New questions raised about Avenatti claims regarding Kavanaugh  —  “I do not like that he twisted my words,” one woman says of lawyer Michael Avenatti.  —  When Sen. Chuck Grassley referred attorney Michael Avenatti and his client Julie Swetnick to the Justice Department for criminal investigation Thursday …

Trump Considers Closing Southern Border to Migrants  —  WASHINGTON — President Trump is considering taking executive action to bar migrants, including asylum seekers, from entering the country at the southern border, according to people familiar with the plan.

Newt Gingrich: 'We'll see whether or not the Kavanaugh fight was worth it'  —  Megyn Kelly's rocky two years at NBC  —  Saudi Arabia concedes Khashoggi's murder was premeditated  —  Numerous pipe bombs sent to prominent critics of President Trump  —  CNN's New York offices evacuated after reports of a suspicious device

Why was MBS so afraid of Jamal Khashoggi?  —  Why was Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman so afraid of Jamal Khashoggi that he reportedly gave orders this past summer to bring the Post contributing columnist back to Saudi Arabia?  —  We'll still be left with that question after the Saudi …

F-Bombs and Real Bombs  —  Our problem isn't “incivility.”  It's right-wing violence.  —  On Wednesday night, after bombs were sent to a number of Donald Trump's most prominent enemies, he held a rally in Mosinee, Wis. A president with even a pretense to statesmanship would have canceled it …

Ballot Applications in Georgia, and Senate and House Latest: 12 Days to Go  —  Welcome to The Tip Sheet, a daily political analysis of the 2018 elections, based on interviews with Republican and Democratic officials, pollsters, strategists and voters.  —  Voter applications said to be missing in Georgia

Megyn Kelly was making racist comments long before ‘blackface.’ NBC hired her anyway.  —  Megyn Kelly is reportedly on her way out of the Today Show and maybe NBC.  Her past racial demagoguery should have disqualified her in the first place.  —  CONNECT  —  “Megyn Kelly said something really racist …

Trump used charity money to buy his own portrait because no one else would: lawyers … Donald Trump had no choice but to blow $10,000 in charity money on a giant painting of himself — because no one else wanted it, his lawyers claimed in court Thursday.  —  Trump picked up the infamous painting …

Simona Mangiante has been reported to ICE, sources close to George Papadopoulos say  —  Simona Mangiante, the wife of convicted ex-Trump adviser George Papadopoulos, has been reported to federal immigration authorities by those close to Papadopoulos, per 2 sources with knowledge of the situation …

Housing Is Tanking in the Northeast.  Guess Why.  —  Losing big deductions for state and local property taxes is having the expected effect.  —  Sales of new single-family houses were down 13.2 percent in September from a year earlier, the Census Bureau reported Wednesday.

Trump's tweet claiming he ‘only uses government phones’ was sent from an iPhone  — President Donald Trump routinely uses unsecured iPhones to speak with friends and associates instead of a secure White House line, The New York Times reported on Wednesday.

New voters get notices listing wrong Dodge City polling site  —  WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — After moving Dodge City's sole polling site outside city limits, county election officials sent newly registered voters an official certificate of registration that listed the wrong place to cast a ballot …

Judge denies Nunes access to secret depositions on Steele dossier  —  The chairmen of two congressional committees, including House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Cal., who sought sealed testimony in a South Florida court case from key players in the Trump-Russia investigation ran afoul …

There's Just No Way That a Terrorism-by-Mail Scheme Targeting the Political-Media Establishment Could be a False Flag.  I Mean, It Couldn't Happen Again, After The Last False Flag Mail Terror Attack in 2001  —  Everyone remember the Anthrax mailings?  —  Real anthrax, by the way.  Not fugazi.

I thought Trump would help the LGBTQ community.  I was wrong.  —  Caitlyn Jenner is a transgender rights advocate and author.  —  These past two years under President Trump have given me the opportunity to reflect on a lot of topics that have come up in the LGBTQ community and in our nation.

