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Betsy Klein

3 hr ago

PUBLISHED Apr 21, 2026, 4:00 AM ET

Donald Trump Religion

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US President Donald Trump holds up a Bible outside of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Washington, DC, on June 1, 2020.

Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images/File

One day after he posted — then deleted — an image comparing himself to Jesus Christ, President Donald Trump sat at his desk in the Oval Office and read from the Bible directly to a camera.

The president recorded his two-and-a-half-minute passage, 2 Chronicles 7:11-22, last week, and it will be played at the museum and online via the faith-based Pure Flix streaming service Tuesday evening.

Trump is one of nearly 500 people reading scripture this week as part of “America Reads the Bible,” a weeklong event offering what its organizers describe as a “spiritual celebration” of the country’s 250th anniversary. The effort is led by a Christian nonprofit aimed at engaging the country and its leaders on the need for the Bible’s teachings.

Participants, which include Trump, his chief of staff Susie Wiles, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, among others, are reading from the Book of Genesis through the Book of Revelation. Some are doing so via in-person appearances at the Museum of the Bible and others, like Trump, are doing virtual readings.

The passage Trump is reading is a significant one — and has marked a rallying cry for the Christian right in the US and across the globe for decades.

It reads in part, “If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”

Bunni Pounds, a former political consultant who is now organizing this week’s reading as founder and president of Christians Engaged, and her team had saved this passage for an elected official. She said she prayed that Trump would be willing to read it.

“I’ve just been praying with a small group of people, asking the Lord to move to allow our president to pray this prayer, the words of God that he would hear,” Pounds said in an interview with CNN.

But the reading comes at a complicated moment for the president’s relationship with American Christians. Trump’s recent AI-generated social media post, which depicted him as Jesus healing a sick person, spurred rare pushback from key allies in the Christian right. The president eventually backed down, deleting the post and suggesting he thought “it was me as a doctor and had to do with Red Cross.” At the same time, he’s ratcheted up tensions with Pope Leo XIV, lobbing criticism at the first American pontiff for days on social media and stating emphatically that he has no plans to apologize as the two publicly disagree over the Iran war.

This AI-generated fake image shared by President Donald Trump to the social media platform Truth Social shows him depicted as Jesus healing a sick person.

Donald Trump/Truth Social

That extraordinary rift has underscored a shift among some American fundamentalists and evangelicals toward embracing a “MAGA Jesus,” a movement invoked by some of his followers in recent years that offers Trump as its “chosen one.”

The president, an irregular church-goer who lashed out at his political enemies during this year’s National Prayer Breakfast and was once criticized for bringing a Bible to a photo-op, has spent much of his second term chipping away at the wall between church and state, championing faith initiatives that have led to a systematic religious revival within the government’s operations, culture and policy.

For Pounds, Trump’s installation of people of faith across the White House and administration shows that “his heart is really tender and open towards the Lord.”

“He’s so authentic and real, whether we like the things he says sometimes and the things we don’t like, that he wouldn’t have done it (participated in the scripture reading) if he didn’t believe it,” she said.

She downplayed any connection between the reading and Trump’s deleted post, noting that his participation was scheduled prior to the posting — but said that his decision to take it down was “moving.”

Margaret Susan Thompson, professor of history and political science in the Maxwell School at Syracuse University, told CNN the verse has been seen by many Evangelical Christians as a “justification of calling upon God to bless their nation.”

Pounds leveraged connections from her time in politics, working with the White House Faith Office Director Jennifer Korn, the office’s senior adviser, the evangelist Paula White-Cain; and Domestic Policy Council Director Vince Haley to extend an invitation to Trump, along with several members of his staff and Cabinet. She said they “really grabbed the vision of what we were doing, wanted to be a part, and have been amazing partners.”

“We just felt like it was important for the leader of our nation, if he was willing to read the Bible, to read the Bible with us,” she added.

CNN’s John Blake, Rene Marsh, Steve Contorno, Aleena Fayaz, Kaanita Iyer, and Piper Hudspeth Blackburn contributed to this report.

