US House candidate Bouchard says he impregnated 14-year-old when he was 18  —  U.S. House candidate Anthony Bouchard had a relationship with and impregnated a 14-year-old girl when he was 18, he told the Star-Tribune late Thursday, hours after he disclosed the relationship in a Facebook Live video to his supporters.

Nearly everyone missed Chuck Schumer implying this week that the filibuster's death is coming  —  The conventional wisdom is coming around to the Democrats' side.  —  1 hr ago  —  The Editorial Board, as I hope you have noticed, is not in the business of making arguments for the sake of argumentation.

Republican Rep. Gonzalez, who voted to impeach Trump, warns of a GOP ‘recipe for disaster’  —  CLEVELAND — Rep. Anthony Gonzalez of Ohio, one of the 10 Republicans who voted to impeach former President Donald Trump, warned Friday that many in his party are engaged in a “losing strategy” …

White House budget plan set to leave out some health care proposals from campaign  —  A public option for health care will not be included in the budget that will be proposed next week.  —  White House officials have left key Biden campaign promises on health care out of their coming budget proposal …

New York Police Investigate Beating of Jewish Man During Pro-Palestinian March  —  NYPD officials have opened a hate-crime probe of the assault  —  The New York Police Department has opened a hate-crime investigation into the beating of a Jewish man during a pro-Palestinian demonstration …

Glenn Greenwald may have quit the Intercept, but he can't quit the feud  —  It all ended badly last October when Glenn Greenwald, the pugnacious, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, quit the investigative news site he had co-founded six years earlier.  Greenwald left the Intercept with a parting shot …

Crime App Citizen is Driving a Security Car Around L.A. and Won't Say Why  —  The vehicle is linked to a private security company which describes itself as a “subscription law enforcement service.”  —  Joseph Cox  —  Citizen, a widely popular app that sends alerts to local residents …

Chief of staff for GOP lawmaker spoke to law enforcement after overhearing talk of storming FBI building on January 6  —  (CNN)A top aide to Republican Rep. Carlos Gimenez of Florida says he spoke with both the Capitol Police and the FBI on the morning of January 6 after overhearing a man …

Bitcoin Miners Are Giving New Life to Old Fossil-Fuel Power Plants  —  The lofty prices of cryptocurrencies have investors sinking money into electricity generation, risking a backlash  —  Across America, older fossil-fuel power plants are shutting down in favor of renewable energy.

What We Believe About U.F.O.s  —  We still don't know what they are — but we may be close to finding out.  —  Mr. Reid is a former senator.  —  This personal reflection is part of a series called The Big Ideas, in which writers respond to a single question: What do we believe?

Troops Blast Senator for Claiming US Military Has Been ‘Emasculated’  —  A Texas Republican senator is taking heat after slamming the U.S. military as being “emasculated” in light of a new recruiting ad.  —  “Holy crap,” Sen. Ted Cruz said on Twitter.  “Perhaps a woke, emasculated military is not the best idea ...”

An interview with Emily Wilder, recent Stanford grad fired from AP job over criticisms of Israel  —  Emily Wilder, a journalist and 2020 graduate of Stanford University, started a new job as an Associated Press news associate based in Maricopa County, Arizona, on May 3.

Joe Biden, Crisis Diplomat  —  Israel was not high on the President's agenda, but a new Gaza war pulled him in anyway.  —  Early on Thursday evening, President Joe Biden made an unexpected appearance at the White House, in front of a press corps that had been hastily called back to work.

The Trump criminal probe's heating up.  Here's why the Trump children might want to lawyer up.  —  This week, New York Attorney General Letitia James revealed that her civil law inquiry into the corporate entity known as the Trump Organization has become a criminal investigation.

ILLINOIS GOES IT ALONE (FOR NOW) — A LIGHTFOOT INTERVIEW — PAUL RYAN HEADLINES FOR KINZINGER  —  TGIF, Illinois.  Thanks for hanging in there this week.  It's been a doozy.  —  TOP TALKER  —  With less than 10 days before the legislative session wraps up, Gov. J.B. Pritzker …

Marjorie Taylor Greene doesn't think white people can be terrorists  —  In the weeks after the 9/11 terrorist attack, former President George W. Bush famously declared in a joint address to Congress: “Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists.”  Apparently to today's Republicans …

Few plea bargains in U.S. Capitol riot cases as prosecutors stand firm  —  Nearly four months after the U.S. Capitol attack, just one of more than 440 people charged has pleaded guilty, a sign of tough conditions set by prosecutors for plea deals and resistance by defense lawyers to their demands.

Kindergartners' questions helped get them off hijacked school bus, driver says: ‘Enough already’  —  The hijacker forced his way onto the school bus with a rifle and commands to “Get out of town, now!”  It was “one of the scariest” scenarios possible, law enforcement said later …

The mess in Maricopa  —  Votes are still being counted in Arizona.  It won't change the winner.  But it might change America.  —  PHOENIX — Something spooky has been happening here in Maricopa County.  Weird spooky, crazy spooky, this-has-never-happened-before-in- America spooky.

Since leaving office, Trump has charged the Secret Service more than $40,000 to use space at Mar-a-Lago  —  Former president Donald Trump charged the Secret Service more than $40,000 this spring for rooms that Trump's own protective detail used while guarding him at his Mar-a-Lago Club, according to federal spending records.

‘Vulture’ Fund Alden Global, Known For Slashing Newsrooms, Buys Tribune Papers  —  The New York-based hedge fund Alden Global Capital - known for slashing its newspapers' budgets to extract escalated profits - won shareholder approval Friday for its $633 million bid to acquire the Tribune Publishing newspaper chain.

The Texas Mask Mystery  —  In early March, Texas became the first state to abolish its mask mandate and lift capacity constraints for all businesses.  Conservatives hailed Governor Greg Abbott's decision, while liberals predicted doom and death and President Joe Biden disparaged it as “Neanderthal thinking.”

Covid on the Run  —  The pandemic may now be in permanent retreat in the U.S.  —  I want to end this week by showing you two Covid-19 charts.  They contain the same message: The pandemic is in retreat.  —  In the United States, there is now an excellent chance that the retreat is permanent.

The unseen covid-19 risk for unvaccinated people  —  The country's declining covid-19 case rates present an unrealistically optimistic perspective for half of the nation — the half that is still not vaccinated.  —  As more people receive vaccines, covid-19 cases are occurring mostly …

David Brooks Interviews Joe Biden  —  What happened to Joe Biden?  Many people thought he was a moderate incrementalist, but now he's promoting whopping big legislative packages that make many on the progressive left extremely happy.  —  I asked him that when I spoke on the phone with him this week.