Eggs with benefits: Sydney's same-sex penguins become parents  —  SYDNEY (Reuters) - Two male penguins entrusted with the care of a fostered egg have welcomed a tiny sub-Antarctic Gentoo chick into the world, Sydney's Sea Life Aquarium said on Friday.  —  The pair, Magic and Sphen …

Careless cruelty  —  Civil servants said separating families was illegal.  The administration ignored us.  —  The meeting was way overdue, and it wasn't going well.  —  It was May 21.  The Department of Homeland Security, where I worked as a senior adviser in the Office for Civil Rights …

POLITICO Playbook: T-minus 11 days and counting  —  DRIVING THE DAY  —  A FEW IMPORTANT MIDTERM NUGGETS ...  — AMY MCGRATH is putting up her closing ad — “Investment,” which was cut by MARK PUTNAM.  The ad features McGrath, a former fighter pilot, looking directly into the camera with a plane in the background.

A New Nuclear Arms Race Has Begun  —  President Trump says he plans to withdraw from a nonproliferation treaty that I signed with Ronald Reagan.  It's just the latest victim in the militarization of world affairs.  —  Mr. Gorbachev is the former president of the Soviet Union.

U.S. Democratic campaigns target healthcare as Republican weak spot: Reuters poll  —  (Reuters) - Democratic candidates for the U.S. Congress are closing out the campaign season with an ominous warning: telling voters millions of Americans could lose their health insurance or be forced to pay significantly more if Republicans win.

Here's how many times Trump attacked pipe bomb targets  —  Stelter: Trump on Twitter is a Fox News host  —  John Avlon is a CNN senior political analyst and anchor.  The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own.  View more opinion articles on CNN.  —  (CNN)Words matter.

Record early voting in El Paso driven by young, irregular voters  —  EL PASO, Texas - El Paso is shattering early voting records this year because infrequent voters are flocking to the polls, analysis of county election data shows.  Younger voters are also coming out in much larger numbers than in previous midterm elections.

Instagram Removes Milo Yiannopoulos Post Praising Mail Bombs After Daily Beast Report  —  Instagram had first told The Daily Beast that Yiannopoulos' post regretting that the bombs didn't go off had not violated its standards.  —  Instagram deleted a post from right-wing figure Milo Yiannopoulos praising …

Exclusive: Chelsea Clinton mulling political office: If someone ‘steps down or retires’  —  Chelsea Clinton, the daughter of former president Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, said she wouldn't rule out a run for office herself, and said her mother has not spoken …

GOP sees new bomb scare victim: Trump  —  A day after several leading Democrats were found to have been targeted by package bombs, Republicans have identified one of their own as a victim: President Donald Trump.  —  As of Thursday afternoon, less than 36 hours after the first packages were discovered …

Dining club emails reveal Kavanaugh's close ties to Trump's solicitor general  —  The new supreme court justice was a member of the Eureka club with Noel Francisco, who argues government cases before court  —  Brett Kavanaugh, the new supreme court justice, counts the Trump administration's solicitor general …

Michael Bloomberg, Exxon and the ethical pollution of buying justice  —  Michael Bloomberg, the billionaire and perhaps soon-to-be presidential candidate, suggested earlier this year that reluctant corporations needed to be pressed into addressing climate change.

Hundreds of Thousands of Wisconsin Voters Purged from Rolls Since 2016 General Election  —  A review of the latest voter registration tallies by Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) finds that almost 700,000 Wisconsin voters have been removed from the voter rolls since the end of December 2016 …

At Netflix, Radical Transparency and Blunt Firings Unsettle the Ranks  —  Buzzwords and anxiety fill the hallways as Hollywood giant tries to maintain a winning culture amid breakneck growth; ‘sunshining’ the ‘N-word’ scandal  —  At a Netflix Inc. corporate retreat in July …