油价未反映真实冲击 专家：若战事持续库存月内“见底”

2026年4月21日 17:25 / 联合早报

受美以伊战争引发的全球油价飙升影响。4月15日深夜，肯尼亚首都内罗毕市民在加油站排起长龙，赶在午夜调价前加油。 （法新社）

全球一些顶尖能源分析师警告，由于市场仍相信战事可能很快结束，当前国际油价尚未充分反映霍尔木兹海峡关闭所带来的“史上最大规模”供应冲击。

彭博社报道，自伊朗战争爆发以来，霍尔木兹海峡实际上处于关闭状态。托克集团首席经济师拉希姆（Saad Rahim）星期二（4月21日）在瑞士西部城市洛桑举行的《金融时报》全球大宗商品峰会上指出，这场冲突迄今已导致约10亿桶石油供应损失，若战事持续，损失规模可能扩大至15亿桶。

贡沃尔集团分析主管拉塞尔（Frederic Lasserre）则警告，若战争再持续一个月，石油市场将触及“罐底”（tank bottoms），即库存见底。

布伦特原油期货自开战以来大幅波动，一度升至每桶近120美元（约153新元），随后因和平谈判前景而回落；周二油价在95美元附近交易，部分反映出市场对冲突可能很快结束的预期。

拉希姆认为，即使达成和平协议，石油流向恢复正常也需要时间，目前市场认知与现实之间存在明显脱节。

能源数据分析公司Energy Aspects联合创始人森恩（Amrita Sen）指出，通过霍尔木兹海峡的石油流量可能永远无法恢复到战前水平。她预计，即便海峡下个月恢复50%通航，战争仍将导致约4亿5000万桶成品油供应损失。

As Warsh faces hearing, a framework for smaller Fed balance sheet emerges

2026-04-21T10:07:26.337Z / Reuters

By Michael S. Derby

April 21, 2026 10:07 AM UTC Updated 1 hour ago

节点运行失败

Kevin Warsh, Fellow in Economics at the Hoover Institution and lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, speaks during the Sohn Investment Conference in New York City, U.S., May 8, 2017. REUTERS/Brendan Mcdermid/File Photo

• Summary

• Case for smaller Fed balance sheet rests on regulatory changes
• Academics, some Fed officials see path for reducing balance sheet
• Lower Fed holdings could open door to lower interest rates

April 21 (Reuters) – Kevin Warsh would like to see the Federal Reserve slash its vast bond holdings, but has yet to flesh out just how he would do that if confirmed to be the next ​head of the U.S. central bank, a matter likely to come up in his confirmation hearing on Tuesday before the Senate Banking Committee.

Meanwhile, in the absence of specifics from ‌Warsh, an effort is underway both in and outside the Fed to provide some intellectual heft for that goal.

The Week in Breakingviews newsletter offers insights and ideas from Reuters’ global financial commentary team. Sign up here.

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The academic work largely agrees that if the central bank wants a smaller footprint in financial markets, the key is reducing financial institutions’ need to hold large amounts of cash. Academics and some Fed officials say regulatory changes allowing banks to hold less in the form of reserves are the primary path toward getting the balance sheet down, adding that changes ​in how the Fed uses its rate-control toolkit could also help.

Some modifications could in theory allow the Fed to pursue an easier stance of monetary policy than would ​otherwise be the case, although it remains unclear how that would play out.

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But easing rules inducing financial institutions to hoard cash also could create ⁠other risks for the broader financial system.

“We have been encouraged by the evolution of the (Federal Open Market Committee) debate on the size of the balance sheet over the past couple of months” ​and there is “widespread agreement that there are regulatory opportunities to reduce that basic level of reserve demand,” analysts at Wrightson ICAP said in a note to clients last weekend.

REGULATION REVIEW

Fed Governor Stephen Miran ​in a research paper last month argued that the central bank’s $6.68 trillion in assets could be cut by as much as $2 trillion by loosening liquidity regulations, making adjustments to bank stress testing and working to bolster usage of existing Fed liquidity tools.

