The Justice Department said Wednesday that Ray LaHood, when he was U.S. transportation secretary, accepted a $50,000 check that he "understood at the time" came from Lebanese-Nigerian billionaire Gilbert Chagoury, purposefully failed to disclose the "loan" as required on two government ethics forms, then "made misleading statements to FBI agents investigating Chagoury about the check and its source."

LaHood, a Republican former congressman from Illinois, served in President Barack Obama's Cabinet from 2009 to 2013. He initially denied receiving the loan in a 2017 interview with the FBI, Politico reports, but he acknowledged the payment when agents showed him a copy of the check. Under a December 2019 non-prosecution agreement, the Justice Department disclosed Wednesday, LaHood agreed to pay back the $50,000 he got in June 2012, pay a $40,000 fine, and cooperate with the government's investigation of Chagoury.

The Justice Department also said Thursday that Chagoury had agreed to pay $1.8 million to avoid prosecution over $180,000 in illegal campaign contributions he funneled to U.S. politicians through an associate in Virginia, Toufic Baaklini. Chagoury gained notoriety for donating to the Clinton Foundation, but all the payments though Baaklini appear to have gone to Republicans, including $100,000 to Mitt Romney's 2012 presidential campaign, Politico reports.

Baaklini also wrote the personal check to LaHood, but that was a "separate and unrelated matter" from the campaign finance violations, the Justice Department said. In 2015, Baaklini did chip in $2,700 to the campaign of LaHood's son Darin, who now holds his father's old seat in Congress, Axios notes. Peter Weber

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) suggested he isn't pleased with the current state of the Republican Party on Sunday, telling NBC News' Chuck Todd that it "bothers me" that Republicans have to "swear fealty" to former President Donald Trump "or you get kicked out." The GOP, he said, has become a "circular firing squad where we're just attacking members of our party instead of focusing on solving problems" or debating the Biden administration on policy.

Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), another Republican who isn't afraid to criticize Trump, had a different analogy for his party: the Titanic. "We're ... in the middle of this slow sink," he told CBS News' John Dickerson, later arguing that many of his colleagues trying to move on to quickly from reckoning with the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. Tim O'Donnell

Minneapolis Federal Reserve President Neel Kashkari doesn't think people should "overreact" to the disappointing April jobs report, but he acknowledged the "bottom line" is that "we are still somewhere between 8 and 10 million jobs below where we were before" the coronavirus pandemic struck. "We still are in a deep hole," he told CBS News' John Dickerson on Sunday's edition of Face the Nation. "And we still need to do everything we can to put those folks back to work more quickly."

So how did economists' predictions miss by so much? Kashkari explained that the pandemic "is unlike any other shock in our lifetimes" because the economic recovery relies so heavily on individuals' assessments of personal safety. "It's very hard to model that out," Kashkari said, noting that people have spent so much time "conditioning" themselves to take precautions. Now, though, "we have to start to change what we've been telling people," he said, agreeing with an earlier point from former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb. "People feeling safe about the virus" will ultimately drive the economic recovery, Kashkari said. Tim O'Donnell

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) made public the inevitable on Sunday, telling Fox News' Maria Bartiromo that he supports Rep. Elise Stefanik's (R-N.Y.) bid for GOP conference chair.

The No. 3 House position is currently held by Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), but she appears to be on the way out after clashing with many of her colleagues over the future of the party, particularly regarding whether former President Donald Trump should play a role. Cheney is one of the most prominent Trump critics within the GOP, and while McCarthy maintained his support for her for a while, he has recently made it clear that he considers her stance to be a hindrance to party unity, which is why he's backing Stefanik, a Trump loyalist, albeit one with a much more mixed voting record than the consistently conservative Cheney.

Stefanik thanked McCarthy for his endorsement. The conference chair vote is expected to take place Wednesday. Tim O'Donnell

What a difference a week makes.

Last Saturday, trainer Bob Baffert was celebrating his record-breaking seventh Kentucky Derby victory. Flash forward to Sunday, and he's been suspended from entering horses at Churchill Downs, which announced Sunday that Baffert's 2021 Derby-winning trainee, Medina Spirit, tested positive for the anti-inflammatory drug betamethasone. The steroid isn't completely banned in Kentucky horse racing, but Medina Spirit's post-race blood sample reportedly was found to have double the legal threshold, which is why Baffert received the punishment.

It appears Medina Spirit will be tested again, so the win is still valid, but if the findings are upheld the horse and Baffert will be stripped of their victory, and Mandaloun, the runner-up, will be crowned.

Baffert has denied involvement and said he's not sure how Medina Spirit could have tested positive. "This shouldn't have happened," he said. "There's a problem somewhere. It didn't come from us."

It's not the first time one of Baffert's horses have registered positive drug tests, however. The New York Times has reported that his horses have failed at least 29 tests in his 40-decade career, including two last year. Read more at The Courier-Journal and The Associated Press. Tim O'Donnell

A bombing at a girls' school in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Saturday killed at least 50 people, many of them students between 11 and 15 years old, The Associated Press reports. Tariq Arian, a spokesman for Afghanistan's Interior Ministry, said more than 100 people were wounded in the attack, but cautioned that casualty figures could still rise.

The Taliban denied responsibility for and condemned the attack, which took place as the U.S. continues its withdrawal from Afghanistan, although Arian blamed the group. The bombing occurred in the Dasht-e-Barchi neighborhood, where many residents are of the ethnic Hazara minority, a mostly Shiite group that has been targeted by Islamic State loyalists in the past.

Frustrated by what they consider inadequate government protection, Hazara leaders from Dasht-e-Barchi met Sunday and decided to create their own protection force, which would be deployed outside schools, mosques, and public facilities, AP reports. The force would cooperate with the government. Read more at The Associated Press and The New York Times. Tim O'Donnell

Tesla CEO Elon Musk poked fun at himself during his Saturday Night Live monologue, joking about his lack of "intonational variation," his marijuana-themed appearance on Joe Rogan's podcast, the spelling of his son's name, and some of his odder tweets.

"Look, I know I sometimes say or post strange things," Musk said, seemingly addressing the controversy surrounding the show's choice to have him host. "But that's just how my brain works. To anyone I've offended, I just want to say: I re-invented electric cars and I'm sending people to Mars in a rocket ship. Did you also think I was gonna be a chill, normal dude?"

Musk also revealed he has Asperger's syndrome, reportedly marking the first time he has spoken publicly about the diagnosis. Watch the full monologue below. Tim O'Donnell