Axios

President Trump announced Saturday that all agencies in the federal government will close on December 5 for former President George H.W. Bush's funeral.

Details: Trump declared the day a national day of mourning and will be attending the funeral on Wednesday. The president told reporters he will be sending Air Force One to Texas to bring Bush's casket to Washington for his service at the National Cathedral.

North Carolina's board of elections voted 7-2 Friday to continue investigating allegations of possible fraud involving absentee ballots in the state's 9th district congressional race, in which Republican Mark Harris beat Democrat Dan McCready by just 905 votes, the Washington Post reports.

What's happening: In Bladen County, 19% of absentee ballots were requested by registered Republicans and 39% by unaffiliated voters, per the Charlotte Observer. Yet Harris, who lost the absentee ballot count by a lopsided margin in seven of the eight counties in the 9th district, won 61% of absentee ballots. A number of voters have submitted sworn affidavits to the election board claiming irregularities, including multiple accounts of a woman coming to their house and telling them she was collecting absentee ballots.

President Trump is attending the funeral of former President George H.W. Bush, despite his contentious past with the Bush family, Politico reports.

Why it matters: Trump's relationship with the Bush family has been tumultuous. He has been critical of the family in the past, mocking the 41st president just five months ago: "What the hell was that, by the way: Thousand points of light?" He did not attend the funeral of Barbara Bush to "avoid disruptions due to added security."

Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) said on Friday that the committee has "made referrals...to the special counsel for prosecution," and that many of those referrals were because they believed the witnesses were lying, the Washington Post reports.

Why it matters: The committee has interviewed more than 200 people since special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation began, per the Post, including Michael Cohen who pled guilty for lying to Congress this week — though he was not referred by the committee for prosecution. Burr said his message "was if you lie to us, we're going to catch you and we're going to prosecute you, period, end of sentence."

President Trump cancelled his press conference scheduled for the end of the G20 summit on Saturday, "out of respect for the Bush family and former President George H.W. Bush."

"I was very much looking forward to having a press conference just prior to leaving Argentina because we have had such great success in our dealing with various countries and their leaders at the G20....However, out of respect for the Bush Family and former President George H.W. Bush we will wait until after the funeral to have a press conference."

Michael Cohen's lawyer stated in a Friday court filing that Cohen "remained in close and regular contact with White House-based staff and legal counsel" to President Trump — called "Client-1" in the document — while he was preparing inaccurate statements to Congress about Russian contacts.

The big picture: Cohen's new guilty plea is the first time that special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation has "come alive with pre-presidential actions and entanglements by Trump himself," as previously reported by Axios' Mike Allen. Cohen's lawyer says in the filing that Cohen and Trump "discussed possible travel to Russia in the summer of 2016, and Michael took steps to clear dates for such travel." It also says that Cohen kept Trump "apprised" of conversations he had with the assistant of a Kremlin official about the Moscow tower project.

The passing last night of President George H.W. Bush at age 94 "marks the end of a long era in presidential history — what we might call the Cold War Presidents: Truman, Ike, JFK, LBJ, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan and Bush," presidential historian Jon Meacham, author of "Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush," tells Axios.

The big picture: "The last combat veteran to hold the office, President Bush came from a truly vanished world. Born to privilege, he had the most adventurous and courageous of spirits (he considered joining the Royal Air Force after Pearl Harbor since the RAF would take 17-year-olds). ... "The war years, the move to Texas, the long apprenticeship in national politics and governance — it was a thrilling life, and he loved every bit of it."

The Department of Homeland Security has requested that the Pentagon extend its support at the southern border through January 31 of next year. The Pentagon is currently reviewing the request but has not yet approved it.

The details: The request includes roughly 6,000 troops and could mean they aren't home for the holidays. According to DHS, "[t]his request refines support to ensure it remains aligned with the current situation, the nature of the mission, and CBP operational requirements."

Judge Edgardo Ramos of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York ruled Friday that it was unconstitutional and illegal for the Trump administration to withhold funding from law enforcement in sanctuary cities, dealing another blow to the White House's immigration fight, The Hill reports.

Details: Ramos' ruling applies to New York and six other states that challenged the administration's restrictions: Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Virginia and Washington. They join a number of other cities, which won similar suits against the administration last year.

