AP News in Brief at 11:04 p.m. EDT

The U.S. commander in Afghanistan who ordered use of the "mother of all bombs" to attack an Islamic State stronghold near the Pakistani border didn't need and didn't request President Donald Trump's approval, Pentagon officials said Friday. The officials said that even before Trump took office in January, Gen.

The Wall Street Journal: Trump plans to nominate Scott Garrett,…

President Donald Trump said Friday he would nominate former congressman Scott Garrett, who has supported closing the U.S. Export-Import Bank, to head the credit agency. Garrett voted in 2012 and in 2015 against renewing the charter of the Ex-Im Bank, which guarantees loans for companies that export U.S. products.

One of Trumpcare’s creators has a hard time defending his work back home

Popular Vote Loser Donald Trump just released his first budget,and it is filled with debilitating cuts to social services and... Despite promising to release his tax returns in a televised debate with Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump continues to show that... Rep. Greg Walden , chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, is one of the leaders responsible for Trumpcare. There are two committees taking the lead, and one of them is his, and he's been right there in the middle of crafting-if you could call it that-the so-far failed plan.

US Senator Pushes Back Against Trump’s Proposed Foreign Aid Cuts

Face-to-face with victims of South Sudan's famine and civil war, the Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee strongly defended U.S. foreign aid on Friday despite President Donald Trump's proposed deep cuts in humanitarian assistance. Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee visited the world's fastest-growing refugee crisis in northern Uganda, just across the border from South Sudan, in a pointed response to Trump's "America First" platform that would slash funds for diplomacy and foreign aid.

Sununu’s first 100 days marked by enthusiasm, but key losses

In this Jan. 5, 2017 file photo, New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu waves as he stands with his wife Valerie, left, and Speaker of the House Shawn Jasper after taking the oath of office at the State House in Concord, N.H. Sununu set an ambitious agenda for a first-term governor, and as he marks his first 100 days in office, he's made headway on some while seeing little to no progress -- or outright losses -- on others.

Judicial Watch Calls Upon Office of Congressional Ethics to…

Contact: Jill Farrell, Judicial Watch , 202-646-5172 WASHINGTON, April 14, 2017 / Christian Newswire / -- Judicial Watch today sent a hand-delivered letter to the chairman and co-chairman of the House Office of Congressional Ethics calling for an investigation into whether Rep. Adam Schiff and Jackie Speier "disclosed classified information to the public in violation of House ethics rules."

“Trumpgrets” comes to the movement

I wrote about it for Salon this morning: The story of the regretful Donald Trump voter has already become a clichA . It started even before the inauguration, with reporters venturing out into the wilds of Real America to talk to the most fascinating people on earth and find out how they're feeling on any given day.

How Mitch McConnell stole a Supreme Court seat

To the editor: Isn't it ironic that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell single handedly decided who should serve on the Supreme Court by blocking Merrick Garland from being considered after he was nominated in 2016 by President Obama and then invoking the nuclear option to confirm Neil Gorsuch , all in an effort to replace the strict constructionist Antonin Scalia with another strict constructionist, Gorsuch? One would think that a strict constructionist would find McConnell's actions questionable, as McConnell essentially dissolved the separation of power between the three branches of our government. Please fill in your full name, mailing address, city of residence, phone number and e-mail address below.

Analysis: Trump risks turning Breitbart into an enemy by sidelining Bannon – Fri, 14 Apr 2017 PST

The seeds of Breitbart's resentment were sown months before President Donald Trump cut down chief strategist Stephen Bannon this week. Now the question is whether the hard-right news site that cheered Trump to victory - and sent Bannon, its former chairman, to the White House - will turn on the president.

US senators say food aid constraints delay help amid famine

As President Donald Trump seeks to cut foreign aid under the slogan of "America First," two U.S. senators are proposing making American food assistance more efficient after meeting with victims of South Sudan's famine and civil war. Following a visit to the world's largest refugee settlement in northern Uganda with the Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Democratic Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware told The Associated Press on Saturday that the U.S. "can deliver more food aid at less cost" through foreign food aid reform.

Democrats pressure Trump to keep national monuments

Western Democrats are pressuring President Donald Trump not to rescind land protections put in place by President Barack Obama, including Utah's Bears Ears National Monument. Obama infuriated Utah Republicans when he created the monument in late December on 1.3 million acres of land that is sacred to Native Americans and home to tens of thousands of archaeological sites, including ancient cliff dwellings.

In first public appearance as CIA director Pompeo reiterates how much …

"CIA Director Mike Pompeo blistered WikiLeaks in a speech Thursday, calling WikiLeaks a 'hostile intelligence service' aided by Russia and accused WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange of making 'common cause with dictators.' The former Kansas congressman was speaking at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C., his first public address since becoming director.

Trump, Budget Boss Send Signal of Shift on Small Government

Is the Trump administration shifting away from the vision of smaller government candidate Donald Trump and the Republican platform championed in the 2016 campaign? over the weekend, President Trump said he wanted to keep the Export-Import Bank most conservatives in Congress want abolished. Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney told an off-camera session with reporters Tuesday the Trump administration was seeking a mass reorganization of Cabinet Departments and federal agencies and to make them run more efficiently.

Trump gives states power to cut off Planne…

President Trump signed a bill Thursday freeing states to withhold federal family planning grant money from Planned Parenthood, marking the first major pro-life legislation to be signed into law in more than a decade. The bill unravels an Obama-era regulation that insisted states couldn't refuse to spend family planning money with Planned Parenthood or any other organization that performs abortions.