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Rachel Maddow takes on the DOJ’s 150-year saga in a new book, ‘Department of Fate’

NEW YORK (AP) — After writing bestsellers about the military, the oil and gas industry and the state of democracy, Rachel Maddow is now working on a history of the Justice Department.

Crown, a division of Penguin Random House, announced Monday that “Department of Fate” will be published Nov. 10, one week after this year’s midterm elections, and offer “both a diagnosis and a prescription for the American institution.”

“As goes DOJ, so goes the republic,” the liberal author, podcaster and MS Now host said in a statement issued through Crown. “What DOJ chooses to pursue — and what it lets go — can determine the boundaries of our political rights, our economy, and the fundamental question of whether the protections written into our Constitution are just words, or real life.”

According to Crown, Maddow will trace “triumphs and misdeeds” over the department’s 150-year history, from “the riotous chaos of the Red Scare” after World War I to “cabinet scandals that make Watergate look like Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood” and the upending of a wide range of norms during the second administration of President Donald Trump.

Inside Obama’s presidential museum opening this month: The cost, the books and a beehive

CHICAGO (AP) — The Obama Presidential Center will open June 19 more than a decade after the former president chose his hometown of Chicago for the project. The museum displays campaign memorabilia and presidential artifacts, while its campus showcases a new community basketball court, public library and playground. A look at the numbers behind the former President Barack Obama's presidential museum. $850 million The approximate cost to build the 225-foot museum tower and nearly 20-acre campus, which the Obama Foundation is paying for with private donations. The cost ballooned from the initial estimates of $350 million.
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