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Stormy Daniels, Russia, N. C. A. Basketball: Your Monday Briefing

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Here’s what you need to know to start your day.
(Want to get this briefing by email? Here’s the sign-up .)
Good morning.
Here’s what you need to know:
• “That’s a beautiful little girl, it would be a shame if something happened to her mom.”
In a “60 Minutes” interview broadcast on Sunday, the pornographic film star said that she and her daughter were approached in Las Vegas in 2011 by a man who told her: “Leave Trump alone. Forget the story.”
The actress, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, told Anderson Cooper that the threat was behind her decision to strike a $130,000 deal for her silence about an alleged affair with Donald Trump. She is now suing to get out of that agreement.
• Our profile of Ms. Clifford was one of our most popular articles over the weekend.
• The rallies protesting gun violence drew hundreds of thousands around the U. S. and the world over the weekend, and Democratic and Republican leaders say the issue could play a major role in voting in November .
Opinion polls show wide support for gun control. Republicans are fighting to maintain their appeal with the party’s dwindling moderate wing in the suburbs, but the gun debate also poses problems for some Democrats, who will be defending Senate seats in strongly conservative states.
The March for Our Lives demonstrations were led by young people but they had the financial backing and organizational muscle of adults. Here are photographs from the protests.
• While we’re on the subject of guns, Remington, one of the oldest firearm manufacturers in the U. S., filed for bankruptcy protection on Sunday.
• As President Trump faces the important decision of whether to be interviewed in the special counsel’s investigation, his personal legal team has essentially been reduced to one: Jay Sekulow.
Top lawyers in New York and Washington have repeatedly spurned overtures to take over the defense of Mr. Trump, who has publicly contradicted his advisers at times.
The president has a different view: “Many lawyers and top law firms want to represent me in the Russia case,” he said on Twitter .
Mr. Sekulow said on Sunday that Mr. Trump would not be hiring two lawyers who were announced only last week as additions to the team.
• Separately, we looked at how a top fund-raiser for Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign later marketed his connections to politicians and governments around the world, including to some with unsavory records.
• The photographer John Moore has spent nearly a decade along the U. S.-Mexico border, covering the story of immigration from all sides.
He captures images of the landscape, with its natural and manufactured lines of defense. He also takes intimate portraits of migrants and border officers.
• Here are 17 of his photographs .
• Students on the city’s South Side joined protests spurred by the Florida school shooting, but they also felt frustration. Why hadn’t gun violence in their community earned the same outrage?
Listen on a computer, an iOS device or an Android device.
• Amazon now collects sales tax in every state that has one, but some cities are missing out .
• Apple, hoping for more original programming, has struck deals with Steven Spielberg and other Hollywood names. But the company is in alien territory.
• S. U. V.s will be in the spotlight at the New York auto show, one of the headlines to watch this week .
• U. S. stocks were down on Friday. Here’s a snapshot of global markets today.
Tips, both new and old, for a more fulfilling life.
• Explore how to age with meaning and happiness .
• Change your bad habit by replacing it with something different .
• Recipe of the day: Embrace a meatless Monday with stir-fried peppers, eggplant and tofu .
“ Caroline Wyatt has been a superb reporter for the BBC on topics ranging from defense to religion. Here she describes, in both charming and painful detail, her continuing war against multiple sclerosis.” [ BBC]
— Steven Erlanger, chief diplomatic correspondent
“This ambitious article analyzes the oldest (and to me, most important) form of human communication: storytelling. And it nearly forensically describes how stories affect people, offering the prospect of using narrative to help address fundamental issues like climate change and building community.” [ Stanford Social Innovation Review]
— Meagan Lopez, global digital business director
• The U. S. carried out its first drone strike against Qaeda militants in southern Libya, signaling a possible expansion of the American counterterrorism campaign in North Africa.
• At least 64 people were killed in a fire at a shopping mall in Siberia .
• Carles Puigdemont, the former leader of Catalonia wanted in Spain on rebellion charges, was detained in Germany on an international arrest warrant .
• Qantas Airways completed its first nonstop flight from Australia to Britain, covering about 9,000 miles in just over 17 hours.
• Do you believe? The No. 11-seeded Loyola of Chicago, inspired by the team’s 98-year-old chaplain, Sister Jean, will join Kansas, Michigan and Villanova in the Final Four of the N. C. A. men’s basketball tournament.
On the women’s side, two No. 1 seeds, Louisville and Mississippi State, reached the Final Four. The other two teams will be decided tonight.
• “Pacific Rim Uprising” unseated “Black Panther” at the top of the North American box office.
• An “Angels” that soars
“Sometimes, just when you need it most, a play courses into your system like a transfusion of new blood.”
A London-born revival of Tony Kushner’s “Angels in America” pulses with spirit, our chief theater critic writes .
• Quotation of the day
“He is looking for the guy who can say, ‘I know how to handle Mueller. I know you think he is bad, and we’ll take care of it.’ Problem is, you can’t find that lawyer, because no one will be able to do that.”
— Roger Cossack, a longtime legal analyst, on President Trump’s struggles to find and keep lawyers.
• The Times, in other words
Here’s an image of today’s front page, and links to our Opinion content and crossword puzzles .
Last week, the Library of Congress in Washington announced its annual additions to the National Recording Registry, which honors significant pieces of American history and culture. ( Here’s the list.)
We’d like to look at one: the original 1930 recording of “ Lamento Borincano,” by Canario y Su Grupo.
Known as an unofficial anthem of Puerto Rico, “Lamento Borincano” was composed by Rafael Hernández, one of the island’s most renowned and prolific songwriters (although he wrote it while living in New York City).

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