Russia launched a sweeping air assault on Ukraine. The attacks came after U.S. President Donald Trump cast doubt on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s willingness to end the war. Ukrainian officials said three people were killed and four wounded Sunday in airstrikes in the Donetsk region. Another person was reported killed and a 14-year-old girl wounded in a drone strike in Dnipropetrovsk. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio called this week “very critical” for efforts to end the war. – The Associated Press

The World Food Programme is running out of money. On Friday, it reported a shortfall of $698 million out of the nearly $800 million it says it needs to feed 7 million people from May through September. Donor states are reducing contributions. The shortage comes as conflicts escalate in Sudan and Gaza, which faces border closures. In Gaza, where another 51 people were reported killed in weekend airstrikes, groups say supplies will soon run out, and that thousands of children are malnourished. – Reuters, AP

Iran’s president visited survivors of a port explosion. Masoud Pezeshkian met Sunday with some of the 1,000 people injured in an explosion that rocked one of the Islamic Republic’s main ports, killing 40. The facility purportedly had been linked to an earlier delivery of a chemical ingredient used to make missile propellant. Iran’s military sought to deny the delivery of ammonium perchlorate from China. – AP

The Trump administration is reinstating foreign-student records. Some terminations in a Homeland Security database had appeared tied to minor legal issues, students’ lawyers said. The government announced the reversal in court Friday, after causing confusion for thousands of students around deportation risks.

This month, federal courts heard more than 100 lawsuits based on the terminations and issued more than 50 restraining orders, Politico reports. It remains unclear whether the State Department will restore students’ revoked visas. Those travel documents are separate from, but related to, their status. – Staff

Poll shows mixed views on U.S. immigration moves. About 46% of U.S. adults surveyed approved of President Donald Trump’s handling of immigration, in a poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. That’s nearly 10 percentage points higher than his approval rating on the economy and trade. About half of Americans said Mr. Trump has “gone too far” with deportations. About one-third called his approach “about right”; about 2 in 10 said he has not gone far enough. – AP

Former U.S. Rep. George Santos was sentenced. The New York Republican had pleaded guilty last summer to federal wire fraud and aggravated identity theft. Mr. Santos admitted he deceived donors and stole the identities of nearly a dozen people to fund his congressional campaign. He served less than a year in Congress before being expelled in 2023. – AP

Sales for U.S. founding documents have surged. Editions of the Declaration of Independence, the Federalist Papers, and the U.S. Constitution are selling at their fastest pace since 2004, according to Circana, a market research group. Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Jon Meacham has written introductions for two forthcoming books on the early documents. “One way to address ... what Saint Paul would call the ‘tribulations’ of the present time,” Mr. Meacham said, “is to re-engage with the essential texts that are about creating a system that is still worth defending.” – AP

Pierre Poilievre, once seen as a lock to become Canada’s next prime minister, and his fellow Conservatives hope to position themselves as the obvious choice to lead a country buffeted by domestic problems like a cost-of-living crisis, and by international ones like the global trade war with Donald Trump’s America. But they are now trailing in Canada’s federal elections. Their aim: to convince voters that Canadian conservatism is the solution to the Trump problem, rather than part of it.

At U.S. bases across the Atlantic Ocean, queries for Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and his staff are going unanswered, documents unsigned, and decisions delayed for weeks. Perceptions of disarray at the Pentagon have grown more urgent as Secretary Hegseth has fired several close advisers. “There’s been no decisions because they’re dealing with staffing issues,” says a senior U.S. military official in Europe, who requested anonymity to speak candidly. All this can feed allied nations’ concerns about U.S. military readiness to respond in a crisis.

As 125% to 145% tariffs bite, trade between the United States and China is grinding to a halt. That’s inflicting an economic cost on everyone who makes the U.S.-China supply chain hum – Chinese factory workers, wholesalers, shipping agents, and – across the Pacific Ocean – American dockworkers, truck drivers, importers, and, ultimately, consumers. “Ordinary Chinese and American people – none of us want this,” says Huang Youping, one of around 75,000 vendors in China’s biggest wholesale market for small goods. Her U.S. orders have all been canceled.

Antisemitism in the United States is surging to levels not seen in nearly half a century, according to a new report by the Anti-Defamation League. Over the past decade alone, incidents are up 893%. And though only 2% of the population is Jewish, Jews are targeted in more than two-thirds of religious hate crimes. Rabbi Sharon Brous, founder of a congregation in Los Angeles, told the Monitor this not only endangers Jews but endangers democracy. “Antisemitism is always the canary in the coal mine for the evisceration of the rights and dignity of all people,” she says.

At a recent town hall meeting, a gentleman’s tearful admission that he’s afraid of losing his Social Security got our columnist Ken Makin thinking. It’s not bureaucracy that lingers for Ken. It’s the sense of betrayal by the government that Americans feel – from the postslavery promises of Reconstruction to the waning protections from the Civil Rights Movement, he writes. One of the lesser-known failures of Reconstruction was the rise and fall of the Freedman’s Bank, which initially provided a place for formerly enslaved people to house their newfound earnings. Ken talked with author Justene Hill Edwards, who wrote a 2024 book on the bank, about the impact of that history today. “I think what we are experiencing now is a real opportunity to help us rethink how we want our nation to be constructed,” she said.

One unfailing test of a country’s civilization, Winston Churchill once stated, lies in the mood of the public toward the treatment of crime and criminals. In a Texas courtroom April 21 and 22, two women did something rarely seen in the current mood of the United States.

They forgave and then hugged a man who had killed their family members in one of the deadliest mass shootings in U.S. history.

The first to forgive was Yolanda Tinajero, a Mexican American whose brother was killed in an El Paso Walmart by a white, anti-immigrant young man in 2019. After Patrick Crusius had pleaded guilty and was given multiple life sentences, the survivors and the families of the 23 victims gave impact statements in the courtroom. Most were angry, seeking retribution.

Ms. Tinajero, however, told the shooter, “At first, I was very angry at you, but God helped me to suppress this anger with forgiveness. I feel in my heart to hug you very tight so you could feel my forgiveness, especially my loss. But I know it’s not allowed.”

District Judge Sam Medrano then gave her permission to hug Mr. Crusius. He accepted despite the shackles on his hands. Then he listened for a minute while she quietly talked in his ear. The judge later said he had to turn away for a “good cry.”

The next day, Adriana Zandri of Mexico, whose husband was one of the victims, was permitted to hug the shooter and also forgave him.

Such acts of mercy may be a better way to end America’s cycles of mass shooting. Too often government relies on a rigid process of retribution and deterrence by incapacitation. At the least, these free acts of grace did contribute to the two women’s healing. And they say something about El Paso’s level of civilization.

As Ms. Tinajero told the shooter, “I want you to see and feel all of us who have been impacted by your actions that have brought us all closer with God’s love, which shows you that this great city of El Paso is a very forgiving place to dwell in.”

“If you would have come before to get to know our culture, you would have experienced what warm and good-hearted people us Hispanics are. We would have opened our doors to you to share a meal, breakfast, lunch or dinner – Mexican style. So, then, your ugly thoughts of us that have been instilled in you would have turned around.”