Exclusive: First charges filed in Mueller investigation  —  Washington (CNN)A federal grand jury in Washington, DC, on Friday approved the first charges in the investigation led by special counsel Robert Mueller, according to sources briefed on the matter.  —  The charges are still sealed under orders from a federal judge.

Fusion GPS and the Washington Free Beacon  —  Since its launch in February of 2012, the Washington Free Beacon has retained third party firms to conduct research on many individuals and institutions of interest to us and our readers.  In that capacity, during the 2016 election cycle …

New Accuser: Serial Harasser Mark Halperin Targeted College Girls, Too … Mark Halperin, the well-known pundit accused of sexually harassing fellow ABC News staffers, also allegedly made unwanted advances on potential new recruits, including a college student and a journalist hoping to work with him.

Talking Points Brought to Trump Tower Meeting Were Shared With Kremlin  —  Natalia V. Veselnitskaya arrived at a meeting at Trump Tower in June 2016 hoping to interest top Trump campaign officials in the contents of a memo she believed contained information damaging to the Democratic Party and, by extension, Hillary Clinton.

Puerto Rico Is Burning Its Dead, And We May Never Know How Many People The Hurricane Really Killed  —  People whose bodies are cremated are largely not being counted in the official death toll.  The government says it's the fault of funeral directors, while funeral directors say they've received no guidance from the government.

Trump Donor Asked Data Firm If It Could Better Organize Hacked Emails  —  August 2016 exchange between Rebekah Mercer and Cambridge Analytica's CEO shows efforts to leverage Clinton-related messages  —  Trump donor Rebekah Mercer in August 2016 asked the chief executive of a data-analytics firm working …

Orrin Hatch Tells Friends He Plans to Retire  —  SALT LAKE CITY, Utah—Senator Orrin Hatch has privately told allies in Utah that he is planning to retire at the end of his term next year, and if he does, Mitt Romney intends to run for his seat, according to five sources familiar with the situation.

Trump wants State Department to release remaining Clinton emails  —  Washington (CNN)President Donald Trump has made it clear to the State Department that he wants to accelerate the release of any remaining Hillary Clinton emails in its possession as soon as possible, according to three sources familiar with the President's thinking.

Dana Boente announces resignation as U.S. Attorney for Eastern District of Virginia  —  (Photo by Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post) (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)  —  Dana Boente, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, has submitted his resignation, a spokesman confirmed Friday.

Gaffes, TV ratings concerns dominated as NFL, players forged anthem peace  —  NOBODY KNEW WHERE to sit.  Side by side or across from one another?  —  It was the final question raised by a group of 11 NFL team owners as they mingled inside the sixth-floor conference room …

Thanks to the Clinton/DNC revelation about the ‘Trump dossier,’ Robert Mueller can stop investigating Trump … In a court of law when it is discovered that evidence has been contaminated or a witness is lying, that evidence is thrown out and a jury is instructed to ignore the witness testimony.

If Republicans can't oppose Roy Moore, they're headed for extinction  —  Alabama GOP Senate nominee Roy Moore serves as a convenient dividing line.  If Republicans cannot oppose a former state supreme court justice ousted twice from the bench who espouses rabidly anti-Muslim views …

Unpacking Uranium One: Hype and Law  —  Hillary Clinton, as secretary of state, delivering remarks in 2010.  (Photo: Flickr/U.S. Embassy in New Zealand)  —  The latest instance of “what-aboutism” is the House Republican decision to open an investigation of the Uranium One transaction …

White House: the women who accused Trump of sexual harassment are liars  —  “We've been clear on that from the beginning.”  —  The Trump White House is sticking by the president's assertion that the multiple women who have accused him of sexual assault and harassment over the years are lying.

It was a pleasure last night to sit and talk at a Harvard Bookstore event with the excellent Robin Young of NPR's Here and Now.  The topic last night was my new book, “I Can't Breathe,” about the killing of Eric Garner.  At the end of the discussion she asked some difficult questions about my past …

Former President Obama called to jury duty in Cook County and plans to serve  —  Former President Barack Obama “made it crystal-clear to me through his representative that he would carry out his public duty” and report for jury service, Cook County's chief judge said.  (Nancy Stone / Chicago Tribune)

The Week Trump Won  —  One hundred years ago on Friday, John Reed was in St. Petersburg watching Lenin, Trotsky and the rest of the Bolsheviks take over Russia.  It was interesting to read his account, “Ten Days That Shook the World,” this week — the week when Donald Trump and Steve Bannon solidified …

Leon Wieseltier: A Reckoning  —  It was never an “open secret” among me and my then-colleagues that Leon Wieseltier, the longtime literary czar of the New Republic, behaved inappropriately with women in the workplace.  It was simply out in the open.  This week, Wieseltier's previously …

Unsealed Documents Show That Kris Kobach Is Dead Set on Suppressing the Right to Vote  —  For almost a year, Kris Kobach, the secretary of state of Kansas, has struggled to hide the truth about his efforts to lobby the Trump administration to make it much harder for Americans to vote.