Wall Street and the dollar tumbled. Investors worldwide appeared skeptical about U.S. investments because of trade war worries and President Donald Trump’s criticism of the Federal Reserve. The S&P 500 fell 2.4% Monday and was 16% below its record set two months ago. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 2.5%, and the Nasdaq composite sank 2.6%. U.S. government bonds and the dollar also sank. – The Associated Press
Related Monitor stories: We looked at how trust in U.S. currency is falling. (Read about the president’s clash with the Fed, below.)

Ukraine reported Russian attacks amid a ceasefire. The head of its southern Kherson region said strikes during the 30-hour Easter pause declared by Russian President Vladimir Putin over the weekend killed three people in the region, wounding three others. Ukraine said it would reciprocate any genuine ceasefire by Moscow but voiced skepticism over the Kremlin’s intentions. – AP
Related Monitor story: As a Ukrainian military chaplain ministered to troops on the front lines on Easter Sunday, it cast a spotlight on their hopes and concerns.

Harvard announced it is suing the Trump administration. The university aims to halt a freeze on more than $2.2 billion in grants. Earlier this month, the Trump administration had called for broad reforms at the university, including changes to its admissions policies and the auditing of views on diversity. Harvard President Alan Garber said the university would not bend to the demands, and the government froze billions in federal funding. – AP

Calls mount for a closer look at Gaza medics’ killings. The Palestinian Red Crescent on Monday called for a “serious investigation” into the killing of 15 aid workers in Gaza last month. The Israeli military on Sunday admitted “professional failures” and disciplined two officers over a March 23 incident, in which an Israeli military unit in Gaza fired on ambulances, a fire truck, and a United Nations vehicle. The advocate general’s office may take further action, including possible criminal action, the military said. – Reuters

The Education Department will call in student debt. It announced Monday it would begin collection next month on student loans that are in default, including the garnishing of wages for potentially millions of borrowers. Roughly 5.3 million borrowers are in default on their federal student loans. Beginning May 5, the department will begin involuntary collection by withholding payments from the government, including tax refunds and benefits, from people with past-due debts to the government. – AP

A sequoia grows in Detroit? Arborists are turning vacant land on Detroit’s east side into a small urban forest of giant sequoias. Native to California’s Sierra Nevada, the trees are threatened there by wildfires. Detroit is the pilot city for the Giant Sequoia Filter Forest. The nonprofit Archangel Ancient Tree Archive donated dozens of sequoia saplings that are being planted by staff and volunteers from Arboretum Detroit to mark Earth Day April 22. – AP
Related Monitor stories: Last year, we covered urban tree-planting in Louisville, Kentucky.

The White House wants lower interest rates. The Federal Reserve has paused further cuts to hold inflation in check. President Donald Trump has threatened to fire Fed Chair Jerome Powell. The standoff, the most serious rift between the two institutions since the Nixon administration, threatens to further destabilize the dollar and overturn a century of constitutional precedent.

Like most countries in Central America, Panama has not traditionally served as a destination for migrants and asylum-seekers. Since February, however, this narrow land bridge between continents has received hundreds of people deported by the United States. The influx has resulted in lawsuits and court injunctions, testing Panama’s legal norms and straining detention facilities not designed to care for individuals and families seeking refuge.

Community-supported agriculture is a mainstay in Massachusetts. More than a quarter of farms sell their produce directly to consumers, a state average second only to neighboring Vermont. As planting season begins, funding freezes and staff cuts at the U.S. Department of Agriculture add new worries to a sector already coping with an increasingly unpredictable climate. More than ever, small family farmers are counting on each other to weather uncertainty.

The Umuco Mwiza School in Kigali, Rwanda, has about 220 students, 14 teachers, and 10 classrooms. Established in 2001, it has produced more than 500 graduates, many who came from families that could not afford to pay the fees. What makes this success possible is Marie Louise Kambenga, a survivor of the 1994 genocide who fled to Japan and dedicated her life to healing her home country one student at a time.

Father Vitalii Kuzin joined the Ukraine Armed Forces the day after Russia invaded his country three years ago. Now he is part of a fledgling military chaplaincy providing comfort and spiritual support to exhausted soldiers. On Easter Sunday, while artillery boomed nearby despite a ceasefire called by Moscow, he worshipped with front-line troops in villages near Pokrovsk. “Now everyone wants a blessing,” he said. “Everyone wants to pray.”

Last Tuesday, about 80 university students from Serbia, who had cycled 780 miles across four countries, arrived in Strasbourg, France, the heart of the European Union. They went there to deliver a letter to EU leaders demanding action against corruption in their Balkan country, which is faltering in its efforts to join the 27-nation bloc.

The cross-border tour de force appears to have worked.

The next day, the EU commissioner in charge of the union’s enlargement strongly stated that the Serbian government needs to be “brought back on the European track” – meaning focused on better rule of law and transparency – following months of very large anti-corruption protests.

“What we are demanding from Serbia ... is nearly exactly the same as what the protesters in Serbia are demanding,” Commissioner Marta Kos said in an interview with the European Newsroom.

As one of the bicyclists told Serbia’s N1 cable news, “I think we have woken up Europe.”

In recent years, the EU has had many wake-up calls to the need to promote honest governance, not just in the nine states like Serbia aspiring to join the bloc, but also within its own member states.

Twice in the past three years, investigators have uncovered cash-for-influence scandals in the European Parliament. A leading politician in France, Marine Le Pen, has been barred for five years from running for president for misusing EU funds. In March, the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) reported that it had more than 2,600 investigations last year – an increase of 38% from the previous year.

Laura Kövesi, head prosecutor of EPPO, said the agency is investigating Serbia for the misuse of EU money in an apparent corruption case that caused the collapse of a railway station canopy in November, killing 16. She praised “the mentality” of Serbs in seeking to root out the cause of the collapse.

“If they want to live in a clean country and are fighting for it, I believe that is the most important development you can have in a country,” she told Radio Television of Serbia.

More than 70% of reports on graft to the agency came from private citizens, a sign of widespread integrity in Europe. Such private initiatives are an indication of trust in EU prosecutors, Ms. Kövesi told the International Monetary Fund. “What we do is not for us, it’s for the benefit of the people. That is justice.”