Donald Trump Twitter Account Video Reveals Covert U.S. Navy SEAL Deployment During Iraq Visit  —  President Donald Trump and the White House communications team revealed that a U.S. Navy SEAL team was deployed to Iraq after the president secretly traveled to the region to meet …

MSNBC Beats Fox News in Weekly Cable News Ratings for First Time Since 2000  —  MSNBC ended the week of Dec. 21st with the #1 cable news ratings on television, beating Fox News for the first time in 17 years.  For the Monday through Friday leading up to the Christmas holiday …

How Mark Burnett Resurrected Donald Trump as an Icon of American Success  —  With “The Apprentice,” the TV producer mythologized Trump—then a floundering D-lister—as the ultimate titan, paving his way to the Presidency.  —  “Expedition: Robinson,” a Swedish reality-television program …

U.S. Stocks Set to Fall After Wall Street's Record Surge  —  Stocks in Japan rise sharply, but European equities broadly drift lower  —  U.S. stocks were poised to drop on Thursday after a record-breaking rally on Wall Street, as anxiety persists about slowing economic growth and uncertain policy out of Washington.

End of Government Shutdown May Depend on the Definition of ‘Wall’  —  WASHINGTON — With a partial government shutdown stretching past Day 5, the impasse over funding a wall at the southwestern border has highlighted the debate over effective border security, with a breakthrough possibly hinging on a semantic argument: What is a wall?

Trump tries to steer shutdown focus to financial impact for Democrats  —  President Donald Trump seemingly added a new spin to his usual shutdown rhetoric Thursday, tweeting that its economic impact disproportionately falls on Democrats.  —  “Have the Democrats finally realized …

CNN Decries U.S. Troops in Iraq Who Had Their MAGA Hats Signed by Trump  —  During President Trump's surprise visit to Al Asad Airbase in Iraq to celebrate Christmas with the U.S. troops there, he rubbed shoulders with America's finest as he took selfies and signed autographs for them.

Michelle Obama Ends Hillary Clinton's Run as Most Admired  —  WASHINGTON, D.C. — For the first time in 17 years, a woman other than Hillary Clinton has been named by Americans as the woman they admire most.  Former first lady Michelle Obama, who finished second to Clinton three times …

USA TODAY/Suffolk Poll: What do Democrats want in 2020?  Someone new - and Biden.  But definitely not Hillary  —  Former Vice President Joe Biden hints at a 2020 run, saying he thinks he's “the most qualified person” in this Country to be president.  Veuer's Justin Kircher has the story.  —  CONNECT

Homeland Security Chief Faults Parents, ‘Open Border’ Supporters In Migrant Kids' Deaths  —  Kirstjen Nielsen ordered an overhaul of medical screening procedures at the Mexican border after Felipe Gómez Alonzo, 8, died on Christmas Eve.  —  Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen …

Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Knights of Columbus?  —  Recently, Sen. Mazie Hirono claimed that Democrats have a hard time connecting with voters because they (Democrats) are so “smart” and “know so much.”  If Democrats are smart and knowledgeable, you can't prove it by Hirono.

Sweet Shutdown, Roll On  —  It never seems to occur to the Democrats, currently bellyaching about the largely phantom “government shutdown,” that the last people Donald Trump cares about offending are the army of Democrat-voting bureaucrats who will be the only folks inconvenienced by Senator Charles Schumer's latest temper tantrum.

Jobless Claims Fall to 216,000, Showing Tight U.S. Labor Market  —  U.S. filings for unemployment benefits decreased for the third time in four weeks, hovering near an almost five- decade low that reflects a robust job market.  —  Jobless claims fell by 1,000 to 216,000 in the week ended Dec. 22 …

Trump's presidency has changed Washington, defied convention  —  WASHINGTON (AP) — Mr. Trump went to Washington.  And he changed it.  —  In his first two years in office, President Donald Trump has rewritten the rules of the presidency and the norms of the nation's capital …

How Trump gave away his secret war zone trip  —  The tweets stopped and soon the jig was up.  —  President Donald Trump's trip to Iraq this week, his first to a war zone as president, was supposed to be a surprise.  But the White House couldn't keep the sensitive trip a secret for long.

$800 Million in Taxpayer Money Went to Private Prisons Where Migrants Work for Pennies  —  Detention for migrants is big business—and a Daily Beast investigation reveals new details about just how lucrative it's become.  —  For $3 a day, Yesica works the graveyard shift in the kitchens …

How Much of the Internet Is Fake?  Turns Out, a Lot of It, Actually.  —  In late November, the Justice Department unsealed indictments against eight people accused of fleecing advertisers of $36 million in two of the largest digital ad-fraud operations ever uncovered.

Legal marijuana industry had banner year in 2018  —  The last year was a 12-month champagne toast for the legal marijuana industry as the global market exploded and cannabis pushed its way further into the financial and cultural mainstream.  —  Liberal California became the largest legal U.S. marketplace …

Donald Trump Is Bad for Israel  —  As usual, the president makes his predecessors look better.  —  Suppose you're the type of smart conservative reluctantly inclined to give Donald Trump a pass for his boorish behavior and ideological heresies because you like the way the economy …

Trump Imperils the Planet  —  Endangered species, climate change — the administration is taking the country, and the world, backward.  —  The editorial board represents the opinions of the board, its editor and the publisher.  It is separate from the newsroom and the Op-Ed section.