10 things you need to know today: May 26, 2016

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1. State Department audit finds Clinton's private email use broke rules
2. 11 states sue Obama administration over transgender bathroom policy
3. Japanese leader urges united G7 response to economic trouble
4. Ryan counters speculation, saying he is still not ready to endorse Trump
5. Four ISIS terror suspects detained in Belgium
6. Protesters arrested outside Trump rally in California
7. Russia releases Ukrainian pilot in prisoner swap
8. Trump campaign fires national political director after six weeks on job
9. Hacker 'Guccifer' pleads guilty
10. 1 dead, 3 wounded in T.I. concert shooting

published 26 May 2016

1. State Department audit finds Clinton's private email use broke rules

Hillary Clinton violated government rules when she used a private email server as secretary of state, according to an internal watchdog audit released Wednesday. The report noted that Colin Powell used a private email account as George W. Bush's secretary of state, but said Clinton's failings were more serious. Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon said the findings showed "how consistent" Clinton's email practices were with those of her predecessors. Republicans said the report confirmed that she used bad judgment and endangered national security.

Eleven states filed a lawsuit Wednesday challenging the Obama administration's guidance telling schools to let transgender students use bathrooms and locker rooms corresponding to their gender identity. The lawsuit, filed in Texas, says the policy has "no basis in law" and could force "seismic changes" on school districts, and turns schools into "laboratories for a massive social experiment." The Justice Department made no immediate comment to the court case.

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Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Thursday urged fellow Group of Seven leaders to make a more united response to setbacks in the global economic recovery. Abe and his counterparts from the world's advanced economies were meeting for the first working sessions of their annual summit. Abe met with President Obama on Wednesday. Obama plans to visit Hiroshima, which the U.S. hit with an atomic bomb at the end of World War II, after the summit ends on Friday. He will be the first sitting U.S. president to do so.

House Speaker Paul Ryan on Wednesday countered speculation that he was preparing to endorse Donald Trump for president, saying, "Nothing has changed." The Wisconsin Republican spoke with Trump by phone on Wednesday night. Ryan, who was the party's 2012 vice presidential candidate, said earlier this month he was "not ready" to endorse Trump, even though Trump had become the presumptive GOP nominee when his last rivals dropped out. A Trump aide had said this week that Ryan was preparing to endorse Trump.

Belgian police detained four suspected Islamic State recruiters during searches of homes in the city of Antwerp on Wednesday. The suspects allegedly tried to "recruit individuals to travel to conflict zones in Syria or Libya" and fight for ISIS, a prosecutors' statement said. No weapons or bomb-making materials were found in the searches. The suspects were not linked to the March 22 Brussels attacks, but investigators said they might have been planning more attacks in Belgium.

Police in Anaheim, California, arrested at least eight protesters outside a Donald Trump rally on Wednesday after they allegedly threw objects at officers. After Trump left the event, several demonstrators lingered and reportedly set fire to at least one trash can. Trump supporters faced off against the protesters. Five Trump backers were escorted away "in the interest of public safety" after they allegedly used racially charged language against the demonstrators, Anaheim police said.

Russia on Wednesday exchanged Ukrainian helicopter pilot Lt. Nadiya V. Savchenko for two high-profile Russian prisoners whom Ukraine says belong to Russia's intelligence service. The Russian military denies having anything to do with them. Savchenko was flown to Kiev in Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko's plane. The swap was interpreted as a sign of hope in efforts to negotiate a settlement to the conflict between the government and pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine.

Donald Trump's presidential campaign on Wednesday fired its national political director, Rick Wiley, after just six weeks on the job. Wiley was hired by veteran GOP operative Paul Manafort, whom Trump brought in two months ago to help professionalize his campaign. Manafort reportedly has clashed with Trump's original campaign team. Trump reportedly told staffers and supporters backstage at a California rally on Wednesday that Wiley "should be fired" for oversights in a fundraising deal with the Republican National Committee.

Romanian hacker Marcel Lehel Lazar, also known as Guccifer, pleaded guilty on Wednesday to two hacking-related charges — unauthorized access to a protected computer, and aggravated identity theft. Prosecutors said Lazar, 44, hacked into computers and social media accounts belonging to about 100 Americans, including former Secretary of State Colin Powell and relatives of ex-President George W. Bush. Lazar also claimed earlier this month that he hacked into Hillary Clinton's private email server.

One man was killed and three were wounded in a shooting at a T.I. concert in New York City Wednesday night. One of the wounded was in critical condition. The shooting reportedly broke out backstage. A concert-goer who was near the gate to the stage said the sound of gunshots sparked a panic. "Everyone was running like you've never seen them run before," Juliet Vahos, 20, said. In 2006, there was a shooting at a T.I. concert in Cincinnati, and the hip-hop artist's personal assistant, Philant Johnson, was killed.

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Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.