Open for Business: Congressional leaders yesterday reached a bi-partisan agreement that will avert the threat of a government shutdown until Sept. 30th. The bill includes no money for the president’s border wall and mostly preserves the Environmental Protection Agency.

To Your Health: President Trump is renewing big promises on healthcare. He said on CBS’ “Face the Nation” that, “We’re going to drive down premiums. We’re going to drive down deductibles because right now, deductibles are so high, you never, unless you’re going to die a long, hard death, you never can get to use your healthcare.”

Trump gave some confusing answers. He said at one point he will absolutely keep the Obamacare protection for people with pre-existing conditions, but also said there might be a plan to shuttle them into high risk pools. The result might be lower premiums for lots of people, and higher premiums for people with problems.

In a tweet-fest yesterday Trump said, “You can’t compare anything to ObamaCare because ObamaCare is dead. Dems want billions to go to Insurance Companies to bail out donors…. New healthcare plan is on its way. Will have much lower premiums & deductibles while at the same time taking care of pre-existing conditions!”

Permawar: Pentagon investigations reveal that US-led coalition airstrikes on the  Islamic State killed 45 civilians in Iraq and Syria. The report does not include a March 17 strike in Mosul, Iraq, which as many as 100 civilians died.

13 Reasons: School administrators around the country are sending warning letters to parents about the Netflix series “13 Reasons Why” in which a 17-year-old girl commits suicide. After the girl dies, a classmate named Clay receives a series of videotapes in which the girl explains why she killed herself. She says Clay is one of the reasons. It turns out that virtually everyone in the girl’s life is one of the reasons for her suicide.

Psychologist John Ackerman writes that “It promotes the idea that something permanent and shocking is the only way to make others understand the depth of one’s pain and what others have done to cause it.”

The series adapted from a young adult novel includes bullying, abuse, and scenes of kids harming themselves, including a girl who cuts her wrists in a bathtub. A letter from the superintendent of schools in Palm Beach County, Fla., says, “School District personnel have observed an increase in youth at-risk behavior at the elementary and middle school levels to include self-mutilation, threats of suicide,” and other incidents.”

Ackerman says that while the series provokes a conversation about a critical subject, it may also feed the phenomenon. “In the last episode of the season, 13RW violates a central principle in media’s responsibility to the public regarding the prevention of suicide contagion by showing Hannah ending her life in shockingly graphic detail.”

The Obit Page: Richard “Racehorse” Haynes, a flamboyant and winning Houston defense lawyer who earned national prominence in a lurid Texas murder trial, has died at age 90.

As a young lawyer over a 12-year period, he defended 163 motorists accused of driving drunk and won every case. Of 40 defendants accused of murder, none was sentenced to death. He was fond of what he called “Smith & Wesson divorces” in which wives killed their husbands. He established the “battered wife syndrome” as a legitimate defense.

Haynes became famous outside of Texas defending T. Cullen Davis, a Ft. Worth businessman accused of killing his ex-wife’s boyfriend and her 12-year-old daughter by a previous marriage. Haynes won an acquittal, even though three witnesses, including Davis’s ex-wife, identified him as the shooter.

The following year Haynes won Davis an acquittal on charges of hiring a hit man to kill the judge in his first trial.

Collateral Damage: When the White House Correspondents Association hires a comedian to entertain them, they are never immune to the pain. Hasan Minhaj took plenty of shots at Donald Trump, but the lightweight USA Today suffered this shot: “It is amazing to be among the greatest journalists in the world, and yet, when we all checked into the Hilton on Friday, we all got a USA Today. Every time a USA Today slides underneath my door, it’s like they’re saying, ‘Hey, you’re not that smart, right?’ USA Today is what happens when the coupon section takes over the newspaper. Is this an article about global warming or 50 cents off Tide?”

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