By Daniel Wine, CNN

Welcome to 5 Things PM! People are drinking less beer these days, and some have stopped entirely. Brewers are struggling as a result — with one notable exception.

Here’s what else you might have missed during your busy day.

5 things

1⃣ A frantic manhunt

A mysterious triple homicide baffled investigators and devastated two idyllic Utah towns. License plate readers, footprints and a victim’s key fob helped lead authorities to a suspect more than 300 miles away.

2⃣ Ticket settlement

Live Nation and Ticketmaster reached a deal with federal authorities over accusations the ticket giant’s business practices created a monopoly of the live events music industry. Here’s what it means for consumers.

3⃣ ‘Fundamental destruction’

The National Institutes of Health — the largest public funder of biomedical research in the world — has lost more than 20% of its workforce. Scientists no longer with the agency talk about the work left undone.

4⃣ Stone Age menus

You might think ancient hunter-gatherers just killed animals and cooked big hunks of meat over a fire. But an analysis of their eating habits revealed some surprising results.

5⃣ New parents

Excitement over babies can make moms feel invisible. Learn how family and friends can be more considerate and keep the focus on her.

Watch this

In full bloom: California’s Death Valley is bursting with wildflowers after getting a lot of rain recently. It’s a rare superbloom that happens roughly once every decade.

Top headlines

• Exclusive: Iran is ready for a long war with the US and only economic pain will end it, senior official tells CNN
• 2 men are charged with using a weapon of mass destruction after IEDs are tossed near NYC mayor’s home
• Woman charged with attempted murder after shots fired at Rihanna’s LA home

Check this out

Authentic art: Can you spot the difference between a masterpiece and a cheap copy? Art historians and AI sometimes disagree.

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• Where the battle for Senate control stands after the Texas and North Carolina primaries
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The post UCSB Arts and Lectures Donors Dine with Ballet Festival’s Producer appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.

PASO ROBLES, Calif. (KEYT) – Irving Hernandez, 31, was arrested Sunday afternoon at a Paso Robles apartment in connection with a firearm-involved threat earlier this month.

On March 5, 2026, around 9:55 p.m., officers responded to the 3300 block of Spring Street in Paso Robles for a report of a man pointing a handgun at another man's head and telling the victim he, "was going to die" stated a press release Monday from the Paso Robles Police Department.

The victim was able to escape and the gunman fled north from the scene and officers were unable to locate him after arriving at the scene shared the Paso Robles Police Department.

According to Paso Robles Police, detectives identified the suspect as 31-year-old Irvin Hernandez on March 8 and arrest and search warrants were obtained for an apartment on Spring Street in Paso Robles.

Around 3 p.m. the same day, the San Luis Obispo Regional SWAT team served a search warrant at the Spring Street apartment and a portion of the complex was evacuated for safety reasons explained the Paso Robles Police Department.

Hernandez was taken into custody without incident and booked on charges including criminal threats and his bail has been set at $55,000.

The post Paso Robles man arrested for criminal threats after SWAT response at Spring Street apartment appeared first on News Channel 3-12.

By August Phillips, CNN

(CNN) — Drivers will race through the streets of the nation’s capital at speeds of over 180 mph in August as part of a wide-ranging slate of events to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the United States.

The Freedom 250 Grand Prix, part of the NTT IndyCar Series, was announced by President Donald Trump in an executive order in January and will be held Aug. 22 and 23. The first-of-its-kind race in Washington “will showcase the majesty of our great city as drivers navigate a track around our iconic national monuments,” the executive order reads.

The race route, revealed at a news conference Monday, travels around the National Mall, beginning on Third Street in front of the US Capitol. The cars will race up Pennsylvania Avenue before crossing the Mall on Seventh Street and passing the Smithsonian’s Air and Space Museum.

The track is 1.66 miles long and includes seven turns. Bud Denker, president of Penske Corporation, which owns IndyCar and is sponsoring the event, predicted drivers would complete laps in under a minute.

The event will be free to watch for spectators in Washington. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum predicted the race could attract over a million visitors over the course of multiple days.

Eric Shanks, CEO of Fox Sports, which will broadcast the race, presented AI-generated images and videos of the course at the news conference, which showed DC streets populated by race cars with the Capitol and other landmarks in the background.

