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.

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.

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.

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 …

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.

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 …

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 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 …

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.

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 …

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 …

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 …

Fired FBI official Andrew McCabe soliciting online donations for legal defense fund  —  Andrew McCabe - the top FBI official by fired by Attorney General Jeff Sessions hours before his planned retirement - is now soliciting donations online for his legal defense fund.

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.

Britain Signals Harder Look at Wealthy Russians and Russian Wealth  —  LONDON — For years, anticorruption campaigners have railed against Britain's openness to ill-gotten riches from overseas and the foreigners who invest them.  After a nerve agent attack on British soil …

The Police Shooting of Stephon Clark Is Deeply Problematic  —  Focusing on whether the shooting was lawful misses the larger point.  —  A terrible thing happened in Sacramento earlier this month.  Police officers shot and killed an unarmed black man, apparently believing the iPhone he was holding was a gun.

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 …

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 …