NEWS OF THE DAY
From Across the Nation
1 Manafort trial: Special counsel Robert Mueller was working within his authority when he brought charges against President Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, a federal judge in Washington ruled Tuesday. The decision was a setback for Manafort in his defense against charges of money-laundering conspiracy, false statements and acting as an unregistered foreign agent related to his Ukrainian political work. Manafort had argued that Mueller had exceeded his authority because the case was unrelated to Russian election interference. But U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson disagreed, citing Manafort’s years of work in Ukraine, his prominent role on the Trump campaign and his publicized connections to Russian figures.
2 Hiring freeze ends: Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has lifted the unpopular hiring freeze that had been in place at the State Department for more than a year. Former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson enacted the freeze as part of his unsuccessful attempt to restructure and slim down the State Department. That created significant obstacles to filling key positions and employing spouses of U.S. diplomats and contributed to low morale within the department. Pompeo says he’s authorizing the department to hire both in the United States and overseas within the agency’s current funding levels. He says in a letter to State Department workers that the U.S. needs “our men and woman on the ground executing American diplomacy with great vigor and energy.”
3 Teacher strike: The recent wave of teacher activism sweeping through conservative, tax-cutting states is hitting North Carolina as educators greet returning state legislators with demands for better pay and school resources. About 15,000 teachers are expected in Raleigh on Wednesday, when the Republicandominated state legislature begins its annual session. More than three dozen school districts have decided to close classrooms that day, meaning an unplanned day off for more than two-thirds of the state’s 1.5 million public school students. The National Education Association reported last month that North Carolina teachers earn about $50,000 on average, ranking them 39th in the country last year. 4 Abortion lawsuit: A lawsuit challenging the nation’s most restrictive abortion law was filed Tuesday in Iowa, a state that for years was largely left out of Republican efforts to overturn abortion protections and where the Democratic attorney general has refused to defend the law. If allowed to take effect on July 1 as planned, the law would ban most abortions once a fetal heartbeat is detected, around the sixth week of pregnancy. Abortion-rights groups say that’s a time when many women do not know they are pregnant. The American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa and Planned Parenthood Federation of America announced the filing of the complaint in Des Moines.
5 Buried treasure: A couple of urban island-dwellers have found buried treasure in their backyard — but so far the pirates are nowhere in sight. WCBS says a safe containing about $52,000 worth of property — including diamonds, gold, jade and soaking wet cash — has been uncovered on Staten Island. Matthew and Maria Colonna Emanuel always thought the rusting hulk of metal jutting out beneath some trees was just a cable box. They were having some trees replaced when the mystery unfolded. The safe also held a paper with an address. Matthew Emanuel knocked on their neighbor’s door and asked if they’d ever been burglarized. Bingo. The police report dates to 2011. Maria Colonna Emanuel says there was never a question about returning the loot. She says simply: “It wasn’t ours.”