PHOTOS: Christie, family soak up sun on N.J. beach he closed to public  —  Gallery: Gov. Chris Christie and family on closed Island Beach State Park in N.J.  —  NJ Advance Media for NJ.com  —  BERKELEY TOWNSHIP — People hoping to visit Island Beach State Park this holiday weekend …

Scoop: Bannon pushes tax hike for wealthy  —  Steve Bannon is causing a stir inside the administration by pushing an idea that's anathema to most Republicans: raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans to pay for steep middle and working-class tax cuts.  (Some officials who've heard Bannon's idea …

Justice Kennedy tells job applicants he may retire next year: report  —  Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy has reportedly told law clerk applicants that he is considering retiring.  —  NPR reported that Kennedy hired his law clerks for the coming term but has not yet hired law clerks for the term beginning in October 2018.

New poll: 70% of Americans think civility has gotten worse since Trump took office  —  Americans broadly believe their country's political tone has become less civil since Donald Trump was elected president and that fundamental rights are weakening, according to a new PBS NewsHour/NPR/Marist poll.

Tillerson Ready to Let Russia Decide Assad's Fate  —  In talks with the U.N. chief, Tillerson indicates Russia should be in the driver's seat when it comes to the future of Syria.  —  Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told the U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres during …

Trump: ‘Fake News will be forced to discuss’ White House accomplishments  —  The media that President Donald Trump has so often derided for what he perceives as their unfair coverage of his administration will soon have no choice but to report on the White House's preferred issues, the president wrote online Monday morning.

GOP lawmaker to CNN: ‘You guys are getting played’ … Rep. Scott Taylor (R-Va.) told CNN early Monday that the media is “getting played” by covering President Trump's tweets.  —  The congressman said the media needs to cover “real issues” instead of Trump's tweets when asked on CNN's …

Medicaid Worsens Your Health?  That's a Classic Misinterpretation of Research  —  As a program for low-income Americans, Medicaid requires the poor to pay almost nothing for their health care.  Republicans in Congress have made clear that they want to change that equation for many …

WaPo's Ignatius: Fighters in Syria cheer at mention of Trump name  —  “One Syrian Kurdish commander used a vulgar term, in Spanish it would be cojones, to describe what President Trump has got and why they like him.”  —  On a morning when you would have expected the Morning Joe panel …

Kushner, Ivanka rub elbows with Dem billionaire Soros at Hamptons party: report  —  First daughter Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner were spotted at a party over the weekend rubbing elbows with billionaire Democratic financier George Soros and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer

Justice Department's Corporate Crime Watchdog Resigns, Saying Trump Makes It Impossible To Do Job  —  One of the Justice Department's top corporate crime watchdogs has resigned, declaring that she cannot enforce ethics laws against companies while, she asserts, her own bosses in the Trump administration …

Vagina surgery ‘sought by girls as young as nine’ because of pornography, doctors reveal  —  Girls as young as nine are reportedly seeking surgery on their private parts because of insecurities stemming from adult content such as pornography, according to leading doctors.

Deportation a ‘Death Sentence’ to Adoptees After a Lifetime in the U.S.  —  SEOUL, South Korea — Phillip Clay was adopted at 8 into an American family in Philadelphia.  —  Twenty-nine years later, in 2012, after numerous arrests and a struggle with drug addiction, he was deported back to his birth country, South Korea.

America's Future Is Texas  —  With right-wing zealots taking over the legislature even as the state's demographics shift leftward, Texas has become the nation's bellwether.  —  When Frederick Law Olmsted passed through Texas, in 1853, he became besotted with the majesty of the Texas legislature.