Mayor of Portland, Oregon, tear gassed by federal agents  —  PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — The mayor of Portland, Oregon, was tear gassed by the U.S. government late Wednesday as he stood at a fence guarding a federal courthouse during another night of protest against the presence of federal agents sent …

Michael Cohen will be released from prison to home confinement, judge rules  —  Avlon: You should be outraged at the muzzling of Cohen  —  New York (CNN)Michael Cohen will be released to home confinement, a judge ruled on Thursday, finding that the government acted in a retaliatory manner …

White House, GOP kill payroll tax cut but flounder over broader coronavirus bill  —  Planned roll-out canceled in roller-coaster morning; White House floats piecemeal plan but Pelosi shoots it down  —  Senate Republicans killed President Trump's payroll tax cut proposal on Thursday but failed …

Romney Says He Will Oppose Shelton's Fed Board Confirmation  —  Republican Senator Mitt Romney of Utah said he will vote against Judy Shelton, one of two Trump administration nominees to the Federal Reserve's Board of Governors.  —  “I'm not going to be endorsing,” Romney told reporters Thursday.

I Was Wrong About Florida's Response to Covid-19  —  I gave Governor Ron DeSantis more credit than he deserved for the low death rate in his state.  —  A little after 11 a.m. each weekday, I receive an email alert from the Miami Herald.  It contains the latest Covid-19 numbers for Florida.

Former congressman Ozzie Myers, caught in 1970s Abscam sting, has been indicted again — this time for election fraud  —  A former congressman convicted in the 1970s Abscam investigation was charged Thursday with new allegations that he bribed a poll worker to stuff ballot boxes in local elections.

State Department Insiders Ask: What Is Susan Pompeo Really Up To?  —  Five years ago, a young Kansan named Jakob Provo had almost gotten a job working for ambitious Congressman Mike Pompeo.  He'd aced the interview, he thought, and he was certainly qualified.

POLITICO Playbook PM: Fiasco  —  WHAT AN ABJECT DISASTER of a morning for the three Ms: STEVEN MNUCHIN, MARK MEADOWS and MITCH MCCONNELL.  —  AFTER A FEW WEEKS of anticipation, the SENATE GOP LEADERSHIP had to abandon its plans to release a Covid relief bill after disagreements on policy with the TRUMP White House.

Twitter says it's looking at subscription options as ad revenue drops sharply  —  Washington (CNN Business)Twitter (TWTR) is actively exploring additional ways to make money from its users, including by considering a subscription model, CEO Jack Dorsey said Thursday.

Teacher: I was a reluctant Trump voter.  Coronavirus is the end of my Republican identity.  —  I am a special education teacher and lifelong Republican who reluctantly voted for Donald Trump in 2016 as the less bad of two bad choices.  When the pandemic hit, the incompetence of the man …

Comeback: Trump neck and neck with Biden, 45%-47%, approval equal with Obama's in 2012  —  While the media have been hyping polls showing Democrat Joe Biden with a sizable and growing lead over President Trump, the outfit that called the 2016 popular vote correctly shows the 2020 race neck and neck.

Fox News parts ways with a morning host who caused a Covid-19 scare  —  New York (CNN Business)Fox News has parted ways with a host who dismayed fellow staffers when she came to work while visibly sick in the early days of the coronavirus crisis.  —  Heather Childers, who had been an early morning host …

This Is Mask Haters' Most Nefarious Hoax Yet  —  A fake CDC document has spread across Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, and more specialized websites like a hunting forum.  —  Face mask haters often don't trust the federal government, whether it's top infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci or the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

We're police officers.  You should know our names.  That goes for Portland, too.  —  Anonymity is for CIA officers (a job I also held), not for federal law enforcement countering protesters in America.  It denies local accountability.  —  My name is Patrick Skinner, and I'm a local police officer.

Kansas school board rejects governor's executive order delaying start of the school year  —  The board was divided, 5-5, on delaying the start by three weeks.  —  As school districts across the country grapple with how and when to reopen safely during the coronavirus pandemic …

Amazon Met With Startups About Investing, Then Launched Competing Products  —  Some companies regret sharing information with tech giant and its Alexa Fund; ‘we may have been naive’  —  When Amazon.com Inc.'s AMZN -2.52% venture-capital fund invested in DefinedCrowd Corp. …

American exceptionalism was our preexisting condition  —  America is sick.  Still sick.  The fever spikes, abates, returns.  The shortness of breath lingers.  America is waiting in virtual bread lines, listening to bad jazz, on hold with the unemployment office.

The Federal Response to Protests Extends Far Beyond Portland  —  A document responding to inquiries by Sen. Kamala Harris shows the extent of CBP involvement in local law enforcement.  —  In a conspicuous show of force, armed Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers were recently seen …

White House says Trump and Putin discussed virus, arms control on phone call  —  President Trump spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin about the coronavirus pandemic and arms control on Thursday, the Kremlin announced and the White House later confirmed.

The Harper's ‘Letter,’ cancel culture and the summer that drove a lot of smart people mad  —  This is what was on Thomas Chatterton Wiliams's mind when he decided to write a short letter on the risks to liberalism and open discourse and get some like-minded thinkers to sign on.

Trump's frantic new effort to win back seniors is already failing  —  Here's President Trump's new reelection strategy, in a nutshell: Convince vulnerable seniors who rightly fear getting killed by the pandemic that Trump let rampage out of control that they should instead fear getting killed …

Larry Hogan Isn't Coming to Save the Republican Party  —  When you press him on it, Larry Hogan will admit that he's faintly amused by all the media adulation.  As the Republican governor of Maryland, he has enjoyed glowing coverage for standing up to President Donald Trump.

Trump Is Putting On a Show in Portland  —  The very idea seems, on the face of it, sheer madness.  In Portland, Oregon, federal security officers dressed for combat—wearing jungle-camouflage uniforms with unclear markings, carrying heavy weapons, using batons and tear gas—are patrolling the streets …

‘Shaking in Their Boots’: Trump Wanted a Portland-Style Offensive in Chicago  —  “If it were up to him, we would return to the old days [of] eye-for-an-eye, tooth-for-a-tooth—or forget about proportionality altogether,” one former administration official says.

Person focuses every woman and man in America on his mental abilities via camera, TV  —  Having taken the functional equivalent of a blood pressure test to evaluate his mental acuity, President Trump has repeatedly bragged about the results.  The president, who claims to be a genius with a remarkable IQ …

“Facebook Is Hurting People At Scale”: Mark Zuckerberg's Employees Reckon With The Social Network They've Built  —  On July 1, Max Wang, a Boston-based software engineer who was leaving Facebook after more than seven years, shared a video on the company's internal discussion board that was meant to serve as a warning.

RNC plans in jeopardy as Jacksonville council president opposes city bill  —  With a month to go until the Republican National Convention, or RNC, comes to Jacksonville, City Council President Tommy Hazouri threw a wrench in the convention's plans, announcing his opposition unless …

Trump v. big-city mayors: When the feds should and shouldn't act  —  More than 38,000 cops protect and serve the city of New York.  By contrast, in the entire country, the FBI employs just 14,000 agents.  And comparatively few of those are assigned to combat violent street crime.