Inside Hunter Biden's multimillion-dollar deals with a Chinese energy company … The deal was years in the making, the culmination of forging contacts, hosting dinners, of flights to and from China.  But on Aug. 2, 2017, signatures were quickly affixed, one from Hunter Biden, the other from a Chinese executive named Gongwen Dong.

Collins to Back Jackson for Supreme Court, Giving Her a G.O.P. Vote  —  Senator Susan Collins, a centrist from Maine, said a second meeting with Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson alleviated her concerns.  It is unclear if other Republicans will join her.  — Give this article- - - Read in app

Facebook paid GOP firm to malign TikTok … Facebook parent company Meta is paying one of the biggest Republican consulting firms in the country to orchestrate a nationwide campaign seeking to turn the public against TikTok.  —  The campaign includes placing op-eds and letters to the editor …

Revealed: Trump used White House phone for call on January 6 that was not on official log  —  Trump's call to Republican senator should have been reflected in presidential call log on day of Capitol attack but wasn't  —  Donald Trump used an official White House phone to place at least …

Turmoil at CBS News over Trump aide Mick Mulvaney's punditry gig … CBS News's decision to hire former Trump administration official Mick Mulvaney as a paid on-air contributor is drawing backlash within the company because of his history of bashing the press and promoting the former president's fact-free claims.

AP sources: Asylum limits at border expected to end May 23  —  WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration is expected to end the asylum limits at the U.S.-Mexico border by May 23 that were put in place to prevent the spread of COVID-19, according to people familiar with the matter.

President of BlackRock investment firm warns an ‘entitled generation’ needs to brace for shock of shortages and higher inflation: Experts warn Americans will pay an EXTRA $433 a month for basic goods this year  — BlackRock President Rob Kapito made the remark at a conference on Tuesday

U.S. intelligence suggests that Putin's advisers misinformed him on Ukraine.  —  WASHINGTON — President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has been misinformed by his advisers about the Russian military's struggles in Ukraine, according to declassified U.S. intelligence.

Scoop: FEC fines DNC and Clinton for Trump dossier hoax  —  The Federal Election Commission has fined the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign for lying about the funding of the infamous, and discredited, Russian “dossier” used in a smear attempt against Donald Trump weeks …

Koch Industries' valentine to Vladimir Putin  —  Give Koch Industries credit for consistency: It's aiding the foes of democracy at home and abroad.  —  In the two weeks since I wrote about U.S. companies that remained in Russia despite Vladimir Putin's savage invasion of Ukraine …

The Attacks On Clarence And Ginni Thomas Are Merely Latest In A Decades-Long Smear Campaign  —  Not only are the attacks on Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife Ginni purely political, they're deeply hypocritical.  —  While claiming its aggressive collection of confidential information …

Half of Russia's 20 Richest Billionaires Are Not Sanctioned  —  Data and graphics by Raeedah Wahid, Mira Rojanasakul, Marion Halftermeyer and Alex McIntyre  —  Half of Russia's 20 richest people have not been sanctioned over its war in Ukraine, leaving a group of super-rich …

Why Russian troops are using tree branches for camouflage in Ukraine  —  Russian troops in Ukraine have scrambled to avoid detection and attack by using tree branches and straw, even swaths of carpeting, to conceal tanks and other armored vehicles, in what analysts call a surprising lack …

Democrats Creating Their Own October Surprise  —  Imminent congressional inaction on Affordable Care Act subsidies will doom 14 million people, the party's midterm chances, and health care reform for a decade.  —  Demonstrating outside the Supreme Court in support of the Affordable Care Act, November 2020

Why People Are Acting So Weird  —  Everyone is acting so weird!  The most obvious recent weirdness was when Will Smith smacked Chris Rock at the Oscars.  But if you look closely, people have been behaving badly on smaller stages for months now.  Last week, a man was arrested after he punched a gate agent at the Atlanta airport.

Former Yale Med School Employee Pleads Guilty, Admits Stealing and Selling $40 Million in Electronics  —  Leonard C Boyle, United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut, David Sundberg, Special Agent in Charge of the New Haven Division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation …

‘This war is far from over’: History says Russia isn't really interested in peace  —  WASHINGTON — Russian and Ukrainian diplomats appeared to reach the outlines of a ceasefire deal on Tuesday that would halt Moscow's monthlong assault on its much smaller neighbor.

How War in Ukraine Roiled Facebook and Instagram  —  The rules over what war content is permitted on Facebook and Instagram keep changing, causing internal confusion.  —  Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, took an unusual step last week: It suspended some of the quality controls …

The Media Is Not Ready for the Midterms  —  Dan Pfeiffer, Greg Sargent, Margaret Sullivan and others on the threat to democracy, and what the press must do now. … How should the media cover the political landscape when one party has gone full arsonist?  It's a question that looms large …

LIVE Omicron Subvariant Becomes Dominant in the United States BA.2 accounted for about 55 percent of new U.S. cases in the week ending Saturday, according to C.D.C. estimates.  Here's the latest pandemic news.  —  President Biden appealed to Congress for key aid, warning that U.S. progress is at stake.

It seems pretty unlikely Trump doesn't know what a burner phone is … We learned Tuesday that the White House's records of President Donald Trump's phone calls and actions on Jan. 6, 2021, contain a large, conspicuous and thoroughly convenient gap: For more than seven and a half hours …

Trump's Truth Social App Plummets in Traffic, Sees 93% Drop in Signups Since Launch Week (Exclusive)  —  Former president Donald Trump's Truth Social app is seeing a 93% drop in signups and similarly steep decline in traffic after a rocky rollout last month fraught with technical issues …

Trump's shameless self-promotion with taxpayer funds is ‘unsavory’ but on-brand for someone committed to ‘profiting off of absolutely everything,’ ethics professional says  — Pushing for-profit projects on the taxpayer dime is Trump's latest break from tradition.