Gaetz showed nude photos of women he said he'd slept with to lawmakers, sources tell CNN  —  (CNN)Rep. Matt Gaetz, the Florida Republican being investigated by the Justice Department over sex trafficking allegations, made a name for himself when he arrived on Capitol Hill as a conservative firebrand …

The Pandemic's Wrongest Man  —  The pandemic has made fools of many forecasters.  Just about all of the predictions whiffed.  Anthony Fauci was wrong about masks.  California was wrong about the outdoors.  New York was wrong about the subways.  I was wrong about the necessary cost of pandemic relief.

The GOP war on voting takes an ugly new turn  —  Opinion by  —  An extraordinary event took place in Georgia on Wednesday night.  Republicans sought to cancel a tax break for Delta Air Lines, the state's biggest employer, as punishment for the heresy of criticizing the new voter suppression law Republicans passed last week.

The Strange New Doctrine of the Republican Party  —  In 2002, the Weyerhaeuser paper mill in Valliant, Oklahoma, faced a drug problem.  Managers at the mill in the small town, just north of the Texas line, brought contraband-sniffing dogs into the parking lot to identify suspect cars.

SCOOP: Inside Dems' plans to take down Lauren Boebert  —  Ally Mutnick, Melanie Zanona, Marianne LeVine and Nicholas Wu contributed.  —  CASH COW — We're about to find out how Donald Trump's campaign to overturn the presidential election — which culminated in an insurrection …

Republicans seek DOJ briefing on claims of ‘suspicious’ pre-Jan. 6 Capitol tours  —  Republicans on a key House committee are pressing the Justice Department and Capitol Police to brief them on a review of Democratic allegations that some GOP lawmakers provided “suspicious” …

A woman called for a highway's removal in a Black neighborhood.  The White House singled it out in its infrastructure plan.  —  Since she moved back home to Tremé almost a decade ago, Amy Stelly has waged a campaign for the removal of a highway that cuts through her New Orleans neighborhood.

Analysis reveals nearly 200 died in Texas cold storm and blackouts, almost double the official count  —  The deaths of nearly 200 people are linked to February's cold snap and blackouts, a Houston Chronicle analysis reveals, making the natural disaster one of the worst in Texas this past century.

How Nancy Reagan helped end the Cold War  —  The second weekend of February 1983 found much of the Eastern Seaboard trapped under one of the biggest snowfalls of the century.  The nation's capital, notoriously ill-equipped for extreme weather, was paralyzed under a frozen blanket 17 inches deep.

Inside the ‘Lord of the Flies’ factionalism now plaguing Trumpland  —  Just one month after Donald Trump left the White House, a top donor to his campaign received a call on his personal cellphone from a Republican candidate seeking financial support.  —  The call was unsolicited …

Can Vaccinated People Spread the Virus?  We Don't Know, Scientists Say.  —  Researchers pushed back after the C.D.C. director asserted that vaccinated people “do not carry the virus.”  —  The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday walked back controversial comments made by its director …

The New Republic Makes an Uneasy Peace With Staff Over D.C. Move  —  Staffers say they're still worried about the magazine's future.  —  Last week, staffers at The New Republic had their first meeting with incoming editor Michael Tomasky soon after they found out simultaneously via an email …

Jim Clyburn ‘Insulted’ By Joe Manchin's Position On Voting Rights Bill  —  The high-ranking House Democrat warned that his party will “pay the biggest price it has ever paid at the polls” if the bill is not enacted into law.  —  Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.), the third-highest ranking member …

The Right Curriculum?  How PragerU Infiltrates Schools.  —  The right-wing nonprofit, known for viral videos like ‘The Left Ruins Everything,’ launched a program specifically designed for teachers last fall.  But according to students, its content has been in public schools for years.

