Pentagon reports past Chinese surveillance balloons near Florida, Texas  —  The Defense Department tells members of Congress about several previous incursions of U.S. airspace as Republicans criticize Biden's response  —  The Defense Department has notified Congress of several previous incursions …

Trump documents: Congress offered briefing on records kept at Mar-a-Lago  —  Closed-door session could provide insight into the sensitivity of the documents Trump retained and possibility of indictments  —  US officials have offered to provide a closed-door briefing to congressional leaders …

AR-15 lapel pin is a perfect symbol for a GOP that's become a death cult  —  The backward walk of devolution that is the modern Republican Party, and the near-death experience of American governing, can be best told through the story of two adjacent Long Island congressional districts that …

Biden or bust: Democratic insiders are all in for Biden 2024  —  PHILADELPHIA — President Joe Biden had one question for Democratic power brokers at a campaign-style rally Friday: “Are you with me?”  —  The roars of approval and chants of “four more years!” at the Democratic National …

Deadly 7.8-magnitude earthquake strikes southern Turkey, Syria … Updated just now  —  ISTANBUL — A powerful earthquake in southern Turkey early Monday leveled residential buildings in nearby Turkish cities and in northern Syria.  Video of the aftermath showed residents trapped under rubble.

Gut spending?  Slash the IRS budget?  7 GOP ideas for debt limit talks.  —  Republicans haven't settled on what to ask for in exchange for raising the debt ceiling, but officials are eyeing these proposals  —  House Republicans are demanding that President Biden agree to policy concessions …

Inside Harvard's misinformation meltdown  —  The highest-profile scholar of misinformation is being forced out at Harvard's premier public policy school, and interviews and internal documents reviewed by Semafor illustrate the institution's discomfort with her high-profile and politically charged work.

Harry Whittington, longtime Texas GOP supporter shot by Dick Cheney in a hunting accident, dies  —  Whittington, 95, was active in Republican politics since the party was powerless in the state.  He died after a short illness.  —  Copy link  —  A potent Democratic machine used to dominate Texas politics.

Record numbers of people are worse off, a recipe for political discontent: POLL  —  4 in 10 Americans say they are worse off financially since Biden took office.  —  Four in 10 Americans say they've gotten worse off financially since Joe Biden became president, the most in ABC News/Washington Post polls dating back 37 years.

In China's Covid Fog, Deaths of Scholars Offer a Clue  —  After Covid ripped uncontrolled through China, the government announced that 80,000 people had died.  But that is likely a vast undercount.  We scoured obituaries of the nation's top academics for clues about the true toll of the outbreak.

Man Accused of Firing Blanks at Synagogue Linked to Nazi Imagery  —  A man who allegedly fired blanks from a pistol at a Russian-speaking synagogue in San Francisco has been linked to social media accounts featuring antisemitic propaganda and pictures of him dressed in a World War II-era German military uniform bearing a swastika.

Koch network to back alternative to Trump after sitting out recent primaries  —  The return of one of the biggest spenders in American politics to the presidential primary field poses a direct challenge to the former president's comeback bid  —  The network of donors and activist groups led …