“The Taliban regained control of Afghanistan five years ago this week, returning to power after two decades and restoring an Islamic government that had severely restricted women’s rights,” the New York Times reports. “In those few years, women and girls have been systematically erased from most public life, experts say. And, some add, the limitations […]

“Francesca Hong’s Wisconsin gubernatorial campaign embraced the new era of campaigning for progressive candidates, from a social media-dominated bid to her democratic socialist-influenced policy platform,” NOTUS reports. “But part of her razor-thin loss to David Crowley on Tuesday could be explained by the traditional, or a lack thereof: broadcast TV ad spending.” “Despite leading the […]

Comedian Shane Gillis appeared on the Joe Rogan Experience: GILLIS: Trump’s selling faster access to his tweets and then you can bet on the markets. It’s literally insider trading. ROGAN: Wait a minute, is that real? How is that legal? Who’s telling him this is a good idea? $100K to get early tweets? That’s literally […]

“Graham Platner, the embattled former Democratic nominee for the Senate in Maine, was named as a speaker at a Labor Day rally in Maine next month in what would be one of his first public appearances since he took his name off the ballot in July,” NBC News reports. Washington Post: Graham Platner to speak […]

“House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) on Thursday signaled that Democrats would look to overhaul the Supreme Court if they regain power in Washington, nodding to his party’s long-running frustration with the court’s rightward turn,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

Wall Street Journal: “The scene capped a nearly yearlong effort to reunite Trump and Musk following the breakup of one of the most unusual and significant political alliances in modern American history.” “It involved back-channel phone calls, coaxing from mutual friends, invites to Mar-a-Lago and a White House soiree. The reunion was also nudged forward […]

A new Fox News poll in Ohio finds Sherrod Brown (D) leading Sen. Jon Husted (R) in the race for Senate, 53% to 45%, a margin unchanged since June.

A new Fox News poll in Michigan finds Mike Rogers (R) has the edge in the Senate race Abdul El-Sayed (D), 51% to 47%, within the survey’s margin of sampling error.

“President Trump’s top political hands had some surprising advice for Senate Republicans last week: Talk more about health care,” Axios reports. “Why it matters: Trump and the MAGA base are fixated on the voter-ID and proof-of-citizenship SAVE Act. But Republican message testing from Trump’s own pollster suggests candidates are better off focusing elsewhere.”

Vanity Fair: “Every summer the Eastern Seaboard’s sandy hotspots fill up with high-flying politicos, but in today’s anti-elite moment, they’ve got to raise their big money under the radar.”

CNN: “It’s become Washington’s hottest new parlor game: Who will be Karoline Leavitt’s successor?” “Names started circulating at dinner tables and over text chains after President Donald Trump announced on Wednesday his press secretary’s plans to depart at the end of the month to spend more time with her young family, upending his press operation […]

“President Donald Trump ordered the Navy to return to using steam catapults to launch planes off of aircraft carriers, acting on a longtime complaint despite opposition from many naval officers,” Bloomberg reports. “In a presidential memorandum, Trump ordered Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to come up with a plan within 60 days on what would be […]

“The U.S. has received several warnings from Israel over the past year that Iran intended to assassinate President Donald Trump, ​including before a secret Air Force One ruse in Turkey, that U.S. intelligence officials could not independently verify,” Reuters reports.

“Hugh Hefner reportedly notified the FBI that a Playboy Playmate was sexually abused and trafficked by disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein and others in his orbit,” NewsNation reports. “Court records state that Hefner was told by then-Playboy Playmate Audra Christiansen in 2005 that she was an Epstein survivor and requested the Playboy founder call the FBI, […]

Multiple insiders tell the Daily Mail that White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt’s decision to quit “has actually been months in the making — and deeply pained.” Said one insider: “It was a very stressful job to do with her children. She never got any sleep, and she didn’t want her performance to slip either, […]

