The Daily 202: Cops are called when a senator tries to see kids taken from their immigrant parents  —  THE BIG IDEA: As the sun set Sunday night, Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) went to a shuttered Walmart in Brownsville, Texas, that has been converted into a detention center for immigrant children who have been separated from their parents.

Supreme Court rules in favor of baker who would not make wedding cake for gay couple  —  The Supreme Court on Monday ruled narrowly for a Colorado baker who refused to create a wedding cake for a gay couple.  —  In an opinion by Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, the court held …

Pruitt had aide do numerous personal tasks, including a hunt for a used Trump hotel mattress  —  In mid-September, the Environmental Protection Agency administrator's director of scheduling and advance, Millan Hupp, reached out to the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., with an unusual request.

Bill Clinton: I wouldn't have done anything differently in Lewinsky scandal even in #MeToo era  —  Clinton stuck by his decision to fight his impeachment rather than resign.  “I think I did the right thing.  I defended the Constitution,” he said.  —  Former President Bill Clinton says that …

Trump's phone call with Macron described as ‘terrible’  —  Washington (CNN)A call about trade and migration between US President Donald Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron soured last week after Macron candidly criticized Trump's policies, two sources familiar with the call told CNN.

Cohn kept the jobs numbers for Trump  —  COHN KEPT THE JOBS NUMBERS FROM TRUMP — MM hears that before he left the White House, former National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn would withhold jobs report data from President Trump until shortly before their release because he was worried …

Crowd cheers when valedictorian quotes Trump.  Then reveals it was Obama  —  Ben Bowling graduation speech Courtesy of Ben Bowling  —  Bell County high school student and valedictorian Ben Bowling wanted to share some words of wisdom with his graduating class, but there was a twist that no one saw coming.

New US ambassador to Germany under fire for rightwing support  —  Politicians accuse Richard Grenell of breach of protocol after interview in Breitbart  —  German politicians have criticised Donald Trump's new ambassador to Germany after he said he wanted to “empower” anti-establishment rightwing forces throughout Europe.

A historic exodus is leaving Venezuela without teachers, doctors and electricians  —  An unruly 9-year-old bolted from his classroom, prompting a volunteer teacher to chase him down the hall.  He would normally be hauled straight to Romina Sciaca's office.  But the guidance counselor was gone …

Facebook Gave Device Makers Deep Access to Data on Users and Friends  —  The company formed data-sharing partnerships with Apple, Samsung and dozens of other device makers, raising new concerns about its privacy protections.  —  As Facebook sought to become the world's dominant social media service …

Trump's mind-control superpowers  —  In our lifetime, no president has matched Donald Trump's ability to summon the power of the pulpit, friendly media, and the tweet-by-tweet power of repetition and persuasion to move minds en masse.  —  The big picture: You see this in the silence of Republican critics …

Mourning America: What my father, Ronald Reagan, would say today  —  Patti Davis is an author and the daughter of Ronald and Nancy Reagan.  —  My father used to talk about a recurring dream he had in which he was walking into a beautiful white building with grand columns, knowing that it was his new home.

California city fights poverty with guaranteed income  —  STOCKTON, Calif. (Reuters) - Michael Tubbs, the 27-year-old mayor of Stockton, California, has a radical plan to combat poverty in his cash-strapped city: a “no strings” guaranteed basic income of $500 a month for its residents.

BuzzFeed Allowed Key Defense in Russian's Defamation Suit Over Trump Dossier  —  A Florida judge rejects a Russian entrepreneur who argued that the Trump dossier publication wasn't protected as a fair report of official government action.  —  In its continuing fight against a Russian tech entrepreneur …

Business economists worry about possible recession in 2020  —  WASHINGTON (AP) — A group of top business economists believes the major tax cuts President Donald Trump pushed through Congress will give a significant boost to economic growth this year and next year.

The week Trump went full dictator and no one tried to stop him |  Will Bunch  —  It sounds bad when you describe it this way: The president of the United States explicitly violating a government rule to divulge secret jobs data, causing a billions-of-dollars move in the world's financial markets.

The many holes in the memo from the president's legal team.  —  As lawyers and watchdogs who have prosecuted and defended federal investigations of public officials for decades, we thought we had seen (and made) every argument.  But the memorandum by President Trump's lawyers that the New York Times published Saturday startled even us.

The Scandal on the Other Foot  —  Consider the following alternate reality.  —  Imagine that it is now summer 2024.  A 78-year-old lame-duck President Trump is winding down his second term, basking in positive polls.  His dutiful vice president in waiting, Mike Pence, is at last getting his chance to run for president.

The great remove  —  How journalism got so out of touch with the people it covers  —  To become a journalist, Rajaa Elidrissi knew she would need a strategy.  Growing up in a low-income household in Elmhurst, Queens, she started collecting clips at age 13.

The ‘weirdness’ of dealing with North Korean officials  —  Expect lies.  Do your homework — because they will have.  Choose your words very carefully.  And have Job-like patience.  Oh, and remember that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un considers himself a supreme being.

Elon Musk: as business fortunes dip, he starts a war with the media  —  The champion of clean energy and space travel, who was on a trajectory seemingly forever up, is now locked in battle with the same media which once feted him  —  Once upon a time Elon Musk was our era's real-life Tony Stark …