Trump Pressed Top Republicans to End Senate Russia Inquiry  —  WASHINGTON — President Trump over the summer repeatedly urged senior Senate Republicans, including the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, to end the panel's investigation into Russia's interference in the 2016 election …

Have We Been Lied to About the Kate Steinle Case?  —  The illegal immigrant who killed Kate Steinle in 2015 was found not guilty of her murder by a San Francisco jury today.  Outrageous, right?  —  Before the killing, Garcia Zarate had been released from a San Francisco jail despite a standing federal deportation order.

Senate GOP Working to Address Deficit Concerns (8:14 a.m.)  —  Senate Republicans made a lot of progress overnight in crafting a new approach to address deficit concerns in their sweeping tax legislation, according to a Senate GOP aide.  —  More work remains in the next few hours …

Trump tells confidants that a government shutdown might be good for him … President Trump has told others that a government shutdown could be good for him politically and is focusing on his hard-line immigration stance as a way to win back supporters unhappy with his outreach to Democrats this fall …

Trump White House Faces Prospect of More Senior Departures  —  Secretary of State Tillerson is most likely to leave as first anniversary approaches, say officials  —  WASHINGTON—The White House is facing the prospect of another round of senior departures in the coming weeks …

Walmart pulls threatening shirt at RTDNA's urging  —  UPDATE: Less than 24 hours after Walmart removed the shirt from its website, Teespring.com, the third-party seller that had been offering the shirt on Walmart.com removed it from its site as well.  —  The nation's largest retailer Wednesday removed …

Erik Prince testifies before House Intelligence Committee  —  Erik Prince — the military contractor and Trump donor who attended a secret meeting in the Seychelles in January with a Kremlin-tied businessman — interviewed with the House Intelligence Committee for just over three hours on Thursday.

Trump's mind-numbing media manipulation machine  —  There is a very specific — and dangerous — formula for manipulating the media and hijacking the Twitter/cable/conventional media industrial complex.  Trump sets this formulaic trap increasingly often.  And news organizations keep falling for it.

Transcript: Paul Ryan's Full Interview With NPR's Steve Inskeep  —  President Trump wants a tax overhaul plan passed by Christmas.  Both the Senate and the House have versions of the plan with the goal of cutting taxes.  Morning Edition host Steve Inskeep talks to House Speaker Paul Ryan …

Conservative Megadonor Robert Mercer Funded Project Veritas  —  The Mercers, secretive billionaires who are among President Trump's most powerful donors, also helped to fund Project Veritas, the controversial activist organization, tax filings obtained by BuzzFeed News show.

Congress secretly paid near $100,000 to settle harassment claims against disgraced congressman  —  The Congressional Office of Compliance secretly paid close to $100,000 in taxpayer funds to settle sexual harassment claims from at least two young male staffers who worked for disgraced former …

To Be Sure, Nazis Are Evil  —  The New York Times's needy readers.  —  It's not always easy to sympathize with reporters for the New York Times, because so many of them act like .  .  . how to put it? .    .  . like reporters for the New York Times.

Federal Contractors Are Offshoring at a Fast Clip Under Trump  —  Despite President Donald Trump's promises to bring millions of jobs back to the U.S., corporate contractors for the government have been “outsourcing” positions at a speedy pace, according Good Jobs Nation, an organization that advocates for contract workers.