By Tami Luhby, CNN

(CNN) — President Donald Trump said Monday that he intends to suspend the federal gas tax amid soaring prices at the pump as the US war with Iran drags on.

The spike is deepening consumers’ pessimism about the economy, adding to Republicans’ concerns about their fate in November’s midterm elections.

However, pausing the 18.4-cent-per-gallon levy on gas and the 24.4-cent-per-gallon tax on diesel won’t do much to relieve drivers’ pain, multiple experts told CNN. Suspending the tax could wind up pushing up prices more and would hurt the Highway Trust Fund, which depends on the revenue from the levy.

Also, Trump would need congressional approval to suspend the federal gas tax — which lawmakers have never done, despite calls now and in the past when fuel prices have risen sharply. In 2022, a Democratic-controlled Congress rebuffed former President Joe Biden’s request to suspend the levy. More recently, several lawmakers have introduced bills to pause the tax.

Gas prices have skyrocketed to a nationwide average of $4.52 per gallon on Monday, up from $2.98 per gallon before the conflict began on February 28. The main issue is that oil tankers still can’t pass safely through the Strait of Hormuz despite a ceasefire, which Trump said Monday was “on massive life support.”

There are several reasons why drivers wouldn’t see a lot of relief at the pump. Among them is that retailers and other players in the supply chain typically don’t pass along all of those savings to consumers, according to the Penn Wharton Budget Model, which previously examined the impact of states’ gas tax holidays in 2022.

If the federal levy is suspended, gas prices will fall an average of 13.2 cents a gallon, and the cost of diesel will decline by 14.6 cents a gallon, according to a Penn Wharton analysis published Monday. A household filling a 15-gallon tank once a week between June 1 and October 1 would save a total of about $35.

“The actual benefit to consumers is going to be pretty small,” said Kent Smetters, faculty director at Penn Wharton.

A gas tax holiday doesn’t address the supply problem at the heart of the price hike, said Steve Cicala, associate professor of economics at Tufts University. In fact, it could put upward pressure on prices, since the initial dip could heighten demand.

“This does nothing about the supply crunch,” he said. “It is instead encouraging drivers to drive during a supply crunch, which drives prices up further.”

Hurting highway maintenance

The federal taxes on gas and diesel have been major sources of funding for federal transportation through the Highway Trust Fund since 1956, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center. But a five-month suspension of the levy would reduce revenue by about $17 billion, or 46% of total gas tax revenue projected to flow to the fund this fiscal year.

The tax already doesn’t provide enough revenue for the fund, which has run deficits since fiscal year 2008 and required infusions of general revenue. The fund is set to run dry in fiscal year 2028.

Suspending the tax could force lawmakers to decide between filling an even larger gap with taxpayer funds or reducing spending on highways, bridges and mass transit. Allowing roads and bridges to deteriorate will also cost consumers, including in wear and tear expenses for their vehicles, said Xan Fishman, vice president of the energy program at the center.

One issue is that the current gas levy was set in 1993 and isn’t adjus

By John Fritze, CNN

(CNN) — The Supreme Court’s conservative majority on Monday allowed Alabama to revert to a congressional map with one majority-Black district in a sudden ruling that drew a dissent from the court’s three liberal justices.

State officials in Alabama had rushed up to the court late Friday asking it to halt a lower court ruling that has blocked it from using a map it enacted in 2023. It did so based on the court’s blockbuster decision in late April dealing with Louisiana’s congressional map that severely weakened the scope of the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965.

The Supreme Court’s order, which included no explanation, tosses out a lower court order that blocked the use of the 2023 map.

No vote count was released. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by the court’s other two liberals, said the decision was “inappropriate” and “will cause only confusion as Alabamians begin to vote in the elections scheduled for next week.”

This story is breaking and will be updated.

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By Tal Shalev, CNN

(CNN) — Hundreds of Hamas militants accused of committing war crimes during their October 2023 attack could face the death penalty after Israel late Monday approved the creation of a special military tribunal to prosecute their cases.

The legislation received broad backing from both Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s governing coalition and much of the opposition, passing with 93 votes in favor and zero against.

