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The Washington Post Co. has agreed to sell its flagship newspaper to Amazon.com founder and chief executive Jeffrey P. Bezos, ending the Graham family’s stewardship of one of America’s leading news organizations after four generations. Bezos, whose entrepreneurship has made him one of the world’s richest men, will pay $250 million in cash for The Post and affiliated publications to the Washington Post Co., which owns the newspaper and other businesses. Seattle-based Amazon will have no role in the purchase; Bezos himself will buy the news organization and become its sole owner when the sale is completed, probably within 60...

THERE is something missing from the endless moralizing and sophomoric jokes aimed at Anthony D. Weiner. That something is the role of women in a coarse and creepy Internet culture dedicated to the fulfillment of both male and female desires for virtual carnal knowledge. People ask how Mr. Weiner’s wife, the soulfully beautiful and professionally accomplished Huma Abedin, can stay with him. My question is why hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of women apparently derive gratification from exchanging sexual talk and pictures with strangers. These women are not victims of men like Mr. Weiner (or of ordinary, obscure sex...

Anthony Weiner’s spokeswoman, Barbara Morgan, issued an apology tonight after a profanity-laced interview with Talking Points Memo, in which she described a former campaign intern as a fame hungry “bitch” and “slutbag” who “sucked” at her job. Ms. Morgan said that she believed the conversation, in which she also threatened to sue the young woman, was off the record. “In a moment of frustration, I used inappropriate language in what I thought was an off the record conversation,” Ms. Morgan said in a statement. “It was wrong and I am very sorry, which is what I said tonight when I...

Huma Abedin, Hillary Clinton’s transition office chief and the wife of embattled New York City mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner, is expected to take extended vacation time from her job with the former first lady in the coming days, sources told POLITICO. The move is not a leave of absence, two sources familiar with the move insisted, and it’s not precisely clear when she will depart for her vacation time from her day job. Continue Reading Text Size - + reset The good wives club Latest on POLITICO A look at Amazon's taxes Abedin likely to be away from Clinton Why...

My reasons for joining Anthony Weiner’s mayoral campaign were not complicated. Since high school, I had interned for political campaigns in New Jersey. One morning, several of my friends sent me links to the same online ad for the Weiner campaign, seeking applications for internships. They thought it would be educational and entertaining. How right they were. My education began very quickly. “I’m here because of Huma,” Clay Adam Wade, a junior staffer, explained to me. The sentiment was repeated to me again by some fellow interns. Their hope was to make a connection with Weiner’s wife, Huma Abedin, and...

As Anthony D. Weiner tries to repair the damage left by new revelations about his online behavior with women, one question nags at voters and those who once supported him: Why did he do it? Why did Mr. Weiner, who already forfeited his Congressional seat and imperiled his marriage, return to social media sites and send explicit messages and photos to strangers? Did he discount the risks to his family, his reputation and his career, or not understand them? His pattern of behavior is intriguing to mental health professionals and experts on sexual behavior, who — while they emphasize they...

Publicly, Huma Abedin said she loves and forgives her husband, Anthony Weiner, despite a second round of sexting revelations. But a source close to the couple tells PEOPLE she thought of leaving him last fall when Abedin, 36, learned that Weiner, 48, was once again sending sexually explicit messages and photos of himself to other women. "He came clean to her," says the source, who is a family member. When he did, Abedin was distraught. "She was seriously considering what to do, thinking: 'Maybe, I can't do this.' There was a possibility of leaving on the table," the source says....

<p>In a new sign of tumult within Anthony D. Weiner’s embattled political operation, his campaign manager has quit, leaving his already skeletal team without a day-to-day leader.</p>

* But even if the Senate legislation favored by Obama became law tomorrow, more than one in four illegal immigrants would remain undocumented and outside the system, according to federal estimates. That gap worries many reform proponents, who fear that the system would leave millions living in the shadows without legal protection. They would also be subject to harsher workplace requirements and enforcement measures included in the plan. “We are very disappointed with that number because we really want to reform the system once and for all and make sure we legalize all people who are not committing crimes,” said...

Huma Abedin, the wife of New York mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner, AKA Carlos Danger, is facing an ongoing Senate investigation into the consulting fees she earned while also working as a State Department employee for then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) has been investigating Abedin’s activities as a paid consultant while she was still working for Clinton toward the end of her tenure. In June, 2012, Abedin changed her employment status at the State Department from being a full time employee with the title of deputy chief of staff to being a “special government employee,” a...