Dallas Fed President Lorie Logan, who was a key architect of the central bank’s monetary policy mechanics at the New York Fed, agreed early this month that rule changes around liquidity, among other options, could lower reserves and ​pave the way to a smaller Fed balance sheet.

Reserves, a proxy for market liquidity, loom large in the debate over the Fed’s balance sheet, as the central bank manages their levels to ​achieve its interest rate target. If reserves get tight, money market rates can start to rise and threaten the central bank’s control over that target. If there’s too much cash in the system, the Fed reduces ‌its bond holdings ⁠to siphon funds out of the system.

The Fed is currently rebuilding market liquidity levels after finishing the last chapter of its balance-sheet drawdown, and it has maintained firm control over the federal funds target rate range, a critical concern for its officials.

Starting during the 2007-2009 global financial crisis, the Fed has periodically used large-scale purchases of Treasury bonds and mortgage-backed securities to stabilize financial markets and bolster its economic stimulus work. Those balance sheet expansions have been followed by passive drawdowns joined with the evolution of a complex toolkit to manage interest rates.

Few experts believe the Fed can return to ​the system of so-called “scarce” reserves used prior to ​the financial crisis when Warsh initially joined the ⁠Fed as a governor.

SOME MEAT ON THE BONE

The recent work could help Warsh, should he be confirmed by the Senate, find a path toward lower Fed holdings and interest rates.

Miran argued in his paper that a smaller Fed balance sheet is a form of restraint on the economy, so ​the central bank could cut interest rates as a counterbalance.

Noting that the central bank’s balance-sheet expansion appears to lower long-term rates and bolster the economy, New York ​Fed President John Williams told ⁠reporters late last month that “if you’re going to shrink the balance sheet, that will presumably reduce aggregate demand in the economy, get higher long-term interest rates, and therefore you would have a little bit lower short-term interest rate” in reaction.

“I think that’s logical,” but it’s also unclear how much of this would be measurable in real-world terms, Williams said.

Still, there’s no sense any changes will happen quickly even under ⁠Warsh’s leadership.

“My bet ​is some of these things are quite live, but will take time to implement,” said Ellen Meade, a former ​high-ranking Fed staff member who is now a research professor at Duke University. She says the recent proposals could mitigate the need for the Fed to buy bonds to ease market stress.

What’s more, the recent work could help preserve the current ample reserves ​regime, “but within a system where banks have lower demand day to day because they can get liquidity from the central bank on demand,” she said.

Reporting by Michael S. Derby; Editing by Paul Simao

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

日本自卫队训练场弹药爆炸 致三死一伤

2026年4月21日 17:42 / 联合早报

日本大分县陆上自卫队日出生台演习场星期二（4月21日）发生弹药爆炸事故，造成三死一伤。防卫省指出，事故发生于约上午8时40分，部队进行坦克射击训练时，炮弹在炮管内爆炸，死者为三名男性，另有一名女性重伤送院。

据报道，涉事为10式主战坦克。防卫省与相关部门已展开调查，厘清事故原因。防长小泉进次郎说，将彻查事故情况并加强安全管理。日出生台演习场是日本西部最大演习场，也供驻日美军进行实弹训练。（路透社）

Indicted Democrat Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick refuses to resign as expulsion vote looms

April 21, 2026 7:00am EDT / Fox News

Cherfilus-McCormick told Fox News Digital she will not resign, saying ‘this is not the time to abandon the district’

By Adam Pack, Fox News

House Ethics Committee considers fraud allegations against Florida congresswoman

Fox News chief congressional correspondent Chad Pergram reports on Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, D-Fla., facing a House Ethics Committee hearing over fraud allegations on ‘Special Report.’

NEW You can now listen to Fox News articles!

Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, D-Fla., may be running out of road as Republicans lay the groundwork for an expulsion vote as soon as Tuesday.

The House Ethics Committee will hold a hearing Tuesday afternoon to formally recommend punitive action against the embattled lawmaker. Rep. Greg Steube, R-Fla., has vowed to force a vote on Cherfilus-McCormick’s expulsion regardless of the committee’s suggested sanction.

