My story of working with Governor Cuomo  —  “Let's play strip poker.”  —  I should have been shocked by the Governor's crude comment, but I wasn't.  —  We were flying home from an October 2017 event in Western New York on his taxpayer-funded jet.  He was seated facing me, so close our knees almost touched.

South Dakota AG pushed by critics to resign over new evidence in fatal car incident: ‘He knew what he hit and he lied’  —  Days after South Dakota Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg fatally struck a man while driving in September, detectives told the Republican official they had found a pair …

New analyses show Johnson & Johnson's one-dose vaccine works well.  —  Johnson and Johnson's vaccine has a lower efficacy rate than the vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech, which are both around 95 percent. … But in South Africa, the Johnson & Johnson vaccine is so far the clear winner.

Jamal Khashoggi: Biden faces calls to ‘strike a blow’ for Saudi human rights  —  President Biden to call King Salman as his administration prepare to release intelligence report expected to implicate crown prince  —  Joe Biden is expected to call Saudi Arabia's King Salman on Wednesday …

Sen. Ted Cruz Piñatas Created at Dallas Party Store  —  First. it was former President Donald Trump, then U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders.  —  Now, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz has his own piñata courtesy of a Dallas party store.  —  Last week, Cruz sparked widespread outrage for flying …

LGBT Identification Rises to 5.6% in Latest U.S. Estimate  —  WASHINGTON, D.C. — Gallup's latest update on lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender identification finds 5.6% of U.S. adults identifying as LGBT.  The current estimate is up from 4.5% in Gallup's previous update based on 2017 data.

Will Ex-Sen. Perdue's Exit Mean Sen. Herschel Walker, R-Ga.?  —  Not since Aug. 20, 1956, when former Sen. Millard Tydings, D-Md., suddenly withdrew from a bid for the seat he lost six years earlier, has the abandonment of a former U.S. senator from a comeback campaign had such an impact …

Judge bans enforcement of Biden's 100-day deportation pause  —  A federal judge has indefinitely banned President Joe Biden's administration from enforcing a 100-day moratorium on most deportations  —  Rep. Linda Sanchez on new immigration reform bill presented by Democrats

MAGA's Moment of Weakness  —  Trump and his allies have been defeated, humiliated, and betrayed.  It's time to sweep the leg.  —  “We're going to win so much, you're going to be so sick and tired of winning, you're going to come to me and go 'Please, please, we can't win anymore.' You'll say 'Please …

Biden's Stimulus Bill Is a $1.9 Trillion Clunker  —  Senate Republicans are eager to get aid where it's needed, reopen schools and encourage work.  —  Democrats are anxious for any excuse to blow up the Senate filibuster, the last procedural hurdle to one-party government.

Bruce Springsteen's Drunken-Driving Charges Dropped by Prosecutors  —  Musician's blood-alcohol level was under the legal limit, federal prosecutors say; Springsteen pleaded guilty to consuming alcohol in a closed area  —  Federal prosecutors in New Jersey said Wednesday …

Fanne Foxe, ‘Argentine Firecracker’ at center of D.C. sex scandal, dies at 84  —  At about 2 a.m. Oct. 7, 1974, U.S. Park Police pulled over a silver-blue Lincoln Continental that had been swerving and speeding without headlights on near the Jefferson Memorial in Washington.

Texas Electric Bills Were $28 Billion Higher Under Deregulation  —  Competition in the electricity-supply business promised reliable power at a more affordable cost  —  Texas's deregulated electricity market, which was supposed to provide reliable power at a lower price, left millions in the dark last week.

Scoop: Senate committee postpones hearing for imperiled Tanden  —  The Senate Homeland Security Committee is postponing a confirmation hearing scheduled Wednesday for Neera Tanden, Axios has learned, a potential death knell for President Biden's nominee to lead the Office of Management and Budget.

