White House cocaine culprit unlikely to be found: Law enforcement official  —  Lines may have been snorted and crossed.  But it's possible we won't know by whom.  —  Law enforcement officials confirmed on Wednesday that cocaine was found at the White House over the weekend.

Bill de Blasio and Chirlane McCray Are Separating  —  Mr. de Blasio's marriage helped fuel his campaign for mayor of New York, and his intense personal and political bond with his wife drew admiration and scrutiny.  —  About two months ago, after another stale Saturday night …

U.S. Rep. Colin Allred raises $6.2 million in first 2 months of Senate race  —  Allred also transferred $2.4 million from his House campaign account, giving him $8.6 million in total receipts through the end of June.  —  U.S. Rep. Colin Allred, D-Dallas, raised nearly $6.2 million in roughly …

Why Josh Hawley's fake historical quote matters  —  Josh Hawley pushing a fake historical quote was cringeworthy, but more important was the theocratic point he was eager to make — on the Fourth of July.  —  While a number of prominent Republicans have been caught peddling fake historical quotes …

Conservatives go to red states and liberals go to blue as the country grows more polarized  —  Once he and his wife, Jennifer, moved to a Boise suburb last year, Tim Kohl could finally express himself.  Kohl did what the couple never dared at their previous house outside Los Angeles …

Arizona Secretary of State's Office subpoenaed by Special Counsel Jack Smith in Jan. 6 inquiry  —  U.S. Department of Justice Special Counsel Jack Smith subpoenaed the Arizona Secretary of State's Office as recently as May as part of his investigation into the events leading up to the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

The Far Right Is Already Using the Philadelphia Shooting to Smear Trans People  —  There's no evidence the suspect was trans, and he posted repeatedly about his pro-gun stance and his support for former president Donald Trump.  —  A 40-year-old man has been charged with five counts of murder …

Twitter silently removes login requirement for viewing tweets  —  Days after requiring users to log in to view tweets, Twitter has silently removed these restrictions.  This means you can open Twitter links in a browser without an account.  —  We at TechCrunch noticed that tweet previews are unfurling in Slack and WhatsApp.

Trump pulled in $35 million in the second quarter  —  The figure nearly doubled what he raised in Q1 and suggests the indictments are helping with fundraising.  —  Donald Trump nearly doubled his fundraising during the second quarter of 2023 — an indication that his legal troubles are propelling his campaign financially.

Kidnapped Scholar Elizabeth Tsurkov Deserves America's Every Effort To Bring Her to Safety  —  Whereabouts of Princeton University graduate student kidnapped in Iraq remains unknown  —  Our last contact with Elizabeth Tsurkov was on March 19.  She told us she'd had enough of doing field research …

Exonerated member of ‘Central Park Five’ wins primary, nearly assuring seat on NYC Council  —  Yusef Salaam, one of the exonerated “Central Park Five,” has won a Democratic primary for a seat on the New York City Council, all but assuring him of eventual victory.

Xi Jinping warned Vladimir Putin against nuclear attack in Ukraine  —  Chinese officials privately take credit for convincing Russian leader to back down from veiled atomic threats  —  Xi Jinping personally warned Vladimir Putin against using nuclear weapons in Ukraine …

Biden's DOJ Is Pressuring Journalists to Help Build Its Case Against Assange  —  The prosecution of the Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is already a threat to a free media — the justice department's campaign to get me and other journalists to testify only makes matters worse

Tuesday set an unofficial record for the hottest day on Earth.  Wednesday may break it.  —  The planet's temperature spiked on Tuesday to its hottest day in at least 44 years and likely much longer, and Wednesday could become the third straight day Earth unofficially marks a record-breaking high …

‘Double agents’: fossil-fuel lobbyists work for US groups trying to fight climate crisis  —  Exclusive: new database shows 1,500 US lobbyists working for fossil-fuel firms while representing universities and green groups  —  More than 1,500 lobbyists in the US are working on behalf …

Judge orders release of more Mar-a-Lago search warrant information in Trump classified docs case  —  Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart ordered more of the affidavit used to justify the search of former President Donald Trump's Florida property that uncovered classified documents to be unsealed.

A Georgia teacher's plight exposes the essence of anti-woke MAGA fury  —  At first glance, the plight of Katherine Rinderle, a fifth-grade teacher in Georgia, might seem confusing.  Rinderle faces likely termination by the Cobb County School District for reading aloud a children's book that touches on gender identity.

Inside the House GOP's plan to go after FBI and DOJ  —  Republicans are escalating a multi-pronged fight against their two biggest political boogeymen.  It goes far beyond just trying to impeach Attorney General Merrick Garland.  —  House Republicans are taking their fight with the FBI …

GQ pulls article slamming Warner Bros. Discovery CEO Zaslav after complaint  —  The writer said he asked to have his byline removed after GQ made extensive changes after publication.  The magazine removed the story instead.  —  In an unusual step, GQ magazine removed an article critical …

Why Biden Probably Won't Get A Serious Primary Challenger  —  It's July in the year before a presidential election, and a first-term president is running for reelection.  Most of the time, nothing about this situation would merit more than a passing acknowledgment: The incumbent …

Man sentenced to life in prison for rape of 10-year-old who sought abortion in Indiana  —  Gerson Fuentes, 28, pleaded guilty Wednesday for the rape of a child who had to travel from Ohio to Indiana to terminate a pregnancy.  —  The man charged with raping a 10-year-old girl who traveled …

Biden's hydrogen bombshell leaves Europe in the dust  —  The EU is investing billions into becoming a green energy superpower.  But Washington's Inflation Reduction Act means it's the U.S. reaping the rewards.  —  European leaders have devoted tens of billions of dollars toward encouraging production …

Ruins found of Munich synagogue destroyed by Hitler  —  Eighty-five years after Adolf Hitler ordered the destruction of Munich's main synagogue, construction workers have found rubble from the building in a nearby river.  —  They uncovered columns from the synagogue and a stone tablet showing some of the Ten Commandments.

How elite schools like Stanford became fixated on the AI apocalypse … Paul Edwards, a Stanford University fellow who spent decades studying nuclear war and climate change, considers himself “an apocalypse guy.”  So Edwards jumped at the chance in 2018 to help develop a freshman class on preventing human extinction.

‘Start reading some of those quotes’: Republican defends Hitler's and Stalin's writings  —  North Carolina Republican Lt. Governor Mark Robinson, a far-right Christian nationalist who is running to be the state's next governor, defended the writings of a slew of authoritarian dictators at the recent Moms for Liberty convention.