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

(Image credit: AP Photo/Chris Carlson)

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1. Trump and Clinton look to pad their leads as 5 states head to the polls
2. Megyn Kelly to interview Donald Trump for primetime special
3. New Cruz-Kasich alliance to stop Trump already falling apart
4. Federal judge upholds North Carolina's controversial voter ID law
5. Cleveland to pay $6 million to settle Tamir Rice lawsuit
6. Alleged Dennis Hastert victim files $1.8 million lawsuit
7. Canadian hostage killed by militants in the Philippines
8. Gannett offers $815 million to buy Tribune Publishing
9. Court reinstates Tom Brady's Deflategate suspension
10. Golden State Warriors' Steph Curry out at least 2 weeks with MCL sprain

published 26 April 2016

1. Trump and Clinton look to pad their leads as 5 states head to the polls

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.

Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly will sit down with Republican frontrunner Donald Trump for a special airing on Fox May 17. Megyn Kelly Presents will be her first primetime special for the Fox broadcast channel. "I look forward to a fascinating exchange — our first sit-down interview in nearly a year," Kelly said in a statement. Trump has lashed out at Kelly several times since she asked him during the first Republican debate about derogatory comments he made about women. He has questioned her reporting skills, called on people to boycott her show, and referred to her as "sick" and the "most overrated person" on television.

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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.

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 Monday demanding $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 Wednesday.

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.

Golden State Warriors star point guard Steph Curry will miss at least two weeks of playoff basketball due to a sprained right MCL, the team said Monday. Curry sustained the knee injury while slipping in Game 4 of the Warriors' first-round series versus the Houston Rockets on Sunday. He had just returned after missing Games 2 and 3 with an ankle injury. The Warriors, the NBA's defending champions, lead the Rockets 3-1 in the best-of-seven series.

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Samantha Rollins is TheWeek.com's news editor. She has previously worked for The New York Times and TIME and is a graduate of Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism.