Exclusive: Email shows effort to give Trump campaign WikiLeaks documents  —  STORY HIGHLIGHTS  —  Washington (CNN)Candidate Donald Trump, his son Donald Trump Jr. and others in the Trump Organization received an email in September 2016 offering a decryption key and website address …

Roy Moore accuser admits she wrote part of yearbook inscription attributed to Alabama Senate candidate  —  One of the women who accused Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore of making advances on her when she was a teen and he a local prosecutor admitted Friday to writing part of the yearbook inscription she offered as proof.

The G.O.P. Is Rotting  —  A lot of good, honorable Republicans used to believe there was a safe middle ground.  You didn't have to tie yourself hip to hip with Donald Trump, but you didn't have to go all the way to the other extreme and commit political suicide like the dissident Jeff Flake, either.

Trump's Allies Urge Harder Line as Mueller Probe Heats Up  —  President's legal team had predicted investigation would clear Trump by year's end  —  A Russia investigation that Donald Trump's legal team predicted would clear the president by year's end looks to stretch into 2018 …

Mesa Police shooting: Daniel Shaver seen crawling, begging in disturbing video  —  MESA — Police in Mesa, Arizona released disturbing body camera video on Thursday hours after a former officer was acquitted of a murder charge in the fatal shooting of an unarmed man.

Dina Powell, deputy national security adviser, to depart Trump White House … Deputy national security adviser Dina Powell, a driving force behind the Trump administration's Middle East policy, plans to leave the White House as part of an anticipated wave of departures following President Trump's …

Congressional Democrats Left Out of White House Hanukkah Party  —  WASHINGTON — The latkes were fried and the kosher lamb chops were prepared on Thursday, just as in past years, for the first White House Hanukkah party of the Trump era.  But there was one prominent break with tradition …

I study liars.  I've never seen one like President Trump.  —  He tells far more lies, and far more cruel ones, than ordinary people do.  —  President Trump speaks at the White House on Wednesday.  (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)  —  I spent the first two decades of my career …

Senator's Shaky Obamacare Deal Poses Challenge for Tax Plan  —  Collins says she's ‘confident,’ others say ‘she got rolled’  —  GOP's three key issues center on Maine's moderate Republican  —  The three biggest stories in Washington — a broad overhaul of the U.S. tax structure …

George Papadopoulos' fiancee: He's a patriot, not a Trump campaign coffee boy  —  The Italian fiancee of George Papadopoulos offered the first public defense of the embattled former Trump campaign adviser, who in October was revealed as the first campaign adviser to plead guilty and cooperate with the special counsel's Russia probe.

Dems prepare to curtail superdelegates ahead of 2020  —  Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton speaks during a fundraising event for Big Sister Association of Greater Boston, Tuesday, Dec. 5, 2017, in Boston.  Clinton was presented with the organization's Believe in Girls award during the event.

Official Toll in Puerto Rico: 62.  Actual Deaths May Be 1,052.  —  Homes were flattened.  Power was knocked out.  And all across Puerto Rico, bodies began showing up at morgues.  —  Hurricane Maria pummeled Puerto Rico with great fury but the government there has reported …

Lack of sea ice is making it more difficult for polar bears to find food.  —  When photographer Paul Nicklen and filmmakers from conservation group Sea Legacy arrived in the Baffin Islands, they came across a heartbreaking sight: a starving polar bear on its deathbed.  —  Nicklen is no stranger to bears.

Lauer's “Double Life”: Inside NBC, the Network Is Trying to Expunge the Lauer Era  —  NBC executives have moved swiftly and adroitly to clean up Lauer's mess.  The question that remains, however, is if they are in for any surprises.  —  By Friday evening, for the employees of NBC News …

Lord's Prayer: Pope Francis calls for change  —  Pope Francis has called for a translation of a phrase about temptation in the Lord's Prayer to be changed.  —  The current wording that says “lead us not into temptation” is not a good translation because God does not lead humans to sin, he says.

Obama invokes Nazi Germany in warning about today's politics  —  STORY HIGHLIGHTS  — “You have to tend to this garden of democracy, otherwise things can fall apart fairly quickly,” Obama said  —  Washington (CNN)Former President Barack Obama urged voters this week to stay engaged in democracy …

Mike Pence's pets won't stop dying  —  Vice President Mike Pence's family has lost yet another pet—a cat named Pickle—just six months after cat Oreo died.  —  In a tweet announcing Pickle's death, Karen Pence described the late feline as a “very chatty” and “sweet kitty.”  The Pences had Pickle for 16 years.

Inside a secret 2014 list of hundreds of L.A. deputies with histories of misconduct  —  It was a critical piece of evidence: an inmate's shirt, bloodied from a jailhouse brawl.  —  When it went missing, Deputy Jose Ovalle had an idea.  —  He picked out a similar shirt …