I KNOW an old woman who hasn’t opened her windows in a decade, afraid that what’s outside will climb inside. Inside, there is the stale odor of dead air. I know another woman who called me about a corpse lying outside her window for six and a half hours. This was because of cutbacks at the morgue. No dignity in death here. They do it better in Baghdad. The latest trend? When a person is murdered, he is thrown into an abandoned house, and it is set on fire. There are tens of thousands to choose from. I know of...

When Anthony Weiner was driven from the halls of Congress because of his penchant for tweeting photos of his nether regions to women who were not his wife, it was pretty clear that his reputation would accompany his political career down the toilet. What was less clear was that he might inadvertently flush his wife’s reputation as well. Yet I couldn’t help but think that that is precisely what is happening as I watched their incredibly uncomfortable press conference on Tuesday. The scene was so familiar it was almost cliché. The wronged wife standing next to her wrongdoing hubby in...

Organizers have canceled a gun buyback at the request of Boulder County Sheriff Joe Pelle, who said Colorado's new gun laws would make the Aug. 4 event nearly impossible to stage. "The bottom line is what we anticipated doing would still be legal -- but procedurally we can't follow through with it at this time," Pelle said Tuesday. A stricter law that went into effect July 1 requires buyers to go to a licensed firearms dealer and undergo a background check. The InstaCheck systems used in the checks are not mobile, which means they couldn't be used at the sheriff's...

OZARK, Mo. — This summer, Marty the Magician got a letter from the U.S. government. It began with six ominous words: “Dear Members of Our Regulated Community . . .” Washington had questions about his rabbit. Again. Marty Hahne, 54, does magic shows for kids in southern Missouri. For his big finale, he pulls a rabbit out of a hat. Or out of a picnic basket. Or out of a tiny library, if he’s doing his routine about reading being magical. To do that, Hahne has an official U.S. government license. Not for the magic. For the rabbit. The Agriculture Department requires...

The Senate inched closer to an eleventh-hour deal late Monday night in a bid to avert an unprecedented maneuver to change the chamber’s rules governing presidential appointees, with nearly all 100 senators spending more than three hours huddled in a rare bipartisan, closed-door caucus. Rank-and-file senators came out of the meeting reporting progress on the confirmation prospects of President Obama’s selections to head low-profile but influential agencies. Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) echoed that sentiment but said no resolution had been reached, leaving in place a critical 10 a.m. Tuesday vote that would set up the historic clash over...

The agency that manages 375 million square feet of federal office space is moving back to its newly renovated headquarters in downtown Washington, where its employees are finding that their personal real estate footprint has been radically altered. They now have to work in less than half the space they once had. The long corridors, closed-door offices and high cubicles that have always defined the culture of the federal workplace have given way to open spaces filled with industrial white desks that most employees must now reserve like hotel rooms. Employees badge in at the lobby turnstile so their bosses...

Officials at Guantanamo Bay are once again being falsely accused of “torture” — this time for using nasogastric feeding tubes to sustainterrorist detainees who are on a hunger strike. Federal Judge Gladys Kessler recently ruled that, while she does not have the authority to stop the involuntary feedings, the practice violates international law that “prohibits torture or cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment.” This is absurd. If force-feeding detainees really constitutes torture under international law, then why does the United Nations do it? * The anti-Guantanamo group Reprieve posted a video on YouTube showing rapper and liberal activist Mos Def undergoing...

When his office was approached by a group of local faith leaders about working on a gun buyback event, Boulder County Sheriff Joe Pelle said he had a few questions about how they would conform with Colorado's new gun control laws. Specifically, Pelle said he wanted to know how a recently passed state law requiring universal background checks for gun buyers and another new law banning the sale or purchase of gun magazines of greater than 15 rounds might impact the buyback. After consulting Deputy County Attorney Dea Wheeler, Pelle concluded that as long as members of Together Colorado --...

Republicans walked away from their 2012 debacle hell-bent on fixing their problems with Hispanics. Now, they appear hell-bent on making them worse. In private conversations, top Republicans on Capitol Hill now predict comprehensive immigration reform will die a slow, months-long death in the House. Like with background checks for gun buyers, the conventional wisdom that the party would never kill immigration reform, and risk further alienating Hispanic voters, was always wrong — and ignored the reality that most House Republicans are white conservatives representing mostly white districts. These members, and the vast majority of their voters, couldn’t care less whether...

The Obama administration will not penalize businesses that do not provide health insurance in 2014, the Treasury Department announced Tuesday. Instead, it will delay enforcement of a major Affordable Care Act requirement that all employers with more than 50 employees provide coverage to their workers until 2015.