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Good evening. Here’s the latest.
1. A purge at the Department of Homeland Security.
A day after pushing out the secretary, Kirstjen Nielsen, President Trump moved to sweep out others in the department’s top ranks: the head of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the Secret Service director and the department’s general counsel.
Mr. Trump has been pushing for even harsher border policies than Ms. Nielsen presided over, and to resume separating families. Above, Central American migrants turned themselves in at the border in Texas on Saturday.
And his scrutiny of the Secret Service appears to have risen since agents arrested a Chinese woman over a week ago at Mar-a-Lago, his Florida resort. More details about that case came out at a court hearing today.
2. On the eve of Israeli elections, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, above campaigning today, reached out to Israel’s right with a pledge that could end any possibility of a two-state solution.
Facing the surging appeal of the former army chief Benny Gantz, Mr. Netanyahu promised that if re-elected, he would begin asserting Israeli sovereignty over areas of the West Bank.
Mr. Netanyahu also may have received a last-minute boost from President Trump, who designated Iran’s Revolutionary Guard a terrorist group. U.S. military and intelligence chiefs are worried, however, about possible retaliation against their forces.
3. In other international news:
The new Brexit deadline is Friday. Prime Minister Theresa May’s government has been meeting with officials from the opposition Labour Party to resuscitate stalled talks over a compromise plan.
Mrs. May is expected to seek another Brexit extension from European leaders on Wednesday.
And we’re watching Sudan, where protesters have been massing to call for the departure of President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, who has wielded authoritarian power there for three decades.
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4. “They didn’t burn down our spirit.”
That was the Rev. Harry Richard, the pastor of one of three predominantly black churches in a single area of Louisiana that were destroyed in recent fires.
State and federal authorities are trying to determine whether the fires were intentionally set, and if so, whether they were motivated by racism. A fourth, smaller fire at a church a few hours’ drive away was determined to be intentional.
Our reporter found many residents uneasy over the echoes of racist attacks on black churches across the country.
5. Stars plead guilty:
Allison Mack, above, an actress and one of the most high-profile members of the cultlike group Nxivm, pleaded guilty to racketeering and conspiracy charges.
“I must take full responsibility for my conduct,” she said, sobbing while giving a lengthy statement at the Federal District Court in Brooklyn.
And prosecutors said Felicity Huffman would plead guilty in the college admissions fraud scandal, along with 12 other parents and one coach. The actress is accused of paying a college consultant $15,000 to cheat on her older daughter’s SAT.
“My daughter knew absolutely nothing about my actions, and in my misguided and profoundly wrong way, I have betrayed her,” Ms. Huffman said in a statement.
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6. In business news: Russia is trying to revive the world market for asbestos, which is mined, above, in a city named — wait for it — Asbest. The pitch: The mineral, chrysotile, is not as lethal as the other fibrous minerals marketed as asbestos.
Pinterest set a price range for its coming I.P.O., which values the company at less than prior valuations of $12 billion. That dampens some of the fervor over this year’s wave of tech offerings.
And Carlos Ghosn, who’s sitting in jail in Tokyo on charges ranging from underreporting his executive compensation to “aggravated breach of trust,” was voted off Nissan’s board.
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7. In case you missed it, our story on Candida auris, a drug-resistant fungus exploding around the world, published over the weekend.
One of the reporters who wrote our exposé explains how he came to realize that secrecy on the part of health officials and hospitals was a big part of the story.
“As we prepare to move ahead with more articles on drug resistance,” he writes, “we understand that we are tackling an issue that is so scary, it feels easy for some people to ignore, less frightening to bury.”
8. In sports:
The final game of the men’s N.C.A.A. championship, pitting Virginia against Texas Tech, began at 9:20 p.m. Eastern (CBS). Above, the first half. For Virginia, it’s a shot at redemption after last year’s agonizing first-round loss to the No. 16 seed.
The women’s tournament crowned Baylor on Sunday, above, with an 82-81 victory over Notre Dame.
And we examine why a 23-year-old Olympic cyclist and Stanford graduate student, Kelly Catlin, killed herself last month. Her family believes the breaking point was a concussion she sustained during a training ride in January.
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9. A different vision of life on the border.
A photographer, Tomas van Houtryve, followed the southern U.S. boundary that existed before the Mexican-American war in the 1840s. He met families who have lived in the region, now California, Nevada and Texas, for centuries.
He found that it wasn’t the expansion of the U.S. that spread ideas like equality, liberty and democracy in the conquered lands.
“In reality, these values arrived in the West straight from Mexico City,” he said. “The main ideological import of Anglo-Americans to the West at the time was actually strident white supremacy.”
10. And finally, did you know “Game of Thrones” episodes will run about 80 minutes for the last four episodes of the final season?
Did you know we have an obsessive watching guide to the previous seven seasons? It even has a countdown clock to HBO’s broadcast of Episode 1 of Season 8, on Sunday.
Also, faith-based groups have a rare moment of agreement with the big screen thanks to “Unplanned,” a film that paints a scathing portrait of abortion rights and Planned Parenthood.
And the trailer is out for “Homecoming,” the Netflix documentary about Beyoncé. And it’s clear that the focus is her much-praised headlining performance at Coachella last year.
Have an entertaining evening.
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