Despite the looming expulsion threat, Cherfilus-McCormick has resisted calls to quit Congress on her own terms.

“For those asking whether I plan to resign, the answer is no,” Cherfilus-McCormick recently told Fox News Digital. “This is not the time to abandon the district, not when they too are fighting for their future.”

Rep. Greg Steube, R-Fla., has vowed to force a vote on Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick’s, D-Fla., expulsion regardless of the committee’s suggested sanction.(Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc. via Getty Images)

INDICTED DEMOCRAT SHEILA CHERFILUS-MCCORMICK FACES RARE HOUSE ETHICS HEARING

A successful expulsion vote would make Cherfilus-McCormick the first lawmaker since former Rep. George Santos, R-N.Y., in 2023 to be expelled by the House. Just six lawmakers have been expelled from the House in U.S. history.

Cherfilus-McCormick was found guilty of more than two dozen ethics violations involving financial misconduct during a rare House ethics trial in March. She has denied any wrongdoing and is facing a separate criminal trial after being indicted by a federal grand jury in 2025.

The guilty ethics verdict centered on a charge that Cherfilus-McCormick funneled more than $5 million in disaster relief funds to her campaign that was improperly paid to her family’s healthcare company.

She did not try to return the money, which amounted to more than 100 times what the government owed the family-run company.

It takes a two-thirds majority to expel a member of Congress, meaning Steube’s resolution would have to receive buy-in from Democrats.

Former Reps. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., and Tony Gonzales, R-Texas, who are facing sexual misconduct allegations, both resigned last week to fend off expulsion threats. Rep. Cory Mills, R-Fla., is also facing a looming expulsion vote.

Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick takes the oath of office during a ceremonial swearing-in ceremony at Broward County Governmental Center in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on Jan. 18, 2022.(Carline Jean/South Florida Sun Sentinel/Tribune News Service)

JEFFRIES DECLINES TO BREAK WITH INDICTED DEMOCRAT AFTER ETHICS PANEL’S GUILTY VERDICT

The vast majority of Democrats have yet to voice support for Cherfilus-McCormick’s expulsion, though a swath of moderates and progressives broke their silence after the House Ethics Committee’s verdict.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., told reporters last week that she would vote to expel Cherfilus-McCormick if she did not resign, citing the House Ethics Committee’s verdict.

However, top Democrats have continued to stand by their indicted colleague.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said that Democrats would convene following the conclusion of the Ethics Committee’s proceedings to discuss Cherfilus-McCormick’s fate.

“We will proceed in a manner consistent with our approach to these types of ethics matters, which is to always and at all times follow the facts and apply the relevant law without fear of it,” Jeffries told reporters Monday.

The Congressional Black Caucus, an influential group among Democrats on Capitol Hill, has also been largely silent on the allegations facing Cherfilus-McCormick, who is a member of the group.

The CBC notably contributed $5,000 to Cherfilus-McCormick’s campaign during the first fundraising quarter of 2026, which runs from January to March.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., signaled his support for the expulsion effort last week, citing “alarming facts” identified by the bipartisan ethics panel.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y. has so far refused to condemn Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McComrick, an indicted lawmaker facing a looming expulsion threat.(Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images; Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

Cherfilus-McCormick has defied calls to suspend her re-election campaign, despite having just $11,000 in the bank, according to recent Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings. Her campaign entered April with nearly $4.4 million in debt, some of which is due to mounting legal fees.

The indicted lawmaker represents a safe blue seat that could be carved up if Florida’s Republican-controlled state legislature moves forward with redistricting. A growing number of Democrats are vying to unseat her during the August 2026 primary, including Gen Z activist Elijah Manley, rap artist Luther Campbell and former Broward County Mayor Dale Holness.

Cherfilus-McCormick is facing a separate 15-count criminal indictment that could result in her being sentenced to more than 50 years in prison if convicted. In addition to allegedly stealing FEMA money, federal prosecutors have also charged her with participating in a straw donor scheme to allegedly conceal illicit money flowing to her campaign and conspiring to file a false federal tax return.

