Mark Memmott

There were 324,000 first-time claims for unemployment insurance last week, down 18,000 from the previous week's 342,000, the Employment and Training Administration reports.

Claims continue to run around the lowest pace since early 2008 — they haven't been lower since a week in mid-January 2008 when they came in at 321,000.

Update at 8:10 a.m. ET, May 3. A New Post:

In what Huffington Post Business calls "one of the funniest, most eloquent court documents we've ever seen," a federal judge in Texas has loaded up his ruling on a case involving San Antonio strip clubs with at least 17 double entendres.

(Most recent update: 4:36 p.m. ET.)

Three 19-year-old men — two of them University of Massachusetts Dartmouth college students from Kazakhstan who were friends with Boston bombings suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev — were taken into custody Wednesday by authorities in Boston. The third individual, an American citizen, was also a student at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, where Tsarnaev was enrolled.

This is no joke:

A wild male tiger, which seems to be in search of some female companionship, has been lured into eastern India's Nandankanan Zoological Park after several frightening nights for those in nearby villages.

According to the Deccan Herald:

A relatively weak 119,000 jobs were added to private employers' payrolls last month as federal spending cuts and tax increases began to bite, according to the latest ADP National Employment Report.

Following up on word there have been discussions between lawyers for Boston Marathon bombings suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and federal investigators about sparing him from the possibility of the death penalty if he provides valuable information about the attacks, NPR counterterrorism correspondent

As the U.S. considers a "spectrum of military options" it could take to assist the groups battling against the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad, the Obama administration is leaning toward giving lethal arms to some of those rebels, a senior administration official has told NPR's Kelly McEvers.

We admire KHOU-TV meteorologist David Paul's good-natured determination.

Check how he handled it when a case of the hiccups hit during his time on the air Monday evening.

And in the comments thread, please share any stories of a time when hiccups hit. Also: your surefire cure.

There were solid increases in home prices during the month of February across all 20 major cities where that data is tracked, according to the latest S&am

Adding to reporting from NPR, The Associated Press and other news outlets, The New York Times writes Tuesday that:

(We updated the top of this post with a recap at 11:45 a.m. ET.)

Joking that a reporter's question Tuesday about whether he has "any juice" left to get things done in Washington made it sound like "I should just pack up and go home," President Obama paraphrased Mark Twain:

"Rumors of my demise may be a little exaggerated," the president said, as he predicted that an overhaul of the nation's immigration laws will be among the things that get accomplished in his second term.

The investigation into the April 15 bombings at the Boston Marathon is widening, with authorities looking at about a dozen people to see whether they might have helped the two main suspects either before or after the attack, law enforcement officials familiar with the probe tell NPR's Dina Temple-Raston.

"I didn't set out to be the first openly gay athlete playing in a major American team sport," National Basketball Association center Jason Collins writes in a Sports Illustrated essay posted Monday, "but since I am, I'm happy to start the conversation."

With that, the 34-year-old veteran of 12 NBA seasons and six pro teams becomes the first active player in the four major American team sports to come out.

"You are our witnesses because you will go beyond our lives," Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel told the world's young people Monday morning during an event to mark the 20th anniversary of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum's opening.

When Fox Sun Sports reporter Kelly Nash was at Fenway Park in Boston on Saturday to cover the Houston Astros' game with the Red Sox, she decided to take a few "selfie" photos while atop the famous Green Monster in left field.

Below, batting practice was underway. So some balls were flying in her direction. Nash turned her back to the field, held her smartphone up and started snapping.

And when she looked at one of the photos she'd just taken, Nash says, she discovered she'd come much closer to being beaned than she'd realized.

Good morning.

Our early headlines:

-- I Would Have Stopped Him, 'Misha' Says Of Bombing Suspect.

-- Sen. Manchin Says Background Checks Bill Will Pass Next Time.

In 2011, he was the hottest name in football, for his "Tebowing" and for leading the Denver Broncos into the playoffs.

Before the 2012 season, he was traded to the New York Jets — putting him smack dab in the center of the brightest of the media's spotlights.

The man known as Misha who relatives of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects have alleged may have turned the elder Tsarnaev brother toward a radical form of Islam says he did no such thing and would have tried to stop the attack if he had known about it.

"I wasn't his teacher," Mikhail Allakhverdov (Misha) said Sunday of Tamerlan Tsarnaev. "If I had been his teacher, I would have made sure he never did anything like this."