Security forces loyal to Syria’s new government have been accused of massacring hundreds of civilians in coastal Alawite and Christian communities after the government said it had launched a military campaign against fighters loyal to former President Bashar al-Assad. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reports at least 745 civilians have been killed in 29 massacres in Latakia and Tartus provinces since Thursday. Victims include children and the elderly, most of them killed execution-style. The massacres came as some rebel fighters look to punish the Alawite community because the Assad family belongs to the Alawite sect, which makes up 12% of Syria’s population. Residents in Latakia condemned the massacres.

Ahmad al-Najjar: “We don’t want a sectarian war. We want to rebuild our country. We don’t want bloodshed, neither from us nor them, because it won’t change anything. There are those who benefit from war and don’t want Syria to recover. They profit while civilians on both sides suffer. But we reject that. We want peace. We want our country to heal.”

Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are facing heightened threats of thirst, disease and starvation after Israel’s energy minister abruptly shut off all electric power to Gaza on Sunday. The blackout idled a wastewater treatment plant and drastically cut clean water output from Gaza’s only functioning desalination plant. The power cuts came on the eighth day of Israel’s renewed blockade of humanitarian aid shipments into Gaza. There were long lines at bakeries on Sunday as people queued for hours just to receive a single piece of bread.

Abu Al-Abd Darwish: “There’s a siege on all of Gaza’s people, from all the borders. As you can see, we’re waiting for our turn to get a bag of bread, all of these people waiting for a bag of bread. This is our situation. Gaza’s people need aid, our brothers. There is a siege on all Gaza’s people. We’re all alike now, the wealthy and the poor. Everyone is trying to get a bag of bread.”

Hamas condemned Israel’s shutoff of power as a “desperate attempt to pressure our people and their resistance through cheap and unacceptable blackmail tactics.”

An Israeli delegation is headed to Qatar today for a new round of Gaza ceasefire talks, coming 10 days after the first phase expired. President Donald Trump’s Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff is expected to join the talks on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Yemen’s Houthi movement has issued an ultimatum to Israel to lift its blockade of Gaza — or face renewed attacks. Before January’s ceasefire in Gaza, the Houthis launched more than 100 attacks on ships in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, as well as dozens of missile and drone attacks on Israel.

Russian attacks on Ukraine killed at least six people today. Over the weekend, Moscow launched major aerial raids across Ukraine, killing at least two dozen people Saturday, nearly half of those in the Donetsk region and destroying energy infrastructure. Russia’s stepped-up attacks come after the U.S. pulled much of its support from Kyiv following President Trump’s Oval Office clash with President Volodymyr Zelensky, with Trump halting U.S. military aid, intelligence sharing and, as of Friday, the sharing of satellite imagery with Ukraine. On Friday, Trump defended Putin’s ramped-up attacks.

President Donald Trump: “I actually think he’s doing what anybody else would do. I think he’s — I think he wants to get it stopped and settled, and I think he’s hitting them harder than — than he’s been hitting them. And I think probably anybody in that position would be doing that right now.”

President Zelensky is in Saudi Arabia for U.S.-led talks and is meeting today with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. A Ukrainian delegation will meet with its U.S. counterpart on Tuesday.

Canada’s governing Liberal Party has elected Mark Carney as its new leader, setting him up to replace Justin Trudeau as prime minister in the coming days. Carney is a graduate of Oxford and Harvard who spent over a decade at the Wall Street investment firm Goldman Sachs. He previously served as governor of the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England before becoming an economic adviser to Trudeau. In his victory speech Sunday, Carney pledged that Canada would win the trade war started by President Donald Trump.

Prime Minister-designate Mark Carney: “The Americans want our resources, our water, our land, our country. Think about it. If they — if they succeeded, they would destroy our way of life. In America, healthcare is a big business. In Canada, it is a right.”

Carney is widely expected to call for a snap election to capitalize on his rising popularity.

The Trump administration says it’s stripping union protections for 47,000 workers at the Transportation Security Administration, including the right to collective bargaining. American Federation of Government Employees National President Everett Kelley condemned the move as a “pretext for attacking the rights of regular working Americans across the country because they happen to belong to a union.”

On Friday, some 80,000 workers at the Department of Health and Human Services were offered lump-sum payments of up to $25,000 if they agree by March 14 to resign their posts. The buyout offer came after some federally funded researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention received a survey requiring them to detail how their work aligns with the goals of the Trump administration. ABC News reports they were asked whether their research would help combat “Christian persecution,” defend women and children against so-called gender ideology extremism or help curb immigration.

The New York Times is reporting President Trump moved to rein in Elon Musk’s power after an explosive Cabinet meeting at the White House last Thursday. The Times reports Secretary of State Marco Rubio was incensed after Musk accused him of failing to fire enough staff at the State Department. Meanwhile, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy criticized Musk’s cuts at the Federal Aviation Administration. Duffy reportedly said, “I have multiple plane crashes to deal with now, and your people want me to fire air traffic controllers?”