A federal judge last week approved a delay in the proceedings until February 2027 at the request of both Cherfilus-McCormick’s legal team and the prosecution.

日本自卫队训练场弹药爆炸 致三死一伤

2026年4月21日 17:42 / 联合早报

日本大分县陆上自卫队日出生台演习场星期二（4月21日）发生弹药爆炸事故，造成三死一伤。防卫省指出，事故发生于约上午8时40分，部队进行坦克射击训练时，炮弹在炮管内爆炸，死者为三名男性，另有一名女性重伤送院。

据报道，涉事为10式主战坦克。防卫省与相关部门已展开调查，厘清事故原因。防长小泉进次郎说，将彻查事故情况并加强安全管理。日出生台演习场是日本西部最大演习场，也供驻日美军进行实弹训练。（路透社）

Democrats demand Trump administration halt plan to collect federal workers’ health data

April 21, 2026 / 5:00 AM EDT / KFF Health News

By Amanda Seitz, Maia Rosenfeld

Democratic lawmakers are demanding that the Trump administration halt plans to collect sensitive medical records for millions of federal workers and retirees, as well as their family members.

The Office of Personnel Management has asked 65 insurance companies to provide monthly reports with detailed medical and pharmaceutical claims data of more than 8 million people enrolled in federal health plans, KFF Health News reported earlier this month. The request, which could dramatically expand the personally identifiable medical information OPM can access, alarmed health ethicists, insurance company executives, and privacy advocates.

Now, OPM Director Scott Kupor has two letters on his desk — one from 16 U.S. senators and another led by Rep. Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee — asking him to drop the agency’s proposal.

“The collection of broad, personally identifiable data regarding medical care and treatment raises concerns that OPM could target certain federal employees seeking vital health care services that the Administration disagrees with on political grounds,” the Democratic House members wrote to Kupor April 17, citing KFF Health News.

The letters from congressional Democrats alone are unlikely to reverse OPM’s plans. Republicans — who control Congress and, ultimately, any oversight activities — have not weighed in on OPM’s notice.

OPM did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the letters. The agency, which said in its notice that it will use the data for oversight and to manage the federal health plans, has not publicly addressed written concerns about its proposal.

Scott Kupor, director of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, testifies during a House committee hearing on March 25, 2026. Mariam Zuhaib / AP

The notice, posted and sent to insurers in December, states that insurers are legally permitted to disclose “protected health information” to OPM and does not provide instructions to redact identifying information, such as names or diagnoses, from the claims.

That data could be used to implement cost-saving measures, health policy experts told KFF Health News earlier this month. But it would also give the Trump administration — which has laid off or fired tens of thousands of federal workers — access to a vast trove of personal information.

In the letters, Democratic lawmakers lay out a number of concerns about potential consequences of OPM’s obtaining detailed medical claims for millions of federal workers.

The letter from Senate Democrats — led by Adam Schiff of California and Mark Warner of Virginia — argues that OPM is not equipped to safeguard such sensitive data and that the administration could share the records across government agencies, as it has done with personal information on millions of Medicaid enrollees.

They also assert that the agency does not have a legal right to the data and that insurers’ sharing the information with OPM would “violate the core principles of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.” HIPAA requires certain organizations that maintain identifiable health information — such as hospitals and insurers — to protect it from being disclosed without patient consent. The proposal, the senators warn, threatens patients’ relationships with their clinicians, especially “sensitive disclosures regarding mental health, chronic illness, or other deeply personal conditions.”

“For these reasons, we strongly urge you to cease any further consideration of this proposal,” states the letter, which was sent to Kupor on April 19.

The American Federation of Government Employees, the largest union for federal employees, responded with alarm to KFF Health News’ reporting. The union noted in a statement from its national president, Everett Kelley, that OPM’s proposal “comes in the context of coordinated attacks on federal employees and repeated stretching of the legal boundaries for sharing sensitive personal data across government agencies.

“The question of what this administration intends to do with eight million Americans’ most private health information is not academic,” the AFGE statement read. “It is urgent.”

In an emailed statement, Kelley applauded the congressional letters.

