On Tuesday, the son of the president of the United States suggested that an alt-right blogger who promotes conspiracies like "white genocide" and PizzaGate should "win the Pulitzer."

Donald Trump Jr. tweeted his praise of the media personality Mike Cernovich after crediting Cernovich with "breaking" the story that former President Barack Obama's national security adviser, Susan Rice, asked intelligence agencies to "unmask" the names of Trump transition officials caught up in foreign surveillance. Cernovich further alleged Rice then sent the unmasked names to a handful of top intelligence officials.

Cernovich is widely criticized, having also promoted the beliefs that "date rape does not exist," "misogyny gets you laid," and black women should be "slut shame[d]" to prevent them from getting AIDS. Additionally, Rice's alleged actions appear to be legal, and an unidentified "person close to Rice" told CNN on Monday night that Rice never "improperly sought the identity of Americans," adding: "There is nothing unusual about making these requests when serving as a senior national security official, whether Democrat or Republican."

Observers have slammed the Trump White House for promoting Cernovich's "story," with Kellyanne Conway tweeting a Cernovich blog post Monday and calling his appearance on 60 Minutes a "must-see ratings bonanza." Read more about the White House's ties to Cernovich at Media Matters here. Jeva Lange

It can be a pain to click "forgot your password?" and go through the trouble of resetting your login info — but sometimes, it's really, really important.

After Florida officials had trouble logging into the FBI crime database to determine whether or not to approve concealed weapons permit applications, tens of thousands of applicants were approved to carry firearms without ever receiving a required background check, Tampa Bay Times reported Friday.

Employees in the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services stopped using the database for more than a year, an investigation found. During that year, Florida received a record number of concealed carry permit applications — 245,000, compared to 134,000 applications the year before.

Investigators are unsure of how many applicants received a permit when they should have been denied, but the conspicuous lack of denials and appeals during that year is reportedly what finally tipped officials off that something was going wrong in the applications process.

Adam Putnam, Florida's Agriculture commissioner who headed the department, has bragged about the increased number of concealed carry permits, reports the Times. While he ran the office, he also boasted about the donations he's received from the NRA for his support of expanded accessibility to guns.

The employee in charge of accessing the database, Lisa Wilde, acknowledged she "dropped the ball," but said she didn't know why she alone was tasked with the background check process when the office was so inundated with applications. Read more at Tampa Bay Times. Summer Meza

More than 30 years later, not even the milk near the Chernobyl nuclear disaster site is safe.

A study published in science journal Environment International shows that children are drinking milk 12 times more radioactive than what the Ukrainian government deems acceptable, even though they live up to 140 miles from where the catastrophe happened. But it's not as if these families, who live in a poor, rural area, are oblivious to the problem.

"These people know that the milk is unsafe, but they tell us, 'We don’t have a choice, we have to feed our families,'" the study's principal author told The New York Times.

Most of what spilled from Chernobyl's nuclear plant broke down over the 32 years since the spill, says the Times. But one radioactive isotope has persisted and spreads through soil and the grass cows eat. People in the study lived outside the 1,000-square-mile exclusion zone around the plant, yet they're still exposed to these cancer-causing chemicals because it's too expensive to mitigate the problem with a special cow feed. Kathryn Krawczyk

This past flu season's toll on children was the most severe that federal health officials have ever seen.

A record number of children died from the flu during the 2017-2018 flu season, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Friday.

Approximately 80 percent of the 172 child deaths were among children who didn't receive flu vaccinations, officials said, and about half were among children with a pre-existing health condition. Most children died within a week of contracting symptoms. It was the deadliest year on record, surpassing the previous maximum in 2012-2013.

This year had an unusual number of consecutive weeks when children were reported to be hospitalized at a high rate for flu symptoms. The data excludes pandemics, like when the H1N1 swine flu outbreak killed 282 children in 2009, said the CDC.

