The secret plan for President Trump to invite Taliban leaders to Washington to sign a peace accord took shape during a meeting in the Situation Room on Aug. 30, The New York Times reports. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and his Afghanistan negotiator, Zalmay Khalilzad, backed the underlying peace plan Khalilzad had tentatively cemented with the Taliban after nearly a year of talks; National Security Adviser John Bolton was opposed. Almost nobody else knew about Trump's plan to host the Taliban until he tweeted the summit had been canceled Saturday evening.

In the first few days of September, Trump decided "he would not only bring the Taliban to Washington, but to Camp David, the crown jewel of the American presidency," the Times reports. "The leaders of a rugged militant organization deemed terrorists by the United States would be hosted in the mountain getaway used for presidents, prime ministers, and kings just three days before the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks." Trump also decided to invite Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, whose government was not party to the talks. "The usual National Security Council process was dispensed with; only a small circle of advisers was even clued in," the Times adds.

Before the plan fell apart on Thursday night, The Washington Post reports, "Trump was the main person pushing for the Camp David meeting," believing "his personal style can persuade anyone." Ghani agreed to come, and the Taliban did, too, on the condition the deal was signed before the summit. That became a "fundamental dividing point contributing to the collapse of the talks," the Times reports, since "Trump wanted to be the dealmaker who would put the final parts together himself, or at least be perceived to be."

Trump's disclosure of the failed summit "surprised not only many national security officials across the government but even some of the few who were part of the deliberations," the Times reports, and several officials said "there was no reason for Mr. Trump to reveal what had happened." A senior administration official told the Post that Trump decided to unveil the talks "to control the narrative." Why he felt he had to do that is unclear, but the narrative was not well-received — inviting the Taliban to Camp David the week of 9/11 earned rare bipartisan condemnation. Peter Weber

The White House Correspondents' Dinner's break from comedians turned out to be short-lived.

Kenan Thompson will host the 2020 White House Correspondents' Dinner in April, where Hasan Minhaj will perform as the featured entertainer, the White House Correspondents' Association announced Tuesday.

This is a pivot back to the show's regularly-scheduled programming of having a comedian perform at the yearly gathering of journalists. Last year, in a break from this tradition, the featured speaker was instead historian Ron Chernow.

The year before, comedian Michelle Wolf had headlined and sparked some outrage with her roast, as when she joked that then-White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders "burns facts and then she uses that ash to create a perfect smoky eye." The New York Times reports Chernow's appearance in 2019 "was a direct consequence" of Wolf's controversial performance.

But the White House Correspondents' Association is bringing back the comedy this year, with Minhaj returning after performing the year before Wolf. WHCA President Jonathan Karl said on Tuesday per the Times, "I'd argue that humor is more important now than ever."

Still, although it had been a tradition for sitting presidents to attend the White House Correspondents' Dinner, it seems unlikely that Trump will go in April after skipping the event every year of his presidency so far. Last year, Trump briefly teased that he could potentially attend for the first time, only to not do so, calling the event "negative" and "boring." Brendan Morrow

Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed, the crown prince of Dubai, doesn't want to brag — or maybe he does — but on Monday he posted a video of Dubai extreme sporting outfit X-Dubai showing off a wingsuit that allowed a man to take off from a pier, fly across a stretch of the Arabian Gulf, then shoot up 600 feet into the air, perform a roll and a loop, and parachute down to earth. The jetpack outfit, flown by Jetman pilot Vince Reffet, reminded a lot of people of Marvel's Iron Man, minus the parachute landing.

The big breakthrough in this Feb. 14 test flight was taking off from the ground, not leaping from a helicopter or other raised platform, and ditching the parachute landing is next, Reffet said in a statement. "One of the next objectives is to land back on the ground after a flight at altitude, without needing to open a parachute. It's being worked on." The Marvel-like action starts at the 2:30 mark.

The "Mission: Human Flight" project is supported by Expo 2020 Dubai, the first world expo held in the Middle East, Africa, or South Asia. The carbon-fiber wingsuit, designed by Swiss aviation expert Yves Rossy and powered by four small jet engines, can travel at 160 mph and has a range of 34 miles, Esquire reports. It isn't for the fainthearted or the amateur, at least not yet: Reffet took his Iron Man suit on at least 50 preparatory flights, and practiced taking off and landing under controlled conditions more than 100 times. Much, we imagine, like Tony Stark would have done. Peter Weber

More than 2,000 former Justice Department officials, current federal prosecutors, and federal judges are urgently concerned about Attorney General William Barr's evident politicization of the Justice Department. Even "Trump voters" should be afraid of "Bill Barr's America," a "banana republic where all are subject to the whims of a dictatorial president and his henchmen," Donald Ayer, a former colleague of Barr's and deputy attorney general under President George H.W. Bush, wrote in The Atlantic on Monday. He elaborated on CNN Monday evening.

Barr was Ayer's successor as deputy attorney general before starting his first go as attorney general a year later, in 1991. In the 40 years the two men have known each other, Ayer told CNN, Barr has "always had a very strong view that the executive ought to have a great deal of power. I've never known quite how far it would go, and there was never any reason to test it, because when he was attorney general under George H.W. Bush, George H.W. Bush had no interest in being an autocrat. So now we're faced with a situation where Bill Barr has won the job of attorney general under a president who apparently does want to be an autocrat."

In The Atlantic, Ayer writes that "it is not too strong to say that Bill Barr is un-American," and he elaborated on CNN. "The reason that I say that he's un-American is because I think it's fair to say, and I think most people would agree with me, that the central tenet of our legal system and our justice system is that no person is above the law," he wrote. "Bill Barr's vision is quite different. Bill Barr's vision is that there is one man, one person who needs to be above the law, and that is the president. ... He said that before he became attorney general but he's now carried it out in many steps."

