Last Slide  —  WASHINGTON — More Americans oppose than support the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, a new USA TODAY/Ipsos Public Affairs Poll finds, an unprecedented level of disapproval for a nominee to the nation's high court.  —  Amid allegations of sexual assault …

Revealed: Russia's secret plan to help Julian Assange escape from UK  —  Tentative plot to whisk fugitive from London embassy on Christmas Eve was considered too risky  —  Russian diplomats held secret talks in London last year with people close to Julian Assange to assess whether they could help …

Internal GOP Poll: Pelosi Beats Trump in a Head-to-Head Matchup  —  The Democratic leader is a frequent Republican target, but an RNC poll shows she's more popular than the president.  —  President Trump likes to mock Nancy Pelosi, but a private survey conducted for the Republican National Committee finds …

Russia's Pro-Gun Influence Accounts Copied The NRA — And Sometimes, Vice Versa  —  Russian social media agitators who pushed pro-gun messages in the United States sometimes copied the language of the National Rifle Association.  And sometimes, the NRA copied them.

Trump Tower Meeting Planners Moved Millions, Mueller Now Investigating  —  On June 3, 2016, Donald Trump Jr. received one of the most striking emails of the presidential campaign, offering dirt on Hillary Clinton as part of the Russian government's “support for Mr. Trump.”

Trump Sees a ‘Red Wave’ Where His Party Sees a Red Alert  —  WASHINGTON — During a discussion about his party's legislative high points this year with a small group at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce last week, Senator Mitch McConnell, the majority leader, expressed a new concern about an old habit of President Trump's.

Google Workers Discussed Tweaking Search Function to Counter Travel Ban  —  Company says none of proposed changes to search results were ever implemented  —  WASHINGTON—Days after the Trump administration instituted a controversial travel ban in January 2017, Google employees discussed …

September Senate Overview: Three Ratings Changes  —  As the political environment continues to favor Democrats and likely to rob Republicans of their majority in the U.S. House and a handful of gubernatorial seats, the conventional wisdom is that the fate of the GOP's Senate majority will rest …

The GOP's growing identity crisis  —  The Republican Party is suffering an identity crisis that poses acute short- and long-term risks: President Trump, with 38% approval in Gallup, is giving the party a constricted appeal, with the danger of continuing high-profile defections.

Woman on vacation reportedly finds dead tortoise in her vagina  —  A British woman has been questioned by police in Spain after doctors found a dead tortoise inside her vagina, according to reports in the Spanish media.  —  Staff at the emergency department of a medical center in the south …

Yale Law dean: Reports that professor groomed female clerks for Kavanaugh ‘of enormous concern’  —  Yale Law School Dean Heather Gerken wrote that she wanted to “address the press reports today regarding allegations of faculty misconduct.”  —  The dean of Yale Law School on Thursday responded …

Europe's papers in a froth over Theresa May's ‘Salzburg disaster’  —  Europe's newspapers were all about the acrimonious EU summit held in Salzburg, Austria on Wednesday and Thursday, at which U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May warned she is prepared to walk away from negotiations with the bloc after EU leaders rejected her Brexit plan.

Is Winning Women Enough for Democrats to Win the House?  —  It's been beyond obvious for a while now that Republicans have a problem with female voters.  Poll after poll have shown that white college-educated women, once a persuadable pool of voters, have abandoned the GOP.

New Emails Show Confusion At The Pentagon After Trump's Transgender Ban Tweets  —  At 8:55 am on a Wednesday morning last summer, a tweet from the White House residence stopped much of Washington in its tracks.  —  “After consultation with my Generals and military experts …

Kirsten Danis Joining Metro  —  Kirsten Danis, who has been managing editor of The Marshall Project since 2015, is becoming deputy Metro editor for investigations.  Read more in this note from Cliff Levy.  —  Metro has had a storied tradition of world-class investigative reporting …

Beyoncé's Former Drummer Claims Singer Molested Her with ‘Dark Magic,’ ‘Extreme Witchcraft’  —  A woman who once worked as a drummer for Beyoncé claims the singer is wrapped up in the practices of “extreme witchcraft” and has been using her spells to run surveillance and control her finances …

It's Anthony Bourdain's journalism that we'll miss most  —  Anthony Bourdain never wanted to be called a journalist, but that's exactly what he became.  In fact, I suspect he'll end up being remembered as one of the most influential television correspondents ever.