Manafort held secret talks with Assange in Ecuadorian embassy  —  Exclusive: Trump ally met WikiLeaks founder months before emails hacked by Russia were published  —  Donald Trump's former campaign manager Paul Manafort held secret talks with Julian Assange inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London …

White House prevents Gina Haspel from briefing Senate on Khashoggi murder  —  Mike Pompeo and James Mattis are due to give a briefing on US relations with Saudi Arabia to Senate on Wednesday  —  The White House is preventing the CIA director, Gina Haspel, or any other intelligence official …

‘Fox & Friends’ Fed Interview Script to Trump's EPA Chief, Emails Show  —  The president's favorite cable-news show shared its interview scripts and its oh-so-hard-hitting questions in advance with an embattled Trump official.  —  Former Environmental Protection Agency administrator Scott Pruitt …

EXCLUSIVE: Jerome Corsi Says He Has Defense Agreement With Trump, Received Limited Immunity From Mueller  — Jerome Corsi makes several stunning disclosures in a new book about his interactions with the special counsel's office  — The right-wing author also writes that he received 'limited use immunity …

Tear gas used once a month at border under Obama  —  DHS data shows deployments dating back years  —  The same tear-gas agent that the Trump administration is taking heat for deploying against a border mob this weekend is actually used fairly frequently — including more than once a month during …

The NRA Just Reported Losing $55 Million in Income  —  The gun-rights group has its biggest champion in the White House.  But its financial situation has worsened in the age of Trump  —  The nation's leading gun-rights organization saw its income drop by $55 million last year …

A Shadow Over Europe  —  Anti-Semitic stereotypes are alive and well in Europe, while the memory of the Holocaust is starting to fade, a sweeping new survey by CNN reveals.  More than a quarter of Europeans polled believe Jews have too much influence in business and finance.

Senator John Cornyn On The Next Year In The Senate  —  Senate GOP Whip John Cornyn of Texas joined me this morning:  —  11-27hhs-cornyn  —  Transcript:  —  HH: So pleased to welcome back United States Senator John Cornyn from the great state of Texas.  He is the GOP whip …

Comey on acting AG Whitaker: ‘Not the sharpest knife’  —  Former FBI Director James Comey said Monday that acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker “may not be the sharpest knife in our drawer” but is savvy enough not to act outside the boundaries of the law in his position atop the Justice Department.

The Art of the Bipartisan Takedown  —  Before saying that its opposition to Nancy Pelosi's House speaker campaign had nothing to do with her record, the nonpartisan group No Labels was exploring a primary challenge to her back home in San Francisco.  —  And she wasn't the only Democrat the centrist nonprofit wanted to go after.

The Latest: US nixed FBI checks for teen migrant camp staff  —  TORNILLO, Texas (AP) — The Latest on a desert detention camp for migrant children (all times local):  —  A new government watchdog memo says the Trump administration waived rigorous background checks for all staff working …

Farm bankruptcies on the rise in Upper Midwest  —  MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The number of farms filing for bankruptcy is increasing across the Upper Midwest, following low prices for corn, soybeans, milk and beef, according to a new analysis from the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.

Trump brags, ‘I blow Ronald Reagan away’  —  President Trump believes that his long list of achievements in office make him “far greater than Ronald Reagan.”  —  In a new book out Tuesday about his “enemies,” the president said that while he feels “I blow Ronald Reagan away,” the “fake news” …

Liberal Parents, Radical Children  —  The generation gap returns.  —  When I meet someone who runs an organization in a blue state, I often ask: Do you have a generation gap where you work?  The answer — whether the person leads a college, a nonprofit, a tech company …

California's privileged are hiring private fire crews to save their homes.  Regular firefighters aren't happy about it  —  When the Woolsey fire swept into the exclusive neighborhood of Bell Canyon, resident Yen Hsieh grabbed her late music teacher's 200-year-old cello …

Dear Beto and Julián, Please Don't Run for President  —  Are you planning to run for president on the Democratic ticket in 2020?  If not, why not?  Everyone else is.  Seventeen Republicans ran in 2016, and the nominating process winnowed them down to the least qualified and most deranged.

Maybe They're Just Bad People  —  Not all Trump support is ideological.  —  Seven years ago, a former aide to Ralph Reed — who also worked, briefly, for Paul Manafort — published a tawdry, shallow memoir that is also one of the more revealing political books I've ever read.

You Can Sleep With the Latest Sex Robots at This Brothel—But Only if They Say ‘Yes’  —  Here's something you rarely hear in the discussion of robots designed for the sole purpose of having sexual relations with humans: Is the sex consensual?  —  That's because it's one of the last question anyone thinks about.

Meet New York City's highest-earning official.  He's a debt collector for predatory lenders.  —  In the 1960s, New York's loan sharks would send thugs with nicknames like “Jimmy Dimps” to beat up borrowers who fell behind on their payments.  —  Now predatory lenders have a quieter way of collecting debts …

Cuomo rules out presidential run  —  New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) on Tuesday ruled out a potential bid for the presidency in 2020, saying that he has a “full plate” in his current role.  —  “I am ruling it out.  I ran for governor.  I have a full plate.  I have many projects.

Fearful of bias, Google blocks gender-based pronouns from new AI tool  —  SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Alphabet Inc's (GOOGL.O) Google in May introduced a slick feature for Gmail that automatically completes sentences for users as they type.  Tap out “I love” and Gmail might propose “you” or “it.”

House Republicans unveil giant tax package  —  House Republicans on Monday evening unexpectedly released a 297-page tax bill they hope to move during the lame-duck session of Congress.  —  The legislation would revive a number of expired tax provisions known as “extenders,” …

Christine Blasey Ford says some good came out of her ‘terrifying’ testimony against Kavanaugh  —  Months after publicly accusing Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her three decades ago, Christine Blasey Ford said that speaking out was “terrifying,” but she knew it was her “civic duty.”