Scoop: Matt Gaetz eyes early retirement to take job at Newsmax  —  Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) has privately told confidants he's seriously considering not seeking re-election and possibly leaving Congress early for a job at Newsmax, three sources with direct knowledge of the talks tell Axios.

Biden's Judicial Nominees Have Diverse Backgrounds  —  The president's first choices for district and appeals court openings reflected his campaign promise to choose judges from outside of traditional backgrounds.  —  WASHINGTON — President Biden began a drive to reshape the federal courts …

Florida COVID numbers face new scrutiny  —  published earlier this month in the American Journal of Public Health argues that Florida is undercounting the number of people who died from COVID-19 by thousands of cases, casting new doubt on claims that Gov. Ron DeSantis navigated the coronavirus pandemic successfully.

The GOP is facing a sickness deeper than the coronavirus  —  It is the sign of a sickness deeper than covid-19 that the defiance of public health guidance has become a political selling point in the Republican Party.  —  Consider the case of South Dakota Gov. Kristi L. Noem.

Former Parler CEO says Dan Bongino owns no shares, got hustled by Rebekah Mercer  —  Fox News contributor Dan Bongino claims to be a Parler investor — but former CEO John Matze says he was duped  —  Pro-Trump pundit, conservative media tycoon and self-proclaimed Parler investor Dan Bongino …

Why you should boycott Coke, Delta over Ga. law |  Will Bunch Newsletter  —  This weekend I caught the trailer for the long-awaited sequel, “The Wedding Singer II” and it seemed kind of lame.  A washed-up '80s guy who'd also been 45th president of the United States reduced to performing weddings …

The WHO covid report is fatally flawed, and a real investigation has yet to take place  —  Determining the origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus should have nothing to do with politics.  It is a forensic question, one that requires thorough investigation of all possible theories …

Satisfaction With U.S. Vaccine Rollout Surges to 68%  —  WASHINGTON, D.C. — With well over 100 million COVID-19 vaccine doses administered, the public's satisfaction with the rollout has surged 24 percentage points to 68% in the last month.  —  Satisfaction with the COVID-19 vaccine process …

Biden falsely claims the new Georgia law ‘ends voting hours early’  —  “What I'm worried about is how un-American this whole initiative is.  It's sick.  It's sick ... deciding that you're going to end voting at five o'clock when working people are just getting off work.”

Dominion Builds Legal Behemoth to Drain Trumpland of Billions  —  Dominion Voting Systems is adding a new team of lawyers as they prepare for their current lawsuits—and another potential round.  —  With billions of dollars in lawsuits now in the balance, Dominion Voting Systems …

Attack on Asian Woman in Midtown Prompts Another Hate Crime Investigation  —  The New York Police Department said it was searching for a man who kicked a 65-year-old woman, stomped on her and made anti-Asian statements.  Building staff members who witnessed the attack and did not intervene have been suspended.

Border Patrol has released 30,000 directly into US since January  —  MCALLEN, Texas — Approximately 30,000 people who illegally crossed the southern border and were taken into federal custody have been released into the United States since January as facilities for detaining migrants reach …

Many Capitol rioters unlikely to serve jail time  —  Americans outraged by the storming of Capitol Hill are in for a jarring reality check: Many of those who invaded the halls of Congress on Jan. 6 are likely to get little or no jail time.  —  While public and media attention in recent weeks …

To cover or not to cover Trump?  Unfortunately, the choice is easy  —  “Please stop covering the crazy stuff out Trump's mouth [sic].  The nightmare is over.  Please #CNN, #NBC, #CBS, #ABC.”  —  That's just one of probably thousands of similar tweets in recent months imploring the media …

If You Want to Make It As a Writer, For God's Sakes, Be Weird  —  you're in a market, so sell something other people aren't … Writing is not a hard profession.  Writing is actually an impossibly easy profession.  I could sleep until noon every day if my cat didn't wake me up at 5:30 AM.

Behind the dark-money web that put Barrett (and Kavanaugh and Gorsuch) on the Supreme Court  —  When future Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett was nominated to a federal appeals court in 2017, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., at the time ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee …

Trump's heir?  Pence reemerges, lays groundwork for 2024 run  —  WASHINGTON (AP) — When former President Donald Trump was asked to list those he considers the future leaders of the Republican Party, he quickly rattled off a list of names, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Sens. Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz.

U.S. struggling to engage with Iran over nuclear deal  —  The Biden administration's efforts to re-engage with Iran over its nuclear program are coming up against three major obstacles: a lack of direct channels of communication, divisions within the leadership in Tehran …

A Trump appointee who drank vodka and had sex on the General Services Administration building's roof is back with a new political committee, documents show  — P. Brennan Hart III was at the center of a Trump administration sex scandal.  — The former official admitted to having oral sex …

Surprise!  States That Make It Harder to Vote Had Lower Turnout in 2020  —  State-level turnout data shows why Republicans are so interested in making it harder to vote in the next election.  —  As Republicans make a sweeping voter suppression push nationwide, they insist it won't have any real impact …

Joint Statement on the WHO-Convened COVID-19 Origins Study  —  The text of the following statement was released by the Governments of the United States of America, Australia, Canada, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Israel, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, the Republic of Korea, Slovenia, and the United Kingdom.

Democrats Look at Lowering Medicare Eligibility Age in Healthcare Package  —  Lawmakers, Biden administration consider measures to expand health coverage, but tight margins in Congress leave little room for dissent  —  WASHINGTON—Congressional Democrats and the Biden administration …

The facts about Georgia's ban on food, water giveaways to voters  —  Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp signed a sweeping elections bill into law.  It includes some controversial provisions about absentee and in-person voting.  —  One provision of the new law includes a ban on giving away water or food …

The G.O.P. Has Some Voters It Likes and Some It Doesn't  —  This is what happens when a political party turns against democracy.  —  The most outrageous provision of the Election Integrity Act of 2021, the omnibus election bill signed by Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia last week …

New U.S. coronavirus cases rise by 12 percent; nation braces for fourth pandemic wave  —  The Washington Post is providing this important information about the coronavirus for free.  For more free coverage of the coronavirus pandemic, sign up for our Coronavirus Updates newsletter where all stories are free to read.

Biden's Call for Reinstating Mask Mandates Undercut by Evidence from Texas and Michigan  —  President Biden, speaking on a day in which his CDC director voiced her sense of “impending doom” over the uptick in COVID-19 cases in the United States, said, “I'm reiterating my call for every governor …

Freedom Caucus frets over how far to push its rebellion  —  A group of House ultra-conservatives who rose to power by making life hell for GOP leaders is now facing cracks in its once-united front — which some worry could foreshadow an even wider rift if Republicans win back the majority next year.

Ruby Cramer joins POLITICO as senior staff writer  —  Announcement from Managing Editor, Washington and Politics, Blake Hounshell, Editor of POLITICO Carrie Budoff Brown and Editor-in-Chief Matt Kaminski:  —  It's not the first time POLITICO has tried to hire her, but it's the first time we actually …

Kentucky lawmakers override veto of McConnell-backed Senate vacancy plan  —  The Republican-run Kentucky legislature on Monday easily overrode Gov. Andy Beshear's veto of a notable bill that restricts his ability to fill any vacancies that arise if one of the state's U.S. senators dies or leaves office early.