Columbia University is canceling its university-wide commencement ceremony following weeks of pro-Palestinian protests. Officials at the Ivy League school in New York City said in a statement Monday that it was going to “forego the university-wide ceremony that is scheduled for May 15” and instead focus on smaller school-level graduation ceremonies. Emory University says it's moving its commencement from its Atlanta campus to a suburban arena. Campus protests have sprung up across the U.S. stemming from the conflict that started when Hamas militants attacked southern Israel in October. Protesters are calling on their schools to divest from companies that do business with Israel or otherwise contribute to the war effort.

The judge presiding over Donald Trump’s hush money trial fined him $1,000 on Monday and warned of jail time for future gag order violations while jurors heard testimony for the first time about the financial reimbursements at the center of the case. The testimony from Jeffrey McConney, the former Trump Organization controller, provided a mechanical but also vital recitation of how the company came to reimburse payments meant to suppress embarrassing stories from surfacing during the 2016 presidential campaign and then record them in internal ledgers as legal expenses in a manner that Manhattan prosecutors said broke the law.

The Hamas militant group says it has accepted an Egyptian-Qatari cease-fire proposal to halt the seven-month war with Israel. Hours later, Israeli leaders approved a military operation into the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah, and Israeli forces were striking targets in the area, officials said. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said that the proposal approved by Hamas was “far from Israel’s essential demands,” but that it would nonetheless send negotiators to continue talks on a cease-fire agreement. It remained uncertain whether a deal would be sealed to bring a halt to the war and avert an all-out Israeli attack on Rafah, where Israel ordered some 100,000 Palestinians to begin evacuating.

Senate Republicans are returning to a strategy they hope could neutralize their Democratic rivals' financial edge: Find rich people to run. But wealthy candidates running in Montana, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin present a fresh set of challenges. One is hoping to recoup his own money before collecting resources for the fall race with well-funded Democrats. Others face questions about their past or where they live and spend most of their time. In each case, the relative unknown GOP contender is in a state critical to the party's chances to reclaim a Senate majority and is challenging a well-established, robust fundraiser seeking a third or fourth term in the closely divided Senate.

Nippon Steel says it has postponed the expected closing of its $14.1 billion takeover of U.S. Steel by three months after the U.S. Department of Justice requested more documentation related to the deal. In a release, Tokyo-based Nippon Steel said it was cooperating with the request and the deal, already approved by U.S. Steel's shareholders, is still expected to go through. President Joe Biden’s administration has balked at the deal on economic and national security grounds. So has former President Donald Trump, the likely Republican presidential candidate in the November election. Nippon Steel denied reports that the delay was related to the presidential election.

Kent State University is marking another solemn anniversary of the National Guard shootings that killed four unarmed students and wounded nine others on May 4, 1970. Dean Kahler was at that protest against the Vietnam War, and was left paralyzed by a soldier’s bullet. Now the shootings have taken on fresh relevance as thousands of students are arrested in campus protests against the Israel-Hamas war. Some are calling again for National Guard intervention. Kahler says the responses have been heavy-handed. He says he questions whether college administrators learned any lessons from the ’70s.