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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

YAF to Berkeley: Honor First Amendment or Face Litigation  —  Late Thursday night, Young America's Foundation put UC-Berkeley on notice that their attempts to deny the First Amendment rights of students will not be tolerated any longer.  —  In a letter to Berkeley's Vice Chancellor Stephen Sutton …

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 …

The Professional Class Strikes Back  —  Notes from realignment: A solid Republican district becomes the site of a Democratic resurgence.  In the first round of a special election a thirty-something unknown outperforms Hillary Clinton's 2016 margin.  A runoff looms, but the lesson to draw from this result is clear.

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.

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 …

Xavier Jugelé, 37, Officer Killed in Paris, Was Defender of Gay Rights  —  PARIS — He was a proud defender of gay rights, joining protests against Russia's ban on “homosexual propaganda” before the 2014 Olympics.  He once went to Greece to help police officers deal with migrants …

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.

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 …

White House could provoke a spending showdown over funding for border wall  —  White House budget director Mick Mulvaney said Thursday that he hopes to use negotiations to keep the government open past April 28 in an effort to force Democrats to back some funding for creating a new wall along …

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 …

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.

Poll: Evan McMullin beats Sen. Orrin Hatch in head-to-head matchup  —  SALT LAKE CITY — Former independent presidential candidate Evan McMullin would beat Sen. Orrin Hatch in a head-to-head matchup for the U.S. Senate, a new poll shows.  —  The Centrist Project, which is recruiting candidates …

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 …