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[h=4]Five things you need to know Thursday[/h]The biggest and most buzzworthy news to start your morning.
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The NFL draft will begin Thursday.(Photo: Greg M. Cooper, USA TODAY Sports)
1. It's NFL draft day – who are you rooting for?
Today's the day all college football players bleed, sweat and cried for: the 2015 NFL draft. It all begins Thursday, with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers as the first team to pick. In need of a quarterback, will the Bucs select Jameis Winston, the former Florida State star quarterback who has been involved in several off-the-field incidents, or will they take Marcus Mariota, the 2014 Heisman Trophy winner from Oregon? I guess we'll find out.
2. Bernie Sanders is running for president
Who is Bernie Sanders? He's a 73-year-old populist with a chaotic halo of thinning white hair who isn't, technically, a Democrat. But the Vermont senator, who told USA TODAY Wednesday that he will announce his candidacy Thursday, poses some significant political perils for Hillary Clinton. Sanders comes across as earnest, authentic and accustomed to the person-to-person campaigning favored in small states. Sanders is the first challenger to Clinton, but he's not likely to be the last.
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USA TODAY's Washington Bureau Chief Susan Page explains four reasons why Bernie Sanders's presidential run matters.
3. Tesla to unveil mysterious product
Batteries for buildings? Merchandise? A "stationary storage" unit? In a mysterious tweet last month, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said he will reveal a new non-car product. The announcement comes Thursday. Tesla rarely disappoints when it comes to fanfare, even if the subject of the announcement doesn't exactly light up investors or owners of its electric cars.
Major new Tesla product line -- not a car -- will be unveiled at our Hawthorne Design Studio on Thurs 8pm, April 30
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 30, 2015
4. 40 years later, Vietnam still deeply divided over war
Posters and billboards marking Liberation Day blanket downtown Ho Chi Minh City. Forty years after the city — then called Saigon and the capital of South Vietnam — fell to northern communists on April 30, 1975, locals still offer different perspectives on why the war was fought. Journalist and author Huy Duc says "people who were sent from the North believed that they fought against the invading Americans and were liberating the South. And many people from the South ... believe it was a civil war, that the South was invaded by the North." USA TODAY's Thuan Le Elston recounts the day Saigon fell, as her family sought refuge in a Quonset hut on a U.S. military base in Guam.
5. Murder rates in Mexico continue to fall
Murders in Mexico fell for a third straight year in 2014 — the most pronounced declines occurring along the U.S. border — a sign the country is slowly stabilizing after gruesome drug wars. There were 15,649 people murdered in Mexico in 2014, a 13.8% reduction from the previous year and down from a peak of 22,480 in 2011, according to a Thursday report by the University of San Diego's Justice in Mexico Project.
Drug trafficker Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman is escorted to a helicopter by Mexican security forces at Mexico's International Airport in Mexico City on Feb. 22, 2014.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>(Photo: Susana Gonzalez, Bloomberg)
And, the essentials:
Weather: The two trouble spots Thursday will be the northeastern U.S. and the north-central states, thanks to rain and thunderstorms.
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The national weather forecast for Thursday, April 30 calls for showers and thunderstorms for most of the U.S. VPC
Stocks:U.S. stock futures were lower Thursday.
TV Tonight: Can't decide what to watch tonight? TV critic Robert Bianco looks at Big Bang Theory and Grey's Anatomy.
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Contributing: Alan Gomez, USA TODAY.
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