Good morning. It is Saturday, May 2nd, and this is your Morning Brief.

The top national story this morning is still the Homeland Security funding fight, but the phase of the story has changed. The immediate shutdown crisis is over. The larger political fight is not. The Associated Press reports President Trump signed the Department of Homeland Security funding bill on April 30, ending the record shutdown and restoring stability for the parts of the department that had been caught in the standoff. But the compromise left out the administration's full immigration-enforcement request, which means the White House and congressional Republicans are already turning toward a separate effort to secure much more money for deportation and enforcement operations.

That continuity matters because Washington did not settle the underlying dispute. It only moved the battlefield. For listeners, the takeaway is that routine TSA pay and department operations are less exposed this weekend, but the politics of immigration spending are about to intensify again. If leadership is aiming for a larger package by June, then this bill was not closure. It was a bridge.

The second national story is the Iran shipping and oil pressure story, which is still one of the clearest ways foreign conflict is feeding directly into American pocketbook risk. AP reports the United States warned shipping firms on Friday not to make payments to Iran for transit through the Strait of Hormuz, with sanctions risk attached to any such payments. That warning tells you Washington still sees the waterway as contested enough that commercial workarounds could emerge. AP also reported separately that President Trump said Friday he was not satisfied with Iran's latest proposal to end the war, even though a fragile ceasefire remains in place.

The continuity line from earlier this week still holds, but it needs one update. Oil pressure is no longer a pure straight-up spike story. It is now a volatility story. AP's market coverage said Brent crude settled Friday at 108 dollars and 17 cents a barrel, down from the worst of the recent panic. That is better than another surge higher, but it is still expensive enough to keep inflation nerves alive. So this remains a story about gas, shipping, Treasury yields, and mortgage pricing just as much as it is a story about diplomacy or military posture.

The next thing to watch is not simply whether officials say talks are ongoing. It is whether tanker operators, insurers, and commodity markets begin acting as if the route is genuinely safer. Until that confidence returns, the American economy still has a live energy shock risk sitting offstage.

The third national story remains the Supreme Court case over Temporary Protected Status for Haitians and Syrians. The hearing was earlier in the week, but the case is still one of the administration's most important tests on executive power in immigration. AP reported that several conservative justices seemed open to the argument that courts should have very limited room to second-guess Homeland Security decisions to end TPS protections. That does not give the White House a ruling yet, but it does give the administration a reason to believe it has a viable path.

The continuity point here is simple. This case is no longer only about TPS itself. It is about how much discretion the administration may get to unwind protections quickly and how insulated those moves are from judicial review. So if you are watching immigration policy broadly, this is one of the biggest legal signals on the board even without an immediate ruling.

The fourth national story is the White House Correspondents' Dinner security fallout, which moved into a more evidence-heavy phase on April 30. Federal prosecutors released video of the moment authorities say Cole Tomas Allen ran through security at the Washington Hilton while armed and trying to reach the ballroom where President Trump was attending the event. AP reports prosecutors now say the available evidence does not support the idea that the injured Secret Service officer was hit by friendly fire.

That is important because the story is tightening from broad alarm into specific accountability questions. The core public question is no longer just how close the threat got. It is also whether the official timeline and security explanation hold up cleanly as more evidence comes out. This remains a high-visibility confidence story for presidential security and for the public explanation that followed.

In home lending and mortgage news, the headline is that relief is still partial and fragile. Freddie Mac said April 30 that the average 30-year fixed mortgage rate was 6.30 percent for the week. But Mortgage News Daily's faster-moving lender index showed a higher 6.45 percent on April 30 after rate volatility tied to the Strait of Hormuz blockade headlines. That gap is still one of the most useful signals in housing right now. Weekly averages can look manageable while real-time lender pricing stays less friendly.

There was another relevant housing signal this week from the Mortgage Bankers Association. MBA reported on April 29 that total mortgage applications fell 1.6 percent from the prior week, refinances dropped 4 percent, but purchase applications still rose 1 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis and 21 percent from a year earlier on an unadjusted basis. Then on April 30, MBA said the national median mortgage payment applied for by purchase borrowers rose to 2,131 dollars in March, up from 2,061 dollars in February.

Put together, the continuity line is this: demand has not disappeared, but affordability is still doing damage. Buyers are showing up, especially compared with a year ago, but the monthly payment burden is rising again. So the market still feels like a narrow-window environment. If yields calm and oil pressure fades, borrowers could get another shot at better terms. If not, spring housing remains a market where momentum and affordability keep fighting each other.

In Columbus and Central Ohio, the most important courtroom story is still the retrial of former Franklin County sheriff's deputy Jason Meade in the 2020 killing of Casey Goodson Jr. There was not a major new public recap Friday evening, but the week closed with the prosecution still building its case and the trial still centered on whether jurors see the state's theory as precise, consistent, and grounded in the final seconds of the encounter. The continuity language from the tracker still applies: this retrial is turning on factual clarity, not abstract symbolism.

That matters because the defense case has not yet reset the frame. For now, the prosecution is still trying to make jurors focus on what Goodson was doing at the moment Meade fired, where the gun was, and whether the force was reasonable. So the next several court days remain critical. This is still one of the biggest local stories because it combines legal stakes, police accountability, and North Linden community memory in one trial.

The second major Columbus story is Issue 5, which is now entering its final full weekend before the May 5 election. WOSU reports the charter amendment would create a civilian-led crisis response team of clinicians, social workers, EMTs, and other responders for certain nonviolent emergencies instead of police or fire. The continuity point is that the values case for the measure is already familiar. The unresolved question is operational credibility.

That is the question voters are really deciding now. How broad would dispatch authority be. What calls would qualify. How fast could the city staff a serious response system. And how much confidence do voters have that a new layer can be added without confusion in urgent moments. When stories reach this phase, rhetoric matters less than whether people can picture the system actually working on a Tuesday afternoon in a real neighborhood.

A third Columbus story moved forward on Friday in the North Linden officer shooting investigation. WOSU reported Columbus police identified the man killed in the exchange as 38-year-old Chantez Loury and released dash camera video after Friday morning briefings. Police leadership also said Loury had violated parole and sharply criticized the state corrections system for losing track of him. The injured officer, who was shot in both legs, is expected to survive.

The continuity line here is that this story is no longer only about the initial violence. It is broadening into questions about parole supervision, police response, and how the case will shape local public safety politics while the Meade retrial is still underway. Because the shooting happened in the same general North Linden context that already carries heavy meaning in Columbus, the political and emotional resonance is likely to keep building over the next few days.

One more local story worth keeping in frame is the city auditor transition. WOSU reported Columbus City Council selected Jacquelin Lewis on April 27 to replace Megan Kilgore. The reason this still matters is not appointment drama anymore. It is early signaling. Lewis comes into the role with bond-market and public-finance experience, and the question now is what tone she sets on transparency, debt discipline, and how aggressively the city frames development, housing, and fiscal stewardship in the months ahead.

On AI and technology, the most durable story remains the shift toward infrastructure power. AP reported this week that Amazon described a major expansion of its partnership with OpenAI focused on a platform for AI agents that can carry out digital tasks, while Microsoft separately announced it would stop taking a share of OpenAI revenue as part of a...

Morning Brief — Morning Brief for Saturday, May 2, 2026