NPR reports: The House passed what advocates call the most significant gun control measure in more than two decades on Wednesday when it approved the first of two bills aimed at strengthening the federal background check system for firearms purchases. The bill will likely stop in the House, though, as the Senate is unlikely to take up the measure and, …

The Dallas Morning News reports: Beto O’Rourke has decided not to run for Senate next year against Republican incumbent John Cornyn and likely will announce a campaign for president soon, people close to the former El Paso congressman told The Dallas Morning News Wednesday. Numerous people close to O’Rourke said they expect him to announce his presidential campaign within weeks. …

“He paints a potentially grave picture for the president. If the conversation he says he overheard with Roger Stone is true, then the president lied under oath, because the president swore to the accuracy of his answers to the written questions from Bob Mueller, one of which was: ‘Did you speak to Roger Stone about Julian Assange?’ Answer: No. If …

The New York Times reports: The attorney general for the District of Columbia has subpoenaed documents from President Trump’s inaugural committee, the third governmental body to delve into how the fund raised $107 million and spent it to celebrate Mr. Trump’s swearing in. The latest subpoena follows similar demands for documents by federal prosecutors in Manhattan and by New Jersey’s …

CNN reports: The Florida Bar is investigating Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz after his threatening tweet last night about President Donald Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen. Francine Andía Walker, the group’s director of communications, said the Florida Bar received a number of calls and emails regarding the tweet after it posted. According to disciplinary guidelines for the group, which is the …

Vice News reports: Michael Cohen told the House Oversight Committee Wednesday that Donald Trump was given advance warning about the release of hacked Democratic emails during the 2016 campaign. “Mr. Trump knew from Roger Stone in advance about the WikiLeaks drop of emails,” Cohen told the committee. “Mr. Cohen’s testimony is entirely untrue,” Stone wrote Wednesday in an emailed response …

This will be the end of the public testimony. Cohen will testify privately tomorrow before the House Intelligence Committee. The Cut reports: Representative Jackie Speier, a Democrat from California, asked Cohen how many times Trump had asked him to threaten an individual or entity on his behalf. What followed was a back and forth between the lawmaker and Cohen, where …

The Associated Press reports: Two California communities north of San Francisco were accessible only by boat Wednesday after a rain-swollen river overflowed its banks and inundated low-lying areas around them overnight, authorities said. One of them, the small city of Guerneville, “is officially an island,” the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement. A short time later, an official …

Just in from hate group leader Monica Cole: Walmart recently posted a video ad on its Facebook page of two homosexuals on a blind date. Unfortunately, the retail giant has decided to cave and be politically correct instead of remaining neutral on controversial issues. Founder, Sam Walton, would have never approved of this decision to promote the homosexual agenda. The …

The Daily Beast reports: Vice President Mike Pence’s incoming chief of staff Marc Short disparaged people living with HIV and AIDS and claimed that the transmission of the disease was largely the result of “repugnant” homosexual intercourse in an early ’90s column for his college newspaper. Writing in a conservative publication at Washington & Lee University, Short criticized what he …

The New York Times reports: The United Methodist Church on Tuesday voted to strengthen its ban on gay and lesbian clergy and same-sex marriages, a decision that could split the nation’s second-largest Protestant church. After three days of intense debate at a conference in St. Louis, the vote by church officials and lay members from around the world doubled down …

USA Today reports: Michael Cohen’s dramatic congressional testimony against President Donald Trump on Wednesday came loaded with lurid details, signed checks and partisan sniping – offering a level of spectacle that was unusual, even for Washington. But both Democrats and Republicans signaled that Cohen’s remarks before the House Oversight Committee – his first extensive public remarks about his role as …

“I think he would love to get a Nobel Prize — that was the biggest joke of the week, where he got [Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo] Abe to nominate him for a Nobel Prize — by getting a deal and claiming it. And you know, this is what he used to do in real estate. So many guys who did …

Raleigh’s CBS affiliate reports: McCrae Dowless has been indicted on seven charges in connection to an investigation into absentee ballot irregularities in the NC District 9 general election. Dowless has been charged with three counts of felonious obstruction of justice, two counts of conspiracy to commit obstruction of justice and two counts of possession of absentee ballot. Dowless was arrested …

The Week reports: Michael Cohen’s testimony before the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday included an allegation that, during his presidential campaign, President Trump directed his former lawyer to write letters to Trump’s high school, colleges, and the College Board demanding that they not release his grades or SAT scores to anyone requesting them. Below is a letter to Fordham University, …

“Donald Trump is a man who ran for office to make his brand great, not to make our country great. He had no desire or intention to lead this nation, only to market himself and to build his wealth and power. Mr. Trump would often say this campaign was going to be the greatest infomercial in political history. He never …

Monsters And Critics reports: A new Cottonelle commercial has debuted for 2019 — but there’s more than one version. The two TV spots are almost identical, but while one features a gay couple, a second features lovers who are straight. The premise of both appears to be that if you’re going to meet your partner’s parents, you probably want a …

The Guardian reports: Michael Cohen is due before the House committee at 10am. He shared his testimony with reporters last night and it is… unflinching. As well as those assertions of Trump being a “racist”, a “conman” and a “cheat”, Cohen will tell members of Congress that the president implicitly directed him to lie to Congress. Cohen will also provide …

Reuters reports: Two black women will face off in an historic April runoff for Chicago mayor, one a former prosecutor and anti-establishment candidate and the other a career politician, as the third-largest U.S. city struggles with crime and racial divisions. Lori Lightfoot, 56, the former president of independent civilian body the Chicago Police Board, had 17 percent of the first …

“Like most on the left, what [PayPal CEO Daniel] Shulman actually wants is utter conformity, a world where only approved opinions are allowed. Last year PayPal banned Alex Jones from using its platform for saying things they didn’t like. They’ve also banned anti-Muslim activist Laura Loomer, the publication VDare and a number of other people and organizations whose speech they …