Interior Department chief of staff being removed from post after indoor party fiasco  —  The White House is removing the Interior Department's chief of staff, Jennifer Van der Heide, who recently planned a 50-person indoor party at the agency that the White House ordered canceled …

Foreign billionaire conspired to violate election law in straw donor scheme  —  A Lebanese-Nigerian billionaire agreed to pay the U.S. government $1.8 million to resolve allegations that he conspired to violate federal election laws in a “straw donor” scheme to route illegal foreign contributions …

Will U.S. learn from a $1.7 trillion goof that would have paid for Biden's infrastructure plan?  |  Will Bunch  —  A Ferrari is surely a wonderful sports car, but let's be honest: Most of us couldn't afford the day-to-day maintenance, let alone the sticker price, and these beautiful creatures …

New York attorney general probes finances of key Trump aide  —  The New York attorney general has gathered personal financial records of the Trump Organization's longtime chief financial officer and his family, according to a witness who provided some documents — another sign of legal pressure …

Marjorie Taylor Greene offers bills to fire Fauci, ban vaccine passports  —  Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) introduced two bills Thursday that would eliminate Anthony Fauci's salary and ban vaccine passports.  —  Greene's “Fire Fauci Act” would cut the salary for Fauci, the government's leading infectious disease expert, to zero.

Georgia's election reform law isn't voter suppression, but Republicans need to ease up  —  Republicans have a huge hole to climb out of because of the 2020 election.  Conservatism shouldn't be confused as divisive or mean-spirited.  —  Once again, Georgia found itself in the national spotlight …

Dems pine to face Ron Johnson just one more time  —  Here's something you don't see every day: Democrats goading an incumbent Republican senator to run for reelection.  —  It's not only that Democrats see Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) as finally ripe for defeat after closely aligning himself …

The Longest Telegram: A Visionary Blueprint for the Comprehensive Grand Strategy Against China We Need  —  In February 1946, the diplomat George Kennan — then serving as charge d'affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow — authored a 5,000-word telegram analyzing the sources of Soviet conduct …

Biden to review executive authority to cancel student debt  —  WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden has asked Education Secretary Miguel Cardona to prepare a memo on the president's legal authority to cancel student debt, White House chief of staff Ron Klain said Thursday, amid growing pressure …

Trump and his advisors are shrugging off DOJ's Capitol riot probe.  But they see danger in the Georgia and New York investigations.  — Trump and his advisors are dismissing the threat of legal exposure to him from the Capitol riot.  — More danger is seen in what they call the …

The problem with cheering for the Dominion lawsuit against Fox News  —  When Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani became fixtures on right-wing media with their outlandish election conspiracy theories, their disinformation was more than just false.  —  It was harmful.

Mets-Nationals postponed in Washington as coronavirus issues disrupt Opening Day  —  The Opening Day matchup between the Washington Nationals and New York Mets on Thursday has been postponed because of coronavirus concerns, according to two people with knowledge of the situation.

Share of Republicans saying ‘everything possible’ should be done to make voting easy declines sharply  —  As partisan conflicts over voting access take center stage in Congress and in scores of states around the country, the share of Americans who say “everything possible” …

That Spotty Wi-Fi?  There's $100 Billion to Fix It.  —  WASHINGTON — Kimberly Vasquez, a high school senior in Baltimore, faced a tough problem when the pandemic began.  She had no fast internet service in her home, but all her classes were online.  —  Marigold Lewi, a sophomore at the same school …

Supreme Court sides with Facebook in text message dispute  —  The Supreme Court has sided with Facebook in a lawsuit over unwanted text notifications it sent, rejecting a claim the messages violated the federal ban on robocalls  —  Lawmakers press tech chiefs over online disinformation

USDA drops Trump plan to cut food stamps for 700,000 Americans  —  A Trump-era plan to cut food stamps is now off the table after the Biden administration said it is abandoning a previous plan to tighten work requirements for working-age adults without children.

The Leading Causes of Death in the US for 2020  —  Farida B. Ahmad, MPH1; Robert N. Anderson, PhD2  —  Vital statistics data provide the most complete assessment of annual mortality burden and contribute key measurements of the direct and indirect mortality burden during a public health pandemic.