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke issued a scathing statement against Rep. Raúl Grijalva, the incoming chair of the House Natural Resources Committee, on Friday, accusing Grijalva of being a drunk after the congressman called for Zinke's resignation in a USA Today op-ed.

Details: Grijalva cited Zinke's ethics scandals during his time in Trump's cabinet in the op-ed, promising that questions about Zinke's conduct "will only intensify" when he assumes the chairmanship. Zinke responded to Grijalva, who has acknowledged a problem with drinking in the past, in a tweet with the hashtag #TuneInnForMore, a reference to a popular Capitol Hill bar, saying, "[I]t's hard for [Grijalva] to think straight from the bottom of the bottle."

Many of the world's most prominent leaders gathered at the G20 summit in Buenos Aires on Friday, including President Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) — whose interactions have remained firmly in the headlines over recent weeks.

Why it matters: The G20 comes amid multiple international controversies, including Trump's continued pledge to work with Saudi Arabia despite questions surrounding MBS' involvement in the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi as well as Trump's decision to cancel a one-on-one meeting with Putin citing ongoing conflict in Ukraine.

House Democratic leaders announced a political reform bill symbolically named "H.R. 1" on Friday as their first order of business upon assuming power early next year, targeting election financing, voting rights reforms and more.

The big picture: The bill sets the tone for Democrats' priorities once they retake the House in the age of President Trump under presumptive Speaker Nancy Pelosi. It'll seek to expand voting access for Americans and grant more federal money to strengthen state election security. And, in a broadside to some of Trump's most controversial actions, the bill would create a Supreme Court code of ethics and require presidents to release their tax returns.

Go deeper ... Democratic hit list: At least 85 Trump investigation targets

Jeff Flake is ending his Senate tenure with a bang, potentially stymieing a number of President Trump's judicial nominees until the next Congress convenes by withholding his support unless a vote is held on a measure designed to protect special counsel Robert Mueller.

The big picture: The Arizona senator, retiring at the end of this year, has not been quiet about his contempt for Trump or the Republican Party's continued support of him — even saying on the Senate floor earlier this year that the GOP "might not deserve to lead."

As the war in Yemen grinds toward its fourth year, the prospects may be improving for a deal to reduce the bloodshed and suffering.

Why it matters: Yemen is facing a terrible humanitarian crisis — potentially the world’s worst in the past century — with as many as half of its 28 million people at risk of starvation, according to UN estimates. The conflict has allowed al-Qaeda’s most dangerous branch to deepen its influence within Yemen and has also spilled over the country’s borders, with regular Houthi drone and missile strikes in Saudi Arabia.

Until this week, public revelations about special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation focused on characters who had been around President Trump.

Driving the news: For the first time, the special counsel's narrative has suddenly come alive with pre-presidential actions and entanglements by Trump himself. "Investigators have now publicly cast Trump as a central figure of their probe into whether Trump’s campaign conspired with the Russian government during the 2016 campaign," the WashPost reports.

Of the 18 midterms since 1950, there have been just five split decisions, where the House shifted towards one party and the Senate towards the other. And 2018's was the most split of them all.

Why it matters: Now that all of the races have been settled — with the exception of the California 21st district race — we can see how much of an outlier the 2018 midterms were. The split is also a sign of how Democrats dominated the suburban House districts while Republicans won the rural Senate states.

New court filings released this week by special counsel Robert Mueller's team have provided new evidence that federal investigators are zoning in on President Trump as a key figure in the wide-ranging Russia investigation, the Washington Post details in a new report late Thursday.

Why it matters: New "documents show investigators have evidence that Trump was in close contact with his lieutenants as they made outreach to both Russia and WikiLeaks — and that they tried to conceal the extent of their activities," per the Post. The court filings also cast new doubts on "Trump’s repeated claims that he had no business interests in Russia"

Former Trump associates Felix Sater and Michael Cohen considered giving Russian President Vladimir Putin a $50 million penthouse at the top of the planned Trump Tower they discussed building in Moscow, BuzzFeed News’ Jason Leopold and Anthony Cormier report.

Why it matters: Cohen entered a guilty plea Thursday morning over lying to Congress about his conversations with Russians over the Moscow tower deal, which he says he did to protect Trump's campaign.