The Republican blueprint to steal the 2024 election  —  Ex-Judge who played key role in Trump-Pence feud speaks out for first time  —  J. Michael Luttig, appointed by President George H. W. Bush, formerly served on the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit for 15 years.

Russia cuts off gas to Poland, Bulgaria, stoking tensions with E.U. over Ukraine  —  Russia's state-controlled gas company, Gazprom, said Wednesday it had shut off the supply of natural gas to Poland and Bulgaria, a move that marks a significant escalation in the economic tension between Moscow and the West over the war in Ukraine.

Disney tells investors state can't dissolve special district without paying debt  —  As Florida legislators were rushing through passage of a bill to repeal the special district that governs Walt Disney World last week, they failed to notice an obscure provision in state law that says the state …

Twitter says mass deactivations after Musk news were ‘organic’  —  How Elon Musk's Twitter takeover could change the platform  —  Twitter was flooded with user reports of high-profile accounts losing thousands of followers in the hours after news broke that Tesla CEO Elon Musk would purchase …

Russia releases US Marine vet as part of prisoner exchange  —  WASHINGTON (AP) — Russia and the United States carried out a dramatic prisoner exchange on Wednesday, trading a Marine veteran jailed in Moscow for a convicted Russian drug trafficker serving a long prison sentence in America …

United States is ‘out of the pandemic phase,’ Fauci says  —  The United States is finally “out of the pandemic phase,” the country's top infectious-disease expert said Tuesday, as cases and hospitalizations are notably down and mask mandates are all but gone.

Just Call Trump a Loser  —  Let's assume Donald Trump runs again for president in 2024.  Yes, I know, caveats, caveats.  Republicans say it's too early to discuss '24.  A lot can change between now and then.  Maybe Trump won't actually run.  Maybe he's just teasing the possibility to milk the attention.

Michigan Republican resigns from GOP committee citing ‘delusional lies’  —  Lansing — Tony Daunt, a longtime Michigan Republican insider, resigned Tuesday night from the GOP's state committee, saying party leaders had made the coming election a test of “who is most cravenly loyal” to former President Donald Trump.

NY attorney general's office says it's nearly done unraveling Trump's ‘Russian nesting doll’  —  New York (CNN)Lawyers for the New York State Attorney General's Office said they are nearly finished with their civil investigation into the Trump Organization, after taking steps to unravel …

Partisan Picture Of Senate Primary  —  Democrats divided on ideology but progressive candidate is most popular; Republicans united on issues, but have no clear favorite in the field … West Long Branch, NJ - There are very different dynamics at play among the Democratic and Republican bases …

Villanueva backs off investigation of Times reporter who revealed cover-up  —  Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva said Tuesday that his department was targeting a Times journalist in a criminal leak investigation for her reporting on a departmental cover-up, but after a barrage …

Twitter Admits It Hid Tweets About HBO's QAnon Docuseries  —  Twitter told the director of “Q: Into the Storm” it had “made the decision not to allow promotion of this documentary” when he tried to advertise the film.  —  Alerts  —  For the past year, Twitter has censored tweets …

China's Covid Lockdown Outrage Tests Limits of Triumphant Propaganda  —  Public anger and grief over the bungled lockdown in Shanghai is creating a credibility crisis for the country's leader, Xi Jinping, and his zero Covid policies.  —  Immediately after Beijing said it had detected …

Abortion and the Supreme Court  —  This is the moment for the Justices to turn the issue over to the voters.  —  1x  —  The Supreme Court will soon decide an abortion case in which Mississippi has asked the Justices to overturn Roe v. Wade.  The oral argument suggested …

First look: Lis Smith dishes on love of political combat in new book … - The title, “Any Given Tuesday,” puts an Election Day twist on the “Any Given Sunday” truism about the NFL.  —  The book is animated by Smith's love for the hand-to-hand combat of politics, and she …

POLITICO Playbook: Fauci pulls out of WHCD.  Is Biden next?  —  DRIVING THE DAY  —  Late Tuesday night, CNN's Oliver Darcy and Kaitlan Collins scooped that ANTHONY FAUCI is dropping out of this weekend's White House Correspondents' Association dinner over concerns about Covid-19.

An Investigative Reporter for the Albany Bureau  —  The Metro team welcomes Jay Root as an investigative reporter for the Albany bureau.  Read more in this note from Jim Dao and Dean Chang.  —  When Dean Baquet suggested that Metro hire an investigative reporter for the Albany bureau …