| Trump sidesteps awkwardness in Israel — most of it, anyway | | After landing in Israel to a warm reception, and a seeming hand swat from his wife, President Trump pushed back on a report that he divulged sensitive information to Russia. "I never mentioned the word or the name Israel," Trump said about a White House meeting this month with Russian diplomats. But the article published in "The Washington Post" never mentions Israel. News outlets later reported that Israel had provided the highly classified intelligence that was shared with the Russians, and Trump's denial on Monday seemed to confirm that Israel was the source. While in Israel, the second stop of his foreign trip, Trump found that the Western Wall in Old Jerusalem is much different than the sort he often mentions. He stood quietly before the wall, wearing a yarmulke, and slipped a prayer into its cracks. | | Flynn pleads the Fifth | | He's staying silent. Michael Flynn, whose brief gig as national security adviser now plagues the White House, won't hand over documents requested for an investigation into President Trump's associates and Russia, invoking his right against self-incrimination . Trump fired Flynn in January after it surfaced that Flynn lied about his talks with a Russian ambassador prior to the Inauguration — a deception the former acting attorney general said left Flynn open to blackmail. The Trump administration took Flynn on despite reportedly knowing he was under investigation. Vice President Pence — who led Trump's transition team — claims he had no clue. | | The Supreme Court calls N.C. district lines racially charged, so it's time for a civics refresher | | Reach back into your brain, next to the images of your eighth-grade crush, and remember your civics lesson on gerrymandering: It's when politicians redraw electoral maps to give their party the upper hand, and Republican lawmakers in North Carolina just got called out. The Supreme Court ruled Monday that race factored too much into new electoral maps that GOP legislators drew up after the 2010 Census. Lawmakers packed black voters into the state's 1st and 12th Congressional Districts, the ruling said, leaving black voters who lived elsewhere with less influence. It's the latest blow that the court's dealt to race-tinged redistricting after justices blocked several Virginia districts in March. | | Shoulda Woulda Coulda | | If Billy Bush could get in a time machine and get back on the bus with Donald Trump in 2005 when Trump bragged about grabbing women, he would have handled it differently. What he needed then but lacked, he told The Hollywood Reporter, was guts: "I wish I had changed the topic," Bush admits of the leaked "Access Hollywood" tape. "I didn't have the strength of character to do it." After the tape went public, the former co-host of NBC's "Today" was axed. He said one of the worst moments was answering the phone from his 15-year-old daughter, who called in tears asking why he was laughing at Trump on the bus. He told her, "I have no answer for that that's any good. I am really sorry." More from the interview here. |  | | Have a student loan? Listen up. | | No one likes their student loans, but millions of us deal with them as facts of our financial lives. We (try to) pay them. Sometimes we defer them. We pick up the phone and ask the companies managing our loans questions about them. Now, President Trump is overhauling how some of our loans are serviced, which will have consequences for who borrowers deal with and how. Right now the federal government uses several companies to outsource the management of loans that the Education Department issues, but Education Secretary Betsy DeVos said officials are going to hand over that work to just one company. It'll be kind of like a big bank. The White House says it's a money-saving move. Critics say not having any competition is risky, and customer service could get mega bad. It's unclear when the change will take place. | | This is a compilation of stories from across USA TODAY. | |
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