President (a)   has spoken of Russia's invasion as a "noble" cause.

A woman stands at her front door after heavy rains in (a)   caused catastrophic flood damage in Durban.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Migrants attempted to cross the U.S.-Mexico border at the highest level in two decades as the U.S. prepares for even larger numbers with the expected lifting of a pandemic-era order that turned away asylum seekers. Immigration authorities stopped migrants 221,303 times along the Southwest border in March, a 34% increase from a month earlier, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data filed with a federal court in Texas. The new figures were disclosed as the Biden administration comes under increasing pressure over the looming expiration of a public health order that enabled U.S. authorities to turn back most migrants, including people seeking asylum from persecution.

DETROIT (AP) — Twitter has dropped a major roadblock in front of Elon Musk’s effort to take over the company, leaving investors to wonder about the mercurial Tesla CEO’s next move. The social media company has adopted a “poison pill” defense that makes it difficult for Musk or any other investor to buy Twitter without the board of directors’ approval. Musk, who currently owns about 9% of the company, last week disclosed an offer of about $43 billion, or $54.20 per share. Twitter’s next likely move is to formally reject Musk’s offer, although it could negotiate. Musk has a number of options which also include talks with the board, sweetening his offer, or even triggering the poison pill, which experts say would be disastrous for the company.

PERTUIS, France (AP) — Muslim headscarves, a perennial issue in France, took center stage in the country’s presidential campaign Friday amid far-right candidate Marine Le Pen’s push to ban them in the country that has western Europe’s largest Muslim population. Both she and rival Emmanuel Macron, the frontrunner in polls as he seeks a second term as president, face a tightly contested April 24 runoff. They both were confronted by women in headscarves who asked why their clothing choices should be caught up in politics. Macron wouldn’t ban religious clothing, but he has overseen the closure of numerous mosques, schools and Islamic groups, with help from a special team to root out suspected breeding grounds for radicalism. The Macron government also passed a controversial law last year to fight “separatism,” the word used to describe the mixing of politics with Islam, deemed dangerous to France’s prized value of secularism.