CNN Politics

China urged the US and North Korea to urgently "put the brakes" on provocative actions and words on Tuesday after North Korean leader Kim Jong Un appeared to back away from a threat to fire missiles toward the US Pacific territory of Guam.

A local New Mexico Republican Party leader resigned Tuesday after publishing a Facebook post criticsizing "'violent, leftist protesters," the day after a woman was killed when clashes erupted at a right-wing rally.

Less than three days since deadly violence ripped through central Virginia, one of the community's most beloved icons joined CNN with a message of unity and support.

This transcript will be updated.

The National Park Service is actively working to remove graffiti found spray-painted in red on a pillar of the Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall early Tuesday morning.

By just after 8 a.m. ET Tuesday, President Trump had already tweeted his support for Sen. Luther Strange's candidacy in Alabama twice. "Big day in Alabama. Vote for Luther Strange, he will be great!," said Trump in one tweet. Strange, appointed by then Gov. Robert Bentley (R) to replace now-Attorney General Jeff Sessions, faces a serious fight today in the form of Roy Moore, a controversial ex-chief justice of the state's highest court, and Rep. Mo Brooks. (If no candidate gets 50% of the vote today, the top two advance to a runoff next month.) In search of the state of play in Alabama -- and what it means for Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who has also been working hard for Strange, I reached out to Brian Lyman of the Montgomery Advertiser for some perspective. Our conversation, conducted via email and only lightly edited for flow, is below

Way back in May 2016, I wrote this:

The State Department's annual report on international religious freedom was highly critical of a number of countries, including China and Saudi Arabia, a key US ally.

The president of a Republican PAC said he's interested in Kid Rock running for Senate.

Sen. Tim Scott, the only black Republican in the Senate, penned an op-ed on race relations for USA Today, arguing that the "greatest, underappreciated threat" the country faces "is the unraveling that occurs from the inside out."

President Donald Trump will look to reinvigorate his stalled push for a sweeping infrastructure bill Tuesday when he meets with some of his top aides in New York to discuss the plan.

Anthony Scaramucci, who spent less than two weeks as the White House communications director before imploding amid a toxic mix of ego-fluffing and back-stabbing, is on something of a media tour of late. His latest attempt at image rehabilitation came Monday when he appeared on "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert."

Jimmy Fallon wasn't playing it for laughs with his monologue Monday night.

President Donald Trump's examination on race is not over, not by a long shot.

President Donald Trump on Tuesday retweeted a Fox News story saying he was "seriously considering" pardoning former Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio, a controversial figure who was recently convicted of criminal contempt by a federal judge.

On Monday night, just hours after he had, finally, condemned in harsh terms the neo-Nazis and white supremacists involved in violent protests in Charlottesville, Virginia, President Donald Trump took to Twitter. And he retweeted this from a man named Jack Posobiec:

Days after bloody demonstrations in Charlottesville, Virginia, that left a counterprotester dead, President Donald Trump denounced the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazis by name, calling those and other hate groups "repugnant to all that we hold dear as Americans."