News Wrap: Severe storms and tornadoes cause damage in several states

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• Geoff Bennett:

  In the day's other headlines: Communities across several states are surveying the damage from severe storms and tornadoes that swept through late Wednesday.

  In a suburb of Detroit, a tornado that struck without warning killed a toddler when it knocked a large tree into a bedroom. In Eastern Ohio, a separate twister toppled trees and tore buildings apart. Officials there said the damage is unprecedented.

• Rich Pierce, Frazeysburg, Ohio, Fire Department:

  Houses that are missing their roofs, missing walls, some just a complete loss, they're just laying in piles, vehicles being moved to the yard next door across the street. Just it is almost like a movie, things that we haven't seen in this town.

• Geoff Bennett:

  And in Maryland a driver caught the moment a twister ripped through an intersection. Those storms left a trail of destruction and injured at least five people.

  A federal judge ordered Steve Bannon to report to prison by July 1 to serve a four-month sentence for his contempt of Congress conviction. That means the former Trump adviser could be behind bars during a large part of the run-up to the November election. Bannon said he would take the case to the Supreme Court, if needed. He was convicted in 2022 of two misdemeanor counts of contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena from the House committee investigating the January 6 Capitol attacks.

  The jury in Hunter Biden's criminal trial heard testimony from Hallie Biden today. She's the widow of Hunter Biden's late brother, Beau Biden. Hallie and Hunter Biden were romantically involved after Beau's death, and she disposed of the gun at the heart of the case. She told jurors today about Hunter Biden's drug use as well as her own. But she said she never saw him using drugs around the time he bought the gun.

  Hunter Biden has pleaded not guilty to three felony charges accusing him of failing to disclose drug use when purchasing the weapon in 2018.

  Meantime, President Biden said in an interview with ABC News that he would not pardon his son if he's convicted.

  Ukrainian drones struck an oil refinery and fuel depot overnight just inside the Russian border. The attacks came as Kyiv ramps up strikes inside Russia, even as Moscow escalates its own offensive on Ukraine's northeastern region of Kharkiv. President Biden, in that same interview with ABC News, also said Ukraine's use of U.S. weapons would remain limited to defending Kharkiv. And he made it clear that Russia's capital is off-limits.

  Joe Biden, President of the United States: They're authorized to be used in proximity to the border when they're being used on the other side of the border to attack specific targets in Ukraine. We are not authorizing strikes 200 miles into Russia. We're not authorizing strikes on Moscow, on the Kremlin.

• Geoff Bennett:

  Separately, France is set to provide Ukraine with fighter jets to help the country defend itself against Russian attacks.

  Voting in the European Unions parliamentary elections kicked off today. The Dutch were the first of the 27-nation bloc to cast their ballots. Exit polls suggest that the anti-immigration Party for Freedom is making large gains. Far right movements are expected to perform well across Europe.

  The E.U. elections are the world's second biggest democratic exercise, behind only India. Nearly 400 million voters will select 720 members of the European Parliament. Results will be announced on Sunday.

  The European Central Bank cut its key interest rate for the first time since 2019 today, amid signs that efforts to control inflation have proven successful. The benchmark deposit rate was cut from a record 4 percent down to 3.75 percent. It follows similar moves by Canada, Switzerland and Sweden. The U.S. Federal Reserve has been reluctant to cut rates though, with inflation still running above the fed's 2 percent target.

  On Wall Street today, stocks closed mixed. The Dow Jones industrial average see nearly 79 points to close at 38886. The Nasdaq fell nearly points. And the S&P 500 ended virtually flat.

  And for SpaceX today, it was the fourth time's the charm, as its Starship rocket completed its first successful test flight. Three prior attempts ended in explosions. The world's biggest and most powerful rocket blasted off from Texas early this morning. The hourlong flight ended with a successful splashdown in the Indian Ocean.

  NASA has ordered two starships for moon-landing missions planned for later this decade. SpaceX hopes to use them to transport tourists to the moon and eventually Mars.

  Separately, Boeing's Starliner capsule docked with the International Space Station today after a brief delay due to thruster problems. That means there are now two U.S.-made crewed spacecraft docked at the ISS, Boeing's Starliner and the SpaceX Dragon capsule Endeavour.