Econ 101:  The Consumer Price Index  rose by 8.3 percent in April, according to the government, a rapid rise but slightly less than the 8.5 percent in March.

  Core inflation, which does not include the cost of groceries and gas, ticked up 0.6 percent last month.

  “While it is heartening to see that annual inflation moderated in April, the fact remains that inflation is unacceptably high,” President Biden said in a statement of the obvious. “Inflation is a challenge for families across the country and bringing it down is my top economic priority.”

  One of the oddities of the current economy in which customers have encountered bare spots on grocery shelves is a sudden shortage of baby formula. A data analysis company that surveyed 11,000 retailers found a 43 percent out-of-stock rate during the first week of this month.

  Among other supply shortages, the baby formula outage has been aggravated by the company Abbott recalling three brands of formula. They say it will be back in a few weeks.

The War Room: Ukrainian forces continue pushing back Russians from the northeastern city of Kharkiv. The Ukrainian military claims to have taken back clusters of villages north of the city, driving the Russians to within a dozen miles of the border. 

  Prompted by the invasion, leaders in Finland indicated that they are ready to join the NATO alliance. Finland fought off a Russian invasion during World War II.

  With Vladimir Putin having failed to take Ukraine in a lightning strike, observers say he may be settling in for a long conflict that will test the unity of western countries backing Ukraine. He’s caused a spike in oil prices and “Putin’s war has cut off critical sources of food,” President Biden told farmers in Illinois. 

  But under punishing economic sanctions and with thousands of soldiers coming home in body bags, Putin has to keep selling his war at home. He claims he’s ridding Ukraine of “torturers, death squads and Nazis.” Russians won’t care if they are suffering at home.

War Crime: Russian forces have killed thousands of civilians while also raping and murdering their way through occupied territories. 

   For the first time, Ukraine’s prosecutor general has opened a war crimes trial for a Russian soldier accused of killing a civilian. Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova wrote on Facebook that 21-year-old Vadim Shishimarin, a member of the 4th Guards Tank Division, was retreating in a civilian car with four other soldiers east of Kyiv when they spotted a man talking on his cellphone.  Shishimarin is accused of killing the man to prevent him from reporting their location. 

No On Roe: Senate Democrats yesterday attempted to pass a bill that would make abortion legal in the entire country regardless of what the Supreme Court rules. It failed after a vote of 49-51, far less than the  60 votes required to override a Republican filibuster. West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin voted with the Republicans.

  Republican Ben Sasse from Nebraska used the pre-vote debate to deliver a speech accusing Democrats of promoting “brutal indifference hiding behind euphemisms” by promoting abortion rights instead of policies that would help mothers, babies, and children. Of course, you don’t hear that from the anti-abortion crowd either. 

 Vermont Democrat Patrick Leahy asked,   “What resources are they prepared to provide to support these women and the children they’ll bear? The answer, we know — and I fear — is none.”

Overdose: Nearly 108,000 people died of drug overdoses in the US last year, about two-thirds of them using fentanyl or another synthetic opioid. “This is a devastating milestone in the history of the overdose epidemic in America,” said Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse. 

Attempted Theft: Conservative lawyer John Eastman pitched a plan to overturn the 2020 election by culling absentee ballots cast predominantly by Democrats

in Pennsylvania, The NY Times reports according to emails obtained by Eastman’s employer at the time, the University of Colorado at Boulder. Eastman used his university email account to lay out the plan.

  Eastman suggested in email sent to a Pennsylvania state representative that a mathematical equation could be applied to the vote tallies to reject mail-in ballots at “a prorated amount.”

  Eastman was pushing to have the electors for Biden replaced with electors for Trump.

  He wrote, “Having done that math, you’d be left with a significant Trump lead that would bolster the argument for the legislature adopting a slate of Trump electors — perfectly within your authority to do anyway, but now bolstered by the untainted popular vote.” He said, “That would help provide some cover.”

Trump World: A New York judge on Wednesday offered to lift the civil contempt finding against former President Donald Trump if he meets specific conditions, but ordered him to pay the $110,000 in fines he has accrued so far.

  Trump has been refusing to cooperate with an investigation of how he values his real estate for purposes of taxes, loans, and insurance. Judge Arthur Engoron said Trump must provide a description of the Trump Organization’s document retention and destruction policy and give up for review boxes of records kept in a storage facility. 

  Judge Engoron said Trump can pay the fine into an escrow account pending his appeal of the contempt order, but he told Trump’s lawyer, “I want the fine paid. That fine is now $110,000.”

The Spin Rack: Survivors and families of the 98 dead in the collapse of the Champlain Towers South condominium in Surfside, Florida last year reached a $997 million settlement. The plaintiffs had claimed shoddy construction of their building but also that construction work at a neighboring building damaged their condo building. —  One of three soldiers scouting a wilderness area on an Alaska’s Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson was killed when the group stumbled across a bear den and was attacked. Deaths by bear attack are relatively rare. 

Television Review: We tried watching the HBO series The Flight Attendant. We honestly tried.

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