Mueller gathers evidence that 2017 Seychelles meeting was effort to establish back channel to Kremlin … Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III has gathered evidence that a secret meeting in the Seychelles just before the inauguration of Donald Trump was an effort to establish a back channel between …

Hope Hicks told House Intelligence Committee she was hacked, sources say  —  WASHINGTON — A day before she resigned as White House communications director, Hope Hicks told the House Intelligence Committee last week that one of her email accounts was hacked, according to people who were present …

Trump lawyer Michael Cohen tries to silence adult-film star Stormy Daniels  —  President Donald Trump's lawyer is trying to silence adult-film star Stormy Daniels, obtaining a secret restraining order in a private arbitration proceeding and warning that she will face penalties if she publicly discusses …

Tiff over tariffs: Gary Cohn gets a hero's sendoff from the media  —  The mainstream media are heartsick over the departure of Gary Cohn.  —  As the president's chief economic adviser heads for the exits, the framing of most stories—not to mention the continuation of the “chaos” narrative …

Kushner Meets With Mexican President, Underscoring Shift in U.S. Diplomacy  —  MEXICO CITY — Jared Kushner, President Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser, met with Mexico's president on Wednesday, arriving just weeks after a planned meeting between the nations' leaders fell apart …

Exclusive polls: Big warning signs for Senate Democrats  —  Five Senate Democrats would lose to a Republican candidate if the election were held today and three have approval ratings under 50%, according to new Axios/SurveyMonkey polls.  —  Keep reading  —  352 WORDS

Now we know why defense attorneys quit the USS Cole case.  They found a microphone.  —  Lawyers for the alleged USS Cole bombing mastermind quit the capital case after discovering a microphone in their special client meeting room and were denied the opportunity to either talk about or investigate it, the Miami Herald has learned.

A team asked Derrius Guice if he likes men  —  The calendar says 2018.  Some NFL locker rooms remain trapped in 1960.  —  Running back Derrius Guice said in a Wednesday night appearance on SiriusXM NFL Radio that a team asked him at the Scouting Combine if he likes men.

Trump Tweet on China Trade Understates U.S. Demand — by $99 Billion  —  President asked Beijing to cut U.S. trade deficit with China by $1 billion—less than 0.3% of the countries' annual trade gap  —  BEIJING—President Donald Trump tweeted Wednesday that Washington had asked Beijing …

Sinclair's new media-bashing promos rankle local anchors  —  “This is so manipulative.”  —  That's an anchor at a local TV station owned by Sinclair, describing the company's latest mandate, a promotional campaign that sounds like pro-Trump propaganda.  —  Internal documents call …

House 2018: 26 Ratings Changes, All in Favor of Democrats  —  PA-18 special now a Toss-up; Democratic incumbents in strong position; and what about Paul Ryan?  —  KEY POINTS FROM THIS ARTICLE  — With less than a week to go, the PA-18 special election moves from Leans Republican to Toss-up.

Poisoned Russian spy Sergei Skripal was close to consultant who was linked to the Trump dossier  —  A security consultant who has worked for the company that compiled the controversial dossier on Donald Trump was close to the Russian double agent poisoned last weekend, it has been claimed.

Women We Overlooked in 167 Years of New York Times Obituaries  —  The poet Sylvia Plath and the novelist Charlotte Brontë.  Ida B. Wells, the anti-lynching activist.  These extraordinary women — and so many others — did not have obituaries in The New York Times.  Until now.

Miss Universe in Moscow: How Trump's beauty contest spawned a business deal with Russians and a bond with Putin  —  This is the first of two excerpts adapted from  —  Russian Roulette: The Inside Story of Putin's War on America and the Election of Donald Trump (Twelve Books), by Michael Isikoff …

Parkland kids can protest, but they don't know what they are talking about  —  Were you smarter when you were half your current age?  Wiser?  Why assume it works differently for anyone else?  —  CONNECT  —  Later this month, high school kids will hold big demonstrations in Washington …

Republicans trash their candidate in Pa. special election  —  Shortly after the new year, Rep. Steve Stivers, the House GOP campaign chief, delivered a stern message to Rick Saccone, the party's special election candidate in Pennsylvania.  —  You need to start pulling your weight …

Trump Down, Dems Up, Russia Bad, Kushner Out  —  Opinion on tax reform remains stable  —  West Long Branch, NJ - Donald Trump's job approval rating has slipped over the past month, but remains higher than the historic low recorded by the Monmouth University Poll at the end of last year.

Huffman High School shooting: Courtlin Arrington killed; Birmingham police question injured teen  —  A Huffman High School senior was killed and another injured when gunfire erupted inside a classroom at the east Birmingham school Wednesday afternoon.  —  Killed was a 17-year-old girl …

We're All Fascists Now  —  Christina Hoff Sommers is a self-identified feminist and registered Democrat with a Ph.D. in philosophy and a wicked sense of humor.  She is also a woman who says bad things.  Things like: Men and women are equal, but there are differences between them.

‘The Big Lebowski’ is 20.  We reached out to the critics who panned it to see what they think now. … It's too easy to spill ink waxing about the ways in which Coen brothers' “The Big Lebowski” has embedded itself in our culture.  —  The film, which was released 20 years ago this week …

Florida legislators pass bill making it tougher to buy guns, but easier to arm school staff  —  Just weeks after 17 people were killed at a South Florida high school, the state's strongly Republican legislature passed a landmark bill that would make it tougher to buy guns but would also clear …

Tony Tooke, head of U.S. Forest Service, stepping down amid sexual misconduct allegations  —  The chief of the U.S. Forest Service is stepping down amid allegations of sexual misconduct and an investigation commissioned by the United States Department of Agriculture into his own behavior.

Why Won't Women's March Leaders Denounce Louis Farrakhan's Anti-Semitism?  —  Two weeks ago, during a Saviours' Day event to commemorate the life of Nation of Islam founder Master Fard Muhammad, Louis Farrakhan had some things to say about Jews.  The “powerful Jews,” he told …