Politics

Gallup reports: From 2014 to 2017, an average of 39% of Catholics reported attending church in the past seven days. This is down from an average of 45% from 2005 to 2008 and represents a steep decline from 75% in 1955. By contrast, the 45% of Protestants who reported attending church weekly from 2014 to 2017 is essentially unchanged from …

Politico reports: President Donald Trump’s attacks on the mainstream media may be rooted in statistical reality: An extensive review of subscription data and election results shows that Trump outperformed the previous Republican nominee, Mitt Romney, in counties with the lowest numbers of news subscribers, but didn’t do nearly as well in areas with heavier circulation. POLITICO’s findings — which put …

CNN reports: The US has not ruled out launching airstrikes against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime in response to the weekend’s suspected chemical gas attack on civilians, Defense Secretary James Mattis said Monday. “I don’t rule out anything right now,” Mattis said while hosting Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani, the emir of Qatar, at the Pentagon. “The first thing we …

The New York Times reports: Todd Brassner, who died in a fire at Trump Tower on Saturday, loved fast cars, electric guitars, expensive watches and making long, erudite pronouncements about art and art history. He was an art dealer with health problems and a 2015 bankruptcy that listed his apartment as the location of more than $3 million worth of …

Axios reports: Christopher Wylie, the former Cambridge Analytica employee who sounded the alarm on the firm illicitly obtaining user data from Facebook, told Meet the Press’ Chuck Todd that Steve Bannon “absolutely wanted to use [the data] for Republican candidates … [and] alt-right candidates in the United States.” Wylie also said he’s been contacted by American authorities — both from …

Reuters reports: The United Nations Security Council is likely to meet Monday afternoon over the recent chemical attack in Syria at the request of the United States and several other members, diplomats said on Sunday. A joint statement by the medical relief organization Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS) and the civil defense service, which operates in rebel-held areas, said 49 …

Mediaite reports: CNN’s Brian Stelter today opened by talking about how President Trump‘s “addiction to Fox” is having a lot of real-world consequences. He brought up the past week of big news on immigration and troops being sent to the border, following the President’s tweet after watching a segment on Fox News. “The line where Fox News ends and where …

ABC News New York reports: Investigators are trying to determine the cause of a fire at Trump Tower in Midtown that left one man dead. The four-alarm fire broke out on the 50th floor just after 5:30 p.m. Saturday. The fire was placed under control approximately two hours later. Firefighters pulled Todd Brassner, 67, from the 50th floor of the …

ABC News reports: A man died after being pulled from a four-alarm blaze on the 50th floor of the Trump Tower in New York Saturday evening. The unidentified 67-year-old man was unconscious and unresponsive when he was removed from the Midtown skyscraper and rushed to Mount Sinai Roosevelt Hospital. He was initially listed in critical condition, but pronounced dead later …

Since Trump’s election tens of millions of Americans have turned out in the streets in the largest protests seen in decades. Today the Washington Post breaks down the numbers: One in five Americans have protested in the streets or participated in political rallies since the beginning of 2016. Of those, 19 percent said they had never before joined a march …

The Hill reports: Stormy Daniels’ lawyer Michael Avenatti said on Saturday morning that he has a “major announcement” about a person who allegedly threatened Daniels to keep quiet about her alleged affair with President Trump. Daniels claimed in an interview with CBS’s “60 Minutes” last month that someone had threatened her while she was with her daughter to keep quiet …

ThinkProgress reports: The steel and aluminum industries in China will soon be slapped with tariffs up to $50 billion by President Donald Trump. On Thursday, after China announced their intentions to retaliate against the United States with $50 billion in tariffs of their own against U.S. goods, Trump warned that his administration would respond with another set of tariffs, this …

Bloomberg Law reports: The U.S. Department of Homeland Security wants to monitor hundreds of thousands of news sources around the world and compile a database of journalists, editors, foreign correspondents, and bloggers to identify top “media influencers.” It’s seeking a contractor that can help it monitor traditional news sources as well as social media and identify “any and all” coverage …

In a letter to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, scandal-ridden GOP US House Rep. Blake Farenthold abruptly resigned today, effective 5PM. His letter includes this laughable line: “I’m able to look my on my entirety of my career in public service and say that it was well worthwhile.” Farenthold announced his retirement last December in the wake of multiple sexual harassment …

The Deseret News reports: Romney, who harshly criticized Trump over the years, said he supports much of what the president has done such as cutting taxes, rolling back business regulations and reducing the size of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments in southern Utah. An audience member asked Romney if he would give the same scathing speech about Trump …

Via press release from PETA: As President Trump deploys National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexico border to help keep asylum-seekers out, PETA is warning people about the presence of “undesirables” much closer to home and pointing the finger at trophy hunter Donald Trump Jr. The group plans to run billboards in the border towns of El Paso and Laredo, Texas, …

Ars Technica reports: Maryland Governor Larry Hogan allegedly had a habit of blocking Facebook users and deleting comments when people criticized him, but a lawsuit has forced him to adopt a more open social media policy. Four Maryland residents sued the Republican governor in a US District Court in August 2017, with help from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) …

Mother Jones reports: Maryland became the 12th state to enact automatic voter registration on Thursday after Republican Gov. Larry Hogan declined to veto a bill that had passed the Democratic-controlled legislature. Maryland has half a million unregistered voters, according to a 2017 report by the department of legislative services. Maryland’s adoption of automatic registration comes as lawmakers in blue and …

The Washington Post reports: Former congressman Mike Espy said on his website Friday that he wants to rise above party and partisan wrangling as he pursues the seat longtime Republican Sen. Thad Cochran resigned from on April 1 due to failing health. Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant appointed the state’s Commissioner of Agriculture and Commerce Cindy Hyde-Smith to the seat. But …

The New York Times reports: At least five officials at the Environmental Protection Agency, four of them high-ranking, were reassigned or demoted, or requested new jobs in the past year after they raised concerns about the spending and management of the agency’s administrator, Scott Pruitt. The concerns included unusually large spending on office furniture and first-class travel, as well as …