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Facebook said it was removing 687 pages and accounts linked to India’s main opposition Congress party, just days before voting begins in a general election, because of “coordinated inauthentic behaviour” on the social media platform. The announcement marks a rare action from Facebook against a prominent political party in a country where it has more than 300 million users, the highest in the world.

Three major U.S. airlines said on Monday they were experiencing system-wide computer outages, with United Airlines saying it was unable to create paperwork as a result. Delta Air Lines and Southwest Airlines both said on their social media accounts that they were experiencing a system-wide outage.

Britain’s exit from the European Union was in disarray after the implosion of Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit strategy left her under pressure from rival factions to leave without a deal, go for an election or forge a much softer divorce. In 2017, Theresa May lost her party’s majority in parliament in an election she did not need to call. It has since been reliant on the support of Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party, which has voted against her Brexit deal all three times. There is growing speculation that the UK prime minister could call a snap election to try and break the impasse.

Japan declared the name of its new imperial era when Crown Prince Naruhito becomes emperor on May 1, with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe saying it emphasized traditional values at a turning point in the nation’s history. “Reiwa” will be the name for the new era when Naruhito succeeds his father, Emperor Akihito, whose abdication on April 30 will end the 31-year Heisei era. The imperial era name, or “gengo”, is used on documents, newspapers, calendars and coins. It is the way many Japanese count years, although use of the Western calendar is becoming more widespread, and many use the two systems interchangeably.

Brunei will deal a serious setback to human rights if it applies laws allowing death by stoning for adultery and gay sex, marking an end to a de facto moratorium on capital punishment, U.N. human rights chief Michelle Bachelet said. Bachelet said Brunei’s revised Penal Code would enshrine serious breaches of international human rights law into law.

A comedian with no political experience raced ahead in the first round of Ukraine’s presidential election on Sunday, offering a fresh face to voters fed up with entrenched corruption in a country on the frontline of the West’s standoff with Russia. A crowded field of 39 candidates has now shrunk to just two - with 41-year-old Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who plays a fictional president in a popular TV series, and incumbent President Petro Poroshenko set to go head-to-head in a second round run-off on April 21.

Ethiopia will release a preliminary report on Monday into the cause of an Ethiopian Airlines crash that killed 157 last month, a foreign ministry spokesman said. The report will be released by the Ministry of Transport, Nebiyat Getachew told Reuters, although a time had not yet been set.

Two @Reuters journalists have been imprisoned in Myanmar for 476 days. See full coverage: https://reut.rs/2JRZNPC

4:12 AM - Apr 1, 2019

U.S.-Mexico Border

Trump’s threat to shut the U.S. border if Mexico does not halt all illegal immigration has exposed the limitations of the new Mexican government’s strategy of trying to appease the U.S. president as he gears up for re-election. The U.S. government also cut aid to El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras on Saturday after President Donald Trump blasted the Central American countries for sending migrants to the United States and threatened to shutter the U.S.-Mexico border. Trump said there was a “very good likelihood” he would close the border this week if Mexico did not stop immigrants from reaching the United States.

From the avocados on avocado toast, to the limes and tequila in margaritas, the United States is heavily reliant on Mexican imports of fruit, vegetables and alcohol to meet consumer demand. Nearly half of all imported U.S. vegetables and 40 percent of imported fruit are grown in Mexico, according to the latest data from the United States Department of Agriculture. Americans would run out of avocados in three weeks if imports from Mexico were stopped, said Steve Barnard, president and chief executive of Mission Produce, the largest distributor and grower of avocados in the world.

Politics

Attorney Michael Avenatti, who represented adult film star Stormy Daniels in her legal battles with U.S. President Donald Trump, is set to appear in the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles on Monday to face embezzlement and fraud charges.

Former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said he believed he had never acted inappropriately following allegations by a female activist that he made her feel uncomfortable by kissing her at a campaign event in 2014. Biden has said he does not recall the incident. The allegation was made in an online essay published on Friday by Lucy Flores, a party activist who was running to be Nevada’s lieutenant governor.