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Good evening. Here’s the latest.
1. “I have done everything I can.”
Prime Minister Theresa May will resign after almost three years of trying and failing to lead Britain out of the E.U. Her announcement signifies the end of an embattled and at times awkward premiership beset by crises.
Standing in front of 10 Downing Street, Mrs. May said it was in the “best interests of the country for a new prime minister.” E.U. officials worry about what comes next, but they insisted that their position on Brexit would not budge.
2. President Trump’s move to allow Attorney General William Barr to declassify intelligence from the Russia inquiry may prompt a new clash between the Justice Department and the C.I.A.
The order effectively strips the agency of its most critical power: choosing which secrets it shares and which ones remain hidden. It also raises the specter that intelligence officials will be questioned about their sources and their intent.
Here’s what we know about the origins of the Russia investigation.
The president is off to Japan for a state visit. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has planned an agenda dripping in a level of ceremony that money can’t buy, including a sumo wrestling tournament where Mr. Trump will present a trophy to the winner.
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3. The Trump administration proposed rolling back Obama-era rights for transgender people in the Affordable Care Act, narrowing the definition of sex for health care coverage.
“Sex means a person’s status as male or female based on immutable biological traits identifiable by or before birth,” the Department of Health and Human Services proposed in a memo obtained by The Times. Above, activists outside the White House in the fall.
The regulation would eliminate a 2016 measure that redefined discrimination “on the basis of sex” to include gender identity.
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4. Fierce winds, hail, rain and the possibility of more tornadoes.
Much of the central U.S. braced Friday for another day of nasty storms, with a storm system expected to carve a path from Texas to the Great Lakes. Over all, seven people have died in the storms this week.
As many as 1,000 homes may have been damaged by flooding in Oklahoma, and Jefferson City, Mo., above, which was hit by a tornado on Wednesday, is now under threat of extreme flooding.
Separately, a Republican House member blocked a vote on a long-delayed disaster relief package. Communities and farmers ravaged by natural disasters will now have to wait until June for the measure to reach President Trump’s desk.
5. “This is just the tip of the iceberg.”
Michigan law enforcement officials charged five former Roman Catholic priests with criminal sexual conduct after a statewide investigation into clergy sexual abuse.
Dana Nessel, the Michigan attorney general, above, estimated that her team had worked its way through only 5 or 10 percent of the hundreds of thousands of documents it seized from the state’s seven dioceses last October.
“We anticipate many more charges and arrests,” she said.
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6. Call it the Polar Silk Road.
As the Arctic thaws because of climate change, China is seizing the chance to expand its influence in the north. And it’s teaming with Russia to do so. They are exploring new sources of energy and faster shipping routes off Russia’s shores. The Chinese are also building a second icebreaker, like the one pictured above.
Back in the U.S., gardeners and growers are seeing flowers, shrubs and trees shifting northward as temperatures warm across the country. Here’s how climate change may affect the plants in your yard.
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7. $2.3 billion.
That’s how much Tesla’s pay package to Elon Musk could be worth. He tops the list of America’s highest-paid chief executives in 2018, a year so lucrative for executives that we had to redraw our chart.
Compensation for top bosses grew at double the pace of ordinary workers’ wages, according to our annual analysis. In second place was David Zaslav, the chief executive of Discovery, an entertainment company, at $129.5 million.
8. In news from our science desk:
Most snails live in shells that coil to the right. Now scientists, using the powerful gene editing tool Crispr, have found genes that make some snails born with shells coiling the other way. The research could lead to clues about left- and right-handed mysteries in other organisms.
And evidence found in a fossil shows that a species of mouse extinct for millions of years had red fur. The method that led to the findings will help search for other fossilized creatures colored with red hues.
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10. And lastly, 100 years of commemorations.
Looking ahead to Monday’s holiday, The Times’s At War editor dug through the archives to look at Memorial Day coverage dating to World War I. She found similar language and questions raised about the condition of service members after they returned home from war, but still found a bit of comfort. Above, Arlington National Cemetery.
“We must never forget the duty that their sacrifice has laid upon us of fulfilling their hopes and their purpose to the utmost,” President Woodrow Wilson said in his 1919 Memorial Day address. “This, it seems to me, is the impressive lesson and inspiring mandate of the day.”
Have a peaceful weekend.
The Morning, Evening and Weekend briefings are off for Memorial Day. We’ll see you back on Tuesday.
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