President of Venezuela Offers Asylum to Snowden  —  CARACAS — Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said on Friday he had decided to offer asylum to former U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, who has petitioned several countries to avoid capture by Washington.

John Kerry on his boat during Egypt upheaval, State Dept. concedes  —  As regime change was unfolding in Egypt, Secretary of State John Kerry spent time on his boat Wednesday afternoon in Nantucket Sound, the State Department acknowledged to CBS News on Friday, after repeatedly denying that Kerry was aboard any boat.

‘Muslim Brotherhood claims interim Egyptian president is Jewish’  —  Wash Post: MB website said Israel conspiring to insert ElBaradei.  —  The Muslim Brotherhood claimed in a post on its official website that Egypt's new interim president Adli Mansour is Jewish, The Washington Post reported on Friday.

Scott Walker signs abortion bill; providers quickly sue  —  Legislation requires doctors to have hospital admitting privileges  —  By Patrick Marley of the Journal Sentinel  —  Madison — Gov. Scott Walker signed a bill Friday requiring doctors who perform abortions to have hospital admitting privileges …

State rests and defense begins its case in George Zimmerman trial  —  SANFORD — Trayvon Martin's mother sat at the witness stand Friday, head held high, and decisively insisted that the chilling cries captured on a 911 call belonged to only one person: her slain child, Trayvon Benjamin Martin.

David Brooks' bigoted rant  —  In today's New York Times, the self-satisfied columnist isn't too sure about the Egyptian people's mental capacity  —  Since when did the New York Times get into the business of publishing old-school bigoted rants deriding whole populations and cultures as cognitively incapacitated?

George W. Bush to push immigration reform  —  Former President George W. Bush is expected to make a speech next week on how immigration reform is good for the country, the Dallas Morning News reports.  —  Bush will speak after a citizenship ceremony at the George W. Bush Presidential Center …

Police chief killed with rifle lost in ATF gun-tracking program  —  WASHINGTON—A high-powered rifle lost in the ATF's Fast and Furious controversy was used to kill a Mexican police chief in the state of Jalisco earlier this year, according to internal Department of Justice records …

Yes, the Sequester Is Affecting the Job Market  —  The across-the-board automatic federal budget cuts that began in March do not seem to be derailing the recovery so far, given that the job market over all has continued to grow.  And certainly some of the scariest predictions about the sequester …

Oregon Looks at Way to Attend College Now and Repay State Later  —  Going to college can seem like a choice between impossibly high payments while in school or a crushing debt load for years afterward, but one state is experimenting with a third way.  —  This week, the Oregon Legislature approved …