Exclusive: Two West Virginia Internal Campaign Polls Show Blankenship Narrowly Edging GOP Rivals  —  Republicans are panicking as internal polls show Don Blankenship, a coal baron who spent time in jail for a mining disaster that killed 29 workers, surging into the lead in the West Virginia Senate GOP primary …

Israeli Operatives Who Aided Harvey Weinstein Collected Information on Former Obama Administration Officials  —  In June, 2017, Ann Norris, a former State Department official, received an e-mail containing an unusual proposal.  Norris is married to Ben Rhodes, a former foreign-policy adviser …

Washington is now a cool city.  That's terrible news for American democracy.  —  Sparky's Espresso Cafe was a few blocks from my apartment off 14th Street NW, but in the years after I moved to Washington in 2006, it felt to me like home.  To get there from my apartment …

I'm Not Black, I'm Kanye  —  I could only have seen it there, on the waxed hardwood floor of my elementary-school auditorium, because I was young then, barely 7 years old, and cable had not yet come to the city, and if it had, my father would not have believed in it.

Lt. Colonel Oliver North Poised to Become NRA President  —  “Most exciting news for NRA members since Charlton Heston Became President of Our Association,” Wayne LaPierre said.  —  DALLAS - Lt. Colonel Oliver North, USMC (Ret.) will become President of the National Rifle Association …

‘Smoke and Mirrors’: Emails Detail Pruitt's Drive for Secrecy at the E.P.A.  —  WASHINGTON — The invitation-only breakfast at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Washington gathered 250 executives from the nation's largest electric utilities, assembled in a ballroom to meet with Scott Pruitt …

Stoneman Douglas Shooter Was Assigned To Controversial Broward Discipline Program, Officials Now Say  —  Broward school district officials admitted Sunday that the confessed Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School gunman was assigned to a controversial disciplinary program …

Outrageous Redactions to the Russia Report  —  The FBI and DOJ have been burying the investigators' questionable judgments and information helpful to Flynn.  —  Cute how this works: Kick off the week with some “the Department of Justice is not going to be extorted” bombast …

Melania Trump's popularity jumps in new CNN poll  —  (CNN)First lady Melania Trump has in recent weeks experienced a significant surge in support, a new CNN poll reveals, including among women and Democrats.  —  In a poll conducted by SSRS last week, 57% say they have a favorable impression of Trump, up from 47% in January.

People think she's a Parkland ‘crisis actor.’ It's terrifying.  —  NEW YORK — The strangers mocked her on social media.  They called her old boss, saying she should be arrested.  Now she feared one was stalking her.  —  Emma Gonzalez became an Internet obsession after a gunman killed 17 people …

Dean Singleton on Resigning From the Post: “They've Killed a Great Newspaper” … On Friday, May 4, Dean Singleton, who owned the Denver Post from 1987 to 2013, resigned as the newspaper's chairman and also left his position on the editorial board.  In a wide-ranging conversation with Westword …

Taking a wrecking ball to Trump's defense … Rudolph W. Giuliani has been all over TV in recent days- making damaging concessions, opening up the possibility President Trump used a slush fund to pay off many women and, worst of all, floating the idea Trump doesn't need to respond to a subpoena because he is president.

He Makes a Joke.  She Isn't Laughing: ‘Lingerie’ Comment in Elevator Leads to Uproar Among Scholars  —  He says he was joking when he asked to be let off an elevator at the ladies' lingerie department.  A female scholar who was attending the same annual meeting of the International Studies Association …

The Liberal Media Can Have Ideological Diversity Without Conservatives  —  Donald Trump's election exposed the irrelevance of conservative intellectuals — and thereby, the incoherence of many a liberal publication's mission statement.  —  During the 2016 primaries, the right-wing intelligentsia mobilized in opposition to Trump.

No wonder there's an exodus from religion … Do you wonder why the proportion of Americans declaring themselves unaffiliated with organized religion has skyrocketed in recent decades?  —  This trend is especially pronounced among adults under 30, roughly 40 percent of whom claim …

Most Clinton Voters Now Say ‘People Like Them’ Were Better Off 50 Years Ago  —  It's a dramatic shift from 2016.  —  A year and a half after the 2016 election, voters who backed Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton increasingly feel as though people like them are losing ground in America …

Trump calls on Congress to pull back $15 billion in spending, including on Children's Health Insurance Program.  —  President Trump is sending a plan to Congress that calls for stripping back more than $15 billion in previously approved spending, with the hope that it will temper conservative angst over ballooning budget deficits.

Shocker: Republican candidate says ‘I was just wrong’ — and Obama was right  —  ORLANDO — Candidates rarely admit being wrong about anything.  —  It's even more rare for a candidate in a Republican primary to say he was wrong and former President Barack Obama was right.

Trump to announce Iran deal decision on Tuesday … Between the lines: All indications are that Trump will decline to waive sanctions on Iran, unilaterally violating the terms of the deal and likely throwing it into a death spiral.  The big questions are whether he'll leave some wiggle room …

This American Is A General For A Foreign Army Accused Of War Crimes In Yemen  —  “We would call him ‘Little Napoleon.’”  —  Stephen Toumajan spent most of his professional life as an officer in the US Army — but these days the country he serves is not the US but the United Arab Emirates.

The Promise of Vaping and the Rise of Juul  —  Teens have taken a technology that was supposed to help grownups stop smoking and invented a new kind of bad habit, molded in their own image.  —  If I get addicted to vaping, I thought, in March, I will always remember this Texas strip mall.

Obama's calorie rule kicks in thanks to Trump  —  An oft-forgotten provision of Obamacare is being pushed over the finish line by Trump's FDA.  —  One of Barack Obama's top food policy rules has escaped Donald Trump's war on regulations.  —  Starting Monday, calorie counts will have to be posted …