Trump, Wrecker of Reputations  —  On Attorney General William Barr's testimony and the coming constitutional crisis.  —  In the first year of the Trump Presidency, White House advisers often promised reporters that this would be the week when they would unveil Trump's plans for a massive investment in American infrastructure.

Why Wages Are Finally Rising, 10 Years After the Recession  —  For years it was the central question in an otherwise impressive recovery by the American job market: Why aren't wages rising faster?  —  Unemployment was low.  Hiring was strong.  Corporate executives were complaining …

Letter from the Editor  —  Dear readers:  —  On Tuesday, April 30, Poynter posted a list of 515 “unreliable” news websites, built from pre-existing databases compiled by journalists, fact-checkers and researchers around the country.  Our aim was to provide a useful tool for readers to gauge …

Watergate had the Nixon tapes.  Mueller had Annie Donaldson's notes.  —  The notes, scribbled rapidly on a legal pad, captured the fear inside the White House when President Trump raged over the Russia investigation and decreed he was firing the FBI director who led it: “Is this the beginning of the end?”

Inside Bernie Sanders's 1988 10-day ‘honeymoon’ in the Soviet Union  —  Bernie Sanders was bare-chested, towel-draped, sitting at a table lined with vodka bottles, as he sang “This Land Is Your Land” to his hosts in the Soviet Union in the spring of 1988.  —  The just-married socialist mayor …

Mark Halperin Enlists Pals Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski, and Michael Smerconish to Rehab His Career After Sexual Misconduct Scandal  —  The disgraced pundit has re-emerged from #MeToo hiding and has met with media friends for new punditry work—including a scrapped gig with the hosts of MSNBC's ‘Morning Joe.’

On Twitter, news outlets amplify Trump's false statements: study  —  When a president speaks, what he says is, by journalistic norms, inherently newsworthy.  But when a president lies—on social media, at press conferences, and in speeches—news organizations have to reconsider old rules …

Sarah Kliff of Vox to Join Investigations  —  Sarah Kliff, a versatile journalist who has used a variety of media to explain complex health legislation, will be based in Washington.  Read more in this note from Rebecca Corbett, Dean Murphy and Carolyn Ryan.

‘Bigger than WATERGATE’: Trump hails NYT report on FBI meeting with Papadopoulos  —  The White House on Friday seized on revelations that the FBI during the 2016 campaign sent an undercover investigator to meet with an aide to then-candidate Donald Trump, with the president calling the news “bigger than Watergate.”

The Coming Subpoena Fights Between Trump and Congress, Explained  —  WASHINGTON — Attorney General William P. Barr defied on Thursday a deadline imposed by a congressional subpoena to provide lawmakers with the full-text Mueller report.  —  President Trump, meanwhile, has vowed to resist …

California Senate passes bill that would keep Trump off 2020 ballot unless he releases tax returns  —  The California state Senate on Thursday approved a bill to require candidates appearing on the presidential primary ballot — including President Trump — to release five years' worth of income tax returns.

The 2019 governor's race that has Trump's team sweating  —  Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin is a presidential phone-buddy and White House regular who's become one of President Donald Trump's loudest surrogates.  —  He's also one of the most unpopular governors in the country, facing a treacherous reelection in November.

Senate Democrats ask NRA execs, PR firm for documents related to alleged self-dealing  —  Three Senate Democrats have asked current and former National Rifle Association executives and the organization's public relations firm to turn over letters, third-party audits, memos and other materials …

The Economy and the Election  —  For as long as I've covered politics, the conventional wisdom has been that presidents win re-election in good economic times and they lose when the economy stinks.  Ronald Reagan won re-election when the economy was booming.  Jimmy Carter lost when we sunk into economic “malaise.”

Cohen's prison reality: ‘The Situation’ and Shabbat services  —  NEW YORK (AP) — “The Situation” and the Fyre Festival fraudster are already there.  President Donald Trump's former lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen, is up next.  —  It's not reality TV.  It's a federal prison 70 miles …

Ukrainian embassy confirms DNC contractor solicited Trump dirt in 2016  —  The boomerang from the Democratic Party's failed attempt to connect Donald Trump to Russia's 2016 election meddling is picking up speed, and its flight path crosses right through Moscow's pesky neighbor, Ukraine.

Biden brags about his time in ‘the hood’  —  DES MOINES, Iowa — Joe Biden Wednesday bragged about time he spent in the “hood,” a place where he said he found “women of color” he helped train to do computer coding.  —  Speaking at a rally, the former vice president elaborated on how U.S. workers need …