Trump dogs “dull” DeSantis ahead of potential 2024 matchup  —  Donald Trump is trashing Ron DeSantis in private as an ingrate with a “dull personality” and no realistic chance of beating him in a potential 2024 showdown, according to sources who've recently talked to the former president about the Florida governor.

U.S. Political Party Preferences Shifted Greatly During 2021  —  WASHINGTON, D.C. — On average, Americans' political party preferences in 2021 looked similar to prior years, with slightly more U.S. adults identifying as Democrats or leaning Democratic (46%) than identified as Republicans or leaned Republican (43%).

School Closures Were a Catastrophic Error.  Progressives Still Haven't Reckoned With It. … Recently, Nate Silver found himself in the unenviable role of main character of the day on Twitter because he proposed that school closures were a “disastrous, invasion-of-Iraq magnitude (or perhaps greater) policy decision.”

The left dreamed of remaking America.  Now, it stares into the abyss as Biden's plans wither.  —  In 2020, prominent liberals promised major changes to the safety net and climate policy  —  Just three years ago, as they vied to lead the country, the Democratic Party's presidential candidates competed …

Covid Live Updates: Approval of U.S. Pandemic Response Hits New Low  —  Just 36 percent of Americans in a recent poll thought U.S. coronavirus efforts were “going well.”  In New York, tentative optimism has taken hold.  —  Here's what you need to know:  —  Just over a third of Americans …

‘270 doctors’ called out Joe Rogan, but the authors of the letter and the vast majority of its signatories are not medical doctors  —  Only a handful are practicing physicians.  —  Are you seeing all of those blaring corporate press headlines targeting Joe Rogan this weekend …

11 Hours of Fear, Negotiation and Finally, Relief  —  The F.B.I. identified Malik Faisal Akram, a British national, as the man who took hostages in a Texas synagogue on Saturday.  He was killed during the rescue operation.  —  Just before New Year's, a 44-year-old man from an industrial city …

Swing-district Democrats in need of a midterm reboot push leadership to break up BBB  —  House Democrats running for reelection in competitive districts, facing increasingly long odds of surviving a potential Republican wave, have confronted party leaders in recent days with demands for a new midterm strategy.

Electoral act reform picks up growing bipartisan support  —  An increasingly broad and powerful array of lawmakers is coalescing around the idea of changing how Congress tallies Electoral College votes — as MLK Day comes and goes on Monday without broader voting rights reforms.

To Honor MLK, Focus on His Actual Work  —  Stop pretending to know what he'd be like today.  —  Were he alive today, on the federal holiday celebrating his contributions to civil rights, Martin Luther King would be 93 years old.  —  Today's federal holiday was established 15 years after King was assassinated.

The Trump Org Stiffed a Hotel.  His Kids May Pay the Price.  —  The D.C. attorney general wants to drag the Trump Organization back into a lawsuit.  His evidence?  An unpaid $49,000 hotel bill.  —  Former President Donald Trump and his family company have a long history of stiffing contractors …

Democrats see good chance of Garland prosecuting Trump  —  Senate Democrats believe there is a good chance the Department of Justice will prosecute former President Trump for trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election and inciting the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol …

Marianne Williamson: A Politico or Apolitical?  —  The outsider from the 2020 presidential race ponders what's next.  —  Marianne Williamson was invoking Solzhenitsyn, Tolstoy and Thoreau, barefoot in a brownstone in Brooklyn.  “If everything you're doing is making everybody happy …

'It's ugly out there': Rail thefts leave tracks littered with pilfered packages  —  The scene was a stretch of railroad tracks in Lincoln Heights on Saturday: A blizzard of torn plastic wrappers, cardboard boxes and paper packaging attesting to a wave of rail car thievery that officials say has been on the rise in recent months.

MAGA hats and QAnon: Inside Trump's first rally of 2022  —  The former president hit all the notes in his rally in Arizona on Saturday.  The question is: Is this a precursor to a reelection bid?  —  Christie Disinger, left, and friend waiting to get into Trump's rally in Florence, Ariz., Saturday, Jan. 15, 2022.

Cowardice and misinformation at all levels have left each one of us to fight this battle alone.  —  By The Salt Lake Tribune Editorial Board  —  That wan fluttering noise you hear coming from the direction of the Capitol building is the sound of the state of Utah waving the white flag …