it's monday night, it's blossoms shanghai night www.criterionchannel.com/blossoms-sha...

“Bluntly, the taxpayers of D.C. are being screwed by this,” said Kirk McClure, a professor emeritus for the public affairs school at the University of Kansas and a former loan underwriter for the Massachusetts Housing Finance Agency. www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/int...

Nursing home magnate Joseph Schwartz was sentenced in April to three years for defrauding the government of $38 million. Seven months later, President Trump pardoned him, but the White House denies a lobbying tie.

Nursing home magnate Joseph Schwartz paid nearly $1 million to right-wing provocateurs Jack Burkman and Jacob Wohl — who noted on their lobbying filing that they were “seeking a federal pardon” — per lobbying disclosures. Trump ultimately granted Schwartz a pardon. wapo.st/4igndux

In an era defined by political divisions and massive wealth accumulation for the richest Americans, billionaires are spending unprecedented amounts on U.S. politics. As a result, politicians are more dependent on their donations than ever before.

GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene announces she is resigning from House www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

Fox announced a massive new podcast on the life of Jesus starring Kristen Bell as the voice of Mary Magdalene. Bell was blindsided by the announcement saying she recorded the audio for a separate project 15 years ago.

Coast Guard "will no longer classify the swastika, an emblem of fascism and white supremacy inextricably linked to the murder of millions of Jews and that more than 400,000 U.S. troops died fighting against in World War II, as a hate symbol," per new policy taking effect next month wapo.st/3Mbd9a6

Jeffrey Epstein appeared to text with Del. Stacey Plaskett (D-Virgin Islands) during Michael Cohen's 2019 congressional hearing and may have influenced her questions. Text message time-stamp match up with hearing video reviewed by The Washington Post. www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

NEW: Epstein appeared to text with House member during Cohen hearing, documents show. Gift link: wapo.st/4nVTnfY

In a rare group statement, U.S. Catholic bishops voted nearly unanimously to condemn the Trump administration’s crackdown on undocumented immigrants as an attack on “God-given human dignity” and advocated for “meaningful reform of our nation’s immigration laws” www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2025/...

New: The Supreme Court DENIES Kim Davis' request to overturn Obergefell, the marriage equality decision. No noted dissents. www.supremecourt.gov/orders/court...

NSO Group says investor group led by Hollywood producer Robert Simonds has taken controlling stake of company, and Trump’s first-term ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, named executive chairman www.wsj.com/tech/israeli...

Timeline cleanse: The full story of how A-ha emerged from the Norwegian tundra with the ultimate ’80s pop song, and its unexpected afterlife @gedge1.bsky.social wapo.st/4oobhco

New: The FBI is quietly urging ICE agents to properly ID themselves in the field. In a bulletin to law enforcement last month, it warned of criminals posing as ICE to rob, rape, kidnap—a problem it says now demands national coordination to confront. By me & @carolinehaskins.bsky.social:

D.C. ‘sandwich guy’ goes on trial, says prosecution is half-baked www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/202...

👀 The NRA is furloughing dozens of staff and restructuring operations www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

BREAKING: "Federal officials have charged Maryland state Sen. Dalya Attar, a Democrat from Baltimore, on extortion and conspiracy charges, according to public court filings." www.washingtonpost.com/national-sec...

The Jerskin Fendrix is a late(ish, I guess) album of the year shout. I think an album about the profoundest grief, by someone who is genuinely very very funny, is exactly what the doctor ordered

Scoop - Trump has fired all the sitting members on the Commission on Fine Arts, an independent agency expected to review his construction projects.

Exclusive: The Indian government allegedly directed $3.9 billion from the state-owned Life Insurance Corporation to India’s second richest man Gautam Adani’s businesses amid the mogul’s legal and financial challenges, a Post investigation reveals.

Turned in the badge today. My colleagues and I will stay on the beat, but in a new way. The work continues. Danlamothe.30

At ASPR, analysts with top-secret clearances who work with intelligence agencies on biodefense, emerging CBRN threats, were fired. They focused on threats from “state actors, any type of threat, whether it it’s intentional or accidental,” said a former HHS official. 4/4.

omg @this.peculiar.day did a simit photoshoot www.ft.com/content/d413...