“This is going to be the most distinctly American sporting event that we’ve ever had,” Shanks said. “As our nation marks America 250, this race serves as a tribute to 2.5 centuries of American grit, ingenuity, and the relentless drive to move forward.”

DC Mayor Muriel Bowser, who navigated intense scrutiny last summer amid Trump’s surge of federal officers and the National Guard into DC, also attended the news conference and touted the economic benefits the event would bring to the city. Bowser and the Trump Cabinet members in attendance said they worked closely in planning the IndyCar race.

“This course itself is crossing federal streets, federal intersections, back to DC metro and back again,” Burgum said. “I mean, this is an example for the whole country about how federal, local, large metros and the private sector can all work together.”

Josef Newgarden, champion of the Indianapolis 500 in 2023 and 2024, will be among the drivers in the event and expressed excitement on Monday to race in DC.

“You’re not going to find something more legendary, innovative and inspiring as an IndyCar on these streets,” he said. “So, I’m going to personally be trying to win this race.”

The Freedom 250 Grand Prix is one of several events planned to celebrate the 250^th anniversary of the United States this year. A “UFC Freedom Fights 250” event will be held on the South Lawn of the White House on June 14, Trump’s 80^th birthday. A state fair and national prayer on the National Mall are also planned for the summer, said Monica Crowley, US chief protocol officer.

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By Adam Cancryn, CNN

(CNN) — The Trump administration has started to panic about the spiking price of oil.

While senior Trump aides had anticipated some brief surge in oil prices in the first days of the war with Iran, the size and sustainability of the market reaction caught them off guard, people familiar with the internal discussions told CNN.

Now, as oil prices hover near $100 a barrel just over a week into the war and US gas prices moving sharply higher, it’s prompted a belated rush to try to reassure investors and seek ways to tamp down the impact. But the administration is confronting the limits of its power — and the reality that President Donald Trump’s decision to wage war abroad threatens to wipe out some of his key economic accomplishments at home.

“It’s hard to see anything but continued upward pressure on prices,” said Neil Atkinson, a longtime energy analyst and former head of the International Energy Agency’s oil industry and markets division. “People will get hurt at the pump.”

Officials spent the weekend and Monday urgently drawing up a wider array of options aimed at calming financial markets and limiting the impact of oil’s surge on US gas prices, the people familiar said. Those ideas have ranged from more limited regulatory actions, such as easing restrictions on the flow of domestic oil, to far more extreme steps like directly intervening in the global oil trade. Trump aides were expected to present a slate of options to the president as soon as Monday, according to the people familiar.

For now, shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz remains at an effective standstill, disrupting roughly 20% of the world’s oil supply with little sign of when tankers will again be able to safely traverse the critical waterway off the coast of Iran.

Few shipping firms have been willing to risk the threat of Iran firing on their tankers since the US and Israel bombed Iran more than a week ago, creating a backlog that’s driven up global oil prices at a historic pace.

Oil prices early Monday neared $120 a barrel before backing off somewhat, a level not seen since the early stages of Russia’s war against Ukraine in 2022. That run-up has swiftly rippled through to gas prices in the US, spurring a 51-cent-per-gallon jump in the national average over the last week.

The spike has prompted alarm throughout the Trump administration, where officials had originally planned to make lower gas prices a key pillar of the GOP’s efforts to hold onto their majorities in November’s midterm elections.

That level of urgency picked up markedly over the weekend, the people said, as the price of oil hit $100 a barrel and it became clear that the administration’s initial steps had largely failed to allay fears of a prolonged energy crisis.

Energy Secretary Chris Wright, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum have taken the lead in developing a slate of new options, alongside staffers on the White House’s National Energy Dominance Council.

Wright and other officials have sought to downplay the concern in public appearances over the last several days, blaming oil traders for irrationally bidding up prices and insisting that traffic through the Strait of Hormuz would soon resume as normal.

“We are not too long away, I think, before you’ll see more regular resumption of ship traffic,” Wright said Sunday on CNN. “This is a weeks, this is not a months, thing.”

Trump in recent days has also dismissed the war’s impact on gas prices, writing Sunday on Truth Social that it’s a “very small price to pay” and that “ONLY FOOLS WOULD THINK DIFFERENTLY!”

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