News of the Day From Across the Nation

Most of Detroit’s public schools closed for the day on Wednesday due to teacher absences, as disgruntled educators stepped up efforts to protest Gov. Rick Snyder’s plans for the district, its ramshackle finances and dilapidated buildings.

Mayor Mike Duggan has called for teachers to stop staging sick-outs and return to their classrooms while state legislators work on solving the district’s financial crisis, saying, teachers’ “frustrations are legitimate, but the solution is not to send the kids home.”

The Navy is launching a carrier strike group to be powered partly by biofuels.

Officials are calling it a milestone toward easing the military’s reliance on foreign oil.

Navy Secretary Ray Mabus and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack inspected the ships Wednesday before they set sail off San Diego.

Most of the group’s ships will be run for now on a mix made up of 90 percent petroleum and only 10 percent biofuels, though that could change in the future.

Critics say biofuel production is too costly and on a large scale may do more harm than good.

4 Texas execution: A Texas man put to death Wednesday for a killing 15 years ago became the busy death penalty state’s first prisoner executed in 2016.

Richard Masterson, 43, was pronounced dead 25 minutes after the lethal injection began.

Masterson had claimed the 2001 strangulation of Darin Shane Honeycutt was accidental and had several appeals before the courts, including four with the U.S. Supreme Court.

Track Palin, the eldest child of former Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, was arrested and charged in a domestic violence case in which his girlfriend said he punched her in the head and threatened to fire a rifle, according to Wasilla police.

On Wednesday, Sarah Palin alluded to problems her son and other returning military vets endure when returning to civilian life by suggesting that President Obama’s lack of support for veterans was related.

Track Palin, 26, was charged with assault, interfering with the report of a domestic violence crime and possessing a weapon while intoxicated.