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 …

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.

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.

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 …

'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.

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?

Pioneer of modern redistricting dies at 75  —  For more than four decades, when Republicans needed strategic advice drawing political boundaries, the party turned to a small cadre of expert cartographers, trained in the rare art of redistricting.  At the heart of that group was Tom Hofeller.

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.

Charter Spectrum plans to report local TV news, 24 hours a day, in Los Angeles  —  Local TV news has settled into a familiar routine: a pingpong of live shots with reporters standing near the scene of a crime, a wildfire or the wreckage of a deadly crash.  Newscasts are peppered with helicopter views …

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 …