TOP STORIES

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Monday, December 23

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DAMNING PETE FUNDRAISER EMAILS One of Pete Buttigieg’s top fundraisers reportedly offered at least one wealthy prospective donor the opportunity for increased influence with the Democratic presidential candidate in exchange for large monetary contributions. [HuffPost]

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13 PEOPLE SHOT AT CHICAGO HOUSE PARTY A shooting early Sunday at a house party held in honor of someone killed in April left 13 people wounded, four of them critically, Chicago police said. The shooting stemmed from a dispute at the memorial party, Chief of Patrol Fred Waller said. [AP]

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SAUDI ARABIA CONDEMNS 5 IN KHASHOGGI MURDER  Saudi Arabia has sentenced five people to death for the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in a plot the U.S. has linked to the Saudi crown prince. Ten defendants were released due to insufficient evidence. The trials were secret and the names of the condemned men were not released. [AP]

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TRUMP VACATION PUSHES TAXPAYER GOLF TAB ABOVE $118 MILLION  President Donald Trump has pushed his taxpayer-funded golf tab past $118 million on his 26th visit to Mar-a-Lago, his for-profit resort in Palm Beach, Florida. The new total is the equivalent of 296 years of the $400,000 presidential salary that his supporters often boast that he is not taking. [HuffPost]

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TRUMP INVITES BORIS JOHNSON TO WHITE HOUSE Trump has reportedly invited British Prime Minister Boris Johnson to visit him in the White House in the new year. Trump’s invitation was made after Johnson's election win this month. Britain wants to strike a new trade deal with the United States after it leaves the European Union at the end of January. [Reuters]

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CUBA NAMES FIRST PRIME MINISTER IN OVER 40 YEARS Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel named Tourism Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz as the country’s first prime minister since 1976 — a nomination quickly confirmed by the country’s parliament. Marrero, 56, has been tourism minister for 16 years. [AP]

WHAT'S BREWING

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AUSTRALIAN PM DOUBLES DOWN ON CLIMATE POLICY Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison doubled down on his government’s climate policy Monday in the wake of a record-breaking heat wave and a devastating weekend of wildfires. Rejecting pleas to downsize the nation's massive coal industry, Morrison also attempted to stem criticism for his decision to take a holiday in Hawaii as wildfires raged in Australia. [HuffPost]

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TRUMP AIMING TO USE IMPEACHMENT TO REV UP BASE Using stark “us vs. them” language, President Donald Trump and his reelection campaign have begun framing his impeachment not as a judgment on his conduct, but as a referendum on how Democrats regard him and his supporters. [AP]

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THE UNIQUE FUNDRAISING BARRIERS FOR FEMALE CANDIDATES Whereas men running for office tend to feel more entitled to campaign donations — and be more likely to run in circles with big donors to get them — women are generally less comfortable asking for money when doing so on behalf of themselves, experts say. [HuffPost]

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CHRISTIANITY TODAY ED REVEALS WHEN TRUMP 'CROSSED THE LINE' Christianity Today editor-in-chief Mark Galli said Trump has crossed a moral line ― his “bad character” now outweighs the advantages he offers to the evangelical community. [HuffPost]

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GOP GUNNING TO GUT HEALTH CARE A federal appeals court has declared a key element of the Affordable Care Act unconstitutional, putting the entire law in jeopardy. According to the lawsuit, Trump and the Republicans rendered the law’s “individual mandate” unconstitutional when, as part of the 2017 tax cut, they reduced the mandate’s financial penalty to zero. And if the mandate is unconstitutional, the lawsuit claims, the entire law must go. [HuffPost]

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DEATH OF A FREELANCER In spring 2014, 23-year-old Christopher Allen told his nervous U.S. family that he was traveling to Ukraine to report on the explosion of the Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur. Few of the news organizations Allen worked for thereafter as a war reporter made any comment when he was killed just a few years later. [HuffPost]

BEFORE YOU GO