White House Counsel Has Cooperated Extensively With Mueller's Obstruction Inquiry  —  WASHINGTON — The White House counsel, Donald F. McGahn II, has cooperated extensively in the special counsel investigation, sharing detailed accounts about the episodes at the heart of the inquiry …

Inside the security clearance revolt  —  Several wanted to fiddle with the punctuation, some wanted to add nice things about John Brennan; others thought it would be wiser to pare them back.  —  But in 12 hours, a couple of former CIA senior aides pulled off a first in American history.

The Slippery Slope of Complicity  —  When was the last time centrist talking heads declared, “Donald Trump just became president” (because he bombed someone, or something like that)?  I think it's been more than a year.  At this point, you have to be a truly fanatical practitioner of bothsidesism …

Bill Maher criticizes social media bans: ‘Alex Jones gets to speak’  —  HBO talk-show host Bill Maher spoke out in defense of controversial right-wing host Alex Jones after Jones was suspended from several social media platforms, saying that everyone has a right to free speech.

Sex Abuse Report Lists a Beloved Pastor, and a Pennsylvania Church Reels  —  The Rev. John David Crowley was once adored by his parishioners.  Then came the news that he was among the priests who abused more than 1,000 children.  —  Everything felt normal until the news alert popped up on Cindy Depretis's cellphone Tuesday afternoon.

ICE Detains Man Driving Pregnant Wife To Hospital To Deliver Baby  —  SAN BERNARDINO (CBSLA) — A newborn is without his father Friday after immigration agents detained the man as he was taking his wife to deliver the baby.  —  “I feel very bad right now,” Maria del Carmen Venegas told CBS2 News …

Alleged Russian Agent Marina Butina Moved to Virginia Jail, Unclear Why … Maria Butina, the Russian national accused of acting as a Kremlin agent in the United States, was abruptly moved from a jail in Washington to a lockup in Alexandria, Virginia, according to her lawyer.

Should you be eating diatomaceous earth, the fossilised remains of tiny marine animals?  —  We're used to influencers pushing out-there ‘superfoods’ (yes, that's in quotation marks because we don't think superfoods are a real thing).  —  Remember the charcoal hype?  Everyone's excitement for goji berries?

Kofi Annan, Diplomat Who Redefined the U.N., Dies at 80  —  Kofi Annan, a soft-spoken and patrician diplomat from Ghana, who became the seventh secretary general of the United Nations, projecting himself and his organization as the world's conscience and moral arbiter despite bloody debacles …

'I'm not going there': As Trump hurls racial invective, most Republicans stay silent  —  The president of the United States had just lobbed another racially charged insult — this time calling his former top African American adviser a “dog” — but Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) had no interest in talking about it.

Netflix's ‘Classless’ Cancellation of Michelle Wolf's ‘The Break’ … Well, that was fast.  On Friday, Netflix quietly pulled the plug on The Break with Michelle Wolf, one of the only “late-night” shows on “television” hosted by a female comedian, just three months after it premiered.

National debt jumps $500 billion in less than six months  —  The U.S. national debt has increased by more than half a trillion dollars in less than six months, amid predictions that the U.S. is on the verge of returning to another explosion in government borrowing.

Who Is Winning the War in Afghanistan?  Depends on Which One  —  Rod Nordland has been reporting on Afghanistan's travails since well before the American-led invasion that booted the Taliban from power in 2001.  For the past eight years, he has been a correspondent and then Kabul bureau chief …