Tribune Editorial: Why Orrin Hatch is Utahn of the Year  —  These things are often misunderstood.  So, lest our readers, or the honoree himself, get the wrong impression, let us repeat the idea behind The Salt Lake Tribune's Utahn of the Year designation.  —  The criteria are not set in stone.

TRUMP SNUB FEAR Government pleads with Prince Harry not to invite Barack Obama to his wedding  —  Prince, 33, became friends with former US President after bonding with them at the Invictus Games  —  GOVERNMENT mandarins are urging Prince Harry not to invite the Obamas to his wedding for fear of infuriating Donald Trump.

Kremlin trolls burned across the Internet as Washington debated options … The first email arrived in the inbox of CounterPunch, a left-leaning American news and opinion website, at 3:26 a.m. — the middle of the day in Moscow.  —  “Hello, my name is Alice Donovan and I'm a beginner freelance journalist …

America Is Not Yet Lost  —  Many of us came into 2017 expecting the worst.  And in many ways, the worst is what we got.  —  Donald Trump has been every bit as horrible as one might have expected; he continues, day after day, to prove himself utterly unfit for office, morally and intellectually.

Trump's first year was even worse than feared  —  Grit your teeth.  Persevere.  Just a few more days and this awful, rotten, no-good, ridiculous, rancorous, sordid, disgraceful year in the civic life of our nation will be over.  Here's hoping that we all — particularly special counsel Robert S. Mueller III — have a better 2018.

Exclusive: Iconic White House tree to be cut down  —  STORY HIGHLIGHTS  —  Washington (CNN)The south facade of the White House will undergo a dramatic change this week: the historic Jackson Magnolia, a tree that has been in place since the 1800s, is scheduled to be cut down and removed.

Where is Trump's Cabinet?  It's anybody's guess.  —  The Cabinet members carrying out President Donald Trump's orders to shake up the federal government are doing so under an unusual layer of secrecy — often shielding their schedules from public view, keeping their travels under wraps …

Big Tech: The New Predatory Capitalism  —  This article appears in the Winter 2018 issue of The American Prospect magazine.  Subscribe here.  —  “We're making the world a better place.”  —  The phrase is thrown around so often in the tech world that it became a punch line on the HBO satire Silicon Valley.

Trump predicts GOP and Dems will agree on health care plan  —  President Donald Trump is predicting that Democrats and Republicans will “eventually come together “on a new health care plan for the country.  —  Sending a Twitter post early Tuesday from his Florida resort, Trump said …

Incomes Grew After Past Tax Cuts, but Guess Whose  —  Home for the holidays after passing the eighth-largest tax cut in United States history, Republicans could be forgiven for reveling in the warm embrace of nostalgia.  —  Who among them won't raise a glass to Ronald Reagan …

Russia never stopped its cyberattacks on the United States  —  Michael Morell is a former deputy director and twice acting director of the Central Intelligence Agency from 2010 to 2013.  Mike Rogers, a Republican from Michigan, served in the House from 2001 to 2015 and was chairman of the Intelligence Committee from 2010 to 2015.

Secret Service interviews person over manure sent to Mnuchin  —  LOS ANGELES (AP) — The U.S. Secret Service says it has interviewed someone claiming responsibility for delivering a gift-wrapped package of horse manure addressed to Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin (mih-NOO'-shin).