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China, Steven Bochco, Notre Dame: Your Monday Briefing

Notre Dame won the N.C.A.A. women’s basketball championship on Sunday after Arike Ogunbowale, center, scored a three-point shot with 0.1 seconds left. She made a similar last-second shot two days before, to lift the Fighting Irish over Connecticut.Credit...Tony Dejak/Associated Press

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Good morning.

Here’s what you need to know:

• A week after student-led marches around the U.S. called for gun control, both sides in the debate think they are being underestimated.

“It’ll go away,” a 77-year-old gun owner in Virginia said of the protests. “Like all the other times.”

Forty miles away, a high school student had a different take: “They’re looking for us to get bored. We’re not going to get bored.”

The young activists are hoping to drive real change in this fall’s midterm elections and beyond, but that would hinge on reversing years of below-average voter turnout for their age group.

In an essay for The Times Magazine, a lifelong gun owner wrestles with the changes to gun laws that he says must come, and with his fears of what such changes might destroy.

• Twelve years ago, Charles Kushner was making wallets at a prison camp in Alabama.

So it felt like redemption when the real estate baron’s son Jared was named President Trump’s senior adviser.

But being at the pinnacle of American political power has turned out to be a wellspring of trouble for the Kushners. Their access to the president has brought criminal and regulatory inquiries, and their business empire’s deals are scrutinized for hints of federal influence.

In a recent interview, Charles Kushner had an invitation for investigators: “Go knock yourselves out for the next 10 years,” he said. “We didn’t do anything wrong.”

• Officials across the U.S. are struggling to control the use of e-cigarettes among students.

The devices are so easily concealed that it’s possible to vape in class.

E-cigarettes are widely considered safer than traditional ones, but health officials fear that vaping is creating a new generation of nicotine addicts.

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The high-tech design of some vaping devices makes them more difficult to spot than regular cigarettes.Credit...Nick Cote for The New York Times

• The Morning Briefing doesn’t mention Uzbekistan very often, but the Central Asian nation has recently been a source of (relatively) good news, bucking a global trend toward authoritarian rule.

Eighteen months after the death of its longtime dictator, Uzbekistan’s new leadership has been trying to open up one of the world’s most repressive countries by releasing political prisoners and allowing some freedom of expression.

“The ice is melting in this country,” a confidant of the new president told our correspondent.

The Daily Poster

Listen to ‘The Daily’: The Prison Problem

President Trump’s son-in-law badly wants to overhaul the prison system, while his attorney general bitterly opposes such a move. That has set the scene for a highly personal battle inside the White House.

China announced tariffs as high as 25 percent on 128 American-made products today. The move is intended to pressure the Trump administration into backing down from a simmering trade war.

Anchors at local TV news stations across the U.S. made identical comments last month about media bias. The script came from the stations’ owner, Sinclair Broadcast Group.

In the tight U.S. labor market, positions in out-of-the-way places like poultry plants and lumber mills can be tough to fill. But that presents an opportunity for refugees.

Speaking of jobs, the March employment report is among the headlines to watch this week.

U.S. stocks were closed on Good Friday. Here’s a snapshot of global markets today.

Tips, both new and old, for a more fulfilling life.

Improve public health through proper sneezing etiquette.

Readers wrote to us about whether they’re leaving their children an inheritance and how their decisions have affected their finances and family.

Recipe of the day: Start the week with vegetarian tortilla soup flavored with chipotles in adobo.

Our journalists recommend these great pieces:

“Step by step, this interactive piece gently leads you into the story of a mother whose life was devastated by a gun attack.

“Somehow, it manages to be as lovely, even whimsical, as it is devastating.” [WeTransfer/Five Dials]

Sarah Lyall, writer at large

“Do you remember last year, when an airport in Portugal unveiled a bronze bust of Cristiano Ronaldo, which was widely mocked?

“A sports site interviewed the sculptor about the experience, and it is an unsettling and at points touching reminder that the social media world is also the real world.” [B/R Football, via Twitter]

Max Fisher, The Interpreter columnist

On Easter Sunday, Pope Francis urged reconciliation in the Middle East and pressed for “the fruits of dialogue” in Asia.

A public relations battle has erupted after violence along Israel’s border with Gaza left 15 Palestinians dead.

President Trump blamed Democrats and Mexico for a “dangerous” flow of immigrants, and vowed “NO MORE DACA DEAL.”

A Chinese space station the size of a school bus re-entered Earth’s atmosphere, scattering over the southern Pacific Ocean.

North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, greeted South Korea’s most popular girl band, Red Velvet, at a concert in Pyongyang.

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The North Korean leader Kim Jong-un with K-pop musicians who performed in Pyongyang on Sunday.Credit...North Korea's Central News Agency, via Reuters

Steven Spielberg successfully returned to his crowd-pleasing roots, as “Ready Player One” earned $53.2 million and the top spot at the North American box office.

Redemption of a lost prodigy

As a child, Saul Chandler was a promising violinist, playing at Carnegie Hall before the age of 11. But at 16, he had a nervous breakdown and left the world of classical music.

Fifty years later, he has found refuge at a boatyard in the Bronx. His story was one of our most popular this weekend.

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Saul Chandler aboard his schooner, which is named Seraph. Since giving up a life in music, he has been drawn to the seafront. “When I build a boat, at least I can make it better,” he said. “I can fix it.”
Credit...Ben Zucker for The New York Times

In memoriam

Winnie Madikizela-Mandela was among the pantheon of South Africa’s liberators, but her legacy was tarnished by scandals involving corruption, kidnapping, murder and the implosion of her marriage to Nelson Mandela. She was 81.

Johan van Hulst helped save as many as 600 children from a Nazi concentration camp. He died at 107.

Steven Bochco, a celebrated TV writer and producer, created boundary-pushing dramas like “Hill Street Blues,” “L.A. Law” and “NYPD Blue.” He was 74.

Notre Dame 2, Buzzer 0

Two days after Arike Ogunbowale hit a last-second shot to beat Connecticut, she did it again on Sunday, giving Notre Dame its second N.C.A.A. women’s basketball title. The Fighting Irish beat Mississippi State, 61-58.

The men’s championship game, between Michigan and Villanova, is tonight. Here’s how the teams match up.

Quotation of the day

“No, you’re not. No, you’re not. No, you’re not. No, you’re not.”

Mike Stanton, father of the New York Yankees slugger Giancarlo Stanton, recalling what he told his wife at the time, Jacinta Garay, when she wanted to name their son Fidel.

The Times, in other words

Here’s an image of today’s front page, and links to our Opinion content and crossword puzzles.

The annual White House Easter Egg Roll is scheduled to take place today on the South Lawn.

The tradition dates from 1878, when Rutherford B. Hayes was president, though some accounts suggest that informal egg-rolling parties began under Abraham Lincoln.

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The White House Easter Egg Roll in 1929.Credit...Library of Congress

The first lady, Melania Trump, will host guests who won a public lottery in February. In the signature event, children guide the eggs across the lawn with a wooden spoon. There will be live music and other activities, including a reading nook staffed by White House figures like Kellyanne Conway, the president’s counselor, and Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the press secretary. New this year: bowling.

The elaborate and labor-intensive Egg Roll is among the most daunting social events a presidential staff has to plan, The Times noted last year.

Guests receive souvenir wooden eggs as they leave, a tradition that began when Nancy Reagan was first lady. This year, the commemorative eggs were made from birch by a company in Maine, and they’re also available online.

The White House says that more than 21,000 guests attended last year. That was down from about 37,000 in recent years. They expect 30,000 today.

Karen Zraick contributed reporting.

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