10 things you need to know today: June 3, 2016

(Image credit: Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Jump to category:

1. Paul Ryan ends hesitation and says he will vote for Trump
2. Clinton calls Trump 'dangerously incoherent," Trump calls her 'pathetic'
3. Violence erupts outside another Trump rally
4. 5 soldiers die when truck overturns in creek at Fort Hood
5. Alleged UCLA shooter identified as former doctoral student
6. 3 Syrians arrested in Germany for alleged terror plot
7. Trump: Judge has 'absolute conflict' due to 'Mexican heritage'
8. Cincinnati Zoo to reopen gorilla exhibit with enhanced fence
9. Report: Prince died of accidental fentanyl overdose
10. Golden State takes 1-0 lead over Cavaliers in NBA Finals

published 3 June 2016

1. Paul Ryan ends hesitation and says he will vote for Trump

House Speaker Paul Ryan endorsed Donald Trump on Thursday, after expressing reluctance for weeks to get behind the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. Ryan wrote in a column that Trump was the best candidate to accomplish the party's agenda. Ryan noted that face-to-face conversations have eased his concerns about Trump. "I feel confident he would help us turn the ideas in this agenda into laws to help improve people’s lives," Ryan wrote. "That's why I'll be voting for him this fall."

Hillary Clinton ramped up her criticism of Donald Trump on Thursday, saying that the presumptive Republican presidential nominee is "dangerously incoherent" and "temperamentally unfit" to lead the most powerful country in the world. Clinton, the Democratic frontrunner, is increasingly focusing on Trump even though she still faces several primary contests against Sen. Bernie Sanders, notably a close Tuesday California primary. Trump dismissed Clinton's speech as a "pathetic" stunt and repeated attacks on her email scandal and foreign policy legacy.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Protesters punched and threw eggs and water bottles at Donald Trump supporters outside a rally in San Jose, California, on Thursday in the latest in a series of violent clashes at Trump campaign events. Protesters also snatched signs and "Make America Great Again" hats from Trump backers. Several people were arrested. Some protesters at the event waved Mexican flags and criticized Trump's anti-immigrant rhetoric. A week ago, chaos erupted outside a Trump rally in Albuquerque. A month earlier there was a similar outburst in Costa Mesa, California.

At least five Army soldiers were killed Thursday when their truck overturned in a creek near Fort Hood in Texas. Three soldiers were rescued and hospitalized in stable condition. Another four are missing. The incident occurred at a creek crossing that had experienced flash flooding previously. Texas has been hit with severe flooding from thunderstorms in recent days. Also on Thursday, a Navy Blue Angels pilot was killed in a training crash, and an Air Force Thunderbirds pilot ejected safely in a crash following a flyover at the Air Force Academy graduation in Colorado.

Authorities on Thursday identified the man they believe killed UCLA professor William Klug in a murder-suicide as Mainak Sarkar, 38, a former doctoral student. Police said Sarkar had a "kill list" with three names on it. One was Sarkar's estranged wife, Ashley Hasti, who reportedly was found dead in her Minnesota home after the UCLA shooting. Klug and another UCLA professor who was not harmed also were on the list. Sarkar had accused Klug of stealing his computer code and giving it to someone else, which one source said was "absolutely untrue."

Germany has arrested three Syrians on suspicion of planning a terrorist attack in Dusseldorf, a prosecutor said Thursday. A fourth Syrian man, identified only as Saleh A., turned himself in to authorities in Paris four months ago, and revealed the plot. German prosecutors said that Saleh A., 25, and one of the suspects arrested in Germany joined the Islamic State in Syria and were sent to organize an attack in Germany. The other man, Hamza C., reportedly was posing as a refugee. Despite recent attacks in Europe, a State Department report found a 13 percent drop in terror attacks worldwide last year.

Donald Trump believes that the judge presiding over civil lawsuits against Trump University should be disqualified based on his ancestry, telling The Wall Street Journal that U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel has "an absolute conflict" in presiding over the litigation since he is "of Mexican heritage" and a member of the La Raza Lawyers Association, a nonprofit that supports Latino lawyers. The presumptive Republican nominee has vowed to build a wall between the U.S. and Mexico, and said Curiel's background must be mentioned because "I'm building a wall. It's an inherent conflict of interest." Curiel was born in Indiana to Mexican immigrant parents. Trump has also called Curiel a "hater of Donald Trump" and a "total disgrace."

The Cincinnati Zoo plans to reopen its Gorilla World exhibit on Tuesday after a new, higher barrier railing is in place, zoo officials announced Thursday. The exhibit has been closed since a 3-year-old boy slipped through the old, three-foot-high railing and fell 15 feet into the enclosure's moat, forcing zoo officials to kill a 17-year-old western highlands gorilla named Harambe to rescue the child. The new railing will be about six inches higher, with netting so it will not have gaps like those in the old one.

Prince died of an accidental overdose of the opioid fentanyl, according to a Midwest Medical Examiner's Office report released Thursday. Fentanyl, a drug prescribed by doctors for cancer treatment, is 25 to 50 times more potent than heroin, and 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine. The drug has been blamed for an increase in fatal overdoses in the U.S. The report said Prince, whose full name was Prince Rogers Nelson, had administered the drug himself. He died April 27 at age 57.

The Golden State Warriors trounced the Cleveland Cavaliers on Thursday, winning Game 1 of the best-of-seven NBA Finals 104-89. Warriors star guard Steph Curry scored only 11 points, but the team showed off its depth as six other Warriors scored in double digits. Shaun Livingston scored 20, a personal postseason best. For the Cavaliers, LeBron James had 23 points, 12 rebounds, and nine assists. Game 2 is on Sunday, as the Warriors try to win their second championship series in a row against the Cavaliers.

Explore More

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.