Axios

Former Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens (R), who resigned in 2018 amid several scandals the culminated in criminal charges, announced Monday on Fox News that he is running for Roy Blunt's open Senate seat in Missouri.

Why it matters: Greitens resigned as governor in 2018 after facing a felony charge for illegally obtaining a fundraising list and accusations of sexual assault. The felony charge was later dropped.

The eight people who died in a shooting spree by a 21-year-old gunman in Georgia this week have been identified by police and Fulton County officials.

Why it matters: The fact that six of the eight victims are Asian women has left Asians and Pacific Islanders across America fearful and alarmed.

Airlines and other travel-related industries are urging the Biden administration to develop a plan by May 1 to reopen the country to international visitors.

Why it matters: Travel and tourism were hit hard by the pandemic, with 5.6 million travel-supported jobs lost in 2020, and a $1 trillion hit to the U.S. economy, according to the U.S. Travel Association. Without a rebound in international travel, a broader economy recovery could stall.

Sidney Powell, the pro-Trump lawyer who spread baseless claims of election fraud, moved Monday to dismiss Dominion Voting Systems' defamation lawsuit against her.

What she's saying: Powell argues in her motion that "no reasonable person" would conclude that her accusations of Dominion's election-rigging scheme "were truly statements of fact."

The Senate voted 68-29 on Monday to confirm Boston Mayor Marty Walsh to lead the Department of Labor.

Why it matters: The Senate has now confirmed President Biden's nominees for all 15 executive departments. Walsh will be tasked with overseeing an unemployment crisis brought on by COVID-19 and helping regulators navigate the new realities of a pandemic-era workforce.

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R) said she will not sign a bill banning transgender students from playing women's sports unless revisions are made to the legislation that change how it would affect cisgender students and leave it less vulnerable to a potential NCAA lawsuit.

Why it matters: The bill is part of a record-setting boom in anti-trans legislation introduced by Republican state lawmakers this year. LGBTQ advocates say the push is an unprecedented inflection point for trans rights in the country.

Not all federal student loans are created equal. Millions were provided by private banks, before the practice was ended in 2010, and these "Goldilocks loans" were overlooked when Congress temporarily suspended principal and interest payments in last year's CARES Act.

Axios Re:Cap goes deeper with one of these loan-holders: Molly Webster, a senior correspondent with WNYC's RadioLab, who wrote a buzzy op-ed in the New York Times about how her student debt obligations just keep growing.

George Tanios, one of two men charged with assaulting Capitol Police officers during the Capitol attack on Jan. 6, was ordered by a judge on Monday to remain in jail until trial, BuzzFeed News reports.

The big picture: Tanois and co-defendant Julian Khater were charged with using bear spray, which is highly dangerous to humans. The pair were charged with assaulting Capitol police, including fallen officer Brian Sicknick, though exact the cause of Sicknick's death is unknown. Khater was the one to deploy the spray on the officers.

The Interior Department under newly confirmed Secretary Deb Haaland has withdrawn an opinion by the Trump administration that concluded the portion of the Missouri River that flows through the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation belongs to the state of North Dakota.

Why it matters: Withdrawing the opinion could mean the return of this portion of the Missouri River to the jurisdiction of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation, the Three Affiliated Tribes of the Fort Berthold Reservation.

The next batch of direct payments from the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package will be sent this week, and Americans who don’t receive a direct deposit by March 24 will get the money via a check or a prepaid debit card in the mail, the Treasury Department announced in an update Monday.

The big picture: Some people will see the money in their accounts earlier, either as a provisional or pending deposit. The Treasury said last Wednesday it had sent $242 billion worth of payments to 90 million Americans.

Former President Trump on Monday endorsed Rep. Jody Hice (R-Ga.) in his bid to unseat Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who refused to overturn the state's 2020 election results.

The big picture: Even after leaving office, Trump has continued to attack Republicans who did not give credence to his false claim that the election was rigged — like Raffensperger and Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp.

Three of President Biden's top border officials are traveling to Mexico today and then Guatemala to meet with top foreign government officials about solutions to migration surges at the U.S. border, two senior administration officials told reporters Monday morning.

Why it matters: The administration is scrambling to handle the skyrocketing numbers of migrant kids and families crossing from Mexico into the country. The majority come from the Northern Triangle — traveling through both Guatemala and Mexico to cross the border into the U.S.

Former President Trump warned the GOP that removing the filibuster would be "catastrophic for the Republican Party" during an interview on the podcast “The Truth with Lisa Boothe."

Flashback: Trump told Republican lawmakers in 2018 that keeping the filibuster would be "the end of the party," insisting that Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) would eliminate it as soon as Democrats took the majority, Politico reported at the time.

Rep. Filemon Vela, who represents a southern Texas border district and is vice chair of the Democratic National Committee, will not run for re-election to the House next year.

Why it matters: Vela won his seat with 55% of the vote in 2020 and is the first Texas Democrat to announce he's leaving the House ahead of redistricting next year.

The Supreme Court has agreed to consider reinstating the death penalty for Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, AP reports.

Context: Tsarnaev and his brother planted bombs near the finish line of the Boston Marathon in 2013, killing three people and injuring hundreds.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer's new leadership team for the Senate sergeant-at-arms — the Senate's chief law enforcement officer — starts today.

Why it matters: This marks the first time, since the SAA office was created in 1789, that the leadership team has been all women.

Exclusive photos from inside a U.S. Customs and Border Protection temporary overflow facility in Donna, Texas, reveal the crowded, makeshift conditions at the border as the government's longer-term child shelters and family detention centers fill up.

Why it matters: Each of eight "pods" in the so-called soft-sided facility has a 260-person occupancy, said Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas), who provided the photos to Axios to raise awareness about the situation. But as of Sunday, he said, one pod held more than 400 unaccompanied male minors.

Protesters have been holding massive demonstrations and vigils across the U.S. over the weekend in response to the fatal spa shootings in the Atlanta metropolitan area in Georgia.

The big picture: Those in attendance rallied to denounce a surge in violence and hate incidents against Asian Americans and honor the eight people who lost their lives in last week's Atlanta attacks, including six women of Asian descent.

Vehicles were set alight as protesters and police clashed in Bristol, southwest England, Sunday night following a massive rally against a bill that would give authorities more powers to restrict nonviolent demonstrations.

Driving the news: Thousands of people participated in what local police described as a peaceful protest against the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill — which critics say would "impose disproportionate controls on free expression and the right to protest," per the BBC.

Border patrol agents in the Texas Rio Grande Valley sector used their own discretion to release about 150 migrants Saturday evening without giving them a court date, Axios has learned.

Why it matters: The use of prosecutorial discretion by border patrol to release migrants without a notice to appear in court is unprecedented, according to multiple sources, and is yet another sign of how overwhelmed parts of the border are becoming.

An internal Department of Homeland Security document leaked to Axios shows that 823 unaccompanied migrant children have been held in border patrol custody for over 10 days — more than a fourfold increase over the past week.

Why this matters: These facilities aren't meant to house kids for more than three days, but the recent surge of children at the southern border has overwhelmed the Biden administration's capacity to handle them.

Michael Sherwin, the federal prosecutor who until recently was leading the criminal investigation into the Capitol riots, told CBS' "60 Minutes" Sunday that evidence indicates sedition charges will be filed against some suspects.

Why it matters: Few people have faced this Civil War-era charge, which makes it a crime to conspire or overthrow the government. But Sherwin told CBS' Scott Pelley "the evidence is trending towards" that charge "and probably meets those elements."