Good afternoon from the Daily Beast. I'm Barbie Nendell in from Brook Howard, it's Thursday, April 29th, and here are the top five stories that she teams watching right now. The US economy swelled to a 6.4% annual growth rate, and the first quarter of 2021 as government aid fueled spending and COVID cases started to subside. The Labor Department also reported good news that weekly initial jobless claims have fallen to the lowest level recorded since the pandemic upended the livelihoods of millions.
A wildfire in Northern California that killed two people last summer was started intentionally in a failed attempt to cover up a murder. The suspect, Victor Serretino, was arrested back in September charged with one murder, but after an eight month investigation he's been slapped with two more in addition to arson to cover up his crimes. Foreign President Donald Trump was pretty distressed to learn that his longtime personal attorney Rudy Giuliani had his home raided on Wednesday, complaining to Fox Business that it was such a quote double standard like I don't think anybody's ever seen before. He insisted that his attorney is a patriot who just loves this country.
Using advice generally reserved for Americans living in war-torn countries, the US has urged all Americans to leave India as soon as possible to escape the worst in COVID-19 crisis there. India officially logged nearly 380,000 new infections on Thursday and reported more than 3,000 deaths widely considered to be a massive undercount. On Wednesday, 23-year-old Dylan Shakespeare Robinson was sentenced to four years in prison in order to pay $12 million in restitution for his role in the fire set in the wake of George Floyd's murder last May that burned down the police station where the four officers involved in Floyd's death worked. His lawyer says he won't be able to pay it back and that there were many others involved in the destruction of the building.
That's all for today. Check back every weekday morning and afternoon for more of the news you need to know. Find us wherever you listen to podcasts.