GOP agrees to pay up to $1.6 million of Trump's legal bills in N.Y. probes  —  The Republican Party has agreed to pay up to $1.6 million in legal bills for former president Donald Trump to help him fight investigations into his business practices in New York, according to Republican National Committee members …

Judge Overturns Purdue Pharma's Opioid Settlement  —  The ruling said the company's owners, members of the Sackler family, could not receive protection from civil lawsuits in return for a $4.5 billion contribution.  —  A federal judge on Thursday evening unraveled a painstakingly negotiated …

A Person of the Year: Jamie Raskin  —  How one politician devoted his fight for democracy to his lost son.  —  Ninety-four years ago, the editors of Time magazine declared the transatlantic aviator and anti-Semite Charles Lindbergh their first-ever Man of the Year.

Life without Wallace  —  Presented by the Black Women's Health Imperative  —  Welcome to POLITICO's West Wing Playbook, your guide to the people and power centers in the Biden administration.  With Allie Bice.  —  “Fox News Sunday” was one of the few shows on Fox News …

Senate that ‘sucks’ gets a dose of reality from Biden  —  Senate Democrats ended a frustrating day in a frustrating week with President Joe Biden acknowledging that his sweeping social spending bill will wait until next year — a setback that comes as the party also spins its wheels on election reform.

F.D.A. Will Permanently Allow Abortion Pills by Mail  —  The decision will broaden access to medication abortion, an increasingly common method, but many conservative states are already mobilizing against it.  —  The federal government on Thursday permanently lifted a major restriction on access to abortion pills.

South Africa Hospitalization Rate Plunges in Omicron Wave  — Cases remain high compared with previous Covid waves  — Omicron infections may have peaked in epicenter Gauteng  —  South Africa delivered some positive news on the omicron coronavirus variant on Friday …

WSJ News Exclusive |  Senate Parliamentarian Rejects Democrats' Immigration Proposal in $2 Trillion Bill  —  The proposal marked Democrats' third effort to provide temporary deportation protections and work permits to millions of immigrants living in the U.S. illegally.

Dominion Voting wins key decision in lawsuit against Fox News  —  (CNN Business)A judge in Delaware has found that Fox News' coverage of election fraud after the 2020 election may have been inaccurate, and is allowing a major defamation case against the right-wing TV network to move forward.

The puzzle of Joe Biden's unpopularity  —  I find President Biden's unpopularity puzzling.  He is rounding out his first year in the White House with the lowest end of first-year approval ratings of any elected president in modern times with the exception of Donald Trump.  Why?

Six Bay Area Men Arrested For a Staggering 70 Attacks on Asian Women  —  The suspects allegedly targeted Asian women exclusively, according to the Santa Clara DA, and had a pattern of attacking women walking alone to their cars.  —  In the wave of attacks on Asian Americans since …

Harvard won't require SAT or ACT through 2026 as test-optional push grows  —  The fast-spreading movement aims to limit the role of the standardized exams in college admissions  —  Harvard University will extend for four years a policy begun soon after the coronavirus pandemic emerged …

Kanye West's ‘Independent’ Campaign Was Secretly Run by GOP Elites  —  The campaign took steps, experts say, to mask its connections to GOP operatives.  That could violate federal election laws.  —  New documents show Kanye West's doomed White House campaign—styled as an “independent” …

Senate confirms Nicholas Burns as ambassador to China  —  The Senate voted 75-18 on Thursday to confirm Nicholas Burns, a widely respected former career diplomat, as U.S. ambassador to China.  —  Why it matters: Burns — the first Senate-confirmed ambassador in Beijing in more than 14 months …

Select Committee Subpoenas James P.  “Phil” Waldron  —  Washington—Chairman Bennie G. Thompson (D-MS) today announced that the Select Committee has issued a subpoena to James P.  “Phil” Waldron for records and testimony.  Mr. Waldron appears to have been involved with efforts to promote claims about fraud in the 2020 election.

Herschel Walker's campaign falsely claimed he graduated from college  —  Republican Herschel Walker's campaign deleted a false claim that he graduated from the University of Georgia hours after it was posted on a website promoting his U.S. Senate bid.  —  The former football star's campaign removed …

Omicron outbreak inducing whiplash for many Americans  —  With the omicron variant sending coronavirus cases spiking across the country, the pandemic is once again upending daily life and evoking the early days of the outbreak as scientists race to understand the still-unknown implications of this new type of coronavirus.

Washington Post Grasps for New Direction as Trump-Era Boom Fades  —  News outlet's audience is down sharply, amid sector-wide declines; subscription growth has stagnated as readers look beyond politics  —  Top Washington Post officials gathered last week and discussed how to respond …

Why Are Republicans Siding With Russia?  —  Because Putinism is catnip to a new breed of American losers.  —  There's been a lot of anger this week over Fox News's born-again populist, Tucker Carlson, going all in on attacking NATO and siding with Russia at the very moment …

The FBI Said It Busted A Plot To Kidnap Michigan's Governor.  Then Things Got Complicated.  —  The case seemed like a lock — until an informant and one FBI agent were charged with crimes, another was accused of perjury, and a third was found promoting a private security firm.  And that wasn't all.

“I Started Seeing Agents Everywhere”  —  Her father was persecuted, poisoned and imprisoned.  Now Daria Navalnaya discusses her experience during the attack on her father, what he wrote to her from prison and how she feels about the perpetrators. … I wrote to him: You've got to understand …

Chris Noth Accused of Sexual Assault by Two Women  —  Triggered by the recent ‘Sex and the City’ reboot, the women allege two incidents of misconduct they say took place more than a decade apart.

Why 1,320 Therapists Are Worried About Mental Health in America Right Now  —  As Americans head into a third year of pandemic living, therapists around the country are finding themselves on the front lines of a mental health crisis.  Social workers, psychologists and counselors from every state …