Breaking Up with the Democratic Party  —  I changed my voting registration from ‘Democrat’ to ‘Independent’ today.  It was a strangely emotional experience.  —  I registered as a Democrat back in 1995 when I was 20 years old to vote for Bill Clinton's re-election.  It was a no-brainer for me.

McConnell reactivates his connection to Biden — with a sharp debt warning  —  Joe Biden and Mitch McConnell's two-man emergency hotline had gone silent — until now.  —  The Senate minority leader on Monday morning prodded the president to talk his party into raising the debt ceiling without the GOP …

USPS Begins Postal Banking Pilot Program  —  The test allows customers to cash business or payroll checks at the post office and place them onto a gift card.  —  The United States Postal Service (USPS) has taken the most dramatic step in a half-century to re-establish a postal banking system in America.

Scoop: House Republican says he's facing federal prosecution  —  The top Republican on the House Appropriations Committee's agriculture panel says he's facing federal prosecution, Axios has learned.  —  Driving the news: In a new fundraising page for his legal expense fund, Rep. Jeff Fortenberry …

Trump, talked out of announcing a 2024 bid for now, settles on a wink-and-nod unofficial candidacy  —  As turmoil in Afghanistan reached a crescendo in August, Donald Trump began talking again with advisers about whether he should announce his 2024 campaign for president right away.

The Facebook Whistleblower, Frances Haugen, Says She Wants to Fix the Company, Not Harm It  —  The former Facebook employee says her goal is to help prompt change at the social-media giant  —  The former Facebook Inc. employee who gathered documents that formed the foundation …

Florida Gov. DeSantis' wife diagnosed with breast cancer  —  Fox News Flash top headlines for October 4  —  EXCLUSIVE - Casey DeSantis, the wife of Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, has been diagnosed with breast cancer.  —  “I am saddened to report that Florida's esteemed First Lady …

Supreme Court declines to hear dispute over DC representation in Congress  —  The Supreme Court on Monday turned away an appeal by Washington, D.C., residents over their lack of voting rights in Congress.  —  The justices' move affirmed a lower court ruling that held that D.C. residents …

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema makes liberal heads explode.  And that's just fine with the Arizona Democrat  —  When Kyrsten Sinema ran for Senate in 2018, she could not have been more clear.  The Democrat did not call herself a Democrat but rather an “Arizona independent.”

Jan. 6 rioters exploited little-known Capitol weak spots: A handful of unreinforced windows  —  Four major access points that Jan. 6 rioters used to break into and overtake the U.S. Capitol had something unusual in common: They were among a dozen or so ground-floor windows and glass-paned doors that had not been recently reinforced.

Ex-U.S. Rep. Todd Akin, sunk by ‘legitimate rape’ remark, dies  —  Former U.S. Rep. Todd Akin, a conservative Missouri Republican whose comment that women's bodies have a way of avoiding pregnancies in cases of “legitimate rape” sunk his bid for the U.S. Senate and became a cautionary tale for other GOP candidates, died late Sunday.

One-time presidential candidate Evan McMullin will mount an independent bid to oust Republican Sen. Mike Lee, Robert Gehrke reports  —  A McMullin candidacy challenges the rigid two-party standard, which leaves too many Utahns unrepresented.  —  Independent presidential candidate Evan McMullin speaks …

Exclusive: Stephanie Grisham says ‘I regret’ enabling culture of dishonesty in Trump White House  —  The former Trump aide spoke exclusively to ABC News' George Stephanopoulos.  —  In an exclusive interview with ABC News' George Stephanopoulos, Stephanie Grisham, one of former President Donald Trump's …

U.S. Signals Little Thaw in Trade Relations With China  —  The Biden administration said it would not immediately remove the Trump administration's tariffs and would require that Beijing uphold its trade commitments.  —  WASHINGTON — The Biden administration offered its strongest signal yet …

New: Whitmer vetoes GOP bills part of ‘calculated misinformation’ about the 2020 election  —  Gov. Gretchen Whitmer on Sunday vetoed three Republican election bills introduced after former President Donald Trump lost the 2020 election as part of a nationwide right-wing effort to restrict voting and change election rules.

White Riot In 1992, thousands of furious, drunken cops descended on City Hall — and changed New York history.  —  This story was produced in partnership with The Garrison Project, an independent, nonpartisan organization that will address the crisis of mass incarceration and policing.

Covid, in Retreat  —  New cases in the U.S. have fallen by more than a third in the past month.  —  Covid-19 is once again in retreat.  —  The reasons remain somewhat unclear, and there is no guarantee that the decline in caseloads will continue.  But the turnaround is now large enough …

Facebook Is Weaker Than We Knew  —  A trove of leaked documents, published by The Wall Street Journal, hints at a company whose best days are behind it.  —  One possible way to read “The Facebook Files,” The Wall Street Journal's excellent series of reports based on leaked internal Facebook research …

Trump's Sprawling Use of NDAs Now Threatens to Humiliate Him  —  For decades, Donald Trump used the same legal language in Non-Disclosure Agreements to prevent associates from saying anything bad about him.  That's bad news for Trump.  —  For decades, Donald Trump has treasured Non-Disclosure …

Foreign money secretly floods U.S. tax havens.  Some of it is tainted.  —  (Washington Post illustration; Photograph by Salwan Georges/The Washington Post)  —  SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — Across from a Holiday Inn, in a red-brick building with a welcome sign that reads “The Heart of America,” …

Matthew Dowd Gets Snippy with Brianna Keilar, Dismisses Deleted Tweets as Fox ‘Conspiracy’: ‘I Answered Three Times’  —  Tensions briefly flared between CNN's Brianna Keilar and Matthew Dowd as the former George W. Bush strategist fielded questions about a major Twitter purge he did.

Exclusive: Afghan ambassador decries country's “betrayal”  —  Afghanistan's ambassador to the United States, Adela Raz, has lost her country and her faith in the U.S. government — and her life's work of liberating women and girls is in shambles.  She shared her despair with “Axios on HBO” …