First Read: The Democratic Race Isn't as Close as You Think It Is  —  First Read is a morning briefing from Meet the Press and the NBC Political Unit on the day's most important political stories and why they matter.  —  The Democratic race isn't as close as you think it is

White House Watch: Trump 42%, Clinton 37%  —  Donald Trump has now grown his lead over Hillary Clinton in Rasmussen Reports' first weekly White House Watch survey.  —  Trump earns 42% support to Clinton's 37% when Likely U.S. Voters are asked whom they would vote for if the presidential election were held today.

EXCLUSIVE: David Koch Pledges Millions To Gary Johnson's Presidential Bid  —  Billionaire businessman and philanthropist David Koch has pledged “tens of millions of dollars” to help bankroll the campaign of Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson, according to a source within Johnson's campaign.

Okla. Senate approves bill barring doctors from performing abortions  —  Oklahoma lawmakers on Thursday approved a bill making it a felony for doctors to perform abortions, which opponents say is essentially a ban on the procedure.  —  The Republican bill, which has been called …

Chaos in House after GOP votes down LGBT measure … The House floor devolved into chaos and shouting on Thursday as a measure to ensure protections for members of the LGBT community narrowly failed to pass after Republican leaders urged their members to change their votes.

EgyptAir Flight 804 disappears  —  (CNN)EgyptAir Flight 804 heading from Paris to Cairo disappeared from radar with 69 people on board, the airline said.  —  The plane was flying at 37,000 feet when it disappeared shortly after entering Egyptian airspace, the airline tweeted.

New poll finds 9 in 10 Native Americans aren't offended by Redskins name  —  Nine in 10 Native Americans say they are not offended by the Washington Redskins name, according to a new Washington Post poll that shows how few ordinary Indians have been persuaded by a national movement to change the football team's moniker.

60 Minutes' Morley Safer dies at 84  —  Longtime CBS newsman Morley Safer of “60 Minutes” and Vietnam War reporting fame dies at 84  —  Morley Safer, the CBS newsman who changed war reporting forever when he showed GIs burning the huts of Vietnamese villagers and went on to become …

R.I.P., GOP: How Trump Is Killing the Republican Party  —  Donald Trump crushed 16 GOP opponents in one of the most appalling, vicious campaigns in history.  His next victim?  The entire Republican Party  —  Indianapolis, Indiana, May 3rd, 2016, a little before 8:30 p.m. Texas …

This is how fascism comes to America  —  Robert Kagan is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a contributing columnist for The Post.  —  The Republican Party's attempt to treat Donald Trump as a normal political candidate would be laughable were it not so perilous to the republic.

Say what?  State lawmaker tries to add age, weight limits for strippers in Louisiana  —  BATON ROUGE, La. (WGNO) - A state representative proposed - then pulled - a measure in the state House Wednesday that would have required strippers in Louisiana to be no older than 28 and weigh no more than 160 pounds.

Dying GOP Senator Apologizes to Muslims for Donald Trump  —  Bob Bennett spent his last days letting Muslims know how sorry he was that an Islamophobe had become his party's all-but-certain nominee.  —  Former GOP senator Bob Bennett lay partially paralyzed in his bed on the fourth floor of the George Washington University Hospital.

New evidence shows Rolling Stone rape hoaxer created her ‘rapist’  —  We already knew that “Jackie,” the woman who told Rolling Stone she was gang-raped at the University of Virginia, likely fabricated the attack.  But new evidence shows that she created an email address for her fake attacker after the alleged attack occurred.

PC feminists misfire again, as fearful elite media can't touch Donald Trump  —  A boastful, millionaire New Yorker liked the company of beautiful women?  This is why NYT can't lay a glove on Trump  —  Zap!  If momentum were a surge of electromagnetic energy, Donald Trump against all odds has it now.

Top US general defends Donald Trump  —  In a special web extra, General Michael Flynn, former head of the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) under President Barack Obama, discusses his informal role as an adviser to presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.

Theranos Voids Two Years of Edison Blood-Test Results  —  Company led by Elizabeth Holmes withdraws all Edison results from 2014 and 2015, issues tens of thousands of corrected blood-test reports  —  Theranos Inc. has told federal health regulators that the company voided two years of results …