On this version of Hot off the Wire:
» House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries spoke out against the debt ceiling package passed by Republicans as they try to push President Biden into negotiations on federal spending.
» Police say a Tennessee teacher was grazed when a gun discharged in a high school classroom Friday, but no other injuries were reported.
» Pope Francis has blasted the “adolescent belligerence” that brought war back to Europe and says the continent must recover its founding spirit of peaceful unity to confront Russia’s war in Ukraine.
» The Federal Reserve blamed last month’s collapse of Silicon Valley Bank on poor management, watered-down regulations and lax oversight by its own staffers, and said the industry needs stricter policing on multiple fronts to prevent future bank failures.
» Key measures of prices and wages remained high in March, keeping the Federal Reserve on track to raise interest rates next week for the 10th time since March of last year in its drive to defeat high inflation.
» In this week's "talker" from The Associated Press, no one is driving this taxi. What possibly could go wrong?
» He is a senior at 16. His grade point average is 4.98. Even before graduating from high school, he has earned 27 college credits. But perhaps the most impressive numbers for Dennis Maliq Barnes of New Orleans are the roughly 130 college scholarship offers he has received totaling more than $9 million so far.
» Armed private guards aboard a famous yacht once owned by the late Welsh actor Richard Burton have fired on approaching ships in the Gulf of Aden, off the coast of Yemen, sparking an intense gunfight.
» Barbie has introduced its first doll representing a person with Down syndrome. Mattel worked with the National Down Syndrome Society to create the Barbie, which is part of the toy company's 2023 Fashionistas line aimed at increasing diversity and inclusion.
—The Associated Press
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