On Tuesday, five states — Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Delaware, Rhode Island, and Maryland — vote in Republican and Democratic primaries. Donald Trump is widely expected to win all five states, though a quirk in how Pennsylvania apportions its 71 GOP delegates means 54 of them will be free to support any candidate at the convention. Democrat Hillary Clinton is expected to beat Sen. Bernie Sanders in most of the states. Clinton and Sanders will be vying for 384 delegates, while Trump and rivals Ted Cruz and John Kasich will be fighting over 172 delegates.
2. Breaking Christian News
President Obama is sending 250 Special Ops forces to assist in fight against Isis
President Obama says “They are not going to be leading the fight on the ground, but they will be essential in providing the training and assisting of local forces as they continue to drive I ISIL back.”
Following the news that Republican presidential candidates Ted Cruz and John Kasich would be coordinating their efforts to prevent frontrunner Donald Trump from becoming the Republican presidential nominee, it appears that their plan is already falling apart. The plan is for Kasich to cede the pivotal Indiana primary to Cruz and for Cruz to return the favor in Oregon and New Mexico. But even as Cruz said in Indiana on Monday that “Kasich has decided to pull out of Indiana to give us a head-to-head contest with Donald Trump,” Kasich told a rally in Philadelphia that his supporters in Indiana “ought to vote for me.” And Cruz told allies in private talking points not to endorse tactical voting.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump is more than 2 million votes ahead of Mitt Romney during Mitt’s 2012 presidential bid.
U.S. District Judge Thomas Schroeder upheld a sweeping North Carolina voter law Monday, dismissing challenges by the Justice Department, the NAACP’s North Carolina chapter, the League of Women Voters, and several named voters. North Carolina’s law, passed by Republicans after the Supreme Court struck down parts of the Voting Rights Act in 2013, requires voters to show one of six forms of ID and does away with same-day voter registration, voting out of precinct, and a week of early voting, electoral tools that critics of the law say black voters use disproportionately to cast their ballots. Gov. Pat McCrory (R), who’s running for re-election this fall, welcomed the ruling, while the NAACP vowed to appeal.
The city of Cleveland said Monday it will pay $6 million to settle a lawsuit with the family of Tamir Rice, the 12-year-old who was fatally shot by police in 2014 while playing with a toy gun. The settlement awaits approval from a U.S. district judge. A grand jury declined to press criminal charges against Timothy Loehmann, who shot Rice, and his partner, Frank Garmback. The U.S. Department of Justice is also conducting a review of Rice’s death, which contributed to the ongoing Black Lives Matter movement in drawing attention to police brutality against black people.
A former student of Dennis Hastert’s, known as Individual A in a federal indictment of the former House speaker, filed a lawsuit Mondaydemanding $1.8 million. The alleged victim of Hastert’s sexual abuse argues he didn’t receive all of the $3.5 million his former wrestling coach agreed to pay him in compensation for hiding the abuse from decades ago. After pleading guilty to hush money charges, Hastert is set to be sentenced tomorrow.
A Canadian hostage was killed by Islamic militants in the Philippines, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Monday. Trudeau said he was “outraged” by the “cold-blooded murder” of John Ridsdel, who was kidnapped at a marina near Davao on Sept. 21, 2015, along with three others. Militants from the Abu Sayyaf Islamist terrorist group released a video six weeks later showing the men and asking for $21 million each for their release. Several more videos were released, and in the most recent one, Ridsdel announced his captors planned to kill him on April 25 if they did not receive a ransom of $6.4 million. Trudeau said Canada is working with the Philippines to find and hold Ridsdel’s killers responsible and release the remaining hostages.
The Gannett Company decided to take its bid to buy Tribune Publishing Group public on Monday after the owner of The Chicago Tribune and The Los Angeles Times reportedly rebuffed its initial private offer. Gannett, which owns USA Today, is offering to buy Tribune Publishing for $815 million, including its debt. The deal, which is for $12.25 a share, would be a 63 percent premium on its closing stock price on Friday, which was $7.52. Tribune Publishing assured Gannett in a statement Monday morning that it would respond “as quickly as feasible.”
A U.S. appeals court moved Monday to reinstate the four-game suspension issued to New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady over his alleged role in deflating footballs in a 2015 playoff game against the Indianapolis Colts. A U.S. district court had previously nullified the NFL’s suspension, arguing Commissioner Roger Goodell didn’t have the authority to suspend Brady under the terms of the league’s collective bargaining agreement with players. “We hold that the commissioner properly exercised his broad discretion under the collective bargaining agreement and that his procedural rulings were properly grounded in that agreement and did not deprive Brady of fundamental fairness,” Monday’s 2-1 ruling read.
From Vocativ
Hackers with a pro-ISIS group calling themselves the United Cyber Caliphate distributed a “kill” list on Monday that appears to include dozens of U.S. government personnel, Vocativ discovered.
The list features 43 names of people linked to the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security and the departments of defense, energy, commerce and health and services. It also identifies the U.S. embassies in Santiago and Kathmandu—as well as the Department of the Navy in Gulfport, Mississippi—as targets. It includes someone who appears to have worked for Australia’s Department of Defence.
And finally… From Yahoo
It’s hoped that a couple who married uniquely yesterday will be able to keep up with each other all through their marriage.
Lynette Beedle and Stephen Kejka married at the starting line of the Pro Football Hall of Fame marathon in Canton, Ohio.
They wore matching blue running suits. Lynette wore a short white veil and Stephen wore a bowtie.
More than 3000 were on hand to witness their winning and then run the half marathon.
Neither Lynette and Stephen placed first at the end of the race, but all 3000 said those two were the biggest winners of all.
