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 …

Top GOP Senate recruit Ann Wagner won't challenge Claire McCaskill  —  Rep. Ann Wagner has opted against a 2018 Senate bid, choosing re-election to the House over challenging vulnerable Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill.  —  Wagner's surprise move, finalized over the weekend, is a blow to the Republican Party.

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 …

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 October 2018 Clerkship Applicants He's Considering Retirement, Right Before 2018 Midterms  —  Big news hiding in Nina Totenberg's story on Justice Gorsuch voting 100% with Justice Thomas: … This would put Justice Kennedy's retirement right before the 2018 midterms …

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 …

Stephen Hawking: Trump pulling out of Paris Agreement ‘could push Earth over the brink’  —  Stephen Hawking blasted President Trump's recent decision to pull the United States out of the Paris climate change agreement in a new interview, saying it “could push Earth over the brink.”

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.

How Americans Order Their Steak  —  Are people who prefer their steaks well done just wrong?  It's the question that has divided a nation that is otherwise firmly united on the “steak is great” front, given that we Americans consume about 25 billion pounds of beef annually.

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 …

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.

The Hijacked American Presidency  —  Every now and then we are going to have to do this: Step back from the daily onslaughts of insanity emanating from Donald Trump's parasitic presidency and remind ourselves of the obscenity of it all, registering its magnitude in its full, devastating truth.

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 …

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 …