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 …

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 …

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.

A Coup at Veterans Affairs  —  If you're like us, your initial reaction upon hearing that President Trump had picked his personal physician to head the Department of Veterans Affairs was: “What?  You mean the guy who looks like a retired Grateful Dead roadie and said ‘unequivocally’ that Mr. Trump …

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.

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.

EPA poised to scrap fuel economy targets that are key to curbing global warming — setting up clash with California … The Trump administration is poised to abandon America's pioneering fuel economy targets for cars and SUVs, a move that would undermine one of the world's most aggressive programs …

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 …

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 …

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 …

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 …

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.

A bombshell report just confirmed the key underlying premise of the Trump-Russia dossier  —  A new report in The Guardian just confirmed the lede sentence of British intelligence officer Christopher Steele's Trump Russia dossier, which claimed that Russian efforts to recruit Donald Trump stretched …

The 2016 Exit Polls Led Us to Misinterpret the 2016 Election  —  Crucial disputes over Democratic strategy concerning economic distribution, race and immigration have in large part been based on Election Day exit polls that now appear to have been inaccurate in key ways.

Kim's diplomatic offensive upends U.S. policy  —  The Trump administration may be trying to exert “maximum pressure” on Kim Jong-un, but it doesn't appear that North Korea's young leader is feeling it.  —  Throughout 2018, Kim has been on the diplomatic offensive — reestablishing …

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 …