Ayer elaborated on the ways he thinks Barr is harming America in his Atlantic article, concluding that to prevent this "banana republic," America needs "a public uprising demanding that Bill Barr resign immediately, or failing that, be impeached." Read more at The Atlantic. Peter Weber

A few days before the Nevada caucuses, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has taken a 12 percentage point lead in the Democratic presidential contest, according to an NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll released Tuesday morning. Sanders has the support of 31 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents, up 9 points from the last Marist poll in December, but coming in at No. 2 is former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, at 19 percent. That's a 15-point jump since December.

This poll qualifies Bloomberg to participate in Wednesday's Democratic debate, though Bloomberg won't be on the ballot in Saturday's caucuses. Bloomberg's campaign said he plans to participate if he qualifies. The billionaire media tycoon built up his poll numbers with the help of more than $400 million of his personal fortune and lots of advertising. He and the other candidates, especially Sanders, are going after each other with increasing vigor.

Former Vice President Joe Biden comes in third place in the poll at 15 percent, down 9 points since December, followed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) at 12 percent (a drop of 5 points), Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) at 9 percent (down 4 points), and former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg at 8 percent (down from 13 percent). Buttigieg narrowly leads in delegates after strong showings in Iowa and New Hampshire.

All of the candidates beat President Trump in a hypothetical head-to-head matchups, with Biden enjoying the biggest lead, followed by Bloomberg, Sanders, Klobuchar and Buttigieg, and Warren. Sanders leads among most categories except black voters — he's a close second to Biden — moderates, and voters over 45; Bloomberg gets the most support among those last two groups and is No. 3 with black voters.

Marist conducted the poll Feb. 13-16 among 1,416 U.S. adults, including 527 Democrats and leaners. The entire poll, including the head-to-heads with Trump, has a margin of error of ±3.7 percentage points; the Democratic rankings have a margin of error of ±5.4 points. Peter Weber

John Oliver kicked off his new season of Last Week Tonight on Sunday by looking at "an issue that has dominated the Democratic primary — and I'm not talking about why Tom Steyer doesn't look richer" (though he did address that). Mostly, he tackled Medicare-for-all, comparing the "government-funded, single-payer program" proposed by Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) with the current U.S. system championed by conservatives and, with various degrees of modifications, other Democratic candidates.

Conservatives are right, Oliver conceded, that "America does have one of the best health care systems in the world for rich, famous people. Unfortunately, too many people are born in this country with a terrible pre-existing condition called Not Being Beyoncé." For so many Americans, "our system is badly broken," he said, not just the 27.5 million with no insurance but also the nearly 44 million underinsured and at risk for bankruptcy from medical expenses.

The current system is a patchwork of private insurance, government programs, and crowdsourcing gambles, Oliver said. "Any solution that might put an end to that is worth at least considering, surely, and to be honest, I personally think there is a lot to be said for Medicare-for-all. So tonight, let's take a look at it: Not the politics of whether it can pass, but what it actually is." He focused on the three main objections: Cost, wait time, and choice.

"I get that big change is scary — it is human nature to prefer the devil you know over an uncertain alternative — but the devil you know is still a devil," Oliver said. And for all the U.S. fearmongering about Britain's National health System, "I will be honest with you, I've never had a bad experience and I don't know anyone who has, but since moving to America, I don't think I have met anyone who doesn't have at least one insurance industry horror story." There is a lot of NSFW language — so much so, it makes sense when Oliver calls the U.S. system "the Kama Sutra of health care." Watch below. Peter Weber

Finding love and/or affection was hard enough before dating apps started allowing people to screen for political affiliation. And even with Republican-only services like DonaldDaters and Republican Singles, working for President Trump in liberal Washington "can be brutal on dating life," Katie Rogers reports at The New York Times. "For the young aides in this White House, one solution seems to be to meet and marry each other, or at least endeavor to find love inside the political bunker of the Trump administration."

Trump's hardline immigration czar Stephen Miller and Katie Waldman, special assistant to Trump and spokeswoman for Vice President Mike Pence, were married Sunday, with Trump and Pence among the guests. The couple "celebrated with monogrammed ice cubes, mutual statements of love, and a playlist selected by the groom," Rogers notes, plus there was a dash of enriching the president: The wedding was held at Trump's Washington, D.C., hotel, a hangout for Republicans, lobbyists, and Trump hangers-on and grifters. The newlyweds registered for gifts under fake names, vetted their invite lists for possible disrupters and haters, and hired security guards.

The Millers aren't the only Trump White House newlyweds: Last year, Giovanna Coia, a White House aide and cousin of Kellyanne Conway, married Pence nephew and Trump campaign official John Pence in Atlantic City, and Trump administration officials Zach Bauer and Meghan Patenaude spent at least $35,000 at Trump's D.C. hotel for their wedding in November, Rogers reports.

Other White House couples include Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham and advance team director Max Miller, and Trump body man Nick Luna and Cassidy Dumbauld, an assistant to Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser. In some cases, the romantic entanglements have proved complicated, as with Hope Hicks and Rob Porter.

Dating inside the White House is nothing new, "but outside the complex gates, the youthful staff members also had wider access to the city's dating pool and social scene," Rogers writes. Trump's aides, on the other hand, "tend to retreat into their own homes for socializing or to the safety of the president's properties." Read more about love in Trump's Washington at The New York Times. Peter Weber