Employers added 517,000 jobs in January, astonishing labor market growth  —  January marked the 25th straight month of solid job growth, and the unemployment rate edged down to a new low of 3.4 percent.  —  The labor market shattered expectations in January, as the economy added 517,000 jobs …

Blinken postpones China trip as suspected spy balloon detected over U.S.  —  Hours before the secretary of state was scheduled to depart for Beijing, the diplomatic visit was called off  —  President Biden postponed his top diplomat's first official trip to China on Friday in response …

Republicans rally around conservatives who lost their elections  —  The GOP base lionizes some defeated candidates as wronged warriors and avatars of legitimate grievances  —  Donald Trump — the former Republican president who lost his 2020 reelection bid — spent last Saturday pinging between …

House Republicans float one spending cut in a debt ceiling bill: unspent Covid money  —  WASHINGTON — There's no Republican plan, let alone a bill, to resolve the debt ceiling problem.  But some GOP lawmakers are floating one idea to include in a package: rescinding approved but unspent Covid relief funds.

Hunter Biden Claims His Laptop  —  And asks his dad's government to target his critics.  —  WSJ Opinion: The Biden Classified-Document Payback  —  YOU MAY ALSO LIKE  —  Created with sketchtool.  —  1x  —  Hunter Biden did some reckless things, is unhappy people found out, and so is now doing something equally reckless.

GOP Rep. Clyde hands out assault-rifle lapel pins to House colleagues  —  By his own acknowledgment, Rep. Andrew S. Clyde (R-Ga.) has been handing out lapel pins shaped like assault rifles to fellow GOP lawmakers — an exercise that comes in the wake of a spate of mass shootings and during …

All shook up: Why Dems see sliver of opportunity in deep-red Mississippi  —  Republicans have had a lock on the Mississippi governorship for decades.  But Democrats hope that a candidate with one of the most famous last names in America can change that.  —  Democrats are coalescing around …

A packed 2024 field could hand Donald Trump the nomination.  He still hates it.  —  Republicans opposed to Donald Trump are complaining that a massive pile-up in the 2024 presidential field is set to hand him the nomination.  But you won't see Trump, who has publicly and privately groused …

Matt Gaetz wants to make poor Americans work for their health care  —  Rep. Matt Gaetz is trying to convince his fellow Republicans to demand new work requirements for Medicaid as part of a deal to raise the debt ceiling.  —  The Florida congressman, who has been enjoying new influence within …

Clyburn says Democrats should compromise on policing bill  —  Good morning, Early Birds.  Do you ask people what they do for work?  Do you help strangers parallel park?  Do you put out bowls of cigarettes at the parties you throw (and do you let guests smoke indoors)?  We're dying to know.

Confidence in police practices drops to a new low: POLL  —  Just 39% are confident that the police are trained to avoid excessive force.  —  Americans' confidence in how police are trained and their  —  treatment of Black people  —  both have fallen to new lows in an ABC News/Washington Post poll.

Republicans like DeSantis and Boebert are pushing guns — and banning books  —  The U.S. has more guns than it has people.  But to Republicans playing to their base, not even that excessive amount is enough.  —  When given a choice between saving their voters' lives or promoting the guns …

Trump Org Pays $1.6 Million Fine for Tax Fraud Conviction  —  A clerk confirmed the checks didn't bounce. … Former President Donald Trump's family company—notorious for stiffing contractors and dodging bills—has paid the $1.6 million fine it received for its tax fraud conviction in December.

Iran Trade Mechanism INSTEX is Shutting Down  —  At the end of January, the board of the Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges (INSTEX) took the decision to liquidate the company.  Established in January 2019 by the United Kingdom, France, and Germany, INSTEX's shareholders later came …

Kremlin-Linked Group Arranged Payments to European Politicians to Support Russia's Annexation of Crimea  —  by Martin Laine (Eesti Ekspress), Cecilia Anesi (IrpiMedia), Lorenzo Bagnoli (IrpiMedia), and Tatiana Tkachenko  —  For years, a secret organization run from inside Russia's parliament …

Why Are So Many Americans Dying Right Now?  —  About 1.1 million Americans have officially died from Covid-19 since the start of the pandemic, a number that may be familiar by now.  But here's a less familiar one: According to one tabulation by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention …