Reuters
  • Related Monitor story: Another place China might look to sell manufactured goods: inside China.
• School funding unfrozen: A federal judge has intervened in a lawsuit between Maine and the Trump administration, ordering the latter to unfreeze federal funding for children’s nutrition programs. The U.S. Department of Agriculture was poised to stop funding because of an alleged Title IX violation relating to the state's policy regarding transgender athletes. It’s the latest twist in a political tug-of-war between Maine’s Democratic governor, Janet Mills, and President Donald Trump, who has moved to ban transgender athletes from competing in women’s sports. – Staff
• Rising power demand: What do new uses of artificial intelligence and the home charging of electric vehicles have in common? Both contribute to mounting electricity use in the United States. Consumption, which last year surged to a record 4,097 billion (or 4.097 trillion) kilowatt-hours (kWh), is on track to hit 4,201 billion kWh this year, the U.S. Energy Information Administration reports. Power-hungry data centers have spread (also claiming land). Cryptocurrency “mining” played a role, too. Still, the U.S. remains a net energy exporter, and renewable energy has grown more cost-effective. – Staff

As Amira Abdallah joined a crowd in Sudan waiting for meals, she thought of how excited her five children would be when she returned home with her bowl full of fluffy rice. But when the food had been served, the volunteers announced that it was the last meal. The soup kitchen was closing. There was no more money. These local aid groups, working where international organizations could not, are facing funding cuts as the civil war hits the two-year mark today. But they are determined. “No matter what,” says Waleed Khojali, a volunteer in the capital, “our work must go on.”

The Kilmar Abrego Garcia case is the latest showdown between executive and judicial authority under the second Trump term. The U.S. government deported Mr. Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran living in Maryland, back to El Salvador last month, due to an “administrative error.” Courts call the deportation a mistake. Mr. Abrego Garcia, who the U.S. alleges is a member of MS-13, had previously received a legal protection against deportation to El Salvador, where he is now detained. But when President Donald Trump met his Salvadoran counterpart, President Nayib Bukele, at the White House on Monday, they signaled they wouldn’t help without a fight.

Ecuadorians are unhappy with their security and economic crises – and yet, they reelected President Daniel Noboa. It bucks an anti-incumbent trend, but is telling in a region cozying up to iron-fisted approaches to violence and crime. “I had to choose the lesser evil,” says Angélica Herrera, a homemaker who over the past year has been exhausted by 14-hour blackouts and an escalating security crisis. “We hope our country will change.”

Richard Blanco still can’t believe how much his life has changed since he read his poem “One Today” at U.S. President Barack Obama’s 2013 inauguration, and got an overwhelming response. Now, he shares his poetry – about hardworking people like his Cuban immigrant parents – in schools. During April, National Poetry Month, he is promoting an initiative called Teach This Poem. “Our belief is that poetry is not just for the English class – it’s for history, it’s for social studies, it’s also even for science,” he explains. “Poets write about everything.”

An innovative network of CO2 detectors has allowed tourists and 80% of locals to return to two villages in La Palma, one of the Canary Islands that was affected by a 2021 eruption. In the wake of that volcano, scientists discovered that the earth was releasing 400 times more CO2 than the acceptable limit of the poisonous gas. Thanks to a $4.5 million government-funded initiative, the first of its kind globally to monitor gas levels on a large scale, there are now 1,300 detectors in the two villages.

In our progress roundup, humans reverse the damage from small dams across the United States, make changes to coexist with snow leopards in Nepal, and harvest fog in Chile to channel additional fresh water into pipes and storage tanks.

In a nod to preventing another war in the Middle East, Iran and the United States held upbeat talks Saturday – but not in the same room. Both accepted they first need a bridge-builder rather than negotiate face-to-face. Emotions run high over topics such as how to stop the weaponization of Iran’s nuclear program and whether to lift U.S. sanctions on Iran’s distressed economy.

The two sides relied on one of the world’s best go-betweens: the foreign minister of Oman, Badr bin Hamad al-Busaidi. His tranquil Muslim country on the Arabian Peninsula has a history of not dividing the world into enemies and friends. He played the intermediary during the talks in Oman, not only delivering messages back and forth but also listening for openings for further dialogue. He will be at it again this Saturday for a second round.

“Omanis appear to have an inexhaustible supply of patience and persistence, which may well be needed given the gap in the negotiating positions of the American and Iranian sides,” wrote regional expert Jonathan Campbell-James for the Lowy Institute.

What accounts for Oman’s role as a trusted mediator? It is more than its relative neutrality. Mr. al-Busaidi explains that he tries to see people as “though we were as them, to see the world through their eyes.” He assumes their integrity.

He said in a speech last year that the world remains stuck in Cold War-era binary thinking. “There’s a tendency to think and act as though the world can be neatly organised into two,” he said. “There is good and evil. An axis of evil on the one hand and the guardians of prosperity on the other.”

“This comes from a failure to come to terms with the reality of a multipolar world. History has moved on faster than we have. We need to catch up with history.”

Especially in the Middle East, he said, a community’s identity cannot be sharply defined by religion. “Bad and good just aren’t helpful categories when trying to make sense of a complex and dynamic situation,” he said. “Only if you talk to [people] and listen to them, can you find out what their interests and perspectives really are, and start to work out how to engage deeply with them.”