congressional leaders may be stepping back from the brink of a government shutdown this month. a short time ago they announced an agreement on overall spending levels for this fiscal year. it s an important first step in averting a shutdown. we aren t out of the woods yet. cnn s arlett saenz is with us. what are you hearing from the white house? does it look like perhaps they re on their way to a deal? reporter: well, jim, president biden signed off of this law saying in a statement he believes it moves the country one step closer to a government shutdown. big questions still remain about whether they can actually get this funding bill written by that next deadline on january 19th. now house speaker mike johnson and senate majority leader chuck schumer negotiated this agreement landing on a $1.59 trillion spending level for fiscal year 2024. the breakdown comes to about $806 billion for defense spending and $704 billion for non-defense spending that will also include an add
got clobbered with all of the furniture and stuff that was floating. that is how i got this. i got shoved into a wall. when i got the front door open and there was a surge, it took me to the middle of the yard and i fought to get back on the porch. the shear force of the monster storm. we are standing in the middle of some of the destruction. i am john berman in fort myers, florida. in hurricane ian, it is a hurricane again. it has intensified to a category 1 storm and after tearing a destructive path through florida it is headed at south carolina with 85 miles per hour winds and it is expected to make landfall around midday near myrtle beach and could bring life threatening flooding there after what it did here. parts of the state just decimated. south carolina s governor says that we know what is coming. thursday was the first chance to assess some of the damage. cnn is reporting at least 19 storm related deaths. that number will almost certainly rise. here in fort myer
likely took and wrote in those last terrible minutes? one more what s the duty of a mental health professional to report on a troubled pilot? our experts are here to break it all down. but first to the very latest of what s happening right now on the ground. cnn s frederik pleitgen is in germany with more. fred i know the build newspaper has spoke on the a former girlfriend. what is she saying? reporter: mm-hmm. well she s saying that she was together with andreas lubitz for about five months last year. she described him as a very sensitive man, someone who needed a lot of care, a lot of attention, someone who could also be quite flattering. she was an airline stewardess herself on germanwing ass a well but she said he was someone who had a very dark side who at night would wake um because he was having bad dreams someone who would go into rages when they had fights who apparently locked himself into the bathroom once for an extended period of time. she says ultimately
saying the gay community won t rest until, quote, there are no more churches. governor huckabee thanks for being here and happy easter. michael, great to be with you. thank you very much. happy easter to you. thank you, sir. so the question of the week should the baker have to bake the cake for the gay couple? well i think the question is really whether or not a person of conscience is able to say no to something. this is not about discrimination. it s about discretion. the fact is if the baker said no you can t come into my shop you can t eat a cupcake, i m not going to serve you a doughnut that s discrimination. but if the baker is asked to do something that would require him to do something artistic that is not within his personal convictions, of course he should be able to say i can do this but i can t do that. that would be true for anyone. how would you distinguish that circumstance governor from the woolworth s lunch counter circa 1960 with an african-america
linked to the group that took 52 americans hostage in iran and held them 444 days. now, he s seeking a visa to come to the united nations as iran s ambassador. should the u.s. let him in? welcome to the lead. jake tapper has a little bit of laryngitis. i think he sounds like barry white. his doctor disagrees, so i m sitting in. australia, the base of operations for missing flight 370 which disappeared 27 days ago after taking off from his country with 239 souls on board. the prime minister is the one who broke the news to families more than a week ago that investigators now believe that plane went down somewhere in the indian ocean. malaysian officials, of course, have taken heavy beating, criticism for their handling of this baffling mystery. and more ships are on the way to the search zone as we e speak. pentagon spokesperson tells cnn the u.s. has spent nearly $3.5 million on the search. that s just for everies in the air. u.s. hasn t spent a dime yet on undersea opera