Scoop: Pentagon halts Biden transition briefings  —  Acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller ordered a Pentagon-wide halt to cooperation with the transition of President-elect Biden, shocking officials across the Defense Department, senior administration officials tell Axios.

‘New York Times’ Retracts Core Of Hit Podcast Series ‘Caliphate’ On ISIS  —  Toggle more options  —  The New York Times has retracted the core of its hit 2018 podcast series Caliphate after an internal review found the paper failed to heed red flags indicating that the man it relied upon …

EXCLUSIVE: Jared Kushner helped create a Trump campaign shell company that secretly paid the president's family members and spent $617 million in reelection cash, a source tells Insider … - Jared Kushner approved the creation of a shell company that spent almost half of the Trump campaign's $1.26B war chest …

The wealthy scramble for COVID-19 vaccines: ‘If I donate $25,000 ... would that help me?’  —  They're offering tens of thousands of dollars in cash, making their personal assistants pester doctors every day, and asking whether a five-figure donation to a hospital would help them jump the line.

Disarray consumes Capitol ahead of critical deadline  —  Frustrations are boiling over as Congress moves closer to a midnight shutdown deadline with a number of disagreements still hindering a bipartisan deal on a $900 billion coronavirus aid package.  —  Democrats are blaming GOP …

Democrats in Georgia: ‘Trump is helping our case.’  —  President Donald Trump has been waging war on Georgia Republicans the past month, spreading disinformation and conspiracy theories about the Senate runoffs — and Democrats are praying he keeps on talking.

Trump Bows to Reality, Asks Confidants: Should I Do ‘The Apprentice’ Again?  —  And the show's creator Mark Burnett is intrigued by the money-making potential of a post-presidency reboot, too. … As he begins his final weeks in office, amid a winter surge in coronavirus deaths …

MAGA leaders call for the troops to keep Trump in office  —  An 1807 law invoked only in the most violent circumstances is now a rallying cry for the MAGA-ites most committed to the fantasy that Donald Trump will never leave office.  —  The law, the Insurrection Act, allows the president …

Pelosi receives COVID-19 vaccine  —  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi received her first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine from the attending physician of Congress on Friday, her office confirmed.  —  Why it matters: The 80-year-old Democratic leader is among the highest-ranking government officials …

SCOTUS punts on challenge to Trump bid to block undocumented immigrants from apportionment  —  The Supreme Court on Friday threw out a lawsuit against the Trump administration's plans to exclude undocumented immigrants from the population base used for congressional seat apportionment, calling the challenge “premature.”

The Establishment Strikes Back  —  Henry Cuellar and centrist Democrats mutiny against progressives in a key committee fight.  —  AOC in August during a House Oversight and Reform Committee hearing  —  Committee assignments are one of the least eye-catching parts of politics …

Trump expected to issue wave of pre-Christmas pardons today  —  President Trump plans to issue a wave of pardons today, moving to expedite acts of clemency before Christmas, according to a source with direct knowledge and advocates who have been briefed on the plans.

White House aides talked Trump out of last-minute demand for stimulus checks as big as $2,000  —  Chaotic chain of events at White House illustrates why stimulus bill remains in flux  —  White House aides intervened Thursday to prevent President Trump from issuing a statement calling …

Scoop: Democrats try to tuck Pentagon waiver into spending bill  —  Democrats are trying to tuck a waiver allowing retired Gen. Lloyd Austin to serve as President-elect Joe Biden's defense secretary into a year-end government funding bill that must pass by tonight to avoid a shutdown, three sources familiar with the push tell Axios.

Trump's New Brand Is Loser  —  His post-election tantrum is forcing conservatives to affirm, again and again, that he lost the election fair and square.  —  In the six weeks since the Presidential election, various theories—many of them persuasive—have been advanced to explain President Trump's refusal to accept Joe Biden's victory.

The Top 10 Worst Trump-Enabling Takes of 2020  —  As we bid a not-so-fond farewell to 2020, here's a look back at some of the political lowlights.  —  As we close out the year, it's tempting but futile to compile a list of President Trump's worst lies.  But reprinting all of his tweets …

Interior shuts Washington Monument after interior secretary tests positive for the coronavirus  —  Park Service staff say they may have been exposed when David Bernhardt led a private, after-hours tour  —  Officials have taken the extraordinary step of closing the Washington Monument starting Friday …

Tucker Carlson Tells His Giant Fox Audience Not to Trust COVID Vaccines  —  “On the question of the corona vaccine, our leaders definitely are not pro-choice.  Their view is do as you are told and don't complain,” Carlson said on Thursday.  —  Fox News host Tucker Carlson dipped his toe …

Rupert Murdoch receives dose of Covid vaccine in UK  —  Exclusive: 89-year-old News Corp boss gives thanks to key workers, NHS staff and scientists  —  Rupert Murdoch has become the latest public figure to have the coronavirus vaccine, visiting his local GP's surgery late on Wednesday to receive his first dose.

D.C. to End Indoor Dining at 10 p.m. on Dec. 23  —  The city hopes to resume indoor dining in some capacity in January.  —  D.C. will end indoor dining on Wednesday, Dec. 23 at 10 p.m., two sources with knowledge of the situation tell City Paper.  The move comes as COVID-19 cases continue …

Kelly Loeffler Keeps Posing For Photos With White Supremacists And Other Extremists  —  The senator recently disavowed a photo of her with a former KKK leader, but she's repeatedly aligned herself with racists and far-right supporters.  —  Earlier this week a photo of Georgia GOP …

Michigan House votes to repeal 1945 emergency law used by Whitmer to issue coronavirus orders  —  Legislation that would overturn one of the emergency laws Gov. Gretchen Whitmer used as authority to issue COVID-19 orders during the first several months of the pandemic cleared the Michigan House early Friday morning.

The Next Tea Party Is Lurking Inside Trump's Election Results Denial  —  People actually believe Trump when he says he won the election.  What happens next isn't clear — but the president's increasingly radicalized supporters are already shaping the future of Republican politics.  —  Reporting From

How States Transformed Criminal Justice in 2020, and How They Fell Short  —  This year of crises, revisited.  Nearly 90 state-level bills and initiatives. 17 themes. 7 maps.  —  Throughout 2020's unprecedented challenges, criminal justice reform advocates called for sweeping changes.

A moment of reckoning: the need for a strong and global cybersecurity response  —  The final weeks of a challenging year have proven even more difficult with the recent exposure of the world's latest serious nation-state cyberattack.  This latest cyber-assault is effectively an attack …