a strong denial from the white house. they call russia s latest claims ridiculous. this after the kremlin suggested the u.s. directed ukraine to carry out that alleged drone attack. brand-new jobs numbers just in to cnn. what they say about the state of the u.s. economy now just after the federal reserve announced another interest rate hike. the third this year. captured after a nearly eight-hour search in atlanta. police arrested a man accused of opening fire inside a medical center. at least one person has died. ahead, what we re learning about the victims and a potential motive behind that shooting. these major stories and many more coming in right here to cnn news central. ridiculous. that s what the white house is calling russia s baseless accusation this morning that the u.s. directed ukraine to carry out that alleged drone attack on the kremlin. moscow claims that this was an attempt to assassinate russian president vladimir putin. ukraine has strongly denied a
be softening. these numbers coming one day ahead of the release of the key april unemployment report. this morning, we re keeping an eye on l.a. the l.a.-based bank pac west, yet another bank that could be in danger. shares fell more than 50% in after-hours trading on reports that it was exploring strategic options. this coming days after the collapse of first republic bank, which was the second largest bank failure in united states history. here to join me now to break this down is christine romans. let s start with the jobs numbers. sure. what does that indicate is happening? it s essentially a proxy for layoffs. it shows you that layoffs are starting to pick up a little bit. this is after a year of fed rate hikes where they ve been trying to cool down the labor market. 242,000 is that number. for context, before covid, on average it was like 311,000. rising, but still not the kind of layoffs we were seeing or the
job market we were seeing before covid. still a tight job market but cooling off. it s always depressing to hear the word layoffs. let me ask you about what exactly this whole debacle with pac west we ve seen now, the third bank, small regional bank, but the third one that could be in trouble. so, you know, we heard from the fed chief yesterday that the resolution of first republic meant the worst of the banking crisis was behind us. we heard the same thing from jamie dimon. this morning the company confirming its exploring that st strategic option. so it s looking for a buyer, a capital raise and not getting bites so far. pac west saying the bank has not experienced out of the ordinary deposit flows. that means nothing has changed here for the bank. nothing is different here. there s no news. there s no reason why the stock is down. the stock is down because
investors are hunting around for the weak gazelle in the herd and they re looking at some of these banks and they re selling those shares. this one in particular, you can see pac west shares, this is even before the overnight slide. we ll see if that holds into the opening bell. this has been a tough go for pacwest and other regional banks here because of a loss of confidence in the banking sector. you have the big wigs like jamie dimon and the fed chief trying to restore that confidence, investors are saying otherwise. when they see evidence of a problem, doesn t matter what you say. yeah. christine romans, thank you very much. today, this man, deion patterson, he will make a first court appearance in atlanta. he s the suspected gunman accused of opening fire at a medical center yesterday. one person was killed. four others were injured. after the shooting, patterson evaded police leading to a nearly eight-hour manhunt.