A mysterious payment to Paul Manafort's lawyer reveals a hidden chapter of Trump's 2016 presidential campaign  — Recent court filings are shedding new light on a mysterious $125,000 payment to lawyers for Paul Manafort, paid by a firm that has not been identified until now.

Scoop: Trump lied to RNC donors about “Tim Apple” video  —  Republican donors in attendance called it one of Trump's weirdest lies ever.  On Friday night, under a tent erected over the pool at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, President Trump claimed the media were spreading “fake news” …

Exclusive: In budget, Trump to ask Congress for $8.6 billion for border wall  —  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump on Monday will ask the U.S. Congress for an additional $8.6 billion to help pay for his promised wall on the U.S-Mexico border to combat illegal immigration and drug trafficking …

Footage Contradicts U.S. Claim That Maduro Burned Aid Convoy  —  CÚCUTA, Colombia — The narrative seemed to fit Venezuela's authoritarian rule: Security forces, on the order of President Nicolás Maduro, had torched a convoy of humanitarian aid as millions in his country were suffering from illness and hunger.

Ocasio-Cortez, at SXSW, blasts FDR, Reagan and capitalism, says political moderates are ‘meh’  —  U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez slammed political moderates at the South by Southwest Conference & Festivals in Austin, Texas, calling their views “misplaced” as she defended her progressive politics in a room full of supporters.

The Massage Parlor Owner Peddling Access to Trump Has Ties to Chinese Government-Linked Groups  —  Li Yang, the Florida massage parlor entrepreneur who created and operated a business that sold Chinese business executives access to President Donald Trump and his family at Mar-a-Lago, has yet another intriguing line of work.

Justin Amash is the loneliest Republican in Congress  —  Washington (CNN)For most Republicans, life in the House minority is a big change.  But for Rep. Justin Amash, in a sense, it's more of the same.  —  “It's just a different set of people doing the wrong thing,” the Michigan Republican said in an interview with CNN.

Trump tells RNC donors: “The Democrats hate Jewish people”  —  So leakers had to rely on their memories.  Trump entered to Lee Greenwood's “Proud to Be an American,” then launched into one of his trademark stream-of-consciousness speeches, according to three people who were there.

Town by town, local journalism is dying in plain sight  —  WAYNESVILLE, Mo. (AP) — Five minutes late, Darrell Todd Maurina sweeps into a meeting room and plugs in his laptop computer.  He places a Wi-Fi hotspot on the table and turns on a digital recorder.

In unearthed audio, Tucker Carlson makes numerous misogynistic and perverted comments  —  During interviews on Bubba The Love Sponge, Carlson said he “love[s]” the idea of young girls sexually experimenting, used sexist terms to refer to a number of women, and defended statutory rape

Katrina Pierson Responds to WH Diversity Question By Asking How Many Black Staffers Abraham Lincoln Had  —  When MSNBC host Al Sharpton confronted Trump campaign senior adviser Katrina Pierson about the lack of black staffers in Trump's West Wing, Pierson offered a jaw-dropping excuse …

GOP meddles in Democratic nomination with takedown of O'Rourke  —  The Club for Growth sees the ex-Texas congressman as a serious threat to Donald Trump, and they're treating him accordingly.  —  A prominent conservative group is thrusting itself into the Democratic primary …

In Minnesota, Rep. Ilhan Omar's comments cause pain and confusion  —  In Minnesota's Twin Cities, Jews and Somali immigrants have been partners for decades.  —  When Somali refugees arrived in Minnesota starting in 1993, Jewish leaders saw echoes of their forebears who faced virulent anti-Semitism …

Scoop: White House crafting series of executive orders on bipartisan issues  —  Senior Trump administration officials are crafting a plan ahead of the president's re-election bid that sounds like a blend of Bill Clinton's “triangulation” and Barack Obama's “pen and a phone.”

U.S. Airstrikes Kill Hundreds in Somalia as Shadowy Conflict Ramps Up  —  WASHINGTON — The American military has escalated a battle against the Shabab, an extremist group affiliated with Al Qaeda, in Somalia even as President Trump seeks to scale back operations against similar Islamist insurgencies elsewhere …

Schiff says it's a ‘mistake’ for Mueller not to interview Trump  —  The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee said Sunday that special counsel Robert S. Mueller III was making a “mistake” by not demanding that President Trump testify as part of his investigation, which by many accounts may soon be nearing its end.

Fox shifting from partisanship to propaganda?  —  Jane Mayer, the author of The New Yorker's detailed look at Fox News, tells Brian Stelter that the relationship between Fox and President Trump is “incestuous.”  She also says Trump needs Fox as much as it needs him.  —  Source: CNN

New York City is edging toward financial disaster, experts warn  —  New York City is careening closer to all-out financial bankruptcy for the first time since Mayor Abraham Beame ran the city more than 40 years ago, experts say.  —  As tax-fleeced businesses and individuals flee en masse …

Reality ‘check’: Castro hits Sanders over slave reparations  —  Democratic presidential candidate Julián Castro is skeptical about how fellow candidate Bernie Sanders has responded to proposed reparations for descendants of slaves.  —  The former Housing and Urban Development secretary …

‘The ISIS threat will remain,’ John Bolton says  —  National security adviser John Bolton said Sunday that the Islamic State remains a threat and that it is “growing in other parts of the world” besides Syria and Iraq.  —  The statement by Bolton in an interview on ABC News's “This Week” …