NBC News reports that the flu kills anywhere between 12,000 and 49,000 people every year. The most recent flu season was particularly deadly in part because of ineffective vaccines, but researchers are still unsure of the exact reason for such a severe year. One thing scientists are sure of, though, is that a flu vaccine can make all the difference: "Annual influenza vaccination remains the most effective way to prevent influenza illness," advised the CDC. Read more at NBC News. Summer Meza

Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort has been served with another indictment in the Russia investigation.

This time, Special Counsel Robert Mueller's team has charged Manafort with obstruction of justice and conspiracy to obstruct justice. Manafort's aide Konstantin Kilimnik, whom Politico says may have ties to Russian intelligence, was charged as well. These are the first known charges against Kilimnik.

Friday's indictment spells out how Manafort, with his previously indicted business partner Rick Gates, were paid by the Ukrainian government to lobby and influence politics on Ukraine's behalf and didn't disclose their Ukraine-based income to the U.S.

The document additionally details Manafort's previous charges that include conspiracy against the U.S., conspiracy to launder money, and being an unregistered foreign agent. It then goes on to say that earlier this year, Manafort and Kilimnik conspired to and obstructed justice by attempting to tamper with an unnamed witness. Read the full indictment here. Kathryn Krawczyk

President Trump threw out some blazing hot takes before hopping on a helicopter Friday morning, from wanting to pardon Muhammad Ali to not thinking about pardoning Michael Cohen.

Oh, and he also said he'd "probably" support a bill protecting states' rights to legalize marijuana, reports the Los Angeles Times.

Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) unveiled a plan Thursday that would essentially let states determine their own marijuana policies without federal consequences, per Politico. Both lawmakers represent states that have legalized recreational marijuana.

Trump only specifically said he supports Gardner and that he's still looking at the bill, but that he'll "probably end up supporting" it.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who firmly supports anti-drug laws, has yet to respond to Trump's remark. Kathryn Krawczyk

The House wants to keep Special Counsel Robert Mueller's spending in check.

Lawmakers on Friday approved a spending measure that would require closer financial oversight of the investigation led by Mueller, The Hill reports.

The House of Representatives voted, largely along party lines, to move forward with an amendment introduced by Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), who says that the investigation needs closer financial scrutiny. The measure, if approved for inclusion in 2019's spending package, would task the Government Accountability Office with semi-annual financial audits for any special counsel investigation.

"A special counsel's work is important, but they should not be able to spend taxpayer dollars without accountability. Americans need to know where their money is going," said Meadows, the chairman of the House Freedom Caucus. The Hill reports that Meadows has called for a second special counsel to look into alleged misconduct in the Department of Justice.

Even though the measure was approved by the House, there is little support for such a provision in the Senate, reports The Hill. Lawmakers have largely expressed support for the $16.7 million investigation, which is probing whether President Trump's campaign colluded with Russian interference in the 2016 election. Summer Meza

Next week's U.S.-North Korea summit is supposed to be a closed-door meeting, but China may try to sneak a peek inside.

Beijing is expected to deploy crafty espionage techniques to listen in on the summit in Singapore, U.S. officials tell NBC News. Compromised cell phones, spies disguised as waiters, and bugged hotel key cards are not out of the question.

On a recent trip to China, the American delegation couldn't wear "friendship pins" from the Chinese because they were probably bugged. Another time, a U.S. official found a microphone inside his hotel keycard. Some senior officials pack secure belongings in carry-on bags and even take them out to dinner when traveling in China, per NBC.

So U.S. security experts are taking some precautions for this monumental meeting. They'll search for bugs in the Singapore hotel being used for the summit and may even install camera-blocking tents in conference rooms.

Cell phones may be the biggest threat, experts told NBC, seeing as President Trump regularly uses non-secure smartphones for phone calls and tweeting. Everyone is told to remove phone batteries because China has figured out how to penetrate phones even when they're switched off.

Read more about China's sneaky spy techniques at NBC News. Kathryn Krawczyk