Barr walks back claim that law enforcement spied on Trump campaign  —  Attorney General Bill Barr told a Senate Appropriations subcommittee on Wednesday that he believes spying by law enforcement officials on the 2016 Trump campaign “did occur,” before clarifying at the end of the hearing …

Hush-Money Probe Gathered Evidence From Trump's Inner Circle  —  Federal investigators, looking into payments to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal, questioned longtime aides of the president and amassed more evidence than previously known  —  The Manhattan U.S. attorney's office has gathered …

Trump's ‘truly bizarre’ visit to Mt. Vernon  —  President Donald Trump had some advice for George Washington.  —  During a guided tour of Mount Vernon last April with French president Emmanuel Macron, Trump learned that Washington was one of the major real-estate speculators of his era.

Elizabeth Warren's campaign announces $6 million first-quarter haul as it makes huge hires in early states  —  Warren: I'm tired of a Washington that works for the rich  —  (CNN)Sen. Elizabeth Warren raised more than $6 million for her presidential bid in the first quarter of 2019 …

Miller and Kushner on a potential collision course in Trump's border crisis  —  In President Trump's latest blowup over immigration, senior adviser Stephen Miller hovered omnipresent in the background — goading him in his threats to close the border, warning him of the dangers of looking weak …

Mick Mulvaney Tries Letting Trump Be Trump  —  WASHINGTON — When President Trump met with his embattled homeland security secretary on Sunday to force her out after months of stormy eruptions over immigration policy, the only other person in the room was Mick Mulvaney, who made no effort …

What the President May Now Fear Most in Mueller Report  —  Special Counsel Robert Mueller's final report is predicated, as far as we know, on a potentially explosive assumption.  —  Consider a head scratching set of conclusions.  The Special Counsel wrote that “the evidence does not establish …

The Smear Of Roger Scruton  —  The attempt to remove Roger Scruton from an honorary advisory role on the U.K. government's “Building Better, Building Beautiful” commission failed when it was tried last November.  But it succeeded today.  —  “You expect people who spend their lives on Twitter …

Steve Mnuchin tried to tell Maxine Waters how to run a congressional hearing.  It did not go well.  —  “Please cancel your meeting and respect our time.”  —  During a hearing on Tuesday, an exasperated Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin made House Financial Services Chair Maxine Waters …

Donald Trump Inadvertently Killed the Pentagon Press Briefing.  Here's How That Hurts the Public  —  Gerard Butler's last action movie was about Navy SEALs rescuing a kidnapped Russian president to prevent World War III.  But the least realistic part may have been when the burly Scottish actor stood …

Tiny bees found in woman's eye, feeding off tears  —  (CNN)Doctors treating a Taiwanese woman for a swollen eye were shocked to find four tiny bees living under her left eyelid.  —  The miniscule insects, known as sweat bees, are 3 to 4 millimeters (0.12-0.16 inches) in length, according to CNN affiliate CTS.

A Texas bill would make it possible to put women to death for having abortions  —  Men and women, young and old, native Texans and immigrants, they rose to ask lawmakers to protect life, describing a “genocide” and foreseeing the arrival of “God's wrath.”  —  The act of public atonement …

Memo to the Press: How Not to Screw Up on the Mueller Report  —  Back in February, writing with Susan Hennessey and Mikhaila Fogel, we laid out “Four Principles for Reading the Mueller Report.”  The report was then still vapor, a document whose preparation was widely hypothesized by most analysts …

Inside the (semi-)secret society for young Trump staffers  —  On the first Wednesday evening in February, Anthony Scaramucci entertained a packed house of like-minded souls at Rewind, a retro diner off Dupont Circle.  —  There, the former White House communications director fielded friendly questions …

If Trump has his way, this major federal agency is on the way out  —  The White House is moving to do what no president has accomplished since the end of World War II: eliminate a major federal agency.  —  If the Trump administration succeeds at dismantling the Office of Personnel Management …

Look at the Forest, Not the Trees: What We Do and Don't Know About 2020  —  In this age of constant stimulation and news and information overload, it is harder than ever to get perspective.  I am as guilty as anyone of getting sucked into the vortex of political twitter, only to emerge hours later with little to show for it.

What I've Learned From Collecting Stories of People Whose Loved Ones Were Transformed by Fox News  —  It was somewhere around the 100th response that my brain turned to mush.  —  Last week, I devoted an installment of my newsletter Welcome to Hell World to a dozen stories from people who …

A QAnon Believer Is Running for Congress and Is Currently Unopposed in His Republican Primary  —  Matthew Lusk says he is not a ‘brainwashed cult member.’ He just has some questions.  —  Believers in the pro-Trump QAnon conspiracy theory are fond of telling each other to “Trust the Plan” …

“Consent condom” requires four hands to open, making powerful statement about consent  —  With consent at the forefront of modern conversations about sex, one company is highlighting its importance in a unique way.  Argentinian company Tulipán has created a “consent condom” …

There is no left left in Israel  —  Don't be fooled by misleading stories about Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's disappointing showing in Tuesday's election in Israel.  Even if the centrist Blue and White alliance of former military chief Benny Gantz were to eke out a very narrow victory …

Presidential  —  A Georgetown family room, 2023.  —  IVANKA We need to talk, please put that thing down.  —  JARED But it's so cool, see, the hologram of Aquaman appears before the United Nations Security Council and thanks me for ending all wars everywhere.  —  IVANKA It's a video game.

Barr Confirms Multiple Intel Agencies Implicated In Anti-Trump Spy Operation  —  'I'm not talking about the FBI necessarily, but intelligence agencies more broadly,' Barr said.  —  “Spying on a political campaign is a big deal,” Attorney General William Barr told a Senate committee on Wednesday morning.

The Urgent Quest for Slower, Better News  —  The current system for delivering news online is broken.  Readers and journalists will need to work together to find a new one.  —  Last month, I decided to try an experiment with my media diet.  Usually, in the morning, I skim e-mail newsletters in my in-box …