How the Pandemic Now Ends  —  In September 2020, just before COVID-19 began its wintry surge through the United States, I wrote that the country was trapped in a pandemic spiral, seemingly destined to repeat the same mistakes.  But after vaccines arrived in midwinter, cases in the U.S. declined and …

U.S. Asks Taliban to Spare Its Embassy in Coming Fight for Kabul  —  The demand seeks to stave off an evacuation of the embassy by dangling aid to future Afghan governments — even one that includes the Taliban.  —  WASHINGTON — American negotiators are trying to extract assurances …

Donald's Plot Against America  —  I felt as though I had stumbled across a crime scene so violent that I couldn't process it, let alone synthesize the images in front of me.  The parts remained stubbornly separate, and there was no way to grasp the meaning of the whole.

Gaetz associate providing feds intel, documents as probe into congressman continues: Sources  —  Former tax collector Joel Greenberg is cooperating with investigators.  —  As the federal investigation into Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz continues into the summer, sources tell ABC News that Gaetz's …

Greg Abbott Surrenders to the Coronavirus  —  A year and a half into the pandemic, Texas is running out of hospital beds.  —  The Texas Tribune reported on Tuesday that nearly 10,000 COVID-19 patients have been hospitalized, and that the state's intensive-care units are being overwhelmed.

Texas Senate passes bill with new voting restrictions after a Democrat filibustered for 15 hours to try to stop the measure  —  AUSTIN — The Texas Senate on Thursday approved a bill that contains new voting restrictions after a Democratic senator filibustered for 15 hours to try to stop the legislation …

Rumble, a YouTube rival popular with conservatives, will pay creators who ‘challenge the status quo’  —  The video site has exploded during the pandemic as a home for anti-vaccine misinformation and conservative complaints about Big Tech censorship  —  A fast-growing YouTube rival popular …

EXCLUSIVE: Cyber expert says his team can't prove Mike Lindell's claims that China hacked election  —  SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — The cyber expert on the “red team” hired by MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell now says the key data underpinning the theory that China hacked the 2020 election unveiled at the Cyber Symposium is illegitimate.

Emails: Senior DOJ officials wrangled over baseless Trump voter fraud allegations  —  During Donald Trump's final weeks in office, top Justice Department officials wrangled over how the FBI should handle a particularly wacky voter fraud allegation promoted by the then-president and his allies.

‘Everybody I Know Is Pissed Off’  —  The vaccinated, across party lines, have kind of had it with the unvaccinated, an array of new polls suggests.  —  While most state and national GOP leaders are focused on defending the rights of unvaccinated Americans, new polling shows that the large majority …

White House seizes an opportunity to whack DeSantis  —  MIAMI — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis made himself the national face of the anti-Biden Covid-response resistance.  —  So the president decided to punch it.  —  For the past two weeks, Biden and his allies have publicly escalated a war …

What Rosen told U.S. senators: Trump applied ‘persistent’ pressure to get Justice to discredit election  —  Former president Donald Trump's last attorney general has told U.S. senators his boss was “persistent” in trying to pressure the Justice Department to discredit the results of the 2020 election.

The GOP strategy for retaking power is about to take an ugly new turn  —  It is a brutal reality about this political moment that Republicans can capture the House while dwelling almost exclusively in the safe confines of their alternate information environment.

Don't Panic, But Breakthrough Cases May Be a Bigger Problem Than You've Been Told Current public-health messaging may understate the scale and risk.  —  The term itself, perhaps, is a problem.  “Breakthrough” sounds bad — implying an immune-escape mutation, likely rare, and therefore alarming.

California dad killed his kids over QAnon and ‘serpent DNA’ conspiracy theories, feds claim  —  A California surfing school owner who was charged with killing his two children in Mexico is a follower of QAnon and Illuminati conspiracy theories who thought the children “were going to grow …

Ben Shapiro's Book Is a Glib Rationale for Right-Wing Authoritarianism The Authoritarian Moment is anti-anti-Trumpism distilled.  —  Like many conservative intellectuals, Ben Shapiro reacted to Donald Trump's rise with horror, declaring, “ I will never vote for this man.”

Rachel Maddow Seriously Considers Leaving MSNBC  —  As her contract draws to a close, sources told The Daily Beast, the MSNBC icon has been weighing taking her brand elsewhere. … Rachel Maddow has been MSNBC's most high-profile on-air personality for more than a decade …

Pope Francis Is Tearing the Catholic Church Apart  —  Mr. Dougherty, a senior writer at National Review, has written extensively about faith and the Roman Catholic Church.  —  In the summer of 2001, I drove up to Poughkeepsie, N.Y., to find what we called “the traditional Latin Mass,” …

Office of Public and Intergovernmental Affairs  —  VA expands mandate for COVID-19 vaccines among VHA employees  —  Need Viewer Software?  —  VA expands mandate for COVID-19 vaccines among VHA employees  —  WASHINGTON — Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary Denis McDonough will expand …

In new documentary, WHO scientist says Chinese officials pressured investigation to drop lab-leak hypothesis  —  The World Health Organization expert who led a controversial joint probe into the origins of the coronavirus pandemic says in a documentary airing Thursday night on Danish television …

Trump Keeps Rejecting Pleas From Allies for Pro-Vax Campaign  —  Donald Trump's former allies keep pleading with him to aggressively back the COVID-19 vaccine.  Trump won't do it.  —  It's been more than six months since Donald Trump left office and, despite pleas from multiple friends and advisers …

San Fernando Valley Man Found Guilty in Terror Plot to Bomb a Rally in Long Beach  —  A federal jury convicted a California man today for attempting to bomb a rally in Long Beach for the purpose of causing mass casualties.  —  According to court documents and evidence presented at trial …

Incoming New York governor Kathy Hochul will enter 2022 gubernatorial race  —  New York Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul announced Thursday that she will run for the state's top office in 2022 after completing the remaining term of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D), who plans to step down later this month …

Column: Here's how Fox News' white supremacist propaganda can be stopped  —  In March 2006, then-CNN host Lou Dobbs told viewers about a Mexican conspiracy to reconquer the Southwest, which the United States took from Mexico 158 years earlier in the Mexican-American War.

The Biden Inflation Tax, Made Clear in One Chart  —  COMMENTARY  —  What is all this “Biden inflation tax” talk really about?  What is the actual effect of inflation on the lives of real people?  —  Well, below is a chart that compares yearly wage and inflation rates for each month …

Broward County hospital admissions lead US, as Florida COVID cases hit another daily high at 24,753  —  For the 11th straight day, Florida hospitals set records for the number of COVID patients they are treating, and on Wednesday the state set a new high for daily cases.

Major teachers union punts on vaccine mandates  —  The American Federation of Teachers stopped short of fully endorsing Covid-19 vaccine requirements for its roughly 1.7 million members, after union officials instead opted to encourage union workers to negotiate potential mandates with local governments and school systems.