The Israeli parliament on Monday approved in its second and third readings a bill titled the “Prosecution law for the October 7 Massacre.” The legislation creates a dedicated tribunal, operating as a military court, to handle the prosecution of roughly 400 Hamas operatives from the elite Nukhba Force who have been held in Israel since the attack, an Israeli official told CNN. In the October 7 assault led by Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that controlled the Gaza Strip, attackers killed more than 1,200 people in Israel and took 251 hostage.

The law includes a legal framework that will allow the death penalty for those convicted of genocide. The official said it could take several months until the tribunal is established and proceedings begin.

Yulia Malinovsky, one of the bill’s sponsors and a lawmaker from the opposition Yisrael Beytenu party, compared the tribunal to a “modern Eichmann trial,” referring to the 1961 trial of top Nazi official Adolf Eichmann. A key architect of the Holocaust, Eichmann was convicted in a landmark trial in Israel and was executed in 1962, one of only two people to have been executed in Israel’s history.

The special tribunal will be based in Jerusalem. Its proceedings will be public and recorded via audio and video, and key hearings will be broadcast on a dedicated website. Judicial panels will be headed by sitting or retired district court judges. The bill also stipulates that funding for the defendants’ legal representation will be deducted from funds transferred to the Palestinian Authority, even though the West Bank-based authority was not involved in the October 7 attack.

Rights group objects

Adalah, an Israeli human rights organization, decried the tribunal as “fundamentally incompatible with the right to life, the presumption of innocence, judicial independence and the rule of law.”

“The legislation renders any death sentence imposed an arbitrary deprivation of life, absolutely prohibited under international law and potentially a war crime,” Adalah said in a statement before the bill’s final passage.

Justice Minister Yariv Levin said Sunday that the law would ensure “not only that justice is served, but also that the historical record of the horrific massacre — of the victims, the hostages and those responsible — will endure for generations.”

According to the bill’s explanatory notes, its purpose is “to regulate the prosecution of those responsible for acts of hostility, murder, sexual violence, abduction, and looting carried out by Hamas and its affiliates as part of the coordinated and deliberate terrorist attack against Israeli civilians beginning on October 7, 2023.” The text defines those acts as crimes against the Jewish people, crimes against humanity and war crimes. The legislation also covers offenses committed af

Por Federico Leiva, CNN en Español

La selección argentina de fútbol empezó la cuenta regresiva para el Mundial 2026 y, después de mucha especulación, el entrenador Lionel Scaloni entregó una prelista de 55 futbolistas que podrían estar en la máxima cita de la FIFA.

La lista la integran:

Arqueros: Emiliano Martínez (Aston Villa), Gerónimo Rulli (Olympique Marsella), Juan Musso (Atlético de Madrid), Walter Benítez (Crystal Palace), Facundo Cambeses (Racing Club), Santiago Beltrán (River Plate)

Defensores: Agustín Giay (Palmeiras), Gonzalo Montiel (River Plate), Nahuel Molina (Atlético de Madrid), Nicolás Capaldo (Hamburgo SV), Kevin Mac Allister (Union Saint Gilloise), Lucas Martínez Quarta (River Plate), Marcos Senesi (Bournemounth), Lisandro Martínez (Manchester United), Nicolás Otamendi (SL Benfica), Germán Pezzella (River Plate), Leonardo Balerdi (Olympique Marsella), Cristian Romero (Tottenham), Lautaro Di Lollo (Boca Juniors), Zaid Romero (Getafe CF), Facundo Medina (Olympique Marsella), Marcos Acuña (River Plate), Nicolás Tagliafico (Olympique Lyon), Gabriel Rojas (Racing Club).

