Mattis is out of the loop and Trump doesn't listen to him, say officials  —  On Iran, North Korea and other major issues, the defense secretary has been out of the loop  —  WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary James Mattis learned in May from a colleague that President Donald Trump had made the decision …

Trump: ‘Be careful what you wish for Max!’  —  President Trump slammed Rep. Maxine Waters on Monday afternoon, after her speech calling for supporters to heckle members of the Trump administration went viral over the weekend.  —  Congresswoman Maxine Waters, an extraordinarily low IQ person …

Harley, stung by tariffs, shifts some production overseas  —  MILWAUKEE (AP) — Harley-Davidson, up against spiraling costs from tariffs, will begin shifting the production of motorcycles headed for Europe from the U.S. to factories overseas.  —  The European Union on Friday began rolling …

Special counsel obtains Trump ally Erik Prince's phones, computer  —  Special Counsel Robert Mueller is digging deeper into Trump ally and Blackwater founder Erik Prince, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the matter.  —  Prince, America's most famous private military contractor …

Suppression of Minority Voting Rights Is About to Get Way Worse  —  On Monday, five years to the day that the Supreme Court decided Shelby County v. Holder, a case in which the court struck down a key provision of the Voting Rights Act with assurances that other parts of the act …

Read the Messages and Threats Sent to the Wrong Red Hen  —  The DC restaurant has been mistaken for the Virginia one that kicked out Sarah Sanders  —  Red Hen communications director Alysa Turner is losing count of the treats, tirades, and misspelled insults.

Colleague cracks Sen. McCaskill's rib with Heimlich maneuver  —  WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin has cracked a rib of U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill while performing the Heimlich maneuver on the fellow Democrat when she began choking.  —  A spokesman for Manchin tells the St. Louis Post-Dispatch …

At a Toast to Trump, the North Korean Anthem Has a Starring Role  —  WASHINGTON — The North Korean national anthem got plenty of fanfare at the Virginia Women for Trump's birthday party for the president on Sunday.  Corey Stewart, the Republican Senate candidate from Virginia, got the hook.

What's the Yield Curve?  ‘A Powerful Signal of Recessions’ Has Wall Street's Attention  —  You can try and play down a trade war with China.  You can brush off the impact of rising oil prices on corporate earnings.  —  But if you're in the business of making economic predictions …

The Latest: US officials order send to sit-in at ICE office  —  PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — The Latest on the separation of immigrant children from their parents (all times local):  —  Federal officials Monday ordered protesters to end their round-the-clock occupation of property outside …

Manafort Appeals Washington Judge's Order Revoking His Bail  — Judge sent Manafort to jail for alleged witness tampering  — Trump's ex-chairman preparing for two trials behind bars  —  Donald Trump's former campaign chairman Paul Manafort is appealing a judge's order revoking …

28-Year-Old Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Might Just Be the Future of the Democratic Party  —  Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has already made history with her campaign to challenge Democratic Rep. Joe Crowley for his seat in congress: the 28-year-old Bronx-born woman is the first person to face off …

I've Been Reporting on MS-13 for a Year.  Here Are the 5 Things Trump Gets Most Wrong.  —  The gang is not invading the country.  They're not posing as fake families.  They're not growing.  To stop them, the government needs to understand them.  —  There's one thing everyone can agree …

How an Affair Between a Reporter and a Security Aide Has Rattled Washington Media  —  The pearl bracelet arrived in May 2014, in the spring of Ali Watkins's senior year in college, a graduation gift from a man many years her senior.  It was the sort of bauble that might imply something …

White Extinction Anxiety  —  Last week Pat Buchanan was on “The Laura Ingraham Show” to discuss the humanitarian crisis Donald Trump has created at the border by ripping children away from their parents.  —  He was not particularly sympathetic to these families' plights …

The left loses its cool  —  'When you're violent and cursing and screaming and blocking me from walking into a movie, there's something wrong,' said one top GOP official.  —  Two senior Trump administration officials were heckled at restaurants.  A third was denied service.

This Is Just the Beginning  —  Do you think that being asked to leave a restaurant, or having your meal interrupted, or being called by the public is bad?  My fascism-enabling friends, this is only the beginning.  —  One thing that people who wield great power often fail to viscerally understand …

Why We Are Leaving the G.O.P.  —  When the obituary for the Republican Party is written, the year 1980 will be cited as the beginning of the end.  Reaganism was in full flower, but the big tent was already folding.  Republican leaders endorsed a constitutional ban on abortion at the convention that summer …

The Power of Nancy Pelosi  —  Can the Democrats' polarizing leader chart a path to victory in the 2018 midterm elections?  —  Nancy Pelosi sits in a black-leather booth at Americana, a burger bistro in downtown Des Moines, radiating optimism.  “We're in a very good place,” she says of Democrats' odds in November.

Kander confirms bid for Kansas City mayor in a move already shaking up the ballot  —  Jason Kander, the former Missouri secretary of state whose growing nationwide profile as a Democrat led to speculation about his presidential ambitions, confirmed on Sunday his unexpected decision to run for mayor of Kansas City.

The NSA's Hidden Spy Hubs in Eight U.S. Cities  —  The secrets are hidden behind fortified walls in cities across the United States, inside towering, windowless skyscrapers and fortress-like concrete structures that were built to withstand earthquakes and even nuclear attack.

Majority of Americans approve of Trump's handling of the economy for the first time: CNBC survey  — Trump's economic approval rating surged 6 points to 51 percent, according to the latest CNBC All-America Economic Survey.  — Fifty-four percent say the economy is good or excellent …

Women were lying dead, men... Migrants expelled in Sahara  —  ASSAMAKA, Niger (AP) — From this isolated frontier post deep in the sands of the Sahara, the expelled migrants can be seen coming over the horizon by the hundreds.  They look like specks in the distance, trudging miserably across …

Increasing threats to Homeland Security include burned animal carcass left on staffer's porch  —  (WASHINGTON) — Department of Homeland Security employees are seeing violent threats with greater frequency because of the president's immigration policy, according to an official with knowledge of a recent threat assessment.

Ted Cruz leads Beto O'Rourke by 5 points in Texas Senate race, UT/TT poll finds  —  Texas Republicans in top races, led by U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz and Gov. Greg Abbott, are running ahead of their Democratic challengers, according to the latest University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll.

Where Is Barack Obama?  —  Barack Obama was six months into his post-White House life when Donald Trump found a new way to grab his attention.  It was a Tuesday morning deep in the mid-Atlantic summer, and, feeling a world away from the Pennsylvania Avenue grind, the former president was reading the New York Times on his iPad.

Professor asks men to send her pictures of their penises to help measure self esteem  —  Does a larger penis mean more self esteem?  One Missouri State University sociology professor is working to find that out and more, and in the name of science is asking men across America to send her pictures of their genitalia.

Sarah Sanders and the failure of “civility”  —  A little impoliteness could be what America really needs.  —  After White House press secretary Sarah Sanders announced that she had been denied service at a Virginia restaurant this past weekend, prominent figures from across the political spectrum expressed their indignation.

What did Peter Strzok do?  —  As former top FBI official Peter Strzok faces congressional requests to testify, it's worth examining who he is.  —  Strzok is the subject of what I see as one of the most damaging conclusions in the Department of Justice (DOJ) inspector general report …