“We are pleased that Democratic lawmakers on the Hill are just as outraged as we are over this administration’s blatant attempt to breach the privacy of millions of Americans across the country,” Kelley wrote. “We share their concerns regarding potential misuse of the information to continue illegally targeting workers and their demand for OPM to withdraw this proposal.”

_KFF Health News_is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at_KFF_— the independent source for health policy research, polling, and journalism._

报告：加沙10年重建需714亿美元

2026年4月21日 18:06 / 联合早报

路透社获得的视频截图显示，巴勒斯坦武装人员周一（4月20日）在加沙南部汗尤尼斯与以色列支持的民兵发生冲突，引起一阵骚动。 （路透社）

（日内瓦综合电）根据欧盟和联合国发表的联合评估报告，估计加沙未来10年的重建需要超过714亿美元（约960亿新元）。

报告指出，首18个月就需要约263亿美元，用于恢复基本服务、重建关键基础设施及推动经济复苏。估算显示，加沙基础设施损失约352亿美元，经济与社会损失约227亿美元。当地经济已萎缩84%，发展水平倒退数十年。

由特朗普倡议设立的和平委员会正与阿联酋国企迪拜环球港务（DP World）探讨参与加沙重建计划，包括负责人道援助及物资进入加沙的物流安排。

目前加沙地带约190万人流离失所，占当地人口的绝大多数，超过六成人失去住所。约37万间房屋被毁或受损，逾半数医院无法运作，几乎所有学校遭破坏。

和平委员会加沙事务首席特使姆拉德诺夫接受路透社访问时说，对推动哈马斯解除武装的方案“相当乐观”，但也承认进展仍需时间。他说，过去几周已与哈马斯进行非常认真的讨论，但谈判过程复杂。

他指出，相关方案仍在推进中，除了解除武装，还包括建立新治理架构和以军撤出安排。

5 things to know for April 21: Ceasefire deadline, summer travel, redistricting, Apple, Mexico’s pyramids

2026-04-21 06:45 AM ET / CNN

Fresh concerns about aviation safety are surfacing this week after another close call in the skies. Two Southwest Airlines jets recently had to take evasive action at Nashville International Airport after collision alarms sounded in the cockpit.

Here’s what else you need to know to get up to speed and on with your day.

President Donald Trump in the Oval Office of the White House on Saturday.

Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP

1️⃣ Ceasefire deadline

President Donald Trump pushed the expiration of the truce with Iran to Wednesday evening ET, saying it’s “highly unlikely” he will extend it further if no deal is reached. This gives negotiators an extra 24 hours of talks before Trump must decide whether to follow through on his threat to blow up Iranian bridges and power plants — a possible war crime. Read more.

2️⃣ Summer travel

On top of higher airfares and added fees driven by the war with Iran, airlines in Europe and Asia are now facing a potential jet fuel shortage. This raises the odds of flight cancellations and schedule cuts, spelling trouble for the summer travel season. Read more.

3️⃣ Redistricting

Voters in Virginia will head to the polls today to decide whether to accept or reject a Democratic plan that could dramatically redraw the state’s congressional maps and help shape the midterm elections. Nearly 1.4 million Virginians have already cast early ballots, a sign of unusually high interest for an April special election. Read more.

4️⃣ Apple

John Ternus, Apple’s senior vice president of hardware engineering, will become the company’s CEO on September 1. This comes after Tim Cook announced Monday that he will step down following more than a decade spent transforming the company into a $4 trillion behemoth. Read more.

Tim Cook steps down as Apple CEO

Tim Cook, the executive who led Apple to become a $4 trillion company and defined its identity in the post-Steve Jobs era, is stepping down as CEO, Apple said on Monday. CNN’s Clare Duffy reports that John Ternus, Apple’s senior vice president of hardware engineering, will take over as CEO effective September 1. Cook will become executive chairman of Apple’s board of directors and will remain as CEO through the summer to ensure a smooth transition, the company said.

