• New U.S. tariffs: President Donald Trump said Wednesday he was placing 25% tariffs on auto imports, a move that the White House claims would foster domestic manufacturing. The tariffs could be complicated as even U.S. automakers source their components from around the world, meaning that they could face higher costs. – The Associated Press
• Brazil’s Bolsonaro to stand trial: A panel of Brazil Supreme Court justices unanimously accepted charges against former President Jair Bolsonaro over an alleged attempt to stay in office after his 2022 election defeat, and ordered him to stand trial. The former president has denied wrongdoing. – AP
  • Related Monitor story: We looked at whether such a trial would help heal Brazil’s democracy – or deepen divides.
• Supreme Court on ghost guns: The U.S. Supreme Court upheld a Biden administration regulation on the nearly impossible-to-trace weapons called ghost guns, homemade firearms that can be easily built using kits bought online. Since the federal rule was finalized, the number of ghost guns found at crime scenes has flattened out or declined in several major cities. – AP
  • Related Monitor story: In 2022, we explained then-new ghost gun regulations aimed at closing a legal loophole.
• Gazans protest Hamas: Exhausted by renewed war and hunger, Palestinians in Gaza are calling out Hamas as an obstacle to the peace they desperately want. In the second straight day of protests, on Wednesday hundreds of Gazans went to the streets in multiple towns to call for both an end to the Israeli military offensive and Hamas’ rule of the strip. They chanted “out, out Hamas” and “For God’s sake, Hamas go out” in videos posted on social media. Protesters held up banners reading “enough wars” and “Hamas does not represent us.” In response, Hamas blamed the demonstrations on a “campaign of incitement” orchestrated from outside Gaza. – Staff
• South Korea’s adoptions report: Its truth commission said the government bears responsibility for facilitating a foreign adoption program rife with fraud and abuse. The report follows a nearly three-year investigation into complaints from 367 adoptees in Europe, the U.S., and Australia and represents the most comprehensive examination yet of these adoptions, which peaked in the 1970s and ’80s. – AP
• Italy taxes Big Tech: Italy handed tax demands to Meta, the social media platform X, and LinkedIn Wednesday in an unprecedented value-added-tax claim against the American tech giants. – Reuters

The disclosure that senior Trump administration officials used a commercial messaging app to discuss secret military attacks has drawn bipartisan criticism – and risks a perception of two systems of accountability for higher- and lower-ranking officials. More details emerged Wednesday of the exchange about a U.S. strike on Yemen – including sensitive information that could have threatened the lives of the troops conducting the strike had it fallen into different hands.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is speaking about the dangers of the “deep state” while racing to remove institutional checks on government power. His maneuvering coincides with his government’s attempt to revive its proposed judicial overhaul, an agenda decried as an antidemocratic power grab designed to weaken the courts. Now, framing protests as the last chance to save Israeli democracy, tens of thousands of Israelis have returned to the streets. 

In this week’s global progress roundup, a court in Nepal scraps a new law that would allow development in protected areas; Mexico’s Congress challenges itself to improve animal welfare; Norway moves to require that construction vehicles run on biofuels; and more.

“Grandma” and “kitchen” must be among the most comforting words in any language. On New York’s Staten Island, at Enoteca Maria, also known as Nonnas of the World, some 30 nonnas rotate as chefs. They serve Italian dishes, of course. A changing menu features other global cuisines, from Paraguayan to Japanese. Free lessons are on the menu, and this place draws patrons who are as hungry for a home-cooked meal as they are for a smile, and maybe a hug, from a nonna. Our food writer captured the flavor.

In cities across Gaza on Tuesday and Wednesday, hundreds of Palestinian civilians marched against Hamas. It was the largest protest against the militant group since it sparked a war with Israel more than 17 months ago. Clearly, the fear of harsh retribution by Hamas for speaking out is falling among the territory’s 2 million residents as they face further war devastation.

Yet more telling was what drove protesters to set aside their fears: a claim of innocence.

In one video on the platform X, a man in the northern city of Beit Lahia yells to a crowd, “We are a peaceful people. ... We just want to live.” One construction worker told the German Press Agency, “We shouldn’t have to keep paying the price for leaders who only care about their own power.” A slogan on one sign read, “We refuse to be the ones who die.”

Such statements point to the fact that Hamas purposely embeds its leaders, fighters, and weapons inside civilian buildings to draw Israeli bombs, a clear violation of international law. For its part, the Israeli military says it tries to follow the rules of war by giving proper warning to civilians to flee an area before bombing a Hamas site.

“People have realized that Hamas is using them as pawns and human shields, nothing more,” Hamza Howidy, a peace activist from Gaza, told The Times of Israel last year. “They have realized that Hamas’s only strategy is to maximize civilian casualties.”

Many in Gaza may be emboldened to speak out after an edict last year from a prominent Muslim scholar, Salman al-Dayah. He said Hamas failed to keep its fighters “away from the homes of defenceless [Palestinian] civilians.”

Some experts on the Middle East say wars often end when people caught in a conflict start to empathize with innocent victims on both sides. That realization is behind the Geneva Conventions of 1949 that prohibit the use of civilians as shields. Many in Gaza are now trying to turn their innocence into a shield, one that may help end this war.