Exclusive: Dozens of former Bush officials leave Republican Party, calling it ‘Trump cult’  —  (Reuters) - Dozens of Republicans in former President George W. Bush's administration are leaving the party, dismayed by a failure of many elected Republicans to disown Donald Trump after his false claims …

9 Top N.Y. Health Officials Have Quit as Cuomo Scorns Expertise  —  “When I say ‘experts’ in air quotes, it sounds like I'm saying I don't really trust the experts,” Gov. Andrew Cuomo said, referring to pandemic policies.  “Because I don't.”  —  The deputy commissioner for public health …

Dustin Diamond Dead at 44 After Battle with Stage 4 Lung Cancer  —  REMEMBERING DUSTIN DIAMOND  —  Dustin Diamond — best known for playing the lovable Samuel “Screech” Powers on the hit NBC sitcom, “Saved by the Bell” — has died ... TMZ has learned.  —  A rep for Dustin tells us he died Monday morning.

U.S. voting rights activist Stacey Abrams nominated for Nobel Peace Prize  —  OSLO (Reuters) - U.S. voting rights activist and Democratic Party politician Stacey Abrams has been nominated for this year's Nobel Peace Prize for her work to promote nonviolent change via the ballot box, a Norwegian lawmaker said on Monday.

McConnell: Trump Tricked Me Into Backing His Coup  —  On November 9, a senior Republican explained what was then the Republican Party's consensus posture toward President Trump's refusal to accept the election results.  The quote, given anonymously to the Washington Post, became instantly notorious …

They stormed the Capitol to overturn the results of an election they didn't vote in  —  (CNN)They were there to “Stop the Steal” and to keep the President they revered in office, yet records show that some of the rioters who stormed the US Capitol did not vote in the very election they were protesting.

Schumer quietly nails down the left amid AOC primary chatter  —  Just a few weeks after a group of young climate activists, accompanied by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, orchestrated a highly publicized sit-in in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office in late 2018, their Sunrise Movement received an unexpected email from Chuck Schumer's staff.

Blinken criticizes Putin for crackdown on Navalny protesters … WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Sunday that he was “deeply disturbed by the violent crackdown” on Russian protesters and the arrests of thousands of people throughout the country demanding the release of jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

As Trump Raked In Cash Denying His Loss, Little Went to Actual Legal Fight  —  The picture that emerged in new campaign finance reports was of Donald J. Trump waging a public relations effort to falsely argue that he had won the election rather than mounting a serious legal push.

S.F. high school students get a lesson in subtle white privilege  —  Three weeks ago I processed the Capitol insurrection with my high school students.  Rallying our inquiry skills, we analyzed the images of that historic day, images of white men storming through the Capitol, fearless and with no forces to stop them.

White House reached out to Manchin after Harris' West Virginia interview  —  (CNN)The White House called Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin after Vice President Kamala Harris conducted interviews with West Virginia media, according to a person with knowledge of the conversation.

It's Time: The COVID Tracking Project Will Soon Come to an End  —  After a year of collecting, analyzing, and interpreting COVID-19 data for the United States, we're ending our data compilation work in early March.  —  Every day for almost a year, hundreds of COVID Tracking Project contributors …

Rep. Matt Gaetz Staffer Cheered On Capitol Rioters Via Parler as They Overran Police  —  As police struggled futilely to fend off a wave of rioters outside the U.S. Capitol building on January 6, Joel Valdez, an aide to Congressman Matt Gaetz, made his way to the rooftop of his boss's office building across …

Trump Official's Last-Day Deal With ICE Union Ties Biden's Hands  —  A whistle-blower accused Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II of an abuse of power in making sweeping concessions to pro-Trump Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.  —  WASHINGTON — A whistle-blower complaint filed on Monday …

American Universities Declare War on Military History  —  The world applauds the scientists who have created vaccines to deliver humanity from Covid-19.  One certainty about our future: There will be no funding shortfall for medical research into pandemics.  —  Now, notice a contradiction.

Rochester Police Pepper-Sprayed 9-Year-Old Girl, Footage Shows  —  The incident brought renewed scrutiny to a department whose officers had placed a hood on Daniel Prude, a Black man, before he died from suffocation.  —  The police department in Rochester, N.Y., released body-camera footage …

I Bought Tens of Thousands of Dollars of GameStop Stock.  And I Have No Regrets.  —  The first rule of r/WallStreetBets is YOLO.  —  There is no second rule.  —  This isn't the land of enlightenment, it's the borough slum of loss porn.  I'm here for the goods: Show me the screenshot …

Top Pa. election official to resign after agency bungled requirement for constitutional amendment  —  Spotlight PA is an independent, non-partisan newsroom powered by The Philadelphia Inquirer in partnership with PennLive/The Patriot-News, TribLIVE/Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, and WITF Public Media.

Republicans just handed Biden a good reason to go big — without them  —  Ten Senate Republicans are unveiling their own scaled-down economic rescue plan — with the transparent aim of getting President Biden to negotiate away his own ambitions.  The game they're playing runs as follows …

Spurred By The Capitol Riot, Thousands Of Republicans Drop Out Of GOP  —  Lyle Darrah was on a conference call at work in rural Weld County, north of Denver, when the riot at the U.S. Capitol started on Jan. 6.  When his boss mentioned what was happening, he turned on news coverage …

A ‘progressive’ state: Gov. Mike DeWine wants $50M to encourage people to move to Ohio  —  COLUMBUS - Move over, “Pure Michigan.”  Ohio wants to prove it's the cool kid on the Midwestern block.  —  Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine announced Monday that he wants to spend $50 million on a marketing campaign …

A Fox & Friends Guest Accused NBC News of Silencing Her Criticism of Andrew Cuomo.  The Video Shows Otherwise.  —  Dawn Best, whose mother died in a nursing home that she said was overwhelmed by coronavirus patients, told Fox News Monday that media outlets, including NBC News …

Pandemic Watchdog Is Probing Mnuchin, Cruz Roles in Fed Lending  — Watchdog seeks answers on Mnuchin decision to end Fed programs  — Cruz pushed to expand lending programs to help oil companies  —  A federal watchdog is looking into former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin's decision …

Will Senate Democrats execute the power grab they once condemned?  —  Battles around the filibuster, which has been the defining feature of the Senate legislative process for more than two centuries, are all basically the same.  The majority gets frustrated at not getting its way every time …

The Republican Economic Plan Is an Insult  —  It's bad faith in the name of bipartisanship.  —  So 10 Republican senators are proposing an economic package that is supposed to be an alternative to President Biden's American Rescue Plan.  The proposal would reportedly be only a fraction …

Survey Says: Never Tweet  —  The tensions in newsrooms over reporters' social media presence are not just about politics.  —  David Carr, the legendary Timesman who made this column a destination, told me back in 2012 that he kept a “helicopter on the roof” of The New York Times Building in case he needed to escape.