Political Slugfest: An anti-Trump demonstration turned violent last night in the streets of Costa Mesa, Calif. after the candidate made an appearance. Protesters waving Mexican flags clashed with Trump supporters and smashed a police car.

Gender Politics: With growing confidence that he’s going to be the Republican nominee, Donald Trump has turned his fire on Hillary Clinton, saying she would not have gotten this far in the presidential campaign if she weren’t a woman. Trump accused her of “playing the women’s card” and said, “If Hillary Clinton were a man, I don’t think she’d get 5 percent of the vote.”

Despite his low popularity with women, Trump is attacking Clinton in one of her centers of strength: women voters. He’s trying to sow doubt about her qualifications.

Indiana, Gary: Tuesday’s primary in Indiana could come close to putting it away for Trump if he wins all or most of the state’s 57 Republican delegates. Political reporters have talked to Pennsylvania’s 54 unbound delegates and found that at least 35 of them support Trump. That puts him just about 200 delegates shy of the nomination with nine primaries to go.

Econ 101: The economy grew at an agonizingly slow pace in the first quarter. Growth was just 0.5 percent, according to the Commerce Department. This seems to be part of a pattern in recent years in which the economy has a weak first quarter followed by faster growth in later months. At least that’s what analysts hope will continue this year.

The economy has a reputation for being worse than it actually is. Unemployment is at 5 percent and the deficit has dropped 75 percent during the Obama years. In an interview for the New York Times Magazine, Obama admits that annual household income is $4,000 less than it was during the Clinton years, hundreds of thousands of people have stopped looking for work, and income inequality has increased.

Still, private sector employment has increased for 73 months, adding $14.4 million jobs. So Obama was very critical of Republican promises for spurring the economy. “Slashing taxes particularly for those at the very top, dismantling regulatory regimes that protect our air and our environment and then projecting that this is going to lead to 5 percent or 7 percent growth, and claiming that they’ll do all this while balancing the budget,” he said. “Nobody would, even with the most rudimentary knowledge of economics, think that any of those things are plausible.”

Permawar: Government airstrikes destroyed a hospital yesterday in a rebel-held area of Aleppo, Syria, as a partial truce is falling apart. At least 50 people died in the hospital, including three children and six staff members and doctors.

Overall, about 60 people have died in the last 36 hours. An escalation in fighting could derail peace talks and put a stopper in humanitarian aid to embattled areas of Syria.

Cartoon Network: In a deal worth $3.8 billion, NBCUniversal has an agreement to buy DreamWorks Animation, the cartoon company run by Hollywood power player Jeffrey Katzenberg. They made the hits Despicable Me, Shrek, Madagascar, Kung Fu Panda, and How to Train Your Dragon.

DreamWorks was founded in 1994 by Katzenberg, Stephen Spielberg, and David Geffen to create an independent studio, which it was for a while. But it’s been sold, passed around and broken up. Katzenberg is being given a new title, but basically the deal pushes him to the sidelines.

Nation: Baltimore police yesterday shot and wounded a man wearing a panda bear outfit who had threatened to blow up the local Fox television station. What had looked like a bomb turned out to be candy bars wrapped in foil connected by wires.

>The older brother of one of the San Bernardino terrorists has been arrested and charged with fraud, misuse of visas, perjury, and helping to create a bogus marriage. Two women also were arrested.

Lucifer Insulted: Demonstrating that congressional collegiality goes only so far, former Speaker of the House John Boehner told students at Stanford University that presidential candidate Ted Cruz is “Lucifer in the flesh.” Boehner said of his fellow Republican, “I have Democrat friends and Republican friends. I get along with almost everyone, but I have never worked with a more miserable son of a bitch in my life.”

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