President Trump has signed an executive order terminating security clearances of employees at Perkins Coie, the law firm that represented Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. A spokesperson for Perkins Coie called Trump’s move “patently unlawful” and promised a legal challenge. This comes just weeks after Trump signed another executive order targeting the Washington, D.C., law firm Covington & Burling, which employs lawyers who worked in the Obama and Biden administrations and who recently aided Jack Smith, the special counsel who led investigations into Trump.

Immigration agents with the Department of Homeland Security have detained a recent Columbia University graduate for helping lead campus encampment protests. Mahmoud Khalil, who is an Algerian citizen of Palestinian descent, is a green card holder and is married to a U.S. citizen; his wife is eight months pregnant. Immigration officials told Khalil’s lawyer his green card was being revoked. The journalist Prem Thakker, who broke the story and who will be joining us later, says DHS claims Khalil “led activities aligned to Hamas.” His arrest follows Trump’s executive orders targeting free speech and protests on college campuses.

The arrest came as the Trump administration withdrew $400 million in federal grants and contracts to Columbia for failing to address so-called antisemitic harassment at its campus. In fact, Columbia repeatedly targeted Palestinian rights protesters on its campuses and called in police to brutally crack down on a peaceful student movement. We’ll have more on these stories later in the broadcast.

The dean of Georgetown University’s law school has rejected a warning from the acting federal prosecutor in Washington, D.C., who said his office won’t consider Georgetown students for jobs, internships or fellowships until the law school ends diversity, equity and inclusion programs. Acting U.S. Attorney Ed Martin made the threat in an email on March 3, writing that it is “unacceptable” that Georgetown Law “continues to promote and teach DEI.” Dean William Treanor wrote in response, “Given the First Amendment’s protection of a university’s freedom to determine its own curriculum and how to deliver it, the constitutional violation behind this threat is clear, as is the attack on the University’s mission as a Jesuit and Catholic institution.”

Elected officials joined large crowds in Selma, Alabama, Sunday to march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, commemorating the 60th anniversary of Bloody Sunday. Eighty-five-year-old Spiver Gordon was one of those who followed the late civil rights leader turned Congressmember John Lewis across the bridge in 1965, when they were brutally attacked by Alabama state troopers.

Spiver Gordon: “There’s a different day, different flavor but the same labor. We’ve got Donald Trump now. And, of course, he’s trying to turn back the clock and trying to stop us from moving forward. But, of course, those of us who are of the movement know that we have to continue.”

Lawyers warn transgender women prisoners have been transferred to federal men’s prisons as part of Trump’s order denying trans existence and rights — this despite multiple court rulings blocking the policy. But court rulings so far have only shielded the 17 trans plaintiffs in the cases, leaving others vulnerable to relocation, where they have already reported sexual misconduct by prison guards and having thoughts of suicide.

California Governor Gavin Newsom has come under fire by fellow Democrats after he characterized allowing transgender athletes to compete as “deeply unfair.” He made the comments during an interview on his podcast with MAGA influencer Charlie Kirk. In response, the organization Human Rights Campaign said, “The path to 2028 isn’t paved with the betrayal of vulnerable communities.”

A group of arts organizations focused on transgender and nonbinary communities has sued the National Endowment for the Arts, or NEA, after it imposed new grant requirements conforming to Trump’s executive order banning the promotion of so-called gender ideology. The ACLU, which is representing the plaintiffs, said, “This gag on artists’ speech has had a ripple effect across the entire art world, from Broadway to community arts centers.”

In Washington, D.C., drag performers led a protest outside the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts on Friday to protest President Trump’s takeover of the institution. Last month, Trump fired the Kennedy Center’s president, replaced its board of trustees and named himself chairman, writing that those fired “do not share our Vision for a Golden Age in Arts and Culture.” Drag performer Lord Henry spoke at the protest.

Lord Henry: “We demand that the Kennedy Center board reinstate queer programming, including but not limited to drag-oriented workshops and shows, and any other equity and DEI initiatives at the Kennedy Center. We want to force Congress to drop the multiple attempts at criminalizing gender nonconformity, including Trump’s executive order conflating sex and gender, and the attacks on drag artists through budget amendments, denying funds to organizations supporting and protecting this queer art form, as well as so much more.”

Rallies took place across the globe Saturday to mark International Women’s Day. Here in the U.S., protesters largely focused on Trump and the Republican Party’s attacks on women and the LGBTQ+ community. This is a rallygoer in New York.

Elyse Dressler: “I can’t believe we’re here again for this and that women’s rights consistently are under attack. And not only are women’s rights under attack, but our less fortunate, our Black family, our LGBTQ family. There are very scary and very real things in Project 2025, and we are seeing that book becoming the law of the land over the Constitution.”