Start your week smart: Teacher layoffs looming, Trump trial, thousands fleeing Rafah, Eurovision winner, Steve Bannon
CNN
CNN’s 5 Things brings you all the news you need to start your week smart.
Today is Mother’s Day … but why? Take a trip back in the CNN time machine to learn about the origins of the holiday, and why its creator later regretted starting it. Here’s what else you need to know to Start Your Week Smart. • Schools across the country are announcing teacher and staff layoffs as districts brace for the end of a pandemic aid package that delivered the largest one-time federal investment in K-12 education. The money must be used by the end of September, creating a sharp funding cliff.• One of Donald Trump’s closest White House aides wrapped up her testimony in the former president’s hush money trial, clearing the way for the prosecution’s key witness to take the stand. Michael Cohen, Trump’s former fixer and lawyer, is expected to testify Monday.• At least 300,000 people have fled the southern Gaza city of Rafah ahead of an Israeli ground offensive, the United Nations said. There is growing alarm over the humanitarian situation in Rafah, with food aid running very low. Follow live updates.• Switzerland’s Nemo won a chaotic and politically fraught Eurovision Song Contest, triumphing in a competition overshadowed by controversy and booing over the presence of Israel. Nemo sang a stunning rendition of “The Code,” about the journey toward accepting their non-binary identity.• A federal appeals court upheld the contempt-of-Congress conviction of Steve Bannon, the former adviser to Trump who was found guilty after failing to comply with a subpoena from the House January 6 committee. MondayJury selection is set to begin in the federal corruption trial of Sen. Bob Menendez. The New Jersey Democrat has said he thought he was acting for the “good of the public” when helping Egypt and Qatar, while prosecutors allege Menendez and his wife took hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of bribes in a scheme involving the foreign governments to fund their lavish lifestyle. Menendez, the former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, will be tried alongside two New Jersey businessmen who are co-defendants. His wife, Nadine, also has been charged but will be tried separately. Menendez and his wife have pleaded not guilty to the charges, as have the other co-defendants. Also on Monday, Donald Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen is expected to begin his testimony in the former president’s criminal hush money trial. Prosecutors said it’s “entirely possible” they will rest their case by the end of the week. Cohen says Trump directed him to pay hush money to adult film star Stormy Daniels in the final days of the 2016 presidential campaign. Trump denies the allegations. TuesdayMaryland, Nebraska and West Virginia will hold primary elections, while voters in North Carolina head to the polls for runoff elections. Under North Carolina state law, a second-place candidate in a primary may request a second primary if no candidate receives more than 30% of the votes cast in that contest.
Chilean President Gabriel Boric announced a state of catastrophe in two regions in the south of the country early on Sunday as raging wildfires forced at least 20,000 people to evacuate and left at least 16 people dead.
The Pentagon has ordered about 1,500 active-duty soldiers to prepare for deployment to Minnesota, according to defense officials cited by The Washington Post and ABC News, as Minnesota officials have also mobilized the National Guard.
The Democratic Party has a deeply motivated base and a clear advantage on the generic congressional ballot ahead of this fall’s midterms despite dismal impressions of its current leaders in Congress, according to a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS.
American Battleground: Demolition Man – How Trump’s first year back is changing the nation’s capital
On a breezy autumn morning beneath skittering clouds, the demolition crew strikes quicker than almost anyone expected. Working seemingly under the sole command of President Donald J. Trump, who has long fashioned himself the Builder-in-Chief, they take only days to reduce the 123-year-old East Wing of the White House to rubble. No drawn-out debate. No approval by independent preservationists.
What was once a place of worship filled with precious objects packed with meaning now sits in heavy layers of dark soot, burdened by the pungent smell of smoke after someone set fire to Mississippi’s largest and oldest synagogue.
Dos semanas después del derrocamiento de Nicolás Maduro, los ciudadanos venezolanos que viven en diferentes países de la región siguen con atención lo que ocurre en la tierra que los vio nacer. Jimena de la Quintana visitó Gamarra, el emporio comercial más grande de Perú y uno de los más importantes de Latinoamérica, que es fuente de empleo de muchos venezolanos. ¿En qué condiciones regresarían esos migrantes venezolanos a su país? ¿Para ellos es suficiente que Maduro ya no esté en el poder?
The US on Saturday announced it conducted a lethal strike in Syria on an al Qaeda affiliate leader it says had direct ties to an ISIS attacker who killed three Americans in early December.
President Donald Trump has leaned into his presidential clemency powers much more aggressively in his second term –in fact, he’s pardoned one woman twice.
The Pentagon has ordered the military command that oversees new recruits’ enlistment to hold off on initial training for people who are HIV-positive and recently enlisted in the military, CNN has learned, saying that a decision on reinstating a Defense Department ban on their joining the military was “expected in the next few weeks.”
Democrat Abigail Spanberger was sworn into office Saturday as Virginia’s first female governor, amid a cold drizzle outside the state Capitol after centuries of men holding the commonwealth’s top office.
The European Union and the Mercosur bloc of South American countries formally signed a long-sought landmark free trade agreement on Saturday, capping more than a quarter-century of torturous negotiations to strengthen commercial ties in the face of rising protectionism and trade tensions around the world.
Judge restricts federal response to Minnesota protests amid outrage over immigration agents’ tactics
Immigration agents carrying out a sweeping operation in Minnesota can’t deploy certain crowd-control measures against peaceful protesters or arrest them, a federal judge ruled Friday. The order follows widespread outrage over a fatal shooting, reports of US citizens getting detained and Minnesotans getting asked for documents for no clear reason.
Celebrities and laypeople are sharing fond memories from 2016, the era of face “baking” and #ImWithHer, when some of the biggest national dramas pitted Kim Kardashian against Taylor Swift.