1:18 • Source: CNN

Tim Cook steps down as Apple CEO
1:18

5️⃣ Mexico’s pyramids

An eyewitness captured the moment a gunman opened fire on a crowd of tourists visiting Mexico’s historic Teotihuacán pyramids on Monday. Authorities say the suspect shot and killed a Canadian woman and injured at least 13 others. Read more.

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Breakfast browse

Boston Marathon winners

John Korir, the defending champion, shattered the competition Monday with the fifth-fastest marathon ever. Sharon Lokedi also repeated as champion, winning the women’s race for a second straight year.

Video: Katy Perry dips credit card in Trevi fountain

The coin toss has entered its digital era.

A rare chimpanzee ‘civil war’ is happening

A once large and peaceful group of chimpanzees in Uganda has now split into two, causing a rare [“civil war” among the primates.

The Onion reaches new deal to take over Alex Jones’ Infowarse

The satirical news site said it has reached an agreement to take over conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ InfoWars company.

‘Big tech or families?’

Around 60 parents are heading to Capitol Hill this week in a renewed push for online safety laws, hoping to build on the momentum of court wins against social media companies last month.

And finally…

First look at the US Army’s arctic vehicle

CNN’s Jim Sciutto takes us to northern Alaska for an exclusive look at how the US Army is preparing for the next iteration of arctic warfare. The 11th Airborne are known as the “Arctic Angels”, and they are battle testing drones in extreme climates to combat the rising threats posed by adversaries like Russia and China.

1:24 • Source: CNN

First look at the US Army’s arctic vehicle
1:24

▶️ First look at the US Army’s arctic vehicle

In this video, CNN’s Jim Sciutto takes you to northern Alaska for an exclusive look at how the US Army is preparing for the next iteration of arctic warfare.

Today’s edition of 5 Things AM was edited and produced by CNN’s Andrew Torgan.

Virginia takes redistricting wars to the voters as Democrats seek 10-1 congressional map

April 21, 2026 / 7:22 AM EDT / CBS News

Virginia voters are deciding Tuesday whether to approve a referendum to redraw their state’s congressional districts to favor Democrats by a 10-1 margin, the latest battle in the nationwide scramble by both parties to increase their chances of winning control of the House.

Polls will be open on Tuesday until 7 p.m. ET. Early voting began on March 6, and turnout so far has been high, especially for a special election. As of Monday, more than 1.35 million people had voted early, almost as many as the total 1.48 million who voted in last fall’s statewide races, according to Virginia Public Access Project.

The referendum is seeking to amend the state constitution to allow a mid-decade redistricting using the Democratic-controlled Assembly’s redrawn congressional maps, which will give Democrats an advantage in all but one of the state’s 11 House seats.

According to the referendum, the maps would only be in place until the 2030 election, after which the standard redistricting process will resume. Normally, states redraw their congressional maps once every 10 years, following the decennial Census.

Democrats currently control six of the state’s 11 House seats, and the current map was drawn by a bipartisan commission. The new map would break up the northern part of the state, which includes the D.C. suburbs and has trended more and more Democratic over the years, into several districts that extend into the more conservative southern and western parts of the state. It would also emphasize Democratic Richmond and Virginia Beach.

Proposed Virginia congressional district map Virginia State Legislative Information System

President Trump on Monday and Tuesday urged Republicans to vote against the referendum, posting on social media, “VOTE ‘NO’TO SAVE YOUR COUNTRY!”

Democrats “even say it’s unfair,” Mr. Trump said Monday on the John Fredericks radio show. “They say, ‘oh, they’ll do it once, and maybe they’ll go back to what it was.’ It’s — the whole thing is ridiculous.”

A similar ballot measure shepherded by California Gov. Gavin Newsom sailed through that state last year, shifting five GOP-held seats toward Democrats. Newsom and Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger are seeking to even out the redistricting balance sheet after Mr. Trump ordered Texas’ GOP lawmakers to redraw their congressional maps to give Republicans up to five more seats. Missouri and North Carolina also redrew their maps to edge out one Democratic lawmaker apiece.