👀 A new FARA filing lays out strategy by a firm hired by Israel's foreign ministry to geofence US churches and Christian colleges to deliver "targeted pro-Israel content and sympathetic anti-Hamas messaging to engaged audiences" in the "largest Christian Church Geofencing Campaign in US History"

Jane Goodall has died at 91. Her startling observations about chimpanzee behaviors revolutionized not only scientific understanding of the capabilities and inner lives of primates, but also long-held notions about what it means to be human. https://wapo.st/476clLO

Wow this opinion storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

Exclusive: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered hundreds of generals to travel on short notice from around the world to hear him make a short speech on military standards and the “warrior ethos.”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered hundreds of the U.S. military’s generals and admirals to gather on short notice — and without a stated reason — at a Marine Corps base in Virginia next week, sowing confusion and alarm after firings of senior leaders www.washingtonpost.com/national-sec...

“A reporter who publishes only what the government ‘authorizes’ is doing something other than reporting,” said @katiefallow.bsky.social www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...

D.C. Council passes measure to allow covid vaccine without a prescription www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/202...

whaaaaat there's a new season of futurama?!?

‘It was me’: Suspect in Charlie Kirk shooting appears to confess in Discord chat wapo.st/4gop4MV

"Trump health officials plan to link coronavirus vaccines to the deaths of 25 children as they consider limiting which Americans should get the shots, according to four people familiar with the situation who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe confidential information." wapo.st/47LFKvL

NEW: A video enhanced by The Washington Post shows a person running across a roof overlooking the courtyard where Charlie Kirk was fatally shot seconds earlier. Gift link: wapo.st/4n46a0y

Jeffrey Epstein’s estate has given Congress a copy of the 2003 birthday book, including the letter with Trump’s signature that he has said doesn’t exist. Read more: 🔗 on.wsj.com/4nGGdnJ

Business Insider yanked 40 essays with suspect bylines. A @washingtonpost.com probe into these mass retractions found key links between the bogus writer “Margaux Blanchard” and another individual, suggesting a broader scheme. Here’s what I found: www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...

"D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) on Tuesday welcomed federal law enforcement officials to stay in D.C. indefinitely, a powerful indication of her willingness to cooperate with President Donald Trump’s effort to take over public safety in the capital city." www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

Exclusive: The Justice Department gave some senior career attorneys a choice: They could either quit or go to a new Sanctuary Cities Enforcement working group. Six months later, all of those attorneys have left DOJ. “The assignment was a sham,” one said.

Judge John D. Bates in opinion yesterday greenlighting Jan. 6 defendant's recovery of money paid for sentence: "Sometimes a judge is called upon to do what the law requires, even if it may seem at odds with what justice or one’s initial instincts might warrant." ecf.dcd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/show...

Federal agents arrest firefighters working on WA wildfire

Update — hearing that the White House has formally fired Monarez, per two admin sources. Monarez's lawyers said earlier tonight she had neither resigned nor been fired

Before Trump’s Alaska summit, a top CIA expert worked grueling hours to make sure Trump + team were briefed. Four days later, she was told she lost her clearance despite expecting a prestigious assignment. In a span of minutes, her 29-yr career in public service was essentially over. wapo.st/3JVtsXq

SCOOP BREAKING: CDC director being ousted weeks into job. Me @ddiamond @LaurenWeberHP www.washingtonpost.com/health/2025/...

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has fired Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kruse, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency www.washingtonpost.com/national-sec...

Gonna start signing all my hottest takes like this federal judge: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

ICE aims to spend millions on decked-out vehicles for D.C. operation www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/202...

Hope you'll read this piece, which we spent months reporting out. Gift link: wapo.st/4mdwa91

Breaking news: President Trump announced that he would place the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department under direct federal control and deploy the National Guard to the streets of D.C. to fight crime and clear the city of its homeless population.