Trump wades into French elections  —  Two days before a French election that has Europe on edge, President Donald Trump weighed in Friday with a tweet that seemed to imply support for the controversial far-right populist Marine Le Pen.  —  Trump's Friday morning tweet responded to a shooting …

Vacation's Over: Obama Returns to Public Life Next Week  —  WASHINGTON — Barack Obama's extended post-presidential vacation is about to end.  After spending weeks in French Polynesia — including time on the yacht of the movie mogul David Geffen along with Bruce Springsteen …

Freed Egyptian American prisoner returns home following Trump intervention  —  An Egyptian American charity worker who was imprisoned in Cairo for three years and became the global face of Egypt's brutal crackdown on civil society returned home to the United States late Thursday …

Sources: US prepares charges to seek arrest of WikiLeaks' Julian Assange  —  Washington (CNN)US authorities have prepared charges to seek the arrest of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, US officials familiar with the matter tell CNN.  —  The Justice Department investigation of Assange …

Brat: New ObamaCare repeal bill has ‘significant’ changes … A Republican who opposed the first House GOP ObamaCare replacement bill says a revamped effort is the “same fundamental bill” as the one that failed last month.  —  Rep. Dave Brat (R-Va.), who has signaled he might be able to back the new bill …

Sen. Frank Artiles apologizes for using racial slurs  —  Miami Republican Sen. Frank Artiles formally apologized on the Florida Senate floor on Wednesday, April 19, 2017, for insulting and using racial slurs against two black lawmakers two days prior.  —  Friends of Artiles …

How Trump Blew Up the Conservative Media  —  Months before Donald Trump blew up American politics with his surprise win in November, he did the same thing to the conservative media.  Through much of the campaign, two very different media moguls with colliding visions for the Republican Party vied …

Bernie Sanders Defends Campaigning For Anti-Abortion Rights Democrat  —  Sen. Bernie Sanders is campaigning for Omaha, Neb., mayoral candidate Heath Mello Thursday night, and he's not apologizing for it.  —  “Absolutely, and I want him to win,” Sanders, I-Vt., told NPR Thursday, after a rally in Grand Prairie, Texas.

Trump condos worth $250 million pose potential conflict  —  LAS VEGAS — President Trump's companies own more than 400 condo units and home lots whose sale could steer millions of dollars to Trump, a USA TODAY investigation has found.  —  USA TODAY spent four months cataloging every property Trump's companies own across the country.

ATTN BANNON: REINCE and JARED break bread at BLT Prime — Health care reality: WH hungry for wins, Hill moored in reality — CHAFFETZ: No scandal coming, but I might resign — COSTA named host of ‘Washington Week’  —  Listen to the Playbook Audio Briefing http://bit.ly/2oQVmI8 …

Secret meeting at Mar-a-Lago raises questions about Colombia peace and Trump  —  BOGOTÁ, COLOMBIA  —  President Donald Trump quietly met a pair of former Colombian presidents last weekend at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, thrusting his administration into an ugly power struggle …

The Crisis of Western Civ  —  Between 1935 and 1975, Will and Ariel Durant published a series of volumes that together were known as “The Story of Civilization.”  They basically told human history (mostly Western history) as an accumulation of great ideas and innovations, from the Egyptians …

Jeff Sessions's attack on a Hawaii judge is an attack on judicial review itself  —  It's not “amazing that a judge on an island in the Pacific” can strike down an executive order.  It's how the US works.  —  The ability of federal judges to strike down actions taken by Congress …

Google is a monopoly — and it's crushing the internet  —  Five to 10 years ago, independent bloggers used to be able to get by on internet advertising, like the broadsheets of yore.  But that changed quite quickly, and for two big reasons: Facebook and Google.

House intel panel invites former acting AG Sally Yates to testify  —  The House Intelligence Committee on Thursday asked several senior Obama administration officials, including former acting Attorney General Sally Yates, to testify publicly in the panel's probe into Russian interference in the U.S. election.

Yikes!  New Behind-the-Scenes Book Brutalizes the Clinton Campaign  —  ‘Shattered,’ a campaign tell-all fueled by anonymous sources, outlines a generational political disaster  —  There is a critical scene in Shattered, the new behind-the-scenes campaign diary by Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes …

Conservative Sexual Abuse Anyone?  What's The “Conservative” Response Been to the Rash of Fox News-Sexual Predators?  Silence.  —  When I grew up in the evangelical ghetto good manners about all things sexual were the gold standard of both my evangelical upbringing and our ideas about what it meant to be a conservative.

No, Gov. Dean, there is no ‘hate speech’ exception to the First Amendment  —  Former Vermont governor Howard Dean writes: … This leads me to repeat what I've said before: There is no hate speech exception to the First Amendment.  Hateful ideas (whatever exactly that might mean) …

‘Pivotal Moment’ for Democrats?  Gerrymandering Heads to Supreme Court  —  The hand-to-hand political combat in House elections on Tuesday in Georgia and last week in Kansas had the feel of the first rounds of an epic battle next year for control of the House of Representatives and the direction …

Sanctuary Cities Face Aid Cuts as Justice Dept. Tightens Screws  —  WASHINGTON — Escalating a threat to withhold grants from state and local governments that block the police from telling federal authorities about undocumented immigrants in custody, the Trump administration sent letters Friday …

Ivanka Trump adds a chief of staff  —  Ivanka Trump is quietly staffing up, and she's filling out her team in the West Wing with former officials from President George W. Bush's administration.  —  In addition to her close adviser Dina Powell, who served as chief of the personnel office …

2nd doctor, wife arrested in genital mutilation case  —  Federal agents Friday arrested a second doctor in connection with the nation's first genital mutilation case, sources told The Detroit News.  —  Dr. Fakhruddin Attar is accused of letting Dr. Jumana Nagarwala perform mutilations at his Burhani Medical Clinic on Farmington Road.