EPA Chief's $50-a-Night Rental Said to Raise White House Angst  —  Pruitt apartment questions follow first-class flight reports  —  Washington lease is compared to an Airbnb-style arrangement  —  Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt's lease at a Washington apartment owned …

Source: Mueller pushed for Gates' help on collusion  —  (CNN)Special counsel Robert Mueller's team last year made clear it wanted former Trump campaign deputy Rick Gates' help, not so much against his former business partner Paul Manafort, but with its central mission: investigating the Trump campaign's contact with the Russians.

Growth At Any Cost: Top Facebook Executive Defended Data Collection In 2016 Memo — And Warned That Facebook Could Get People Killed  —  Facebook Vice President Andrew “Boz” Bosworth said that “questionable contact importing practices,” “subtle language that helps people stay searchable,” …

Trump tells aides not to talk publicly about Russia policy moves  —  WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump's national security advisers spent months trying to convince him to sign off on a plan to supply new U.S. weapons to Ukraine to aid in the country's fight against Russian-backed separatists …

The Disturbing Secret Behind An Iconic Cartoon  —  Robyn Byrd and Katie Rice were teenage Ren & Stimpy fans who wanted to make cartoons.  They say they were preyed upon by the creator of the show, John Kricfalusi, who admitted to having had a 16-year-old girlfriend when approached by BuzzFeed News.

Veterans Affairs Shake-Up Stirs New Fears of Privatized Care  —  WASHINGTON — President Trump's dismissal of David J. Shulkin, the secretary of veterans affairs — and the nomination of a Navy doctor with no known policy views to take his place — has brought renewed focus …

Affirmative Action for Reactionaries  —  Although I'm a squishy-hearted liberal, I have a soft spot for dyspeptic reactionaries like H. L. Mencken and V. S. Naipaul, men — they're almost always men — who speak to a dark, misanthropic corner of my soul.  Thus I've occasionally read Kevin Williamson …

Tarrant County woman sentenced to five years in prison for illegally voting in 2016  —  FORT WORTH  —  A judge sentenced a Rendon woman to five years in prison Wednesday for voting illegally in the 2016 presidential election while she was on supervised release from a 2011 fraud conviction.

Congressman: FBI Report Says Andrew McCabe ‘Lied Four Times’ About Media Leaks  —  Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe lied four times, including to James Comey, about his authorization of leaks to the media, according to a Republican lawmaker familiar with an internal FBI report recommending McCabe's firing.

Hillary Clinton fires back at critics: No one told a man who lost an election to shut up  —  is striking back at critics telling her to “shut up” following her 2016 loss, saying, “They never said that to any man who was not elected.”  —  “I was really struck by how people said that to me …

FBI questions Ted Malloch, Trump campaign figure and Farage ally  —  American once touted as possible ambassador to EU tells of being detained at Boston airport and subpoenaed by Robert Mueller's Trump-Russia inquiry … A controversial London-based academic with close ties to Nigel Farage …

Hope Hicks is Gone, and It's Not Clear Who Can Replace Her  —  WASHINGTON — Hope Hicks, the White House communications director who worked behind the scenes to direct the president through multiple professional crises — and decided to resign after she found herself exhausted by them — has left the building.

U.S.-Russian relations worst Ambassador Antonov can remember  —  Russia's ambassador to the United States has told Today he can't remember a period of worse relations between Washington and Moscow, after both countries expelled dozens of diplomats following the poisoning of a former Russian spy.

A Prominent Liberal Judge From The 9th Circuit Court Has Died At 87  —  Judge Stephen Reinhardt of the US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit has died, a court spokesperson confirmed Thursday.  He was 87.  —  Reinhardt, a liberal champion who was appointed to the bench by President Carter in 1980 …

Student shot at Madison Schools in Ohio gets detention for school-shooting protest  —  MADISON TWP.  - In 2016, he was shot in his school's cafeteria while eating chicken nuggets.  He remembers falling on the ground, unsure what happened, watching students run away from him.

Sessions names prosecutor investigating claims of FBI misconduct but declines to appoint special counsel  —  Washington (CNN)Attorney General Jeff Sessions revealed Thursday that Utah's top federal prosecutor, John Huber, is investigating a cluster of Republican-driven accusations against the FBI …

Report: Israeli stealth fighters fly over Iran  —  Two IAF F-35 Adir fighter jets entered Iranian airspace undetected, according to the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Jarida.  —  Two Israeli F-35 fighter jets entered Iranian airspace over the past month, Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Jarida reported on Thursday.

Wooing Saudi Business, Tabloid Mogul Had a Powerful Friend: Trump  —  In July, David J. Pecker, the chairman of the company that owns The National Enquirer, visited his old friend President Trump at the White House.  —  The tabloid publisher took along a special guest, Kacy Grine …

Laura Ingraham, Facing Boycott, Apologizes for Taunting Parkland Survivor David Hogg  —  Laura Ingraham, a Fox News host, apologized under pressure on Thursday for taunting a survivor of the school shooting in Parkland, Fla., as three companies confirmed they would pull advertising from her show.

Team Obama's smear machine-in-exile mobilizes to destroy Iran-deal critics  —  “John Bolton is at the nexus of Russia's interference in our democracy and the NRA's reckless agenda”: The sentence is so bonkers, so pristine in its conspiratorial insanity that it should one day grace a Museum …

Police shootings aren't just a ‘local matter’  —  In Sacramento and elsewhere, unarmed black men continue to die at the hands of law enforcement officers: Our view  —  In the space of 10 days, two more unarmed black men died at the hands of police — one in Sacramento, another in Houston …

The Motives Behind the Trump Administration's New Census Question on Citizenship  —  Nine years ago, two Republican senators, David Vitter, of Louisiana, and Robert Bennett, of Utah, tried to introduce a measure to change the way that the federal government conducts the census.

Federal workers spill on life in Trump's Washington  —  One Health and Human Services employee swore off online dating after potential suitors repeatedly got upset that he worked for the Trump administration.  An Education Department fellow eagerly returned to teaching after listening to Betsy DeVos bash public schools.