Beto O'Rourke Is Dropping Out of the Presidential Race  —  The former Texas congressman, who energized Democrats in a Senate race last year, began his White House run to great fanfare, but failed to build significant support.  —  Former Representative Beto O'Rourke of Texas is dropping …

Warren Leads Tight Iowa Race as Biden Fades, Poll Finds  —  Ms. Warren garnered 22 percent in a New York Times/Siena College poll, to 19 percent for Bernie Sanders.  Pete Buttigieg has surged, while Mr. Biden's travails have put the race in flux.  —  Which of these Democrats would be your first choice in the Iowa caucuses?

Testimony: White House lawyer told Vindman not to discuss Ukraine call  —  The senior White House lawyer who placed a record of President Donald Trump's July 25 call with Ukraine's president in a top-secret system also instructed at least one official who heard the call not to tell anyone about it …

Exclusive: U.S. opens national security investigation into TikTok - sources  —  NEW YORK/BEIJING/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government has launched a national security review of TikTok owner Beijing ByteDance Technology Co's $1 billion acquisition of U.S. social media app Musical.ly …

'I'm the best-paid interpreter in the world': Indicted Giuliani associate Lev Parnas touted windfall from Ukrainian oligarch  —  New York (CNN)Earlier this year, Lev Parnas, the indicted associate of Rudy Giuliani, received a sudden windfall of money from a prominent Ukrainian oligarch …

Progressive Latino pollster: 98% of Latinos do not identify with “Latinx” label  —  One of the greatest challenges facing marketing departments and political campaigns today is the inability to discern signals from noise.  As a professional market researcher, I see this on a daily basis.

The GOP defense of Trump is getting more corrupt.  Here's what's next.  —  President Trump, who possesses supreme confidence in his mesmerizing charisma and powers of persuasion, is considering a plan to recite the text of his corrupt call with the Ukrainian president on live national television.

Pelosi Expects Public Impeachment Hearings to Begin This Month  — House speaker discusses inquiry with Bloomberg News after vote  — Investigation becomes a battleground in the 2020 election  —  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Friday she expects the Democratic-led impeachment inquiry …

Kamala Harris shutters offices throughout New Hampshire  —  MANCHESTER, N.H. — Sen. Kamala Harris' campaign has almost completely shuttered its New Hampshire campaign, with no visible activity at any of her offices in the state.  —  The campaign confirmed it is largely abandoning New Hampshire …

Trump refuses to defend Mick Mulvaney, heightening indications chief of staff on the way out  —  President Trump declined to defend embattled acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, an indication he is considering a change.  —  Asked during an Oval Office interview with the Washington Examiner …

Revealed: Trump wanted to build a megachurch  —  Of all the projects real estate mogul Donald Trump wanted to build, here's one that nobody saw.  —  According to his long-time personal pastor, Paula White-Cain, Trump, in 2006 was taking steps to build a glass cathedral.

How Deadspin Imploded  —  The last meeting for many of Deadspin's journalists took place on Wednesday in a conference room adorned with fake black cobwebs, a large spider and bloody handprints beside the words: “HELP US.”  —  The plea, it seemed, went unanswered.

K Street's newest star built business on dubious claims of Trump ties  —  Since President Trump took office, the lobbyist Michael Esposito has been wildly successful, turning a family business that once focused on municipal transportation issues into one of the fastest-growing lobbying firms in Washington.

Johnson and Cummings under fire as police hand criminal evidence on Vote Leave to prosecution agency  —  Exclusive: After 16-month investigation, Met Police refer Vote Leave to the CPS for possible criminal charges.  But will the timing of the election mean further delay?

Apple Podcasts Preview  —  The impeachment of Donald Trump is one of the biggest political stories of our lifetimes.  It's a test of whether accountability, election integrity, and the rules of our democracy can withstand the corrupt acts of powerful people.  It's also a story that's unfolding at such a break-neck pace, it's absurd.

In His Dealings with Ukraine, Did Donald Trump Commit a Crime?  —  It's long been clear that Presidents can be impeached for “high crimes and misdemeanors” that are not actual violations of federal criminal law.  In an oft-cited passage from Federalist No. 65, Alexander Hamilton wrote …

2020 Meme Team, Assemble … A long time ago, on a different internet — where Photoshopped images of “God Emperor” Donald Trump riding atop a velociraptor were just a faint glimmer in a young meme lord's eye — the Republicans were in trouble.  Barack Obama's 2008 win over John McCain was heralded as a digital over an analog.

Ghislaine Maxwell Was a Guest at Jeff Bezos's Secret Book Retreat  —  Motherboard has learned Jeffrey Epstein's alleged fixer attended the Amazon CEO's exclusive book retreat ‘Campfire’ last year.  —  Every fall, the elite of the literary world and Hollywood convene at a highly secretive …