Abortion pill ruling due today; charge against Baldwin will be dismissed; SpaceX rocket explodes after launch | Hot off the Wire podcast

On this version of Hot off the Wire:

» The Supreme Court is facing a self-imposed Friday night deadline to decide whether women’s access to a widely used abortion pill will stay unchanged until a legal challenge to its Food and Drug Administration approval is resolved.

» In six days, seven people were shot for making the common mistake of showing up at the wrong place.

» Attorneys general in 17 states want the federal government to recall millions of Kia and Hyundai cars because they are too easy to steal.

» A song featuring ex-President Donald Trump and a choir of prisoners charged with crimes related to the deadly Capitol insurrection briefly took the No. 1 spot on iTunes last month, edging out Taylor Swift.

» Conservative talk radio host Larry Elder, who sought to replace the California governor in a failed 2021 recall effort, announced Thursday he is running for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024.

» A state lawmaker in Tennessee has resigned suddenly for an ethics violation.

» A poll shows only about half of Democrats think President Joe Biden should run again in 2024, but a large majority say they’d be likely to support him if he became the nominee.

» Prosecutors in New Mexico will dismiss an involuntary manslaughter charge against actor Alec Baldwin in the fatal 2021 shooting of a cinematographer on the set of the Western film “Rust.”

» In the NBA, the 76ers take a commanding lead in their playoff series, the Warriors get a big win, and the Suns win behind a big night from Devin Booker. In the NHL, the Maple Leafs, Avalanche and Golden Knights even playoff series while the Rangers go up by two in their series. The Mets will be without one of their star pitchers for ten games after a suspension was handed down by MLB.

» Supreme Court Justice John Roberts is being asked to testify to Congress as scrutiny mounts around Justice Clarence Thomas. The hearing is likely to focus on business transactions and travel involving Justice Clarence Thomas that Thomas did not disclose.

» The Pentagon is moving additional troops and equipment to a Naval base in the tiny Gulf of Aden nation of Djibouti to prepare for the possible evacuation of U.S. Embassy personnel from Sudan.

» Transgender athletes whose biological sex assigned at birth was male would be barred from competing on girls or women’s sports teams at federally supported schools and colleges under legislation pushed through by House Republicans on Thursday.

» Chances are shrinking fast for a key gun-control proposal to make it out of the Tennessee Legislature.

» Sudan’s military has ruled out negotiations with a rival paramilitary force, saying it would only accept its surrender. The two sides continued to battle in central Khartoum and other parts of the country.

» Former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan has died at age 92. Current Mayor Karen Bass said in a statement late Wednesday that Riordan loved Los Angeles and devoted himself to bettering the city.

» SpaceX’s giant new rocket exploded minutes after blasting off on its first test flight and crashed into the Gulf of Mexico.

» Sales of previously occupied U.S. homes fell in March and prices edged lower for the second month in a row, a tepid start to the spring homebuying season as buyers contend with sharply higher mortgage rates and a near historic-low number of properties on the market.

» The longstanding racial gap in U.S. stroke death rates widened dramatically during the COVID-19 pandemic.

» For decades, two schools of thought have clashed on how to best teach children to read, with passionate backers on each side of the so-called reading wars. But momentum has shifted lately in favor of the “science of reading.”