Commerce Department security unit evolved into counterintelligence-like operation, Washington Post examination found  —  An obscure security unit tasked with protecting the Commerce Department's officials and facilities has evolved into something more akin to a counterintelligence operation …

E.U. promises swift retaliation after Belarus forces airliner to land and detains dissident  —  RIGA, Latvia — European leaders on Monday were considering a plan to sever Belarus from the rest of the continent's airspace, a day after Belarusian authorities forced a commercial airliner to land …

Whitmer apologizes after photo shows her at bar violating her own order  —  Lansing — Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer issued an apology Sunday after a photo emerged showing her at a restaurant with 12 other people gathered around tables pushed together in violation of her health department's current epidemic order.

Key impeachment witness Gordon Sondland sues Mike Pompeo and U.S. for $1.8 million in legal fees  —  President Donald Trump's former ambassador to the European Union, Gordon Sondland, is suing former secretary of state Mike Pompeo and the U.S. government for $1.8 million to compensate …

They tried to overturn the 2020 election.  Now they want to run the next one.  —  Republicans who sought to undercut or overturn President Joe Biden's election win are launching campaigns to become their states' top election officials next year, alarming local officeholders and opponents …

Intelligence on Sick Staff at Wuhan Lab Fuels Debate On Covid-19 Origin  —  Report says researchers went to hospital in November 2019, shortly before confirmed outbreak; Adds to calls for probe of whether virus escaped lab  —  WASHINGTON—Three researchers from China's Wuhan Institute …

It's the Media's ‘Mean-Too’ Moment.  Stop Yelling and Go to Human Resources.  —  In public radio, there is either an epidemic of bullying or an epidemic of whining, depending on whom you ask.  —  For 20 years, the WNYC radio show “On The Media” has been the sort of place where the hosts …

BLM activist Sasha Johnson in critical condition after gunshot to the head  —  Shooting in Southwark, London came after numerous death threats, says her Taking the Initiative party  —  The Black Lives Matter activist Sasha Johnson is in a critical condition after sustaining a gunshot wound …

The Americanization of the Israeli-Palestinian Debate  —  Israel, like America, is deeply messed up.  But it's messed up in completely different ways.  —  Author of Spies of No Country: Secret Lives at the Birth of Israel.  —  Rereading exodus, the schmaltzy 1958 best seller about Israel …

What if the Unorthodox Arizona Audit Declares Trump Won?  —  Sitting in the press booth at the Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix, several rows above where some two dozen tables of counters were retallying the 2020 presidential votes of the citizens of Maricopa County …

Are U.S. Officials Under Silent Attack?  —  The Havana Syndrome first affected spies and diplomats in Cuba.  Now it has spread to the White House.  —  During the final weeks of the Trump Administration, a senior official on the National Security Council sat at his desk …

Biden administration moves toward making the pandemic work-from-home experiment permanent for many federal workers  —  As the Biden administration contemplates how to return the massive federal workforce to the office, government officials are moving to make a pandemic experiment permanent …

If Democracy Is Dying, Why Are Democrats So Complacent?  —  Democrats are unwilling to match their language of urgency with a strategy even remotely proportional to it.  —  Staff writer at Jacobin magazine  —  If you've followed recent Democratic messaging, you'll have heard that American democracy …

Weightlifting, Gatorade, birthday calls: Inside Biden's day  —  During a speech in Pittsburgh in March, President Biden held up the index card he keeps in his right breast pocket to track the nation's covid deaths, inadvertently revealing a glimpse of his private schedule on the back side.

Lucy Lang Vies for Progressive Mantle in Manhattan District Attorney Race  —  The former prosecutor has emerged as the problem-solving candidate in a field of eight Democrats  —  As a Manhattan prosecutor in 2017, Lucy Lang secured murder convictions against two masked shooters who opened fire …

Are We Entering a New Political Era?  —  The neoliberal order seems to be collapsing.  A generation of young activists is trying to insure that it's replaced by progressive populism, not by the fascist right.  —  Last June, when most Americans could agree that their country was in crisis …

Top MAGA ally under fire for ‘squishiness’ on Trump  —  During Jane Timken's tenure as Ohio's GOP chair, Donald Trump won the one-time bellwether state by a whopping 8 percentage points.  She put 150,000 miles on her car driving to the state's 88 counties as a surrogate for the president.

Why Arkansas Is a Test Case for a Post-Trump Republican Party  —  Sarah Huckabee Sanders seems likely to bring the Trump brand to Arkansas politics in a big way.  But the state is a testing ground for different possible futures for the party.  —  LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — For decades …

Conservatives have a new target: Biden's IRS plan  —  Add another obstacle to the growing list President Joe Biden faces in his negotiations over his massive spending plans: mounting opposition to one of the ways to pay for his proposal — growing the IRS.  —  Conservative groups have launched …

Rand Paul says he won't get a Covid vaccine  —  Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said Sunday he is not getting vaccinated because he already had Covid-19.  —  Speaking with a conservative radio host on WABC radio, Paul, an Ophthalmologist, said he won't change his mind unless he sees evidence that people …

It's time to get impatient about lingering COVID lockdowns  —  The pandemic is over, as far as the United States is concerned.  The brief period during which we should be expected to tolerate continued restrictions on our freedom, and especially on our children, is coming to an end, too.

Feet-of-Clay Icons  —  Our most important and cherished institutions—the military, science, and the law—are losing the trust of Middle America.  —  “The head of the statue was made of pure gold, its chest and arms of silver, its belly and thighs of bronze, its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of baked clay.”

TikTokers wished a 97-year-old Auschwitz survivor a ‘happy Holocaust’ as some ‘Free Palestine’ supporters target Jewish social media users with antisemitic abuse  — There has been a sharp rise in the number of antisemitic incidents since the start of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

How UFO sightings went from joke to national security worry in Washington  —  In 2007, Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid called his colleagues Ted Stevens and Daniel Inouye to a specially secured room in the Capitol where highly classified information was discussed.