We had some tragic news coming out of the US state of Texas as we produced today's show.

There was a shooting Tuesday in the city of Uvalde; it happened at an elementary school.

Officials say at least 18 students and 2 adults were killed and that the suspected shooter is also dead.

Several others were treated at a local hospital.

We didn't know how many when we produced this show.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott called on people to show unwavering support for those who were suffering.

And US President Joe Biden was scheduled to address the nation last night.

CNN.com will have updated information on all of this.

Next, we're taking you to 2 island countries on opposite sides of the Northern Hemisphere.

Tens of thousands of Cubans are leaving their nation.

It's currently dealing with runaway inflation⏤prices around 70% higher at the end of last year than they were the year before.

And the communist country is seeing its worst shortages of food and medicine in decades.

The COVID pandemic hurt Cuba's tourism industry⏤the country's getting less oil from its ally Venezuela, which is having trouble producing enough oil for itself.

And for years, the US has imposed sanctions⏤economic penalties⏤on Cuba to pressure its government to make changes.

As Cubans protested last year over shortages, power outages, and the lack of freedoms, their government blamed the United States for trying to overturn Cuba's communist rule.

But critics of Cuba's leaders say they tried to take advantage of their country's economic problems and [the] exodus of migrants to pressure the US Government.

American officials say the number of Cubans trying to enter the US is increasing exponentially.

Meanwhile, the island nation of Sri Lanka is also dealing with shortages of fuel and food.

The inflation rate in this presidential republic is more than 33% higher than it was last year at this time.

If you drive through Sri Lanka's capital Colombo, you'll spot hundreds of people standing in multiple queues, hoping to take home fuel and gas from collection points.

For months, there's been an acute shortage of essential commodities.

In a new low for the country, Sri Lanka defaulted on its debts Thursday.

We speak to people in Colombo about the impact the country's worst economic crisis has had on their lives.

36year-old Thuvan, an auto rickshaw driver, has spent two nights at this gas station in central Colombo.

It's been an endless way to refuel his three-wheeler⏤petrol pumps are all but dry across the city.

About 5 kilometers or 3 miles away from Thuvan's home, Sagarika Samanthi can barely sit in this 30-inch-wide balcony where she cooks the day's meals.

She uses coconut husk, paper, and kerosene to get the firewood stove started.

Since the 30th of April, there's been no cooking gas.

We're now using a firewood stove.

Earlier, Sagarika would cook three meals a day on a gas stove.

It's now down to one.

Weeks of protests forced all the Rajapaksas except the President to step down from senior government posts.

On Monday, Sri Lanka's new prime minister Wickremesinghe warned that things will only get worse before getting any better.

Four days later, and for the first time in its history, the country defaulted on its debt.

10-second trivia: What US state traditionally holds the first primary or caucus in a presidential election year?

New Hampshire, Iowa, Washington, or Virginia.

Every four years, Iowa usually holds the first caucus in the nation.

Though this isn't a presidential election year in America, primaries have still been going on starting on the first Tuesday of this month.

And what they do is determine which candidates appear on the ballots this November.

It's a midterm election year.

Americans will be choosing all 435 voting members of the US House of Representatives.

They'll be deciding on 34 seats in the 100-member Senate.

They'll be picking governors in 36 states and a slew of politicians for state and local races will also be on the ballots in the midterm elections.

In the primaries, voters can whittle down a list of candidates who are running.

For example, if several Republicans or several Democrats are all trying to win the same seat, a primary in the spring can decide which one candidate from each party gets on the ballot in the fall.

There's a lot at stake in the midterms; control of Congress is one of the biggest headlines.

So, the election season that's in full swing now will decide the House and Senate makeup until at least the next election in two years.

Next, we're going to the Himalayas.

Himlung Himal is a mountain in Nepal; it's more than 2,300 feet above sea level.

That makes it thousands of feet higher than Mount Kilimanjaro or Mount Rainier.

And a record was recently achieved on Himlung Himal by a climber with a spinal cord injury, even though his team didn't reach its summit.

