Exclusive: White House preparing draft national emergency order and identified $7 billion for wall  —  Washington (CNN)The White House is preparing a draft proclamation for President Donald Trump to declare a national emergency along the southern border and has identified more than $7 billion …

Florida Secretary of State Michael Ertel resigns after Halloween blackface photos emerge  —  Michael Ertel, the newly appointed Secretary of State of Gov. Ron DeSantis, has resigned after photos emerged of him posing as a Hurricane Katrina victim in blackface at a private Halloween party 14 years ago.

Elizabeth Warren to propose new ‘wealth tax’ on very rich Americans, economist says  —  Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) will propose a new “wealth tax” on Americans with more than $50 million in assets, according to an economist advising her on the plan, as Democratic leaders vie …

GOP senators read Pence riot act before shutdown votes  —  Frustrated GOP senators read Vice President Pence the riot act at a closed-door meeting Thursday, telling him the partial government shutdown needs to end soon, according to lawmakers in the room.  —  Republican senators …

Wilbur Ross says furloughed workers should take out a loan.  His agency's own credit union is charging nearly 9 percent  —  The Department of Commerce federal credit union is charging furloughed employees almost 9 percent interest on emergency loans to cover their missing paychecks …

Officials rejected Jared Kushner for top secret security clearance, but were overruled  —  Jared Kushner was rejected for a top secret clearance by 2 career security specialists, but their supervisor overruled them and approved him, say sources.  —  WASHINGTON — Jared Kushner's application …

The Unfinished Business of Bernie Sanders  —  He went from the rumpled bit player of the progressive movement to a legit presidential candidate and liberal kingmaker.  But now that Sanders wields such enormous power in Democratic politics, the question is, what's he going to do with it?

Skripal poisoning: Trump admin yet to impose new Russia sanctions required by law  —  The European Union punished 4 Russians this week in connection with the Skripal poisoning, but the U.S. hasn't moved forward with its own penalties.  —  WASHINGTON — Nearly three months after deeming Russia …

Koch network tells donors it plans to stay out of 2020 race, once again declining to back Trump  —  The conservative Koch political network has told donors that it plans to once again stay out of the presidential race and will not work to help reelect President Trump in 2020 …

Witness in special counsel probe, former Stone associate, collected payments from Infowars through job Stone arranged  —  Over the past several months, author and conspiracy theorist Jerome Corsi has emerged as one of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III's most vexing witnesses in his probe of Russian interference in the 2016 campaign.

Trump's Disney Robot Obsession and Anthony Scaramucci's Dick Joke: Scenes From a White House Insider  —  They are who we thought they were.  —  Shortly after Donald Trump's election, a Disney crew was dispatched to the White House to record the new president's voice, which would be played through …

Sen. Michael Bennet slams Ted Cruz for ‘crocodile tears’ over the shutdown  —  Sen. Michael F. Bennet, typically a mild-mannered, congenial guy, on Thursday unleashed all of his furor over the partial government shutdown on Sen. Ted Cruz.  —  In a fiery exchange that played …

Exclusive: U.S. to begin returning asylum seekers to Mexico on Friday - official  —  MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - The United States will return the first group of migrants seeking asylum in the United States to the Mexican border city of Tijuana on Friday, a spokesman for Mexico's president said on Thursday.

Shoot Someone In A Major US City, And Odds Are You'll Get Away With It  —  A shocking number of shootings go unsolved.  In some police departments, hundreds of cases aren't investigated at all.  A joint investigation by The Trace and BuzzFeed News. … Devon Little was shot …

JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon and Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon recently had private meetings with top Democratic Wall Street critic Maxine Waters  — J.P. Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon and Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon recently met in private with leading Wall Street critic Rep. Maxine Waters …

Yesterday was a reassuring day for me.  I was on my way to Walter Reed Military Hospital for an exam.  As I drove along Interstate 495 my left front tire blew out.  I am a car guy and knew I could change it but it was cold outside and the lug bolts were very tight.

Fox News Poll: Voters see shutdown as bigger problem than border situation  —  Most voters consider the partial government shutdown a major problem or, even worse, an emergency, according to a new Fox News Poll.  —  After a 33-day stalemate over the funding for a U.S.-Mexico border wall …

Michael Cohen subpoenaed by Senate Intelligence committee  —  (CNN)President Donald Trump's former personal lawyer Michael Cohen was subpoenaed Thursday to testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee in mid-February, according to a source close to Cohen.  —  It is not clear how Cohen will respond.

We Followed YouTube's Recommendation Algorithm Down The Rabbit Hole  —  How many clicks through YouTube's “Up Next” recommendations does it take to go from an anodyne PBS clip about the 116th United States Congress to an anti-immigrant video from a designated hate organization?

The political scientist Donald Trump should read  —  What Trump would do if he really wanted his wall.  —  It's not often I run across political science that genuinely changes my understanding of how American politics works.  But Frances Lee's research has done exactly that.  Twice.

‘Trump will handle this’: Florida man tried to force Iraqi family out of his neighborhood, police say  —  David Allen Boileau kept saying, “the U.S. needs to get rid of all of them,” meaning Middle Easterners, according to police, but for the time being he was focused on getting rid of the neighbors.

MTA Memo: Cuomo's L Train Plan Will Cause Crowding ‘Greater Than Anything Ever Experienced’  —  Just a few weeks ago, Governor Andrew Cuomo upended three years of transportation planning and shocked the city by announcing that L train service between Brooklyn and Manhattan would no longer need to be shut down for 15 months for repairs.

Oregon Man Sentenced to 20 Months for Sexually Assaulting a Horse  —  Remember Kenneth Lijah Duyck?  Law&Crime wrote about him back in April of last year.  The Oregon man was arrested for allegedly sexually assaulting a horse.  That case closed this week.

The Covington Boys and the Poison of Trumpism  —  For five days since the footage of an altercation between MAGA-clad Catholic school boys and the elder Native American activists Nathan Phillips near the Lincoln Memorial first caught fire online, the political Internet has been agonizing with itself …

Trump's Wall of Shame  —  It would stand as a lasting reminder of the white racial hostility surging through this moment in American history.  —  This is Jamelle Bouie's debut column.  —  The wall of Donald Trump's campaign and presidency has always operated both as a discrete proposal …