Midday Roundup: Portland high schoolers mourn dead classmate

Another school in mourning. Police in the Portland, Ore., suburb of Troutdale still have not confirmed the identity of the gunman who killed a 14-year-old freshman on the second-to-last day of classes on Tuesday. Using a rifle, the attacker shot Emilio Hoffman in the boys’ locker room. Another bullet grazed physical education teacher Todd Rispler, who was in the gym at the time, but he was able to alert administrators about the situation. Police found the shooter in a bathroom stall, dead from a gunshot wound that was apparently self-inflicted. Friends described Hoffman as a good, quiet kid who didn’t stir up trouble. When they evacuated students after the shooting, officials discovered another student with a gun on campus. They do not believe that student, who was taken into custody, had anything to do with the attack. According to this map, there have been 74 shootings on school properties since December 2012, when Adam Lanza killed 20 elementary school students in Newtown, Conn.

Full support? Testifying before Congress this morning, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Qatari mediators told U.S. officials they would have to move quickly to free Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl if they wanted to save his life. Officials believed “the risks to Sgt. Bergdahl’s safety were growing,” so they agreed to exchange him for five Taliban operatives held at Guantanamo Bay, Hagel said. During his opening remarks, Hagel disputed claims that the prisoner swap would endanger the lives of other Americans overseas. “I would never sign off on any decision that I did not feel was in the best interests of this country,” he said. “Nor would the president of the United States, who made the final decision with the full support of his national security team.”

Losing favor. As former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton embarks on a book tour that looks remarkably like a prelude to a presidential campaign, a new Gallup poll shows her favorability rating at its lowest point since 2008. But her approval rating is higher than the president’s. According to the poll, 54 percent of Americans say they hold a favorable opinion of Clinton, down slightly from 59 percent in February. While she was head of the State Department, Clinton’s favorability rating rose as high as 66 percent. It hit its lowest point—39 percent—in 1992, the year of her husband’s first presidential campaign.

President, eh? Ted Cruz is no longer Canadian. But he’s still American, much to the relief of tea party backers hoping he’ll run for president in 2016. Cruz was born in Canada to an American mother and a Cuban father. Because of his mother’s citizenship, he was an American from birth. But Canada also granted him citizenship, since he was born there. Cruz’s dual citizenship became an issue last year as he entered the Senate with a mighty, conservative roar and vaulted to the top of the GOP’s 2016 shortlist. Though no one seriously thought his Canadian birth should disqualify him from the White House, he decided to clear up any confusion before the primaries, just in case.