U.S. Admits That Congressman Offered Pardon to Assange If He Covered Up Russia Links  —  Republican congressman Dana Rohrabacher offered Assange the deal in 2017, a year after the emails that damaged Hillary Clinton had been published.  —  LONDON—Lawyers representing the United States …

Virus Pulls Down Trump, Poll Shows, and G.O.P. Senators Suffer With Him  —  A New York Times/Siena College survey showed Joe Biden leading President Trump by wide margins in Maine and Arizona, and effectively tied in North Carolina.  Susan Collins trailed her Democratic rival in Maine's Senate race.

‘Talk about losers’: The top moments from CNN's kid-gloves town hall with Biden  —  On Tuesday, voters got in Trump's face for the first time.  On Thursday, they practically gave Biden a hero's welcome in Scranton, Pa.  —  Democratic presidential nominee and former Vice President Joe Biden speaks …

Commerce Department Prohibits WeChat and TikTok Transactions to Protect the National Security of the United States  —  In response to President Trump's Executive Orders signed August 6, 2020, the Department of Commerce (Commerce) today announced prohibitions on transactions relating to mobile applications …

Rating Change: Republicans Sound Alarm, Riggleman's VA-05 Moves to Toss Up  —  Is it deja vu all over again?  In 2008, Virginia's 5th District was the site of a gigantic upset when tireless 34-year-old Democrat Tom Perriello unseated GOP Rep. Virgil Goode by 727 votes.

The Falwells, the pool attendant and the double life that brought them all down  —  For 2½ years, Giancarlo Granda had been telling his family about the generosity of his business partners.  The wealthy couple from out of town had taken him under their wing, he said …

An Idaho ‘no-masker’ pastor prayed against a mask mandate.  He's now in intensive care for covid-19.  —  When coronavirus cases began increasing in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, in late July, Pastor Paul Van Noy prayed with his congregation that the city council would not pass a mask mandate.

Book excerpt: An FBI sex crimes investigator helped trigger 2016's ‘October Surprise’  —  This article is adapted from “October Surprise: How the FBI Tried to Save Itself and Crashed an Election,” which will be published Sept. 22 by PublicAffairs.  The book is a comprehensive …

We Are All Algorithms Now  —  Is that what's really destroying the legitimacy of our democracy?  —  I've never felt this way about an election before.  For my entire adult life, campaigns could be exhilarating, tedious, crowded with incident or laden with foreboding, but you always felt that …

Chief Justice Roberts's lifelong crusade against voting rights, explained  —  He has fought to undermine voting rights his entire career.  —  John Roberts was 26 years old, and he was outraged that he'd just been outmaneuvered by older and much more experienced political hands.  —  It was 1981.

“It Was All About the Election”: The Ex-White House Aide Olivia Troye on Trump's Narcissistic Mishandling of COVID-19  —  The first staffer on the coronavirus task force to go public tells The New Yorker that America's pandemic response was “derailed by the person at the very top.”

Poorly Protected Postal Workers Are Catching COVID-19 by the Thousands.  It's One More Threat to Voting by Mail.  —  More than 50,000 workers have taken time off for virus-related reasons, slowing mail delivery.  The Postal Service doesn't test employees or check their temperatures, and its contact tracing is erratic.

Trump campaign manager didn't vote for his boss in 2016 — or at all  —  President Trump's campaign manager didn't vote for his boss in the last presidential election.  He didn't vote at all.  —  The last time Bill Stepien voted, according to public records, was in 2015, when he lived in New Jersey and was registered there.

AP Exclusive: More migrant women say they didn't OK surgery  —  HOUSTON (AP) — Sitting across from her lawyer at an immigration detention center in rural Georgia, Mileidy Cardentey Fernandez unbuttoned her jail jumpsuit to show the scars on her abdomen.  There were three small, circular marks.

Republican U.S. House campaign arm cancels $2 million in Houston-area advertising  —  The region is home to multiple competitive races, including Congressional District 7 where Republicans are seeking to unseat U.S. Rep. Lizzie Fletcher  —  WASHINGTON - The National Republican Congressional Committee …

McConnell refocuses on Trump's judicial nominees as coronavirus talks stall  —  Senate has confirmed 8 judges over last week  —  Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has refocused the Senate on confirming judicial nominees as talks about a fifth coronavirus stimulus package have stalled.

Senior Biden campaign cybersecurity expert participated in racist internet troll group  —  A senior cybersecurity adviser to Joe Biden's presidential campaign spent years affiliating with a hacking organization and boasted on a personal blog about breaking into her neighbor's computers.

This Is How Biden Should Approach the Latino Vote  —  Some ways of talking about race and class are more effective politically.  And not just with Hispanics.  —  Mr. Haney López is the author of “Merge Left: Fusing Race and Class, Winning Elections and Saving America.”

Housekeepers Face a Disaster Generations in the Making  —  Ghosted by their employers, members of the profession are facing “a full-blown humanitarian crisis — a Depression-level situation.”  —  The scariest day of Maria Del Carmen's life started with a phone call that initially cheered her up.

The Secret Life of Joe Biden  —  It's not a lie if you believe it.  —  In a classic episode of “Seinfeld,” Jerry is accused by his new girlfriend, a police officer, of being a fan of the tacky 1990s soap opera Melrose Place.  When Jerry lies and denies it, she suggests putting him on a polygraph to find the truth.

Under a lawless Trump, our system of checks and balances is being destroyed  —  President Trump promised in 2016 that he would protect the Constitution's “Article I, Article II, Article XII.”  (There is no Article XII.)  Instead, he has shown how fragile the constitutional order …

Exclusive: Capt. Brett Crozier explains why he sent email warning of Roosevelt coronavirus outbreak  —  FILE — A photo provided by the U.S. Navy shows Capt. Brett Crozier, then commanding officer of the USS Theodore Roosevelt, addressing his crew during the aircraft carrier's operations in the Eastern Pacific Ocean, Nov. 15, 2019.

The United States is backsliding into autocracy under Trump, scholars warn  —  The weakening of democratic values — a path that's difficult to reverse — has accelerated, according to hundreds of indicators assessed each year  —  Three years into the Trump administration …