(Ed Jackson just broke the highest vertical ascent record by someone with a spinal cord injury.)

(Jackson achieved the feat on Himlung Himal, a Himalayan mountain reaching 7,126 meters.)

(Jackson was a professional rugby player but broke his neck diving into a swimming pool in 2017.)

It rendered me completely paralyzed from the shoulders down.

And I had no movement or sensation return for quite a long time, for well over a week, and I was told that I was never gonna walk again, but I got very lucky.

And there was enough of my spinal cord still attached that I started to make a recovery.

And that 12-month mark, I wanted to set myself a challenge.

I knew that if I put a goal in place, then hopefully, I'll be able to keep motivated to do my rehab.

(Jackson is paralyzed in four limbs, but he didn't let this stop his climbing quest.)

I said I wanted to climb Snowdon when I was still using two crutches and still very much disabled that it posed a big enough challenge, and I opened it up to anyone who wanted to come and join in, expecting just a few people to turn up.

But there were 70 people on the start line who I didn't even know who had come for their own different reasons.

(His mountaineering dreams reached new heights, as he sets his sights on conquering Himlung Himal.)

I kind of got hooked on mountains after that.

I was just looking for the next highest one of the next highest one, and, yeah, four years later I find myself in the Himalayas.

We had to get to over 6,500 meters, and we spent two weeks, actually, on the mountain itself in the most, sort of, remote places you could imagine no electricity.

Like, one day, we... we had leftovers of a yak that had been killed by a snow leopard.

(But as they neared Himlung Himal's summit, disaster struck.)

We got to about 6,800 meters, which is obviously a new record, but we had to turn around to come back.

And by the time we got back down, the snow conditions had changed; our guide fell through a crevasse.

So, then, we called for a helicopter rescue, and the helicopters can't fly at night in Nepal because they can't fly above the height of the mountain.

So, we called them at 6 p.m., and they said, "Sorry, you're gonna have to... you're gonna have to wait till morning."

So, we basically had to dig in and survive a night on the mountain at anywhere between minus 20 and minus 30 degrees without tents, without having eaten or drunk for... for nearly 24 hours.

It's one of those things that you wouldn't choose to repeat, but don't regret

(His accident and discovery of mountaineering have powerfully shaped his outlook.)

Just being outside in nature, I think, is incredibly rewarding, incredibly healing.

I've found that it's helped me recover mentally and deal with the change that I've gone through.

I was resuscitated three times, you know, I died three times in the ambulance after my accident.

And I think realizing how short life can be is obviously gonna give you a big perspective shift⏤it makes you think about what's important in your life.

And I also realized that I was very lucky to have the support network I had.

So, I wanted to recreate that for other people, people who've been through trauma.

With his wife, Lois, and friend, Olly Barkley, Jackson co-founded Millimetres 2 Mountains.

The charity supports people facing mental health challenges by giving them access to the outdoors.

We take people on challenges all over the world.

So, this year, we're going to Morocco, Iceland, [and] Nepal.

And then we put in a three-year development program, which funds life-coaching retraining therapy.

I hope through what... what I'm doing and what we're doing with the charity and what our beneficiaries are proving can give anyone the hope that they can turn their life around no matter how bleak it might seem in that moment.

Ding, dong, it's delivery with a lesson about kids and smartphones.

A mom in Texas thought her phone was locked, that if her two-year-old son was doing anything on it, he'd be taking pictures.

Wrong.

He was placing an order for cheeseburgers⏤31 of them⏤and with the 16-dollar tip he added, the total came to more than 91 dollars.

The little guy ate half a burger, leaving mom with an expensive but good story and 30.5 cheeseburgers to give away.

Let us look at this "medium-rare" event pragmatically.

When you "ketchup" with the boy, you can't have "beef" with the plan the "onion" one cooked up.

Oh, yes, he might've "mustard" an order that cost a lot of "bread", leaving his mom in a "pickle",

but once everything was said and "well-done", it was all "bun" intentional.

Today's shout-out takes us to Naples, Maine; it is great to see the students and teachers of Lake Region Middle School watching today.

I'm Carl Azuz.