Start your week smart: Teacher layoffs looming, Trump trial, thousands fleeing Rafah, Eurovision winner, Steve Bannon
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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.
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Seven men have been charged in connection with nationwide burglaries of professional athletes’ homes
Seven Chilean nationals have been charged in connection with breaking in and stealing property worth more than $2 million from professional athletes’ homes –– including those purportedly belonging to Kansas City Chiefs players Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce.
With Trump back in the White House after having promised during the campaign to unleash “the largest deportation operation in American history,” the cadre of attorneys at the Southern Poverty Law Center who amounted to a first line of legal defense for undocumented immigrants is no more.
President Donald Trump has expounded an extraordinary vision of his authority over the past month, relying on the Supreme Court’s decision last year granting him immunity from criminal prosecution, as a blank check in his broader drive for power.
Minutes before touching down at Toronto Pearson International Airport after relatively uneventful trip from Minneapolis, Delta Flight 4819 was cleared for landing on runway 23 under a westerly wind with gusts of about 38 miles per hour.
Anne Marie Hochhalter, who was partially paralyzed in the Columbine High School shooting but found strength to forgive and to heal her soul after bonding with another family devastated by the tragedy, has died. She was 43.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order Tuesday to develop policy recommendations to expand access to and affordability of in vitro fertilization.
The Trump administration ordered legal service providers working with unaccompanied migrant children to stop their work, according to a memo obtained by CNN.
Louis DeJoy, the head of the US Postal Service, intends to step down, the federal agency said Tuesday, after a nearly five-year tenure marked by the coronavirus pandemic, surges in mail-in election ballots and efforts to stem losses through cost and service cuts.
The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston was forced to close Tuesday due to the “sudden dismissal of federal employees,” the library’s foundation said in a statement to CNN.
Brazil’s former President Jair Bolsonaro has been charged in connection with an attempted coup d’état, according to documents filed by prosecutors Tuesday evening.
A federal judge considering whether to indefinitely block President Donald Trump’s executive order banning transgender service members described it on Tuesday as having “unadulterated animus” toward transgender Americans.
Argentine President Javier Milei has defended himself for promoting a cryptocurrency whose value collapsed within hours of its launch, likening those who invested in the token after his endorsement to gamblers at casinos.