Credit Crunch: The US government could run out of cash as soon as June 1^st unless Congress raises or waives the debt limit, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned yesterday.

  Yellen said in a letter to Congress, “We have learned from past debt limit impasses that waiting until the last minute to suspend or increase the debt limit can cause serious harm to business and consumer confidence, (and) raise short­ term borrowing costs for taxpayers.” She said it’s impossible to know the exact date Treasury will be unable to pay bills.

  If the House, Senate, and the White House don’t all get together to agree on a plan, the US could slip into default, a dark hole the government has never previously fallen into. The general belief among economists is that failure to raise the debt ceiling would destroy American credit credibility and possibly rock the world economy. 

  The White House says President Biden yesterday called the major leaders of both parties from the House and Senate to a meeting on May 9^th to talk about the debt and the spending limit.

Without Words: Hollywood writers have gone on strike in a dispute with producers over how they are paid for work on streaming media. They are paid less on streaming than they are on regular television.

  The Writer’s Guild of America says half its 11,500 members work at minimum contractual pay. The shutdown affects everything, from police dramas to late night talk shows. A writers strike in 2007 lasted 100 days.

The Shooting Gallery: The man wanted in the fatal shooting of five of his neighbors last Friday in Cleveland, Texas, was in the US illegally and had previously been deported at least four times, Immigration and Customs Enforcement said.

  The FBI and local authorities are still hunting for 39-year-old Francisco Oropeza.

The War Room: At least 20,000 Russian soldiers have been killed and another 80,000 wounded in the last five months, John Kirby, a spokesman for the National Security Council said yesterday. He said about half the dead were Wagner Group mercenaries, many of whom were recruited from Russian prisons in the past year.

  Kirby did not put on number on Ukraine’s casualties. 

Ask E. Jean: Donald Trump’s pugilistic lawyer Joe Tacopina yesterday wrapped up his cross examination, trying to punch holes in the credibility of E. Jean Carroll, the writer suing the former  president for rape and defamation.  

  Tacopina homed in on something Carroll once said about rape being “sexy,” trying to suggest she was OK with it. Carroll answered, “I think most people think of rape as being sexy because in our culture we are saturated with entertainment shows which continually show rapes to gather an audience,” she said, adding that “rape is the most horrible, violent act that can be done against a woman or man.”

Child Labor Returns: The conservative “parental rights” movement has its roots in educational disputes about books and issues that some parents say are inappropriate or too political for school-age children. They want control of what’s taught. Now, “parental rights” is being used as an excuse in a half-dozen or more Republican-controlled states to loosen restrictions on child labor.

  This past March, Arkansas Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed a law repealing the requirement that children under 16 had to verify their age and get the written permission of a parent or guardian before obtaining a work certificate. The Huckabee administration claimed that it had been a burden on parents to grant permission.

  In Iowa, the Senate has passed a law that would remove prohibitions on minors working in slaughterhouses or meatpacking plants, in mining, as well as roofing or demolition, so long as they were doing it under the auspices of “work-based learning or a school or employer-administered, work-related program.”

  Eliminating child labor was one of the hallmarks of The New Deal in the 1930s, but like so many things established then, Social Security among them, political conservatives with backing of big business are trying to dismantle them.

  Child labor appears to be returning with or without legal approval. The US Department of Labor recently fined Wisconsin-based Packer’s Sanitation Services $1.5 million for employing at least 102 children ages 13 to 17 on overnight shifts in dangerous jobs in eight states, including two sites in Arkansas. Many of those kids worked cleaning slaughterhouse floors on the overnight shift until 5 or 7 in the morning.

  Federal child labor law says children under 16 can’t work hazardous jobs or be employed after 7 pm or for more than three hours a day on school days. Nonetheless, there’s a Republican move afoot that says the decision on whether a child works is for the family, not the government.

The Obit Page: Canadian folk singer Gordon Lightfoot has died at age 84. He had big  hits in the 1970s with the songs “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” and “If You Could Read My Mind.”

The Spin Rack: Six people were killed yesterday when a dust storm caused an 80-car pileup on Interstate 55 in Illinois. — Seven bodies were found on a property in rural Oklahoma during the search for two missing teenage girls. The corpse of Jesse McFadden, a felon and registered sex offender, was also found. —

Missoula Montana Democratic Rep. Zooey Zephyr yesterday filed a lawsuit to be allowed back on the House floor. She’s being punished for saying things the Republican majority didn’t want to hear about treatment for transgender minors. 

Below the Fold: Steven Tyler and the band Aerosmith announced that they will be rocking into retirement with a 40-date North American tour. “It’s not goodbye it’s PEACE OUT!,” the band said in a statement. “Get ready and walk this way, you’re going to get the best show of our lives.” Tyler is 75 and guitarist Joe Perry is 72. No word on what they will do after, but  both are too young to be president.

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