Sheryl Sandberg and Top Facebook Execs Silenced an Enemy of Turkey to Prevent a Hit to the Company's Business  —  Amid a 2018 Turkish military campaign, Facebook ultimately sided with Turkey's demand to block the page of a mostly Kurdish militia.  “I am fine with this,” Sandberg wrote.

Life amid the ruins of QAnon: ‘I wanted my family back’  —  An epidemic of conspiracy theories, fanned by social media and self-serving politicians, is tearing families apart. … She bought ammunition, camping gear, a water purifier and boxes of canned food.

NY Prosecutors Are Looking at Don Jr. in Trump Biz Probe  —  The Daily Beast has learned that investigators have been asking questions in recent days about Trump's eldest son as they expand their criminal probe into Trump's business empire. … For months, some of Donald Trump's top advisers …

Power Up: What senators still want to know about Jan. 6 attack from defense and FBI leaders  —  Good Wednesday morning.  This is the Power Up newsletter.  Tips, comments, recipes?  Reach out and sign up.  Thanks for waking up with us.  —  The investigations

Major Trump backer Rebekah Mercer orchestrates Parler's second act  —  Mercer, whose family also invested in right-wing news site Breitbart, controls two of the three board seats at the company  —  When social media website Parler's founding CEO John Matze was pushed out last month …

House Democrats Go Fox Hunting  —  There is no ‘fake news’ exception to the First Amendment.  —  4 hr ago  —  When elected officials browbeat the executives of regulated telecom, video, and app companies trying to get them to drop the main news channel of the political opposition …

It violates free press rights to bring to trial a Des Moines Register reporter arrested while covering a protest  —  Editorial: The pending charges against a Register reporter who was arrested while covering a social justice protest last spring are a clear infringement on the freedom of the press.

Key Biden aide said pandemic was ‘best thing that ever happened to him’, book says  — Anita Dunn said privately what aides ‘would never say in public’  — Cautious campaigning won Covid battle with Trump  —  A senior adviser to Democrat Joe Biden in his campaign for president believed …

New Omnibus Georgia Senate Proposal Would Severely Restrict Absentee Voting  —  Poll Worker in Bibb Co. looks over an absentee ballot  —  All but three Republicans in the Georgia Senate majority are cosponsoring a massive elections bill that would give Georgia one of the most restrictive absentee …

McDonald's Secretive Intel Team Spies on ‘Fight for $15’ Workers, Internal Documents Show  —  McDonald's collects ‘strategic intelligence’ on workers advocating for a $15 minimum wage, including ‘how and where will FF$15 attack the brand.’  —  For years, McDonald's has internally labeled activists …

First on CNN: Biden's Covid plan gets backing from more than 150 top business leaders  —  What Biden said he would do for the Covid-19 economy  —  (CNN)More than 150 senior executives from some of the largest American companies across several major industries have lined …

‘The Absolute Worst’: Trump appointee Louis DeJoy continuing to dismantle Postal Service  —  Trump appointee Louis DeJoy is still dismantling the United States Postal Service, and he'll be there because President Biden can't directly oust him.  Joy calls him ‘The Absolute Worst.’

Tucker Carlson Says No White Supremacy at Riot—An Officer Says He Was Called Racial Slurs  —  Tucker Carlson has claimed that there is no evidence of white supremacy at the Capitol Riot on January 6—on the same day that a Capitol police officer said he was called racial slurs while defending the building during the insurrection.

With Ashli Babbitt Killing Shrouded in Mystery, Capitol Officer Who Shot Her Is in Hiding for His Own Safety  —  All told, seven people died in connection with the U.S. Capitol riot on Jan. 6.  But only Ashli Babbitt's death was directly caused by violence that day.

How Screwed Is the Trump Hotel D.C.?  —  For three years, the lobby of the Trump International Hotel Washington, D.C. was the hedonistic center of the MAGA-verse.  The room glittered with chandeliers and the flashes of sabers slicing open champagne bottles (prefaced by the ringing of a bell to draw eyeballs to the spectacle).