Sarah Sanders, Raj Shah planning to depart the White House  —  Two of the most visible members of the Trump administration are planning their departures, the latest sign of upheaval in a White House marked by turmoil.  —  Press secretary Sarah Sanders and principal deputy press secretary Raj Shah …

Wolf Blitzer: ‘We Are Not the Enemy of the American People, We love the American People’  —  'Everybody's always criticizing us'  —  CNN host Wolf Blitzer said on behalf of the media “we love the American people” on Wednesday in response to President Donald Trump's latest broadside against the profession.

Republicans embrace the ‘cult’ of Trump, ignoring warning signs  —  Fiercely and undeniably, the Republican Party this week confirmed its rebranding as the party of Trump.  —  Buoyed by a late Tuesday presidential tweet, voters in South Carolina cast out Rep. Mark Sanford …

How to Lose the Midterms and Re-elect Trump  —  Dear Robert De Niro, Samantha Bee and other Trump haters:  —  I get that you're angry.  I'm angry, too.  But anger isn't a strategy.  Sometimes it's a trap.  When you find yourself spewing four-letter words, you've fallen into it.

Higgins says he will no longer back ‘misguided’ Pelosi  —  WASHINGTON - Rep. Brian Higgins of Buffalo said Wednesday that he will not back House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California for another term as the top Democrat in the House.  —  “I will not support her,” Higgins said in an interview with The Buffalo News.

Sessions defends firing Comey, warns DOJ report could prompt more terminations  —  On the eve of the release of a potentially explosive new report, Attorney General Jeff Sessions  —  defended the termination of the FBI's top two former executives and warned that the forthcoming report on the FBI's handling of the Hillary Clinton

Airline says ‘vortex’ sent plane into terrifying nosedive  —  Passengers have described the terrifying moment a vortex sent their Qantas flight into a 10-second “nosedive.”  —  Hundreds of horrified travelers held hands ­believing they were about to die as the aircraft suddenly dropped over the Pacific Ocean on Sunday.

Rep. Steve King Won't Answer Questions About His Neo-Nazi Retweets  —  The Iowa Republican has been endorsing tweets from a guy who rants about Jews and the fall of Western civilization.  —  WASHINGTON Congressman Steve King is normally one of the more talkative members of the House of Representatives …

It's a really big deal that SF elected London Breed as mayor  —  For a week, San Francisco political insiders huddled every afternoon in the bland basement of City Hall to get the latest vote counts in the mayor's race, crunch data and make colorful precinct maps showing who was winning where.

Stephen Bannon Buys Into Bitcoin  —  WASHINGTON — Stephen K. Bannon, 10 months removed from the job of chief strategist to President Trump and five months after his ouster from the arch-conservative news site Breitbart News, is betting that Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies can disrupt banking …

Elon Musk's Boring Co. Wins Chicago Airport High-Speed Train Bid  —  Elon Musk's Boring Co. is the winner in a bid to build a multibillion-dollar high-speed express train to Chicago's O'Hare International Airport, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

Monetary policy decisions  —  At today's meeting, which was held in Riga, the Governing Council of the ECB undertook a careful review of the progress towards a sustained adjustment in the path of inflation, also taking into account the latest Eurosystem staff macroeconomic projections …

Pressure on Michael Cohen intensifies as Mueller stays focused on the Trump attorney  —  Michael Cohen, President Trump's personal attorney, is facing mounting pressure from two active federal investigations, contending with skyrocketing legal bills and planning to change lawyers in the near future …

Will Trump's View of the World Outlast His Presidency?  —  In his sledgehammer assault against the cornerstone institutions of the Western alliance, Donald Trump is replaying one of the defining confrontations in the Republican Party's history.  Only this time, the outcome is being reversed …

Scott Pruitt Should Go  —  When President Donald Trump nominated Scott Pruitt for administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, he looked like he would be a bright spot for the administration: a smart and tough advocate for deregulation and the rule of law.

Douglas Bennet, Who Led NPR and Wesleyan, Dies at 79  —  Douglas J. Bennet, who took over National Public Radio when it faced an uncertain future and spearheaded a decade of growth, died on Sunday at his home in Essex, Conn. He was 79.  —  The cause was complications of a fall sustained five years ago, his family said.

Scanning immigrants' old fingerprints, U.S. threatens to strip thousands of citizenship  —  The Trump administration is analyzing decades-old fingerprints in an unprecedented effort to rescind American citizenship from immigrants who may have lied or falsified information on their naturalization forms.

My Mom's Suicide Was Preventable  —  The deaths of Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain remind us that there is help.  —  I didn't know Kate Spade or Anthony Bourdain but saw familiar threads in their suicides, as my mother took her own life at age 51.  —  Spade had spoken to her father the night …

It's All Too Much, and We Still Have to Care  —  As a purely descriptive matter, it's surely true: We are all going numb.  As Donald Trump makes war with Canada and peace with dictators and human rights abusers, the narrative is that everyone's lost all feeling.

She says federal officials took her daughter while she breastfed the child in a detention center  —  500+ immigrant children separated from parents  —  McAllen, Texas (CNN)The undocumented immigrant from Honduras sobbed as she told an attorney Tuesday how federal authorities took her daughter …

One year after grievous gunshot wound, Steve Scalise takes the field  —  GOP holds first baseball practice since shooting  —  (CNN)As House Majority Whip Steve Scalise bends down to field a ground ball rolling his way, it's clear the movement is neither easy nor natural any more.

After years of growth, the use of social media for news is falling across the world  —  But messaging apps are picking up the slack, the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism finds in its 2018 Digital News Report.  —  People are becoming disenchanted with Facebook for news.

Young Americas Foundation warns Charlie Kirk could cause ‘long-term damage’  —  The conservative kids are not okay.  That's the assessment of Turning Pointing USA offered by Kimberly Begg, vice president and general counsel of Young Americas Foundation, according to an internal memo obtained by the Washington Examiner.

Donald Trump mural inside Texas shelter sparks debate  —  AUSTIN — One of the largest shelters for unaccompanied minors in Texas includes a wall-sized mural of President Donald Trump.  —  “Kids would tell me it was an odd image to see, that it scared them.

UK to loosen immigration rules to allow more skilled workers: report  —  U.K. Home Secretary Sajid Javid is seeking to soften Britain's rules to attract more skilled migrants into the country before Brexit, the Telegraph reported Wednesday.  —  Javid is expected to announce on Friday …