A note to readers  —  I have been uncharacteristically silent these past ten months.  I had thought that silence would soon be coming to an end, but I'm afraid I must tell you now that fate has decided on a different course for me.  —  In August of last year, I underwent surgery to remove a cancerous tumor in my abdomen.

CNN's Anthony Bourdain dead at 61  —  New York (CNN)Anthony Bourdain, a gifted storyteller and writer who took CNN viewers around the world, has died.  He was 61.  —  CNN confirmed Bourdain's death on Friday and said the cause of death was suicide.  —  “It is with extraordinary sadness …

Justice Dept. Seizes Times Reporter's Email and Phone Records in Leak Investigation  —  WASHINGTON — Federal law enforcement officials secretly seized years' worth of a New York Times reporter's phone and email records this year in an investigation of classified information leaks.

Mueller Adds Obstruction Charge on Manafort and Indicts His Right-Hand Man  —  WASHINGTON — The special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, brought new obstruction charges on Friday against President Trump's former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, and added allegations against a close associate …

Under Trump, “America First” Really Is Turning Out to Be America Alone  —  From trade to the Iran deal to NAFTA, the President has created the highest level of tension between the U.S. and its allies in decades.  —  The Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was less than forty-eight hours away …

Trump will ask athletes who kneel during anthem to recommend people for pardoning  —  (CNN)President Donald Trump says he wants to meet with NFL players and athletes who kneel during the National Anthem so they can recommend people they think should be pardoned because they were treated unfairly by the justice system.

China hacked a Navy contractor and secured a trove of highly sensitive data on submarine warfare  —  Chinese government hackers have compromised the computers of a Navy contractor, stealing massive amounts of highly sensitive data related to undersea warfare — including secret plans to develop …

Roger Stone Encouraged Trump to Pardon Marcus Garvey … One of Donald Trump's longest and closest associates has encouraged the president to grant a posthumous pardon to Marcus Garvey, the pan-African advocate and black nationalist who became a forebearer of the modern civil rights movement.

Des Moines DREAMer dies within weeks after being sent back to Mexico's violence  —  Editor's note: This column has been updated from the original online version with a statement from ICE.  —  Manuel Antonio Cano Pacheco should have graduated high school in Des Moines last month.

Bourdain  —  I've had a leasehold on davidsimon.com for years now.  People smarter than I am told me that even if I had no sense of its use at present, I should throw a few shekels down in case.  But until recently, I saw no reason to do much of anything with the site.  —  My ambivalence rests on a couple basic ideas:

U.S. officials prepare to thwart Chinese spying at Singapore summit  —  WASHINGTON — China may not have a seat at the table during President Donald Trump's upcoming nuclear summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, but U.S. officials say they are preparing to counter the Chinese spies …

Democratic donors push Mark Warner to enter 2020 race as moderate alternative to Warren, Sanders  — Mark Warner, the Democratic Senator from Virginia, is getting pushed by some the party's biggest financiers to run for president in 2020, according to sources with direct knowledge of the matter.

Texas Fold 'Em  —  In an unexpected move, the Justice Department filed a brief this evening urging a Texas court to invalidate the Affordable Care Act's crucial insurance reforms—including the prohibition on refusing to cover people with preexisting conditions.

Adam Putnam's office stopped concealed weapons background checks for a year because it couldn't log in  —  A state investigation found that the lapse covered a period that included the biggest spike in permit applications in Florida history.  —  For more than a year, the state of Florida failed …

We've Got a Problem.  A Big Problem.  —  There are certain frameworks and situations in the law in which it does not matter why something happened, it simply matters that something has demonstrably happened, to establish the point, making the finding or act.

Scoop: Michael Wolff is back with “Fire and Fury” II  —  After torching the White House with “Fire and Fury,” Michael Wolff is coming back for more:  —  Wolff tells me he has signed with the same publisher, Henry Holt, for a sequel — although he says it's unclear what that means …