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 …

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 …

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.

‘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 …

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.

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.

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 …

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.

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 …

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 …

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 …