“The U.S. military has lost at least 45 MQ-9 Reaper drones during the war with Iran, or roughly 25 percent of its fleet,” the Washington Post reports. “The Reaper is used to conduct surveillance and targeted strikes, and it can cost between $30 million and $50 million depending on the type of sensors and weapons […]

“In the Supreme Court term that ended in June, President Trump suffered three stinging losses,” the New York Times reports. “Or were they merely temporary setbacks?” “Trump has said that none of the three rulings — on tariffs, the Federal Reserve and birthright citizenship — will stand in his way. Other paths exist, he said, […]

“The Trump administration is encouraging American companies to conduct their own cyberattacks against criminal hackers, a move that White House officials say will help address digital scourges like ransomware but that some former officials and security experts warn could lead to chaos,” the New York Times reports. “Under a national security memorandum that President Trump […]

“Back in March, Senate Republicans were hopeful the war in Iran would last only a matter of weeks — a limited operation that would allow gas prices to fall back in place and avoid the prospect of a conflict dragging closer to the midterm elections,” NOTUS reports. “Nearly six months on, the protracted war has […]

“On about 40 mornings each year, the justices take their seats behind the Supreme Court’s majestic mahogany bench to hear oral arguments,” the New York Times reports. “Part interrogation of the lawyers before them and part conversation among the justices, those sessions are not as important as the written briefs submitted by the parties. But […]

Dr. Jonathan Reiner, former Vice President Cheney’s cardiologist, says that President Trump “has not looked well” during his second term, The Hill reports. Wrote Reiner, in the New York Times: “Despite reassurances from the White House to the contrary, at times over the past year, the president has not looked well. I am not Mr. […]

“Senator Jon Ossoff of Georgia is slated to meet with political donors in the Hamptons later this month for his November reelection bid, a fundraising swing that will also allow the Wall Street set a chance to vet him as a potential 2028 presidential candidate,” Bloomberg reports.

“President Donald Trump devoted more of his public remarks this year to his construction projects than virtually any other major issue facing his administration — except the Iran war, according to a new analysis,” Mediaite reports. “PolitiFact examined Trump’s recorded public remarks from January through July after its reporters noticed the president repeatedly returning to […]

“The board of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts voted on Thursday to inscribe President Trump’s name on the building beneath the main signage, aggressively testing a federal judge’s order to remove it,” the New York Times reports. “According to the resolution approved by the Trump-allied board, the inscription underneath the institution’s […]

The Economist: “There is no evidence that vaccines cause autism. Nor is there evidence that spreading out vaccines is beneficial. In fact, doing so increases the window in which kids are vulnerable to infection. Doctors’ groups, therefore, lined up to denounce the order…” “The good news, then, is that Mr Trump’s order will have little […]

“U.S. military leaders are privately raising concerns inside the Pentagon and the White House about low morale and widespread fatigue among American service members who’ve been deployed for months to support the war with Iran,” NBC News reports. “Amid the concerns, the Pentagon plans to replace one of two aircraft carriers deployed in the Middle […]

“The East Wing is gone, a new helipad is spreading across the lawn, and scaffolding wraps the White House’s front columns, but the price tags for President Trump’s renovations are far less obvious,” Axios reports. “The muddled mix of funding streams — whether from private donors, the president himself or taxpayers — has fueled ethical […]

“Four days after Alex Pretti was fatally shot while filming officers taking part in the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in Minnesota, the Homeland Security Department quietly opened an investigation at its office in St. Paul,” the New York Times reports. “The target was not the Border Patrol agents who had killed Mr. Pretti, a 37-year-old […]

“The White House has accused more than 40 countries, including Canada, Mexico and Japan, of helping Beijing illegally avoid U.S. tariffs by rerouting trade through nations subject to lower American import duties than China,” the Financial Times reports.

The Economist: “Iowa has voted solidly Republican at the state and federal level for more than a decade. Republicans have dominated the state legislature since 2016; no Democrat has won the governorship since 2006, a Senate seat since 2008 or a congressional race since 2020. In the most recent presidential election, Donald Trump carried the […]