 | | A police officer today in Johannesburg, where foreign-owned businesses were attacked overnight, continuing a wave of violence against immigrants. Siphiwe Sibeko/Reuters | Your Friday Briefing By ADEEL HASSAN |
| Good morning. |
| Here's what you need to know: |
| • The president's immigration fight. |
| Justice Department lawyers urge a federal appeals court today to lift an injunction on President Obama's plan to allow up to five million unauthorized immigrants to stay in the country legally and obtain work permits and other benefits. |
| The administration asked for a ruling by today. |
| • On Capitol Hill. |
| Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader, escalated the fight over Loretta E. Lynch's pending confirmation as attorney general, threatening to force a vote if the Senate majority leader does not schedule one "very soon." |
| The vote is held up by an abortion provision in a bill on human trafficking. |
| • Qaeda affiliate is gaining in Yemen. |
| The group took control of a major airport and an oil export terminal, capitalizing on the growing multi-sided war and the collapse of the government. |
| Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter called the gains "of serious concern" to the U.S., and international aid agencies are making dire assessments about the toll on civilians in a country that imports nearly all of its food. |
| • The parched West. |
| The California State Water Resources Board is expected to announce today some sharpening of draft regulations on water use. |
| The proposal announced this month, to cut usage by 25 percent, is meeting resistance from many cities and water districts, according to more than 200 letters to the board. |
| • At the White House. |
| Mr. Obama meets Italy's prime minister, Matteo Renzi, today to discuss support for Ukraine in its war against pro-Russian separatists and the deteriorating situation in Libya, which was once a colony of Italy. |
| • Vigilante attacks in South Africa. |
| Foreign-owned businesses in South Africa were attacked and looted overnight, continuing a wave of violence against immigrants. |
| The unemployment rate there is 24 percent, and many accuse outsiders of taking jobs. |
| MARKETS |
| • Wall Street stock futures are slightly lower. European shares are flat, and Asian indexes were widely mixed. |
| • Heavy hitters in global finance are in Washington for the spring meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, with sluggish economies and a Greek debt deadline among pressing issues. |
| The Ebola-stricken nations of West Africa are also asking international donors to cancel their debts and give them up to $6 billion over two years to rebuild their economies. |
| • Market traders worldwide were adrift today after their Bloomberg terminals crashed. The rare outage of the data service seemed to be ending in some places. |
| • The White House holds its first Tech Meetup today, bringing local leaders to Washington to focus on how to make the technology industry more inclusive. |
| NOTEWORTHY |
| • Book night at the movies. |
| Tom Hardy and Gary Oldman star in the film adaptation of "Child 44," based on a novel by Tom Rob Smith set in the Soviet Union, where a security officer becomes vilified for investigating a series of child murders. |
| And Michael Douglas stars in the thriller "Beyond the Reach," based on "Deathwatch," the 1972 book by Robb White in which two men on a desert expedition are locked in a duel for survival. |
| Here's what else is coming to theaters today. |
| • Popular reads. |
| Sara Gruen's "At the Water's Edge," which imagines a World War II-era search for the Loch Ness monster, hits the hardcover fiction list at No. 6 in our Sunday Book Review best-seller rankings. |
| She also wrote the best seller "Water for Elephants." |
| • "Quack treatments." |
| A group of doctors at Columbia University has demanded the removal of Dr. Mehmet Oz, who hosts "The Dr. Oz Show," from his faculty position. |
| They accuse him of an "egregious lack of integrity" for promoting what they call "quack treatments." The school responded by saying it "is committed to the principle of academic freedom." |
| • Where the cool kids are. |
| The premier pop festival in the U.S., the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in California, concludes this weekend with the repeat headliners AC/DC, Jack White and Drake. |
| • Playing their part. |
| Children at St. Elizabeth Catholic School in Rockville, Md., are trying today to break the Guinness World Record for the number of people wearing "The Cat in the Hat" hats. We can't wait to see the photos. |
| • Bonding across species. |
| Dogs can set off a response in their owners' brains just by gazing at them, a new study says. |
| BACK STORY |
| "The King and I" is back in New York in a Lincoln Center production that opened Thursday. |
| The Rodgers and Hammerstein musical tells the vaguely true story of a British widow who goes to Siam — what is Thailand today — in the 1860s to tutor the king. She ends up turning him toward democracy. |
| It's a history tale with a lot of history. |
| The film version, with Yul Brynner and Deborah Kerr, won five Oscars in 1957. (Ken Watanabe and Kelli O'Hara star in the latest revival.) |
| Before that it was a novel, "Anna and the King of Siam," by Margaret Landon, who was a missionary there in the 1920s. But the book wasn't about her 10-year visit. |
| While in Siam, she discovered the memoirs of Anna Leonowens, who was governess to King Mongkut in 1862. The story sprouted from that seed. |
| "The King and I" has always been a U.S. crowd-pleaser. But the musical is banned in Thailand, where it is deemed inaccurate and disrespectful. |
| Descendants of the king and historians say he was actually a mild-mannered former monk whose easing of old rules was already underway when Ms. Leonowens arrived. |
| Victoria Shannon contributed reporting. |
| Your Morning Briefing is published weekdays at 6 a.m. Eastern and updated on the web all morning. |
| What would you like to see here? Contact us at briefing@nytimes.com. |
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