Trump Pondered Firing Mueller; His Aides Pushed Back  —  WASHINGTON — Last month's appointment of Robert S. Mueller III as a special counsel to investigate possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia enraged President Trump.  Yet, at least initially, he holstered his Twitter finger and publicly said nothing.

Steve Scalise shot in Virginia, aide also hit  —  House Majority Whip Steve Scalise was shot in the hip and at least one other aide was also hit in the chest by a gunman with a rifle who opened fire at a baseball practice in Virginia Wednesday morning, Fox News confirmed.

AP sources: Trump tells senators House health bill ‘mean’  —  WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump told Republican senators Tuesday that the House-passed health care bill he helped revive is “mean” and urged them to craft a version that is “more generous,” congressional sources said.

Trump property buyers make clear shift to secretive LLCs  —  Since President Trump won the Republican nomination, the majority of his companies' real estate sales are to secretive shell companies that obscure the buyers' identities, a USA TODAY investigation has found.

Sessions could earn a ticket to the grand jury  —  Dems smell blood, but it's not necessarily Jeff Sessions'.  The attorney general held his own at his high-stakes Senate hearing, at one point raising his voice to declare he was “not stonewalling,” and resented the “secret innuendo being leaked out there about me.”

David Bonderman Resigns From Uber Board After Sexist Remark  —  SAN FRANCISCO — David Bonderman, an Uber board member and partner at private equity firm TPG, is resigning from the board of the ride-hailing company after he made a disparaging remark about women at an Uber meeting on Tuesday …

NBC holding crisis meetings over Megyn Kelly … As families of the Sandy Hook victims continue to pressure NBC to ax Megyn Kelly's Sunday interview with conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, the network has been holding crisis meetings about how to handle the backlash.

London fire: 6 confirmed dead after Grenfell Tower blaze  —  A woman with six children who was attempting to escape from the 21st floor of the London tower block fire this morning got to the bottom to discover two of them were missing, it has been claimed.  —  Dozens of horrific eyewitness accounts …

Live Election Results: Virginia Primaries  —  Ralph S. Northam, the current lieutenant governor has won the Democratic primary to replace Gov. Terry McAuliffe.  He defeated Tom Perriello, a former congressman who counts Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren as big-name backers.

Arctic Climate Change Study Canceled Because of Climate Change  —  Isn't it ironic?  Don't you think?  —  A multi-million dollar study on the impact of climate change which was set to take place in the Hudson's Bay had to be cancelled due to, you guessed it, climate change.

Cultural appropriation: Make it illegal worldwide, Indigenous advocates say  —  Indigenous advocates from around the world are calling on a UN committee to ban the appropriation of Indigenous cultures — and to do it quickly.  —  Delegates from 189 countries, including Canada …

America's new tobacco crisis: The rich stopped smoking, the poor didn't  —  MARTINSVILLE, VA. — After decades of lawsuits, public campaigns and painful struggles, Americans have finally done what once seemed impossible: Most of the country has quit smoking, saving millions of lives and leading to massive reductions in cancer.

A Few Thoughts on the Sessions' Hearing  —  Let me share a few quick thoughts on today's Sessions hearing.  —  The big and overriding takeaway from this hearing is that Sessions declined to answer almost all the pertinent questions - in most cases because they involved his discussions …

BREAKING OVERNIGHT: Massive fire in west London — WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE: TRUMP slaps down House Republicans' health care bill — POLITICO/MORNING CONSULT POLL: Voters trust Comey over Trump — B'DAY: Brian Fallon  —  Listen to the Playbook Audio Briefing http://bit.ly/2srPRmw …