Associated Press
1. WHO ASKED FBI TO DISPUTE RUSSIA REPORTS
White House chief of staff Reince Priebus wanted a top FBI official to dispute media reports that President Donald Trump’s campaign advisers were frequently in touch with Russian intelligence agents during the election campaign, a White House official says.
2. WHAT MALAYSIA SAYS KILLED NORTH KOREAN
The banned chemical weapon VX nerve agent, considered by some experts to be the nastiest of nerve agents, was used to kill Kim Jong Nam, the North Korean ruler’s outcast half brother who was attacked by two women who rubbed the substance on his face.
3. SHOOTING OF INDIAN MEN IN KANSAS CALLED RACIALLY MOTIVATED
A man accused of shooting two Indians in a suburban Kansas City bar, killing one, has been charged with murder and attempted murder. It has sent shock waves through their hometowns in India.
4. WHERE IRAQI FORCES HAVE REGAINED GROUND FROM IS
Iraqi forces have taken control of most of Mosul’s airport and all of military base next to it on city’s southwestern edge. U.S. troops, meanwhile, are adjusting rules of engagement as they get closer to front-line fighting.
5. WHY THE SUPREME COURT COULD DECIDE TRANSGENDER CASE
Both the transgender teen who sued to use the boys’ bathroom and the Virginia school board that won’t let him want the Supreme Court to issue a definitive ruling in their ongoing dispute.
6. CAITLYN JENNER CALLS TRUMP TRANSGENDER DECISION ‘A DISASTER’
Jenner is taking President Donald Trump to task for his administration’s reversal of a directive on transgender access to public school bathrooms.
7. HOW TRUMP RETURNS TRANSFORMED TO CONSERVATIVE CONFAB
President Donald Trump will find a much more receptive crowd at the nation’s largest gathering of conservative activists than when he first addressed the group six years ago.
8. VULNERABLE DEMOCRATS LAY LOW AS TOWN HALL ANGST RAGES
Some senators are avoiding town hall meetings as their Republican counterparts get pummeled by an energized electorate frustrated with President Donald Trump’s early agenda.
9. A FAR-RIGHT CANDIDATE SEES A FRANCE WITHOUT KIPPAS OR HEADSCARVES
Marine Le Pen’s plan to ban religious symbols from French streets if elected president this spring targets both France’s burgeoning Muslim population and Europe’s largest Jewish community.
10. PLEA IN WIFE’S STAIRCASE DEATH LETS MAN MAINTAIN INNOCENCE
A novelist originally sentenced to life in prison in 2003 for the death of his wife at their North Carolina mansion is expected to leave a courthouse officially a free man Friday.