A President Not Sure of What He Wants Complicates the Shutdown Impasse  —  WASHINGTON — When President Trump mused last year about protecting immigrants brought to the United States illegally as children, calling them “these incredible kids,” aides implored him privately to stop talking about them so sympathetically.

Paul Ryan Collected $500,000 In Koch Contributions Days After House Passed Tax Law  —  That's peanuts compared with what the Koch brothers will save.  —  Just days after the House passed its version of the federal tax law slashing corporate tax rates, House Speaker Paul Ryan collected nearly $500,000 …

Newly released texts between ex-Mueller team members suggest they knew outcome of Clinton email probe in advance  —  The Justice Department has given various congressional committees nearly 400 pages of additional text messages between two FBI officials who were removed from Special Counsel …

Chief Justice John Roberts Has Changed A Little Bit.  And That Could Be A Big Deal.  —  Chief Justice John Roberts last year.  —  Win Mcnamee / Getty Images  —  WASHINGTON — Thirteen years into the job, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. remains a conservative — but he has shifted …

Does This Man Know More Than Robert Mueller?  —  It's 10:45 p.m. Rio de Janeiro time.  Glenn Greenwald and I are finishing dinner at a deserted bistro in Ipanema.  The restaurant, which serves its sweating beer bottles in metal buckets and goes heavy on the protein, is almost aggressively unremarkable …

Democrats solidify their lead in midterm elections matchup (POLL)  —  Democrats have solidified their position in the November midterm elections in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll, maintaining a 12-point lead among registered voters while improving to a wide 14-point advantage among likely voters in congressional preference.

Team Trump Bypassed DHS Analysts to Produce Bogus Terror Report … The document didn't mince words.  It claimed three-quarters of “international terrorism” convicts were immigrants, an assertion meant to bolster Donald Trump's cherished Muslim-focused ban on entering the country.

China, Unhampered by Rules, Races Ahead in Gene-Editing Trials  —  U.S. scientists helped devise the Crispr biotechnology tool.  First to test it in humans are Chinese doctors  —  HANGZHOU, China—In a hospital west of Shanghai, Wu Shixiu since March has been trying to treat cancer patients using a promising new gene-editing tool.

What happens when a party becomes unmoored from the truth and the American creed  —  The sight of conservative Republicans cheering President Trump as a great success in his first year in office tells us much about the state of conservatism and the future of the GOP.

Trump, Wolff and The Secret of the Russia Story  —  A year ago, as most of the media struggled to make sense of the reality of the Trump presidency and the Russia probe moved from the fringes of political discussion to the center, Michael Wolff's was a conspicuous discordant voice - and quite intentionally so.

Midtown alt-right bash turns violent after protester slugs, chokes partygoer  —  Violence erupted outside an alt-right gala in Midtown Saturday when a black-clad protester punched and choked a partygoer, cops said.  —  Far-right provocateur Mike Cernovich was inside the event at the FREQNYC nightclub …