A Grotesque Spectacle in Jerusalem  —  On Monday, Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner and other leading lights of the Trumpist right gathered in Israel to celebrate the relocation of the American Embassy to Jerusalem, a gesture widely seen as a slap in the face to Palestinians who envision East Jerusalem as their future capital.

Trump Orders Help For Chinese Phone-Maker After China Approves Money For Trump Project  —  Trump will profit from Indonesian resort project that will get $500 million in Chinese loans in a deal sealed days before before his tweet ordering help for ZTE.  —  WASHINGTON - A mere 72 hours …

Tom Wolfe, Pyrotechnic Nonfiction Writer and Novelist, Dies at 87  —  Tom Wolfe, an innovative journalist whose technicolor, wildly punctuated prose brought to life the worlds of California surfers, car customizers, astronauts and Manhattans moneyed status-seekers in works like …

The Daily 202: Trump supporters suffer unintended consequences of his policies … THE BIG IDEA: President Trump sometimes seems impervious to the second and third order consequences of his decisions.  —  Several recent developments have highlighted the unintended — though often foreseeable …

In leaky West Wing, not even a phone ban can stop embarrassing disclosures  —  Washington (CNN)The dustup over a White House aide's crass remark about Sen. John McCain's health has once again inflamed the White House's frustration with staffers who reveal the inner workings of the West Wing to reporters outside the building.

The Strzok-Page Texts and the Origins of the Trump-Russia Investigation  —  Peter Strzok and Lisa Page's texts shine a highly redacted light on how the Trump-Russia investigation began.  —  It was July 31, 2016.  Just days earlier, the Obama administration had quietly opened …

Scoop: Inside Trump's 2020 startup  —  As President Trump's campaign aides quietly launch his reelection campaign, they're eyeing two states as possible pickups for 2020: Minnesota, where Trump came close in 2016 without even trying; and Colorado, where his hands-off approach to marijuana enforcement is a possible selling point.

GOP golden boy mails it in  —  Republicans worry that Josh Hawley, the party's top Senate recruit, is squandering his opportunity to beat vulnerable Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill.  —  FENTON, Mo. — As GOP Rep. Ann Wagner prepared to introduce candidates in a Republican Senate debate here Friday …

Bill O'Reilly in talks to return to cable news  —  Bill O'Reilly is in talks to head back to cable news in his old 8 p.m. slot, but this time at Newsmax TV, sources exclusively tell Page Six.  —  A year after O'Reilly's abrupt exit from Fox News, where he was the top-rated host in cable news …

Not An Onion Story: Blake Farenthold Gets A New Job Lobbying Congress  —  It's only been a month since he quit his House seat amid an ethics committee probe into sexual harassment allegations.  —  WASHINGTON A month after abruptly resigning from Congress in an apparent effort to avoid …

Two Colleagues Contradict Brennan's Denial of Reliance on Dossier  —  Former CIA Director John Brennan's insistence that the salacious and unverified Steele dossier was not part of the official Intelligence Community Assessment on Russian interference in the 2016 election is being contradicted by two top former officials.

When Gavin Newsom issued marriage licenses in San Francisco, his party was furious.  Now, it's a campaign ad … It was an iconic image: Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin, longtime partners and lesbian activists, embracing after being wed in San Francisco City Hall.

$1 million mystery gift to inauguration traced to conservative legal activists  —  WASHINGTON  —  One of the largest contributions to President Donald Trump's inaugural committee in 2016 appears to have been orchestrated by a set of powerful conservative legal activists who have since …

Haspel says CIA should not have conducted interrogation program  —  (CNN)Gina Haspel, President Donald Trump's pick to be the next CIA director, says in a new letter that the CIA should not have conducted then-President George W. Bush's interrogation and detention program where waterboarding …

Philanthropist David Rubenstein reflects on the power of giving money away  —  You are unimaginably wealthy.  Do you face any hardship?  —  I don't think if you have the kind of financial situation that I do that I can credibly say I have hardships, because people will laugh or people will throw brickbats.

Bharara Weighs Independent Bid for New York Attorney General  — He has the name recognition, resume and money to make the race  — Former prosecutor plays coy about run and says ‘Stay Tuned’  —  When a New York jury convicted ex-Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver on bribery charges last week …

‘Real’ Americans are a myth.  Don't you dare buy it. … The most offensive and corrosive idea in our politics today is that some Americans are more “real” than others.  Don't you dare buy it.  —  Republicans are cynically peddling this un-American conceit.

In Florida Senate race, Dems face down a daunting price tag  —  WASHINGTON — Across the 2018 Senate landscape, the vulnerable red-state Senate Democrats are either outspending their GOP challengers over the TV and radio airwaves, or they're keeping the disparity as close as possible.

Mueller may have a conflict — and it leads directly to a Russian oligarch  —  has withstood relentless political attacks, many distorting his record of distinguished government service.  —  But there's one episode even Mueller's former law enforcement comrades — and independent ethicists …

Morning Mediawire: The paper that portrayed rejoicing in Israel  —  Las Vegas paper puts ‘elated’ editorial by owner's wife on page one on deadly day in Israel  —  After Sheldon Adelson's secret purchase of the Las Vegas Review-Journal was exposed in December 2015, the billionaire GOP mega-donor promised …

Exclusive: Former for-profit college executive shaped Education Department policy that could benefit former employers: Documents  —  A senior U.S. Department of Education official hired straight out of the for-profit college sector helped dismantle regulations designed to protect student defrauded …

The Ivy League School That Won't Talk About Its Most Famous Graduate  —  For 176 years, William Henry Harrison was the only president the University of Pennsylvania had any kind of claim on, and even then it was kind of a stretch.  As a student, Harrison did a brief stint at Penn, but he didn't stay long enough to get a degree.

The Untold Story of Robert Mueller's Time in Combat  —  Robert Mueller's job is to make sense of how Russia hacked the 2016 election.  But to make sense of Mueller, you have to revisit some of the bloodiest battles of Vietnam.  —  ONE DAY IN the summer of 1969, a young Marine lieutenant …

Margot Kidder, who played Lois Lane in blockbuster ‘Superman,’ dies at 69 … Margot Kidder, a raspy-voiced actress who played ace reporter Lois Lane in the “Superman” movie phenomenon but whose career was eclipsed by her struggle with bipolar disorder, died May 13 at her home in Livingston, Mont. She was 69.

Russian Troll Farm Hijacked American Teen Girls' Computers for Likes … Online propaganda was phase one.  Then came hijacking computers.  —  The Kremlin-linked Russian troll farm known as the Internet Research Agency took an ominous detour into malware distribution in the middle …

Morning Joe panel says Mueller should probe Trump and Kushner's shady dealings with China and Qatar  —  President Donald Trump pledged to help Chinese telecom giant ZTE stave off collapse, against the warnings of law enforcement and intelligence officials — and panelists on MSNBC's “Morning Joe” …