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Good morning.
Britain’s Parliament looks for more Brexit alternatives, President Trump threatens to close part of the U.S. border, and Slovakia elects its first female president. Here’s the latest:
Brexit puts British democracy on trial
Late Monday in Britain, lawmakers will try again to come up with an alternative to Prime Minister Theresa May’s plan, which they have rejected three times.
Chances of success appear minimal. None of the eight options on the table last week fetched a majority in Parliament.
Failure would leave the country with two unappealing options: leave the E.U. in a little over a week without a deal or delay Brexit further.
Analysis: “In interviews, many Britons expressed despair over the inability of the political system to produce a compromise,” our London correspondents Ellen Barry and Benjamin Mueller write. “No one feels that the government has represented their interests. No one is satisfied. No one is hopeful.
“It has amounted to a hollowing out of confidence in democracy itself.”
The winners: One industry that seems to be booming amid the Brexit chaos: law firms dealing with client concerns about the legal ramifications of the divorce with the E.U.
Live from our London newsroom: What does this divided moment mean for the future of Britain? Times subscribers can join a conference call at 2 p.m. G.M.T. for a discussion of Brexit with our Europe editor, Jim Yardley; the London-based chief international correspondent Ellen Barry; and the London correspondent Stephen Castle. R.S.V.P. here.
In recent weeks, Border Patrol facilities have been strained by an influx of migrants — the largest annual surge in years — ahead of the arrival of the deadly summer heat.
Impact: Sealing the border would effectively close off the U.S. from one of its largest trading partners, and could leave American citizens who travel back and forth stuck in limbo.
Conditions: Processing stations across the 1,900-mile border with Mexico were not expanded despite projections of the influx, and makeshift additions have been overwhelmed. American immigration officials cleared out a holding pen under a bridge in El Paso, Tex., after an outcry over conditions at the site.
The effort reflects President Vladimir Putin’s vision of returning Russia to its former glory and illustrates the country’s opportunistic strategy.
What Russia wants: The country is seeking more strategic bases for its troops, according to an analysis by the Institute for the Study of War, a research organization in Washington.
Scope: Russia is helping a former general in Libya fight for control over his government and vast oil market. Sudan’s president brought in Russian mercenaries in January to help shore up his rule against protests. Last spring, Mali, Niger, Chad, Burkina Faso and Mauritania appealed to Moscow to help their overtaxed militaries and security services combat terrorism.
History: Russia was entrenched in Africa during the Cold War’s violent East-West rivalry but largely retreated from the continent after the collapse of the Soviet Union. In the past two years, however, Moscow has rekindled relations.
Others in Africa: American political consultants with ties to President Trump have become regular fixtures in African political campaigns, seizing on the region’s turn toward democracy.
Spotlight: India’s elections
With about 900 million voters, almost 2,000 registered parties and five weeks of voting, the Indian elections can seem cacophonous. Even for this briefing writer, a diaspora Indian, they’re difficult to follow. The country’s myriad states, cultures and socioeconomic segments can’t be sliced into left or right, red or blue. It’s a kaleidoscope, and each prism illuminates a different aspect of the political spectrum.
But it is also heartening to watch this young democracy exercising a right denied to many in the surrounding region. And it is important: What happens in India can end up shifting the global economy and geopolitical landscape.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his right-wing Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party are seeking to retain power, facing a surging challenge by the opposition Congress Party. The briefing will be regularly unpacking aspects of the race. Voting unfolds from April 11 until May 19 and results are announced on May 23.
Keep in mind that the backdrop for the campaigning is a flammable mix of economic, religious and national security issues. Unemployment is high, sectarian violence has risen, farmers across the country are increasingly frustrated and there’s broad disillusionment with politicians.
Send us your feedback and any questions you have about the elections here.
— Alisha Haridasani Gupta
Here’s what else is happening
Algeria: The army chief kept his post in a newly named government despite his call to have the ailing president, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, declared unfit for office. Critics accused the army chief of trying to orchestrate a coup. On Friday, tens of thousands of Algerians marched in a broad show of anger against the government in the sixth mass protest in a row.
Italy: The country’s interior minister, part of the anti-immigrant League party, criticized an Italian rap tune with a Middle Eastern flavor. Now the song’s artist is at the center of a national debate about what it means to be Italian at a time when critics say the country’s most powerful politician seems intent on stoking racism and xenophobia.
Uber: A college student in South Carolina was found dead after she apparently got into a car that she mistook for an Uber she had called, the authorities said. In a statement, the president of her university said, “Times like these leave me searching for words of wisdom and comfort.”
Women as leaders: In Opinion, Tina Brown writes about women who shine as leaders when they stop pursuing male paths to power, and instead lead like women: “Women have learned and taught lessons about how to cope with seeming impossibilities in ways that men traditionally — and to this day — have not.”
“Salvator Mundi”: The location of the famed painting attributed to Leonardo da Vinci has been a mystery since last year, shortly after a Saudi royal, most likely the crown prince, paid $450 million for it.
The Kardashians: For more than a decade, the family has turned its feuding on reality TV into business opportunities. “People don’t know how much work goes into it,” the family matriarch, Kris Jenner, said in an interview with The Times.
Slovakia: Zuzana Caputova was elected as the country’s first female president, and the 45-year-old lawyer, activist and political newcomer vowed to return a sense of decency to Slovakia’s often toxic political climate.
Smarter Living
Tips for a more fulfilling life.
Recipe of the day: Alison Roman’s spicy noodle soup with mushrooms and herbs is a deeply flavored vegetarian dinner.
Time management can only get you so far. The true key to productivity, according to Adam Grant, a Wharton School expert, is attention management.
Hostels are the best way to travel cheaply all over the world.
Back Story
The Bauhaus art school celebrates the centennial of its founding today.
The Modernist school (whose name inverts “Hausbau,” the German word for “house building”) was among the first to combine the teaching of crafts, design, architecture and fine art.
Walter Gropius, the architect who established the school in 1919 in Weimar, Germany, wrote in the Bauhaus’s program that the ultimate aim was the “unified work of art.”
And he enlisted masters of various artistic disciplines, such as Wassily Kandinsky, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy and Paul Klee, to join the Bauhaus faculty.
The school survived for little more than a decade before it was shut down in 1933 under pressure from the Nazis.
But its legacy of uniting art and functional design in everyday life is long-lasting, and Bauhaus principles were spread worldwide.
Anna Schaverien, from our London newsroom, wrote today’s Back Story.
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