Nerd Prom: Larry Wilmore died and President Obama killed at the White House Correspondent’s dinner last night. It was Wilmore’s first and the president’s last appearance at the event. Maybe it was also Wilmore’s last appearance as well at the annual Washington even that’s become known as the “Nerd Prom.”

The president skewered journalists, politicians of both parties, and himself. He said to the gatherings of reporters, movie stars, and politicos, “You all look great. The end of the Republic has never looked better.”

Some other zingers:

-“If this material works well I’m going to use it at Goldman Sachs next year. Earn me some serious Tubmans.”

-“Next year someone else will be standing here in this spot and it’s anyone’s guess who she will be.”

-“For several months now congressional Republicans have been saying there are things I cannot do in my final year. Unfortunately this dinner was not one of them.

-“In my final year my approval ratings keep going up. The last time I was this high, I was trying to decide on my major.”

Larry Wilmore, the professional comedian, at times left the room silent, and even earned some boos. Washington journalists have a hard time laughing at themselves, but it helps to tell them a joke that’s funny.

Heavy Weather: A woman and four of her grandchildren were killed in Palestine, Tex., southeast of Dallas, when they escaped from a flooded home and were swept away by rushing water. One other person is missing in floodwaters that rose after 7 ½ inches of rain fell in one hour.

Texas has been battered by weather in recent weeks with floods, tornadoes, and golf ball hail that broke windshields on cars and windows in homes.

Ivory Tower: Kenyan authorities yesterday burned 12 towers made of stacked elephant ivory and rhinoceros horn confiscated from poachers and smugglers. A crowd gathered to watch as an estimated $172 million worth of ivory was incinerated.

It has become the practice to burn illegal ivory to discourage the trade. The ivory alone came from 8,000 slaughtered elephants. “The rising value of elephant ivory trade, illegally on the international market, has resulted in a massacre in the rainforest of Africa,” Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta told onlookers. “In 10 years in central Africa we have lost as many as 70% of the elephants.”

Bathroom Break: Presidential candidate Ted Cruz is running a side campaign for national bathroom monitor. Seizing on the issue of transgender people and the use of public bathrooms, Cruz told an Indiana gathering this past week that, “Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton both agree that grown men should be allowed to use the little girls’ restroom.” Cruz is whipping up fear that transgender people might be interested in molesting other patrons of the bathroom.

Several states have passed what have been called “bathroom laws,” restricting people to using the bathroom assigned to their birth gender. In the unlikely event that he ever gets to the White House, Cruz will learn that there’s nothing in his authority to control who uses which bathroom, except the one right off the Oval Office.

The Obit Page: The Rev. Daniel Berrigan, a Jesuit priest who became a leader of the anti-war movement in the Vietnam era and went to jail for it, died at age 94 in New York City.

Together with his brother Philip, a Josephite Priest, the Berrigans were the vanguard of the Catholic “new left” that believed the Vietnam war was an outgrowth of an unjust world that included racism, poverty, and greed.  In 1968, the Berrigans and seven others known as the “Catonsville Nine” seized draft board records in Catonsville, Md. and burned them with homemade napalm. The brothers were sentenced to three years in federal prison.

Philip Berrigan died at age 79 in 2002. Although he despaired that he had made any difference, Daniel spent the rest of his life in social protest. “The day after I’m embalmed,” he once said, “that’s when I’ll give it up.”

The Woman Card: Accused by Donald Trump of playing the “woman card,” Hillary Clinton and her campaign have issued on official limited edition “woman card” to raise money. It looks like a pink credit card printed with “The Official Hillary for America Woman Card.” It’s as close to funny as she’s ever been.

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