GOP blows off Trump's bid to oust McConnell  —  Former President Donald Trump has hit a wall in his efforts to oust Mitch McConnell as GOP leader.  —  Despite months of attacks, the Trump-led campaign to depose the Senate minority leader has resulted in firm pledges from just two Republican candidates …

Trump invokes antisemitic tropes while discussing his support for Israel  —  Former President Donald Trump veered into several antisemitic tropes in a recent interview, claiming that Israel used to have “absolute power over Congress” and saying that American Jews — the majority of whom vote Democratic …

A glimmer of hope on Joe Manchin and voting rights?  —  By now, you'd be forgiven for concluding the chances of Sen. Joe Manchin III supporting a filibuster carve-out to pass democracy protections are somewhere between nonexistent and extremely nonexistent.  —  The West Virginia Democrat …

South Africa Hospitalization Rate Plunges in Omicron Wave  — Cases remain high compared with previous Covid waves  — Omicron infections may have peaked in epicenter Gauteng  —  South Africa delivered some positive news on the omicron coronavirus variant on Friday …

Trump Rioter Who Attacked Cops With Fire Extinguisher Gets Longest Jan. 6 Sentence Yet  —  Capitol rioter Robert Scott Palmer, known to online sleuths as #FloridaFlagJacket, was arrested by the FBI 12 days after he was named in a HuffPost story.  —  A Florida man who attacked law enforcement officers …

House oversight committee releases report detailing efforts of Trump administration officials to ‘undermine’ Covid-19 efforts in US  —  (CNN)Trump administration officials made “deliberate efforts to undermine the nation's coronavirus response for political purposes,” a House oversight committee led …

The world as we know it is ending.  Why are we still at work?  —  From the pandemic to climate change, Americans are still expected to work no matter what happens.  —  For a moment in early 2020, it seemed like we might get a break from capitalism.  —  A novel coronavirus was sweeping the globe …

‘No evidence’ Omicron is less severe than Delta, say UK researchers  —  Imperial College study warns of elevated reinfection risk but notes ‘very limited’ data on hospitalisations  —  There is at present “no evidence” that the Omicron coronavirus variant is any less severe than the Delta strain …

Judge Overturns Purdue Pharma's Opioid Settlement  —  The ruling said the company's owners, members of the Sackler family, could not receive protection from civil lawsuits in return for a $4.5 billion contribution.  —  A federal judge on Thursday evening unraveled a painstakingly negotiated …

I Canceled My Birthday Party Because of Omicron  —  I turn 40 today, and I was planning to have a party.  The Delta surge made me nervous about it.  The arrival of Omicron made me cancel it.  —  The plan was to have an extended house party, with a couple dozen people popping by over the weekend.

New York Times fires ‘Wirecutter’ editor accused of leaving profane voicemails for gun rights group  —  Erin Marquis, a staffer for the popular product-review site, had also lashed out at a gun-rights organization on Twitter.  —  The New York Times has fired an editor for Wirecutter …

Kanye West's ‘Independent’ Campaign Was Secretly Run by GOP Elites  —  The campaign took steps, experts say, to mask its connections to GOP operatives.  That could violate federal election laws.  —  New documents show Kanye West's doomed White House campaign—styled as an “independent” …

Herschel Walker's campaign falsely claimed he graduated from college  —  Republican Herschel Walker's campaign deleted a false claim that he graduated from the University of Georgia hours after it was posted on a website promoting his U.S. Senate bid.  —  The former football star's campaign removed …

“Corrosive Communities”: How A Facebook Fight Over Wind Power Predicts the Future of Local Politics in America  —  Bad vibrations abound.  Many of them are obvious: We can sense them, measure the damage they do, try to counteract or avoid them.  Others exist in a range outside the limit of normal human perception.

Russia Lays Out Demands for a Sweeping New Security Deal With NATO  —  The proposal, coming as Russia masses troops on the border with Ukraine, was directed at the United States and Ukraine's other Western allies.  —  KYIV, Ukraine — Russia outlined on Friday its demands for a sweeping …

Influential Judge Deals Blow to Biden's Employer Vaccine Mandate  —  The Biden administration's employer vaccine mandate took a beating this week from one of the nation's top judges, a major win for red states and conservative groups fighting it in court.  —  Chief Judge Jeffrey Sutton …

Texas AG Paxton's $2.2M voter fraud unit closed three cases in 2021.  GOP lawmakers still boosted its budget.  —  Texas Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton has been one of former President Donald Trump's most reliable allies in spreading the myth of widespread voter fraud …

Children exposed to covid can safely stay in class with in-school testing, CDC says … Students who have been exposed to the coronavirus can safely continue in-person learning if they are regularly tested for the virus at school, avoiding disruptive at-home quarantines, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday.

Josh Mandel, Candidate for GOP Nomination for Senate, On The 2020 Election and President Biden's Legitimacy  —  Former Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel joined me this morning:  —  Audio:  —  12-17hhs-mandel  —  Transcript:  —  HH: Josh Mandel, former state treasurer in Ohio, is running for Senate in Ohio.

Special Report: Amazon partnered with China propaganda arm  —  Amazon.com Inc was marketing a collection of President Xi Jinping's speeches and writings on its Chinese website about two years ago, when Beijing delivered an edict, according to two people familiar with the incident.

REVIEW: What I Learned From Hillary Clinton's Master Class on ‘The Power of Resilience’  —  You've probably heard the saying: Those who can, do.  Those who can't, teach.  In this day and age, those who really can't become Master Class instructors on how to fail.

Far-right using COVID-19 theories to grow reach, study shows  —  PARIS (AP) — The mugshot-style photos are posted on online message boards in black and white and look a little like old-fashioned “wanted” posters.  —  “The Jews own COVID just like all of Hollywood,” the accompanying text says.

Tough-on-crime politics are back in California.  But Black activists aren't giving up  —  “I don't think all is lost.”  —  I'm not sure what I expected to hear when I called up Cat Brooks, co-founder of Oakland's Anti Police-Terror Project, but it sure wasn't that.

J.K. Rowling is being erased for defending women  —  Those seeking to understand why the average person is too terrified to speak up against transgender activism need only to look to J.K. Rowling.  In a promotional trailer for Rowling's forthcoming film, Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore …