A small fire that burned curtains and forced the evacuation of the Comet Ping Pong pizza shop Wednesday night in Northwest Washington was intentionally set, according to D.C. police and fire officials.

A police report says investigators found several burned matches on the floor under where the curtain had hung in a backroom. The report says they also found a box of matches and an open, partially full plastic bottle of lighter fluid on a table.

If his health care innovations work, Newsom could emerge as a hero of the Democratic Party.

By Victoria Colliver @ Politico.com, Jan. 27

[....] Unlike the other 2020 candidates pushing universal health care, Newsom’s policies aren’t just theoretical Washington talk, so there’s much more at risk. If his innovations in expanding Obamacare, extending Medicaid to undocumented immigrants — itself a jab at Trump’s hard-line immigration policies — and negotiating lower drug prices work, he could emerge as a hero of the Democratic Party. His policies could be templates for candidates pushing ahead on universal health care — an aspiration shared by Democrats even if they are still divided on what specific policies to pursue and how quickly to pursue them [....]

@ NBCNewYork.com, Jan. 22

On Dec. 14, 2012, 20-year-old Adam Lanza walked into Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, and opened fire. He killed 20 children no older than 7 and six adult staff members before turning the gun on himself; earlier that day, he killed his mother, Hundreds of documents from his childhood were just released; we asked experts if there's a lesson in there to identify early risk factors.

Conspicuous by its absence in much of the mainstream news coverage of Venezuela’s political crisis is the word “socialism.” Yes, every sensible observer agrees that Latin America’s once-richest country, sitting atop the world’s largest proven oil reserves, is an economic basket case, a humanitarian disaster, and a dictatorship whose demise cannot come soon enough. But … socialist? Perish the thought.

Donald Trump’s domestic troubles, combined with the current makeup of his foreign policy team, provide a confluence of circumstances, perhaps a perfect storm, to pull the United States into a war with Iran.

A Russia hawk, A. Wess Mitchell helped reassure U.S. allies worried about the president’s relationship with Putin.