Boston Bomber: The case of Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has gone to the jury after a day of impassioned closing arguments by prosecutors and his lawyer.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Aloke Chakravarty told the jurors yesterday, “This was a cold, calculated terrorist act. This was intentional. It was bloodthirsty.”

   Tsarnaev has admitted his part in the bombing but his lawyers are trying to save him from the death sentence by posing him as the tool of his older brother Tamerlan. His lawyer pointed out that it was mostly Tamerlan’s fingers on the bomb, and it was Tamerlan’s computer used for directions on bomb making while Dzhokhar’s was used mostly for social media.

The Gathering Crowd: Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul declared himself a candidate for president today in a statement posted on his website. “I am running for president to return our country to the principles of liberty and limited government,” he wrote.

Paul is a Libertarian conservative who believes in shrinking government, loosening drug-sentencing laws and curtailing domestic surveillance. He and Ted Cruz of Texas are the only Republicans to declare so far, but more are on the way.

The Ballot Box: Chicago voters go to the polls today to vote in a runoff election between Mayor Rahm Emanuel and his surprise challenger, Jesus “Chuy” Garcia, a Cook County commissioner.

And in Ferguson, Mo., the face of city government could have a change of color as voters elect three new members of city council. Amid racial turbulence, three white members of the council in the majority nonwhite city declined to run for re-election.

Permawar: Iraqi forces who have re-taken Tikrit have found mass graves that may contain as many as 1,700 bodies of people massacred by occupying Islamic State forces. The remains in 10 gravesites are believed to be of captured Iraqi soldiers who were machine gunned and buried.

The Big Win: Duke came from nine points behind Wisconsin to win the NCAA basketball title 68-63. Freshman Grayson Allen came off the bench to score 16 points and spur Duke back to life when it looked like they were going to lose. It’s the fifth NCAA championship for $ 9 million coach Mike Krzyzewski.

Sixty of Duke’s points were scored by freshman, calling attention to the system of “one and done” in which major college teams are powered by freshman who play just one season before going professional.

The Big Get: ABC’s Diane Sawyer nailed former Olympian Bruce Jenner for a two-hour interview to be featured on 20/20 April 24th. The interview with Jenner took place in February. The big question: Is Bruce transitioning to female?

Chevy to the Levee: The 16 pages of handwritten original lyrics to Don McLean’s song “American Pie” have sold at auction in New York for $1.2 million. The meaning of the cryptic lyrics have been the object of debate since the song was a hit in 1971. Who was “Miss American Pie” and who was the “Jester” who sang for the “King and Queen?”

Asked to translate, the 69-year-old singer songwriter is fond of saying, “It means I never have to work again.”

Anchorman Has Brain!: A dissection of the dysfunctional family known as NBC News published in Vanity Fair says Brian Williams’ colleagues just couldn’t get the anchorman to come to grips with having lied about his experience in the Iraq war. Williams was unable to utter the “L” word. One anonymous NBC employee is quoted as saying, “He couldn’t explain what had happened. [He said,] ‘Did something happen to [my] head? Maybe I had a brain tumor, or something in my head?’ He just didn’t know.”

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