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

Paul Ryan says he'll bow out as RNC chair if Trump asks, Clinton and Sanders face off in West Virginia, and more

Paul Ryan speaks at the Capitol
(Image credit: Win McNamee/Getty Images)

1. Paul Ryan says he would step down as RNC chair if Trump asked

House Speaker Paul Ryan's office said Monday that he would step aside as chairman of July's Republican convention if Donald Trump, the party's presumptive presidential nominee, asked him to do so. Trump on Sunday declined to rule out trying to replace Ryan in the post after the 2012 vice presidential nominee said he was not ready to endorse Trump. On Monday, Trump softened, disavowing ally Sarah Palin's call for supporting a primary challenge against Ryan. Also, Trump tapped New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie to lead his transition team.

2. Sanders holds slight lead in West Virginia going into primary

Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders square off in West Virginia's Democratic presidential primary on Tuesday. Sanders heads into the vote with a slight polling lead in the state, where 29 delegates are at stake. A win would help the Vermont senator slow Clinton's momentum but would be unlikely to do much to erode her commanding lead in pledged delegates. Clinton recently began nudging Sanders to rally behind her, saying she wants to "unify the party." Presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump taunted Clinton, saying she can't "close the deal."

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Reuters USA Today

3. Feds and North Carolina file dueling lawsuits over bathroom law

North Carolina filed a lawsuit on Monday accusing the Justice Department of "baseless and blatant overreach" for attacking the state's controversial bathroom law. The Justice Department promptly filed its own lawsuit, accusing the state of violating federal civil rights law by requiring people to use public bathrooms corresponding to the gender on their birth certificates. The Justice Department last week sent North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory a letter saying the law discriminates against transgender people.

The Washington Post

4. Suspected Islamist terrorist kills one in knife attack at German rail station

One person was killed and at least three injured early Tuesday at a German commuter rail station in a stabbing spree by a suspected Islamist extremist. The attack occurred in Grafing, near Munich. Investigators said witnesses heard the attacker shout, "Allahu Akbar!", which means "God is Great!" in Arabic, and called the victims "infidels." A suspect was arrested at the scene. Police said the suspect "expressed political motivations," although no further details were immediately available.

AFP

5. State Department says it can't find Clinton IT aide's emails

The State Department said Monday that it could not find the email archives of Bryan Pagliano, the staffer who set up Hillary Clinton's private email server while she was secretary of state. Pagliano was granted immunity in the FBI's investigation into the security of Clinton's private email system, which she used to send or receive about 60,000 messages from 2009 to 2013. Clinton and her key staff said about half were related to her work and released to the State Department.

Bloomberg

6. Longtime Miami cop becomes Ferguson's first black police chief

Veteran Miami police Maj. Delrish Moss was sworn in as police chief in Ferguson, Missouri on Monday. Moss is the first African-American to run the Ferguson force, which came under intense scrutiny after a white officer fatally shot unarmed black teenager Michael Brown in 2014. Moss replaces former chief Tom Jackson, who resigned in March of 2015 after the Justice Department released a scathing report on racial bias in the city's police and court system.

NBC News

7. Impeachment vote back on track in Brazil

The interim speaker of Brazil's lower house of Congress reversed his own call to annul the vote to impeach President Dilma Roussef, putting the process back on track. The Senate is scheduled to decide in two days whether to remove Roussef from office and put her on trial for allegedly borrowing money from state banks to cover budget deficits. The head of the Senate, Renan Calheiros, had rejected the lower house leader's move and vowed to proceed as scheduled with the vote in the upper house on whether to put Roussef on trial.

Bloomberg The New York Times

8. Alberta premier says 90 percent of Fort McMurray buildings survived blaze

The premier of Canada's Alberta province, Rachel Notley, said Monday that about 90 percent of the buildings in the oil-sands city of Fort McMurray survived the massive wildfire that forced the entire population of more than 80,000 to evacuate. The hospital and most schools were not destroyed, but about 2,400 of the city's 25,000 structures were burned. "It was a miracle we got the entire population out safely," Notley said. Nobody died in the fire, but two people were killed in a car crash leaving the city.

BBC News

9. Duterte vows to be 'dictator' against evil as new Philippines president

An unofficial vote count late Monday indicated that Rodrigo Duterte, the controversial mayor of Davao, had won the Philippines' presidential election. The law-and-order candidate had 38 percent of the vote, 15 points ahead of his nearest rival. His main rivals conceded defeat. The likely president won despite facing criticism for making rape jokes, and unleashing obscenities during the campaign. He vowed to be a "dictator" against evil, and to resign if he doesn't stamp out corruption in six months.

Time CNN

10. Obama signs law making North American bison the national mammal

President Obama signed the National Bison Legacy Act on Monday, making the North American bison the national mammal. The once plentiful animal now has a status similar to that of the national bird, the bald eagle. Conservationists, ranchers, and Native American groups, such as the Intertribal Buffalo Council, pushed for the legislation. The animals, also known as buffalo, once numbered in the tens of millions but were hunted close to extinction. There are roughly 200,000 in the U.S. today.

Politico NBC News

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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.