Mediocampistas: Máximo Perrone (Como 1907), Leandro Paredes (Boca Juniors), Guido Rodríguez (Valencia CF), Aníbal Moreno (River Plate), Milton Delgado (Boca Juniors), Alan Varela (FC Porto), Ezequiel Fernández (Bayer Leverkusen), Rodrigo De Paul (Inter Miami), Exequiel Palacios (Bayer Leverkusen), Enzo Fernández (Chelsea), Alexis Mac Allister (Liverpool), Giovani Lo Celso (Real Betis), Nicolás Domínguez (Nottingham Forest), Emiliano Buendia (Aston Villa), Valentín Barco (Racing Club de Estrasburgo), Lionel Messi (Inter Miami), Nicolás Paz (Como 1907), Franco Mastantuono (Real Madrid), Thiago Almada (Atlético de Madrid), Tomás Aranda (Boca Juniors), Nicolás González (Atlético de Madrid), Alejandro Garnacho (Chelsea), Giuliano Simeone (Atlético de Madrid), Matías Soulé (AS Roma), Claudio Echeverri (Girona Fútbol Club).

Delanteros: Gianluca Prestianni (SL Benfica), Santiago Castro (Bologna FC), Lautaro Martínez (Inter de Milán), José Manuel López (Palmeiras), Julián Álvarez (Atlético de Madrid) y Mateo Pellegrino (Parma).

El DT tendrá ahora unas semanas más hasta el 2 de junio, fecha en que se hará oficial el listado de 26 futbolistas convocados, para analizar a quiénes deja afuera, pero, sobre todo, para seguir la evolución de algunos jugadores lesionados, como Nahuel Molina, Cristian Romero y Nicolás González.

La gran convocatoria vuelve a estar liderada, por supuesto, por Lionel Messi, el capitán de la selección campeona en Qatar 2022. Hay otros 16 futbolistas que siguen en carrera para defender el título que se ganaron en Lusail, pero otros seis brillan por su ausencia, aunque hay particularidades a tomar en cuenta.

Franco Armani

El arquero de River Plate, que atajó en Rusia 2018 y que fue a Qatar como suplente de Emiliano Martínez, anunció su retiro del seleccionado tras la obtención de la Copa América 2024. Su decisión fue también de la mano de la idea del DT de apostar al talento joven, encarnado en Gerónimo Rulli (Olympique Marsella), Juan Musso (Atlético de Madrid) y Walter Benítez (Crystal Palace), a quienes ahora se suman Facundo Cambeses (Racing Club) y Santiago Beltrán (River Plate).

Juan Foyth

El caso doloroso entre los ausentes. El defensor polifuncional del Villarreal sufrió la rotura del tendón de Aquiles en enero y recién se espera que vuelva para finales de agosto o principios de septiembre. Nunca fue titular indiscutido, pero era una opción recurrente como suplente, especialmente por su capacidad para jugar tanto de marcador central como de lateral derecho.<

Abigahil Padilla

SAN LUIS, Ariz. (KYMA) – La maestra Arilene Gaxiola, de San Luis Middle School, fue reconocida como la Maestra Nacional del Año 2026 por la organización Teachers of Tomorrow, luego de haber obtenido previamente el título de Maestra del Año 2026 en Arizona.

El reconocimiento fue entregado durante una asamblea escolar en la que participó Rebecca Hall, representante de Teachers of Tomorrow, quien encabezó la ceremonia y anunció oficialmente el galardón nacional.

El momento representó un importante logro para Gaxiola, así como para San Luis Middle School y el Gadsden Elementary School District No. 32.

Gaxiola fue seleccionada entre nueve nominados de diferentes niveles educativos provenientes de distintas partes del país.

La organización destacó su dedicación hacia los estudiantes y su compromiso por crear experiencias de aprendizaje significativas dentro del aula.

Su trabajo se caracteriza por fomentar un entorno donde los estudiantes se sienten seguros, respetados y apoyados, además de impulsar la confianza de los alumnos y conectar el aprendizaje con experiencias de la vida real.

Como ganadora nacional, la docente recibirá un premio de 5 mil dólares y una suscripción de un año a SimpleK12, plataforma enfocada en desarrollo profesional para educadores.

Autoridades del distrito señalaron que este reconocimiento refleja el trabajo que se realiza en las escuelas de GESD y confirma que los esfuerzos educativos del distrito están siendo valorados más allá del ámbito local.

Asimismo, reiteraron su compromiso de continuar impulsando el desarrollo profesional docente y creando oportunidades que fortalezcan la educación y el éxito estudiantil.

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