Interview Is a Portrait of a Man in Cognitive Decline  —  I don't care whether Michael Schmidt was tough enough.  We've got bigger problems.  —  On Thursday, El Caudillo del Mar-A-Lago  —  sat down with Michael Schmidt of The New York Times  —  for what apparently was an open-ended, one-on-one interview.

State Department releases Huma Abedin emails found on Anthony Weiner's laptop  —  The State Department on Friday released a batch of work-related emails from the account of top Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin that were discovered by the FBI on a laptop belonging to Abedin's estranged husband …

Military to begin accepting transgender recruits after Trump delays appeal  —  The Pentagon will begin accepting transgender military recruits on Monday, Jan. 1, after the Trump administration decided not to appeal a court order blocking the president's ban.

Donald Trump Is a Consequential President.  Just Not in the Ways You Think.  —  What mattered and what didn't in Trump's first year.  —  On January 20, 2017, as President Donald Trump began his inaugural address, a cold rain began to fall.  —  A few hours later, Trump claimed the rain had not begun to fall.

Week 32: Trump Binges on Collusion Talk to Ring Out Year  —  In what otherwise would have to be counted as a sleepy week in the annals of the Trump Tower scandal, President Donald Trump gave the press a much-needed news peg by granting New York Times reporter Michael S. Schmidt a 30-minute interview …

‘Everyone has parents but us’  —  Orphaned Rohingya brothers escape a massacre but now must survive a refugee camp  —  Three months ago, these two Rohingya brothers had a loving family, a little house near a river, a worn soccer ball to play with and 15 cows for fresh milk.  —  It's all gone now: The family killed.

VP Mike Pence gets message from Aspen neighbors: Make America Gay Again  —  For Vice President Mike Pence, the message was unmistakable and the banner that carried it unmissable.  —  “Make America Gay Again,” the rainbow banner reads.  —  Neighbors of the home near Aspen where Pence and his wife …

Dem senators fight to out-liberal one another ahead of 2020  —  A half-dozen Trump foes race to embrace the liberal zeitgeist, occupying space Bernie Sanders once had to himself.  —  It used to be that Bernie Sanders was an ideological lone ranger in the Senate.

Donald Trump and the Limits of the Reality TV Presidency  —  As with most politicians, Franklin D. Roosevelt loved attention and approval in equal measure.  Once, after watching himself in a newsreel, he remarked, “That was the Garbo in me.”  On meeting Orson Welles, the president said …

Of All the Blogs in the World, He Walks Into Mine  —  A man born to an Orthodox Jewish family in Toronto and schooled at a Yeshiva and a Japanese-American man raised on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, were married in the rare books section of the Strand Bookstore in Greenwich Village before a crowd of 200 people …

Call of Duty gaming community points to ‘swatting’ in deadly Wichita police shooting  —  Online gamers have said in multiple Twitter posts that the shooting of a man Thursday night by Wichita police was the result of a “swatting” prank involving two gamers.  —  Swatting is an internet prank …

Scattered Protests Erupt in Iran Over Economic Woes  —  Protests over the Iranian government's handling of the economy spread to several cities on Friday, including Tehran, in what appeared to be a sign of unrest.  —  President Hassan Rouhani began his second term in August after winning re-election …

Eastern U.S. to endure most numbing New Year's Eve cold in memory  —  New Year's Eve partygoers best bundle up.  —  As 2017 turns to 2018, the most frigid New Year's weather in decades will infiltrate the eastern two-thirds of the nation.  —  The latest and most potent in a series …