The House of Commons on Monday rejected all 4 alternatives to Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit deal for the second time.
Why it matters: The U.K. leaving the EU without a deal remains the default option on April 12. The majority of MPs don't want that to happen, but Parliament has still been unable to find common ground for an alternative solution.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned the Lebanese government during his recent visit to Beirut that Hezbollah and Iran have set up a new covert factory for precision missiles on Lebanese soil, U.S. sources briefed on the matter tell me.
Why it matters: The sources say Pompeo based his warning on intelligence he received from Israel. Israel is greatly concerned about Hezbollah's manufacturing of precision missiles but hasn't responded with military force out of concern that could lead to an all out war.
Chinese onshore bonds, denominated in yuan, officially join the Bloomberg Barclay's Global Aggregate Index today, providing access to China's $13 trillion debt market, the world's third-largest after the U.S. and Japan.
By the numbers: The index is tracked by around $3 trillion of assets and will include debt securities issued by China's treasury or its 3 policy banks. The initial weighting will grow to 6% over a 20-month phase-in program, meaning about $180 billion of investor capital will flow to China.
A Vietnamese woman accused of killing North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's half-brother says she's accepted a lower charge of causing hurt by a dangerous weapon, Channel NewsAsia reported Monday local time.
Details: Kim Jong-nam died after liquid VX nerve agent was smeared in his face at Kuala Lumpur airport in 2017. Doan Thi Huong and her co-accused, Indonesian woman Siti Aisyah, say they didn't kill him and believed they were in a TV prank. Only Huong's in custody, but her lawyer said she could soon be freed now she's pled guilty to the lower charge, downgraded from murder — the maximum penalty for which is hanging.
Comedian Volodymyr Zelensky, who plays president of Ukraine in a television series, has won the first round of Ukraine's presidential elections with about 30% of the vote, according to an exit poll cited by the BBC.
The big picture: Zelensky will face off against incumbentPetro Poroshenko in a runoff, since neither candidate received a majority.This Ukraine's first presidential election without a clear pro-Kremlin candidate, reflecting a shift for a country that has been increasingly drawn toward the West since the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014.
Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney said on CNN's "State of the Union" Sunday that the Mueller investigation cleared President Trump on the question of whether his campaign conspired with Russia in the 2016 election, and that it's up to voters to decide whether the campaign's various contacts with Russians were "unethical or "immoral."
Ukraine heads to the polls on Sunday for the first round of its presidential election, a turning point vote for a nation long under the shadow of — and in open conflict with — Russia.
Why it matters: Ukrainians "want to be part of the West. They want to build a functioning democracy that guarantees their prosperity," says Daniel Twining, the president of the International Republican Institute, who spoke to Axios from Kiev.
North Korea said Sunday it's watching closely rumors the FBI played a role in what it called a "grave terrorist attack" at its embassy in Madrid, according to the state-run KCNA news agency.
Details: North Korea expects Spain to investigate last month's embassy incident, KCNA reports. A Spanish judge investigating what he called an armed break-in at the embassy said this week the U.S.-based alleged gang leader contacted the FBI days afterward to offer data stolen in the raid.
