Army helicopters crash in Alaska; NFL Draft begins; US economy slows; Jerry Springer dies at 79 | Hot off the Wire podcast

On this version of Hot off the Wire:

» The U.S. Army says three soldiers have been killed and another has been injured after two helicopters collided and crashed in Alaska while returning from a training flight.

» Former Vice President Mike Pence has testified before a federal grand jury investigating efforts by then-President Donald Trump and his Republican allies to overturn the 2020 election.

» Russia has fired more than 20 cruise missiles and two drones at Ukraine in attacks that killed at least 17 people.

» James Corden bid farewell Thursday to his late-night CBS talk show “The Late Late Show with James Corden” after eight seasons.

» The chairman of the BBC has resigned after a report found he failed to disclose a potential conflict of interest over his role in arranging a loan more than two years ago for Boris Johnson.

» Overall, 1.86 million people were collecting unemployment benefits the week that ended April 15, 3,000 fewer than the previous week.

» Three quarterbacks went in the top four picks of the NFL Draft, the Celtics closed out the Hawks, and there were three NHL playoff games on the ice.

» The U.S. economy slowed sharply from January through March, decelerating to just a 1.1% annual pace as higher interest rates hammered the housing market and businesses reduced their inventories.

» Jerry Springer, the former Cincinnati mayor and news anchor whose namesake TV show unleashed strippers, homewreckers and skinheads to brawl and spew obscenities on weekday afternoons, has died. He was 79.

» Donald Trump’s lawyer is going on the attack against writer E. Jean Carroll’s claims that she was raped by Trump in the 1990s.

» Republican legislators in Kansas have enacted possibly the most sweeping transgender bathroom law in the U.S.

» President Joe Biden has greeted hundreds of children at the White House for Take Our Kids to Work Day. The president fielded a range of questions during his appearance on the South Lawn.

» Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell was tricked into an extended phone call in January with Russian pranksters posing as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, during which Powell appeared to discuss the impact of interest rate hikes.

» Brittney Griner got emotional quickly while speaking to reporters for the first time since a nearly 10-month detainment in Russia on drug-related charges.

» Carolyn Bryant Donham, the white woman who accused Black teenager Emmett Till of whistling at her — causing his 1955 lynching in Mississippi, which galvanized a generation of activists to rise up in the Civil Rights Movement — has died at 88.

» Food prices are falling on world markets, but those savings are not being passed to consumers.