By Jade Walker

Remember when Southwest Airlines’ policy was “bags fly free?” Those days are now over. On flights booked today and going forward, the carrier will charge travelers $35 for checking one bag, $45 for a second and $150 for a third checked bag. Overweight luggage will require paying up to $200 in fees. 

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

Palestinians seeking aid rush over a dirt berm that surrounds a distribution site in Rafah. Reuters

Gaza

It’s been 600 days since Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel, killing more than 1,200 people and kidnapping 250 others. Since then, the militant group has released some of the hostages, but continued to fire rockets at Israel. Israel has responded by negotiating for the release of hostages, bombing much of Gaza and killing more than 53,000 people. In recent months, Israel has also halted access to humanitarian aid, which has pushed the enclave’s population of more than 2 million Palestinians towards famine. Although access to aid resumed this week, chaos broke out at a distribution site in southern Gaza on Tuesday as thousands of desperate Palestinians arrived to receive food from a controversial new US and Israel-backed aid distribution program. Jake Wood, the head of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, resigned on Sunday, saying, “it is not possible to implement this plan while also strictly adhering to the humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence, which I will not abandon.”

Immigration

President Donald Trump asked the Supreme Court on Tuesday to make it easier for his administration to deport people to countries where they don’t hold citizenship. The policy, which was adopted soon after Trump returned to office, allowed the Department of Homeland Security to send immigrants to nations other than their home country without first notifying them or giving them a chance to claim a risk of persecution, torture or death in that third-party country. When a group of immigrants facing deportation to war-torn South Sudan sued, a federal judge blocked the US from deporting them unless they received written notice and had the chance to demonstrate a credible fear of persecution or torture there. The judge later said the administration violated his court order when it attempted to send several detainees of various nationalities to South Sudan.

DOGE

A federal judge ruled in the Trump administration’s favor on Tuesday, saying the Department of Government Efficiency can access sensitive Treasury Department systems that contain private information about millions of Americans. A coalition of 19 states filed the lawsuit earlier this year to block DOGE from accessing the payment systems. In her latest ruling, US District Judge Jeannette Vargas said she would allow the Elon Musk-backed team at Treasury to access systems that control trillions of dollars of payments because the administration had created a process to train the DOGE staffers and prevent improper disclosures of private data. Earlier this year, DOGE staffers attempted to use the Treasury payment systems to shut down payments for programs they didn’t believe should be funded.

Harvard

In its latest salvo against Harvard University, the White House has directed federal agencies to cancel all remaining contracts with the Ivy League school, two senior Trump administration officials said. Such a move would cost the university about $100 million. That's on top of the $2.65 billion already cut from Harvard after the administration demanded the school change its hiring and admission requirements, eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion programs and alter rules for on-campus protests. The school resisted those orders and filed a lawsuit claiming the government’s actions violate the First Amendment. Last week, the administration tried to halt Harvard’s ability to enroll foreign students, but a federal judge put that on hold. And on Tuesday, the State Department instructed US embassies and consulates around the world to pause new student visa appointments. 

SpaceX

While conducting the ninth uncrewed test flight of its Starship megarocket, SpaceX lost control of the spacecraft, which likely disintegrated over the Indian Ocean. The company was attempting to reuse a Super Heavy rocket booster that was previously flown and recaptured after a launch in January. The company wants to recover, refurbish and reuse as much of a rocket as possible to save money on future missions. Although Starship made it farther into its flight path during Flight 9 than in previous tests, it was not able to accomplish key objectives, such as deploying the test satellites it was carrying or reigniting engines upon reentry. The last two test missions — Flight 7 in January and Flight 8 in March — ended in explosive failures.

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Mary Lou Retton arrested
Police in her West Virginia hometown took the 57-year-old gymnastics icon into custody earlier this month on suspicion of driving under the influence. 

Harry Potter TV show casts its stars
HBO has finally found a trio of young actors to play Harry Potter, Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley in its upcoming series about the magical world of witchcraft and wizardry. (HBO, like CNN, is owned by Warner Bros. Discovery.)

CosMc’s to close
McDonald’s is planning to shutter all five of its beverage-focused spinoff locations in June. However, some of the customizable drinks will stick around.

There’s a fungus among us
As the climate crisis intensifies, researchers say Aspergillus, a common group of infection-causing fungi, will spread to new regions of the planet.

Stop stealing the stones, folks
A city in Belgium is asking tourists not to take a piece of its UNESCO-recognized medieval streets home with them. 

Rock guitarist/producer Rick Derringer dies
During his six-decade music career, Derringer released the hit singles “Hang On Sloopy” with his band The McCoys, and “Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo” from his solo album “All American Boy.” He also worked with numerous artists — including Ringo Starr, Steely Dan, B.B. King and Barbra Streisand — and produced “Weird Al” Yankovic’s first six albums.

100

That’s how many hours climate and weather scientists plan to livestream presentations to protest the Trump administration’s cuts to NOAA, NASA and the Department of Energy, as well as research funding to academia. The livestream marathon, which is billed as nonpartisan, begins today at 1 p.m. ET. 

“I was disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly, which increases the budget deficit, not just decreases it, and undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing. I think a bill can be big or it can be beautiful, but I don’t know if it can be both.”

— Elon Musk on President Trump’s sweeping tax and spending cuts package. 

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Rowing for William
Joe Jackson’s 6-year-old son William suffers from Duchenne muscular dystrophy. There is a potential treatment available, but it costs $2.2 million. So, Jackson set out to raise those funds by rowing nonstop for 31 hours.

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