Trump wanted Barr to hold news conference saying the president broke no laws in call with Ukrainian leader  —  President Trump wanted Attorney General William P. Barr to hold a news conference declaring the commander in chief had broken no laws during a phone call in which he pressed …

Trump and ‘Apprentice’ Creator Mark Burnett Are Discussing Their Next TV Show  —  The president misses his reality TV days and is thinking of what show he can create once he's out of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.  —  He's signed a massive tax cut into law, stacked the federal courts …

Zelensky Bowed to Trump's Demands, Until Luck Spared Him  —  Aides to Ukraine's leader, Volodymyr Zelensky, decided that military aid and support for peace talks outweighed the risks of appearing to take sides in American politics.  —  KIEV, Ukraine — It was early September …

Kamala Harris: My Plan is So ‘Superior’ To Warren's Medicare For All That 'I Don't Feel the Need' to Take it Apart  —  California Senator and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris said that her health care plan is so “superior” to rival Senator Elizabeth Warren's “Medicare for All” …

Impeachment through the looking glass  —  I once lived in Jersey — not the Atlantic state but the Channel Island tax haven.  Sadly, it wasn't because of opulent wealth.  London finance houses dodged the taxman with the polite fiction that they were headquartered in Jersey and their big city offices were merely branches.

Behind the Deal That Put Giuliani Together With a Dirt-Hunting Partner  —  The president's lawyer wanted $500,000 to help a venture started by a man who would go on to help him in Ukraine.  A Republican donor from Long Island put up the money.  —  WASHINGTON — It has been one of the enduring mysteries …

Exclusive: Book Claims Senior Officials Believed Pence Would Support Use Of 25th Amendment  —  The anonymous author of “A Warning,” reportedly a current or former White House official, said talk of removing Trump escalated after Comey was fired.  —  The much-anticipated book “A Warning,” …

Roger Stone's ‘payload is still coming’ email went to Erik Prince, prosecutors say  —  (CNN)On the opening day of Roger Stone's trial for allegedly lying to Congress and obstructing its investigation, one mystery appeared to be solved by prosecutors.  —  The Donald Trump supporter …

Republicans Claim Trump Closed a 17-Point Gap in Kentucky.  That's Not Quite What Happened.  —  Public and internal Republican Party polls suggested the race had been extremely close before President Trump arrived.  —  WASHINGTON — It seemed in many ways like nothing new …

Blue Wall Voices Project  —  A COLLABORATION BETWEEN KFF AND THE COOK POLITICAL REPORT … - There are many undecided voters and a few persuadable swing voters.  One year out from the 2020 presidential election and without a clear frontrunner in the Democratic primaries, a large share of voters …

The Senate must not legitimize the House's sham impeachment  —  There are three paths before Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) when it comes to any articles of impeachment the House of Representatives eventually sends the Senate's way.  One is short: a quick dismissal by the Senate of the House charges.

Football Coach Resigns After Yelling ‘White Power,’ Calling Players By Racial Slur In Video  —  Former assistant football coach John Hoskins told reporters, “Just to set the record, I'm not racist.  I don't mean it in a negative way.”  —  A high school football coach in North Carolina resigned …

Immigration opens ideological fault lines for 2020 Democrats  —  WASHINGTON (AP) — Bernie Sanders is adding his support to a call by some of his fellow presidential hopefuls for decriminalizing illegal border crossings, a proposal that's further exposing deep ideological divides …

Emmanuel Macron warns Europe: NATO is brain-dead  —  America is turning its back on the European project.  Time to wake up, the French president tells The Economist  —  EMMANUEL MACRON, the French president, has warned European countries that they can no longer rely on America to defend NATO allies.

1 in 4 Americans uncertain about impeachment as public hearings near, poll finds  —  Americans are divided about the impeachment inquiry into President Trump, and as the House prepares for public hearings next week, roughly 1 in 4 remain uncertain, providing a large audience that could be especially swayed …

Former Twitter employees charged with spying for Saudi Arabia by digging into the accounts of kingdom critics  —  The Justice Department has charged two former Twitter employees with spying for Saudi Arabia in a case that raises concerns about the ability of Silicon Valley to protect …

Trump campaign contest to win a meal with Trump was a fraud  —  This is the online version of the Popular Information newsletter.  You can get independent accountability journalism in your inbox every week.  Sign up here:  —  Subscribe  —  A heavily-promoted contest to win breakfast …

Saudis Back Travis Kalanick's New Startup  —  The sovereign-wealth fund—also an early investor in Uber—poured $400 million into CloudKitchens in January  —  Saudi Arabia's sovereign-wealth fund has pumped $400 million into Travis Kalanick's new company CloudKitchens …

High Enthusiasm About Voting in U.S. Heading Into 2020  —  WASHINGTON, D.C. — Roughly two in three Americans (64%) say they are “more enthusiastic” about voting compared with previous elections, while 28% are “less enthusiastic” and 6% say they currently have the same level of enthusiasm as they have in the past.

Trump Book Author Admits He Screwed Up by Wrongly Claiming Obama Held ‘Political Correctness’ Meetings  —  Fox News promoted an excerpt of the book, initially claiming the Obama White House frustrated CIA officers with weekly “political correctness” meetings.

The GOP's Opposition to Impeachment Is (Terrifyingly) Principled  —  On impeachment, Republicans no longer know what to (officially) disbelieve.  —  Virtually all GOP lawmakers insist that the answer to the inquiry's fundamental question is “no.” But the party can't agree about what that fundamental question is.

These Hugely Popular Local News Sites In The US And Canada Are Fake  —  Since 2004, more than 2,000 newspapers have closed in the United States, and many local news outlets are struggling to build a digital business.  But one remarkable success story is the Albany Daily News …

California Sues Facebook for Documents in Privacy Investigation  —  The state said Facebook had resisted or ignored dozens of requests for documents and internal correspondence about the company's handling of personal data.  —  WASHINGTON — California's attorney general on Wednesday …