Revealed: Ecuador spent millions on spy operation for Julian Assange  —  Exclusive: Files show at least $5m went on activities including spying on guests at London embassy  —  Ecuador bankrolled a multimillion-dollar spy operation to protect and support Julian Assange in its central London embassy …

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 …

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.

China gave Trump a list of crazy demands, and he caved to one of them … After top Trump officials went to Beijing last month, the Chinese government wrote up a document with a list of economic and trade demands that ranged from the reasonable to the ridiculous.

Twitter Is Going To Limit The Visibility Of Tweets From People Behaving Badly  —  Act like a jerk, and Twitter will start limiting how often your tweets show up.  —  On Tuesday, Twitter announced a massive change to the way its conversations will work, evaluating not just the content of individual tweets …

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 …

The truth is about to catch up to Trump.  He has Giuliani to thank for it. … THE MORNING PLUM:  —  Today is the deadline for President Trump to file his financial disclosure form for 2017.  That fact may seem trivially bureaucratic, but lurking at its core is a dilemma for Trump …

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 …

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.

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.

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.

Trump warns of ‘dangerous anti-police prejudice’  —  President Donald Trump lamented what he called the spread of a “dangerous anti-police prejudice” in the U.S. during an event to honor fallen and injured law enforcement officials on Tuesday.  —  Speaking at the 37th annual National Peace …

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 …

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 …

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 …

The American Renaissance Is Already Happening  —  People who read this column know my political ideology: I'm a Whig.  If progressives generally believe in expanding government to enhance equality, and libertarians try to reduce government to expand freedom, Whigs seek to use limited but energetic government to enhance social mobility.

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 …

Millions of dollars in suitcases fly out of MSP, but why?  —  MINNEAPOLIS (KMSP) - For five months, Fox 9 has been investigating what appears to be rampant fraud in a massive state program.  —  This fraud is suspected of costing Minnesota taxpayers as much as $100 million a year.

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 …

One year of Robert Mueller  —  IT HAS been a year since special counsel Robert S. Mueller III took over the Justice Department's Russia investigation.  Since then, by all appearances, he has performed with professionalism, integrity and remarkable efficiency.  —  That is not President Trump's view, of course.

In this town, you can flip the channel all you want — the news is often the same  —  As big chains gobble up small TV stations, merged newsrooms are creating a uniformity of news coverage.  —  JOHNSTOWN, Pa. — The TV news has a familiar feel to it here in west-central Pennsylvania.

Outcry in Mali after albino child beheaded in ‘ritual’ murder  —  Bamako (AFP) - Armed men abducted and beheaded a five-year-old albino girl in Mali at the weekend, police said, in what was feared to be a ritual murder for supposedly magic body parts.  —  Djeneba Diarra, whose family lives …

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.

Trump Nominates McConnell and Chao's Brother-In-Law to Lead Pension Agency  — Hartogensis to lead Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation  — McConnell, Chao relative would replace Obama appointee Reeder  —  President Donald Trump nominated Gordon Hartogensis, a self-described entrepreneur …

‘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.

What Scott Pruitt's been doing while you weren't looking  —  As the public fixates on the EPA chief's travel habits, he's making it easier for industry to pollute  —  Ameren Missouri's coal-fired Labadie generating station west of St. Louis.  The station's four units discharged …

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.