Virginia Democrats pushed forward with the new maps in the 2026 legislative session, buoyed by the party’s statewide successes in 2025. Last November, Spanberger won by 15 points, Democratic Attorney General Jay Jones defeated incumbent Jason Miyares despite violent text messages that emerged and Democrats swept both the House of Delegates and the state Senate.

But despite those victory margins, a Washington Post/George Mason University poll in March had the yes vote only leading by five points.

Brian Cannon of Fair Vote Virginia said he has been a Democrat for 25 years. But he is publicly opposed to the redistricting referendum, pointing to the work he did previously to create a bipartisan commission to draw the state’s congressional maps. He said that although he agrees with Republicans against the referendum, the party as a whole is “not willing to say Trump was wrong to start this fight in Texas.” He said he is working with Virginians from both parties who are opposed to this measure.

Cannon said he believes that Democrats would have had the momentum in November, and “it’s ridiculous, given that Abigail Spanberger won the state by 15 points — they can just win fair and square two more seats under the fair maps that we have.”

But now Cannon said he has seen that Republicans are “fired up, in a way they certainly were not in November of last year, and that’s evident in the early voting, even in deep-red spots.” He said he has spoken to Democrats, on the other hand, who say: “I hate Trump and I hate gerrymandering, and I really am torn and I’m just not going to vote.”

Complicating matters in Virginia is that the referendum is asking voters to essentially overturn a constitutional amendment that was enacted only five years ago and was pushed by Democrats at the time.

While some Democrats nationwide have been fired up by countering Mr. Trump’s redistricting push in red states, Mark Rozell of George Mason’s Schar School of Policy and Government noted that it’s more of a “risky gamble” for Virginia Democrats because it “sets a precedent. And Virginia is more of a purple state.”

But Democrats have sought to cast the Virginia redistricting as a nationwide referendum, with ads featuring former President Barack Obama for the yes vote. Obama’s Attorney General Eric Holder, the chairman of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee who previously had advocated against partisan gerrymandering, told “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” on Sunday that the referendum is not a “fight only about Virginia.”

“We need to deal with the crisis that we have right now, come up with a way in which we deal with that crisis, and then get back to the redistricting commissions in California and in Virginia,” Holder said. “And one thing I think it’s really important to understand is that the people have the ability to make this decision in Virginia, as they did in California, as opposed to …being imposed upon them in Texas and in Missouri and in North Carolina, which proved to be wildly unpopular, but Republican politicians ignored the will of the people in those states and put in place these mechanisms.”

Although the GOP won the Virginia governor’s mansion as recently as 2021, the state’s Republicans have suffered from connections to Mr. Trump and the federal government, especially as the region continues to deal with the fallout from the Trump administration’s federal jobs cuts, soaring gas prices and high inflation.

Nearly $100 million has been poured into the race already, with 95% of that money donated coming from dark money groups. Virginians for Fair Elections, a group supporting the referendum, has donated $64 million, while an anti-redistricing group Virginians for Fair Maps has poured in nearly $20 million, according to data from the Virginia Public Access Project.

There are some signs that the redistricting scramble that started last summer in Texas is starting to cool. In December, despite Mr. Trump’s attempts to intervene, a map that would have given Indiana Republicans a 9-0 advantage failed in the GOP-controlled state Senate. And earlier this month, the Maryland legislative session ended without a vote on a map backed by Democratic Gov. Wes Moore to try to edge out the state’s lone Republican member of Congress.

But Kyle Kondik, the managing editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball at University of Virginia Center for Politics, said that “basically, as of right now, the overall House map hasn’t really changed all that much in favor of one side or the other” despite so many states redrawing their maps.

Florida Republicans could still take up redistricting in a special session. But if Republicans aren’t able to push through new maps in any other states and Virginia Democrats succeed, nationally, “Democrats can actually come out ahead on redistricting,” according to Kondik.

“It’s funny, the themes about saving democracy and quote-unquote fairness, like both sides could make that point and make it in a valid way,” Kondik said. “And so in some ways, it’s kind of a muddle. I mean, is it a quote-unquote fair map in Virginia? Of course it’s not. But in the broader context of this redistricting war that’s going on, then maybe the fairness argument makes more sense.”