10 things you need to know today: April 5, 2016

Cruz and Sanders lead Wisconsin polls ahead of today's primaries, Villanova beats UNC to win NCAA championship, and more

The winning shot
(Image credit: Ronald Martinez/Getty Images)

1. Cruz and Sanders head into Wisconsin primaries with narrow leads

A poll released Monday showed Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas maintaining a five-percentage-point lead over Republican frontrunner Donald Trump ahead of Tuesday's critical Wisconsin primary. Trump told a crowd in La Crosse, Wisconsin, they could help him seal the GOP's presidential nomination with an upset. "If we do well here, folks, it's over," Trump said. Sen. Bernie Sanders has a narrow lead over the Democratic frontrunner, Hillary Clinton. Sanders has won five of the last six contests, although Clinton still has a significant delegate lead.

2. Villanova beats UNC to win NCAA men's basketball championship

Villanova beat the University of North Carolina with a dramatic last-second shot to win the NCAA men's basketball championship on Monday night. North Carolina guard Marcus Paige made a three-point shot to tie the score with less than five seconds left. Then Villanova ran the ball up the court and Kris Jenkins fired his own three pointer just before the buzzer. "I think every shot is going in," Jenkins said. "This one was no different." It did go in, putting Villanova up 77-74 as time ran out.

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Los Angeles Times

3. Supreme Court rejects challenge to 'one person, one vote' rule

The Supreme Court on Monday unanimously ruled that legislative districts can be drawn according to total population — as all states do, with minor variations. The justices rejected a conservative challenge to the "one person, one vote" rule, calling for re-drawing congressional districts according to the voting population. That would have left out children, legal and undocumented immigrants, and prisoners, among others, draining power from urban areas where Democrats tend to dominate.

The Washington Post CNN

4. U.S. looks into Panama Papers for signs of wrongdoing

The U.S. and governments around the world launched investigations Monday into evidence of possible financial wrongdoing in the so-called Panama Papers, more than 11.5 million documents leaked from a Panamanian law firm. Demonstrators gathered outside Iceland's parliament on Monday to call for Prime Minister Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson's resignation after the documents revealed details of an offshore company he and his now-wife set up in 2007. Gunnlaugsson denied he evaded taxes or did anything else wrong.

Reuters The New York Times

5. TransCanada shuts off pipeline after oil leak

TransCanada announced Monday that it had shut down part of its Keystone pipeline due to an oil leak in South Dakota. The pipeline transports oil from Alberta, Canada, to Cushing, Oklahoma. The affected section will remain shut down until Friday, if not later. TransCanada said "no significant impact to the environment has been observed." TransCanada in 2008 proposed a controversial expansion of the pipeline, but President Obama last year denied a permit, largely over environmental concerns.

CNN

6. China imposes new trade sanctions on North Korea

China on Tuesday announced new restrictions on trade with North Korea, including a ban on imports of gold and rare earth metals to North Korea and exports of jet fuel to the increasingly isolated communist nation. The sanctions complied with a resolution unanimously passed by the United Nations Security Council last month in response to Pyongyang's recent nuclear and missile tests. China, which accounts for 90 percent of North Korea's foreign trade, said it would continue importing North Korean coal and iron ore as long as Pyongyang uses the revenue for "livelihood purposes."

Reuters Yonhap News

7. U.S. Treasury moves aggressively to curb corporate tax inversions

Late Monday, the U.S. Treasury Department and Internal Revenue Service announced new rules to quash corporate inversions, where an American company buys a foreign rival then moves the company's address abroad to sharply lower their U.S. taxes. This is the third set of Treasury rules aimed at corporate inversions, but these two changes — affecting a tax maneuver called earnings stripping and also serial inverters — are seen as the hardest-hitting yet. The rules apply to all deals that close after Monday, and the first victim could be the largest proposed corporate inversion yet, Pfizer's $160 billion takeover of Dublin-domiciled rival Allergan. Allergan's shares fell 21 percent in after-hours trading.

The Wall Street Journal

8. Judge approves $20 billion settlement for BP oil spill

A federal judge on Monday gave final approval to a $20 billion settlement to end years of litigation over BP's massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. In an earlier ruling, the judge, Carl Barbier, said BP was "grossly negligent" in the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, which killed 11 workers and resulted in the gushing of 134 million gallons of oil into the sea. The settlement was first announced last July. It calls for $5.5 billion in Clean Water Act penalties, and more for damages and other claims.

The Associated Press

9. California and New York officially adopt $15 an hour minimum wage plans

California and New York on Monday implemented plans to slowly raise their minimum wages to $15 an hour. California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) signed a new law calling for yearly hikes starting next year to push the state's minimum from $10 an hour, already the highest state minimum in the nation, to $15 by 2022. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) officially signed a bill into law on Monday to make state minimum wage $15 an hour by 2022. New York's state budget calls for gradually hiking the minimum wage from $9 to $15, starting in New York City in three years.

USA Today

10. Clinton and Sanders agree to New York debate

Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have agreed to an additional debate five days ahead of New York's presidential primary later this month. The campaigns battled over scheduling and location before agreeing to a forum in Brooklyn on April 14, hosted by CNN. Sanders had to reschedule a large rally he had scheduled on that day in New York City’s Washington Square Park. The primary is considered critical. With 291 delegates at stake, a win for Clinton could solidify her lead, and a win for Sanders could keep his chances of winning the Democratic nomination alive.

The Huffington Post

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Harold Maass, The Week US

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.