10 things you need to know today: April 28, 2016

Carly Fiorina speaks during a Ted Cruz rally

(Image credit: AP Photo/Michael Conroy)

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1. Ted Cruz taps Carly Fiorina as running mate
2. Trump says his foreign policy will put 'America first'
3. Airstrikes kill dozens at hospital in Syria's divided Aleppo
4. Sanders to lay off staffers, focus on California
5. Ex-House speaker Dennis Hastert sentenced to 15 months in prison
6. Capt. Kristen Griest makes history as Army's first female infantry officer
7. Female suicide bomber wounds 8 in Turkey
8. Former Oklahoma volunteer deputy convicted of manslaughter
9. North Korea rushes second missile test and fails, again
10. SpaceX announces plan for unmanned flight to Mars

published 28 April 2016

1. Ted Cruz taps Carly Fiorina as running mate

Sen. Ted Cruz announced Wednesday that he will pick former GOP presidential candidate Carly Fiorina as his running mate if he wins the Republican presidential nomination. Cruz is trying to gain momentum before Indiana's Tuesday primary, where he needs a win. Donald Trump, fresh off his Tuesday sweep of five East Coast primaries, said Cruz's announcement was an act of desperation, because he is "being clobbered on the delegate front" and "has no path to victory."

Donald Trump unveiled his "America-first" approach to foreign policy in a speech Wednesday. "My foreign policy will always put the interests of the American people and American security above all else," Trump said in his first major address on foreign policy. He provided few specifics, but said he would rebuild the American military, restructure NATO, modernize the U.S. nuclear program, and stop the Islamic State and other Islamist extremists. "We will win, if I become president," Trump said.

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Airstrikes killed at least 27 people at a hospital in a rebel-held section of the contested Syrian city of Aleppo late Wednesday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. The dead reportedly included three children, and one of the war-ravaged city's last pediatricians. Opposition activists blamed the government, but it was not immediately clear who was responsible for the strikes. A United Nations envoy said a Feb. 27 ceasefire now "hangs by a thread."

Sen. Bernie Sanders plans to lay off "hundreds" of campaign staffers around the country and concentrate his resources in the 14 states that have yet to pick their Democratic presidential convention delegates — including delegate-rich California — The New York Times reported Wednesday. The comments came after frontrunner Hillary Clinton extended her lead by winning four out of five East Coast contests on Tuesday. Sanders said his focus now is on winning as many delegates as possible so he can push the party toward a more progressive platform at its summertime convention.

A federal judge in Chicago on Wednesday sentenced ex-speaker of the House Dennis Hastert to 15 months in prison. Six months ago, the former Republican powerbroker pleaded guilty to breaking federal banking rules to hide hush-money payments he made to cover up his sexual abuse of high school wrestlers when he was a coach. Hastert has been accused of abusing four teenage boys decades ago. He apologized to the boys he "mistreated," but U.S. District Judge Thomas Durkin gave him a harsher sentence than prosecutors requested, saying Hastert was a "serial child molester."

Capt. Kristen Griest has become the Army's first female infantry officer, military officials confirmed Wednesday. Last August, Griest and Lt. Shaye Haver became the first women to graduate from Ranger School, the Army's toughest combat training course. They participated in a pilot program after which the Army opened the program to women. Late last year, Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter opened all military jobs, including combat positions, to any qualified soldier, male or female.

A female bomber blew herself up and wounded eight people near the main mosque in Turkey's city of Bursa on Wednesday. It was the fifth suicide bombing in Turkish cities this year. Two of the others were blamed on the Islamic State, and two on Kurdish militants. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the Wednesday blast. "This attack will not give cause for Turkey to retreat in its determined stance in fighting terrorism," Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said.

An Oklahoma jury on Wednesday found former reserve volunteer sheriff's deputy Robert Bates guilty of second-degree manslaughter for fatally shooting an unarmed suspect, Eric Courtney Harris, after a chase last year. Bates, 74, never denied shooting Harris, but said he thought he was using his Taser stun gun, not his pistol. Bates said he yelled "Taser! Taser!" as he was trained, then fired at Harris as other deputies who tackled Harris were holding him down after a suspected drug deal.

North Korea, fresh off a failed missile test on the April 15 birthday of the nation's late founder Kim Il Sung, attempted to fire another intermediate range ballistic missile on Thursday, but it crashed seconds after lift-off. A South Korean military adviser said North Korea is "in a rush to show anything that is successful" ahead of next week's ruling party congress, so they tried a second launch without modifying the system after the first failure. "They need to succeed but they keep failing," the adviser said.

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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.