Thursday's Headlines: House majority whip in critical condition after horrific ballfield shooting

'Hit the ground!' A single crack. An explosion of gunfire. And near third base, a man with a rifle.; After attack on lawmakers, calls for unity vie with recriminations and finger-pointing; Angry with Trump and GOP, attacker spent last few weeks in Virginia near site of shooting ; Special counsel starts investigating Trump for possible obstruction of justice, officials say; Senate overwhelmingly votes to curtail Trump's power to ease Russia sanctions; Trump's decision to delegate Afghan war decisions to the Pentagon sparks scrutiny;   Democracy Dies in Darkness     The morning's most important stories, selected by Post editors   Top Stories House majority whip in critical condition after horrific ballfield shooting A gunman, later identified as James T. Hodgkinson of Belleville, Ill., fired a barrage of shots at a park in Alexandria, Va., as Republican members of Congress held a baseball practice. House Majority Whip Steve Scalise was in critical condition, and five others were wounded. By Peter Hermann, Amber Phillips, Paul Kane and Rachel Weiner  •  Read more » 'Hit the ground!' A single crack. An explosion of gunfire. And near third base, a man with a rifle. The Republican lawmakers and their aides had nearly finished batting practice when they heard a single crack in the air. For a moment, the field went quiet as they wondered what the noise was. By John Woodrow Cox, Kelsey Snell, Mike DeBonis and Peter Jamison  •  Read more »   The Take | Analysis After attack on lawmakers, calls for unity vie with recriminations and finger-pointing It took only hours for a crime scene to turn into a symbol of the tensions between angry politics and the better angels of the American people. By Dan Balz  •  Read more »   Angry with Trump and GOP, attacker spent last few weeks in Virginia near site of shooting James Hodgkinson, once a volunteer for Sen. Bernie Sanders, apparently stayed in the Alexandria area and repeatedly visited a YMCA across from the area where Republican lawmakers practiced. By Ann E. Marimow, Patricia Sullivan, Shawn Boburg and Tom Jackman  •  Read more »   ADVERTISEMENT   Special counsel starts investigating Trump for possible obstruction of justice, officials say The move by Robert S. Mueller III to investigate President Trump's own conduct marks a major turning point in the nearly year-old FBI investigation. Investigators have also been looking for any evidence of possible financial crimes among Trump associates, officials said. By Devlin Barrett, Adam Entous, Ellen Nakashima and Sari Horwitz  •  Read more »   Senate overwhelmingly votes to curtail Trump's power to ease Russia sanctions In a sharp rebuke to the president's posture on Russia, 97 senators voted to give Congress the chance to block any efforts by the president to roll back sanctions without lawmakers' consent. By Karoun Demirjian and Anne Gearan  •  Read more »   Trump's decision to delegate Afghan war decisions to the Pentagon sparks scrutiny Defense Secretary Jim Mattis assured lawmakers Wednesday that a large increase in deployed forces will not happen, but some experts and former commanders warned that the White House and Congress should be careful not to give the Pentagon a blank check. By Thomas Gibbons-Neff and Dan Lamothe  •  Read more »   Opinions   The GOP's fantastically anti-democratic quest to kill health care in the dark By E.J. Dionne Jr.  •  Read more »   What the London fire tells us about the crisis of Western democracy By Christian Caryl  •  Read more »   Each of us has the power to exploit the baseball shooting. What happens next matters. By Charles Lane  •  Read more »   Among this year's proud college graduates: Maximum-security prison inmates By George F. Will  •  Read more »   A madman's bullets put a partisan Congress on the same team — at least for a while By Dana Milbank  •  Read more »   The shooting at a GOP baseball practice was an assault on democracy By Editorial Board  •  Read more » ADVERTISEMENT   More News   London fire chief: It would be an 'absolute miracle for anyone to be left alive' The number of missing is unknown and firefighters are now searching the burnt-out husk of the building for victims. By Griff Witte and Karla Adam  •  Read more » North Korea says it released Warmbier 'on humanitarian grounds' The American student is now being treated at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center, in his home town, after being evacuated on a U.S. military medical plane Tuesday. By Anna Fifield  •  Read more » Federal judge orders environmental review of Dakota Access pipeline The decision handed a limited victory to Native American tribes in North Dakota that had challenged the Trump administration's effort to speed the project. By Spencer S. Hsu  •  Read more » Trump set to unveil new Cuba policy after promising to reverse Obama's 'bad deal' The administration's changes are likely to leave in place the basic components of the Obama moves — opening diplomatic relations, along with conditioned trade and travel — while tightening each in ways that will complicate but not undo them, according to administration officials. By Karen DeYoung and Nick Miroff  •  Read more » Wonkblog These are the people who suffered when Kansas’s conservative experiment failed The combination of deep tax cuts and austere spending was supposed to ignite economic growth and reduce dependency. That didn't happen, leaving many families to deal with the consequences. By Ana Swanson and Max Ehrenfreund  •  Read more » Turkish guards will be charged in embassy protests, officials say D.C. officials are expected to announce criminal charges against 12 members of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's security detail Thursday. By Peter Hermann  •  Read more » Bill Cosby's fate hangs in the balance as weary jury seems intent on replaying the whole trial In ways large and small, the stress and fatigue of the marathon last leg of the entertainer's sex assault trial were showing late Wednesday as deliberations stretched into a third day without a verdict. By Manuel Roig-Franzia  •  Read more »         Share Today's Headlines:       Twitter      Facebook Trouble reading? Click here to view in your browser. You received this email because you are signed up for Headlines. For additional free newsletters or to manage your newsletters, click here. We respect your privacy. 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