memeorandum: Probe Deepens Into U.S. Swimmers' Rio Robbery Story (Phil Helsel/NBC News)

1:35 PM ET, August 18, 2016

Top Items:

Matt Gutman / ABC News:

US Swimmer Fought With Security Guard on Night of Alleged Robbery: Police Source

Discussion: Los Angeles Times, The Nation, Washington Post, AOL, Daily Wire, Towleroad, Distractify, LawNewz, Slate, Hot Air, New York Magazine, Joe.My.God., Mediaite, Associated Press, The Atlantic and twitchy.com

Phil Helsel / NBC News:

Probe Deepens Into U.S. Swimmers' Rio Robbery Story — Ryan Lochte to Matt Lauer on alleged robbery: 'We wouldn't make this up' 1:50 — Two U.S. Olympic swimmers who say they were with Ryan Lochte when they were robbed in Rio de Janeiro were removed from a plane by Brazilian authorities late Wednesday.

Discussion: New York Times, TODAY.com, The Daily Caller, USA Today, Towleroad, The Big Lead, Daily Mail, BizPac Review and The Atlantic

Daily Mail:

What robbery? Brazilian police say Ryan Lochte's wallet was detected in X-ray scan AFTER he claims it was seized at gunpoint as officers launch probe into star's dramatic hold-up story — Police arrived to the Olympic Village on Wednesday to seize the passports of Ryan Lochte and Jimmy Feigen

Discussion: Fox News Insider, Towleroad, Liberty Unyielding, Mediaite, WGN-TV, AOL, FOX News Radio, TVNewser, New York Post, MySanAntonio.com and Independent Journal Review

New York Times:
American Swimmers Pulled Off Plane in Rio

Discussion: ABC News, Associated Press, USA Today, AOL, Refinery29, The Daily Caller, Mashable, twitchy.com, The Week, The Stranger … and Fox News Insider

Sean Ingle / Guardian:
Exclusive: Team GB member held up at gunpoint at Rio Olympics

Discussion: NBC News and AOL

Joshua Green / Bloomberg:

Steve Bannon's Plan to Free Donald Trump and Save His Campaign — Along with campaign manager Kellyanne Conway, Bannon will encourage Trump to cast aside political niceties and aggressively go with his gut. — JoshuaGreen — “I am who I am,” Donald Trump declared …

Discussion: alan.com, Politico, Raw Story, The Stranger …, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Mashable, ABC News, Mother Jones, Hullabaloo, Mediaite and New York Magazine, more at Mediagazer »

Ken Stern / Vanity Fair:

Exclusive: Stephen Bannon, Trump's New C.E.O., Hints at His Master Plan — Can the man behind Breitbart—a Harvard M.B.A. who worked at Goldman Sachs and made a killing off of Seinfeld—save Trump? And at what cost? — Even for a campaign creating regular media tremors …

Discussion: Media Matters for America, Hennessy's View, New York Times, Booman Tribune, Boing Boing, Raw Story, Politico, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Media Matters for America and Bloomberg, more at Mediagazer »

The Hill:
Trump's Breitbart hire sends tremors through Capitol Hill

Discussion: Washington Monthly, FiveThirtyEight, Hot Air, Washington Post, Talking Points Memo, NBC News, Breitbart, Mother Jones, Politico and Associated Press

Matt Zapotosky / Washington Post:

Justice Department says it will end use of private prisons — The Justice Department plans to end its use of private prisons after officials concluded the facilities are both less safe and less effective at providing correctional services than those run by the government.

Discussion: ThinkProgress, Vox, TheStreet.com, Hit & Run, Business Insider, NBC News, Hot Air, Daily Kos, Mediaite, Lawyers, Guns & Money, Raw Story, The Week and WTKR-TV

Pema Levy / Mother Jones:

Justice Department Plans to Stop Using Private Prisons — The Department of Justice will stop contracting with private prisons, the department announced Thursday morning. The decision comes a week after the DOJ inspector general released a damning report on the safety, security …

Discussion: Business Insider

Bloomberg:

Uber's First Self-Driving Fleet Arrives in Pittsburgh This Month — Near the end of 2014, Uber co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Travis Kalanick flew to Pittsburgh on a mission: to hire dozens of the world's experts in autonomous vehicles. The city is home to Carnegie Mellon University's …

Discussion: Mother Jones, The Verge, New York Magazine, Associated Press, Washington Post, The Atlantic, AOL, The Week, Mashable, Eschaton and Instapundit

David A. Graham / The Atlantic:

Have North Carolina Republicans Found a Way to Reinstate Discriminatory Voting Rules? — DURHAM, N.C.—Bill Brien Jr. already sounded weary, and the meeting hadn't even started. It was 5 p.m. Wednesday at the county office-building, and a typically sleepy meeting of the county board of elections had turned into a marquee event.

Discussion: Talking Points Memo and Hullabaloo

Sasha Issenberg / Bloomberg:
Early Voting Dictates a New Clinton Campaign Structure

Discussion: Washington Post

Colin Campbell / Raleigh News & Observer:
NC Republican Party seeks ‘party line changes’ to limit early voting hours

Discussion: New York Times, Talking Points Memo, NBC News and WataugaWatch

J.K. Trotter / Gawker:

Gawker.com to End Operations Next Week — After nearly fourteen years of operation, Gawker.com will be shutting down next week. The decision to close Gawker comes days after Univision successfully bid $135 million for Gawker Media's six other websites, and four months after the Silicon …

Discussion: Politico, Talking Points Memo, The Next Web, Raw Story, New York Magazine, New York's PIX11, The Week, LawNewz, The Verge and The New Civil Rights Movement, more at Mediagazer »

Eric Geller / Politico:

Clinton Foundation says it has not been hacked — The Clinton Foundation says it has not been breached by the suspected Russian hackers that are believed to have infiltrated major Democratic Party organizations in a campaign Hillary Clinton supporters describe as an attempt thwart the candidate's presidential bid.

Discussion: Washington Times and Daily Wire

Chris Bergin / National Review: Where's the Letter from Democratic Security Officials Opposing Hillary?

Ryan Lovelace / Washington Examiner:
Trump on the Clinton Foundation: 'Let's give them the benefit of the doubt'

Discussion: RedState and Daily Wire

Elle Hunt / Guardian:

Boy in the ambulance: shocking image emerges of Syrian child pulled from Aleppo rubble — Boy shown covered head to toe with dust was injured in airstrike on rebel-held district on Wednesday — Warning: this article contains images that readers may find distressing

Discussion: ThinkProgress, Mother Jones, CNN, NBC News, Raw Story and Joe.My.God.

Anne Barnard / New York Times:
How Omran Daqneesh, 5, Became a Symbol of Aleppo's Suffering

Discussion: The Atlantic, Telegraph, Refinery29, The Daily Caller, Common Dreams, Al Jazeera English, Towleroad and RT

Sabato's Crystal Ball:

Clinton Rises to 348 Electoral Votes, Trump Drops to 190 — Clinton now above 270 Safe or Likely Democratic electoral votes for the first time — New Hampshire may just have four electoral votes, but it's important. If you doubt it, just ask any Granite State citizens, and they'll tell you about their first-in-the-nation primary.

NBC News:

First Read: The One Way Trump's Shake-Up Makes Sense — Donald Trump's new campaign manager: There's still time to turn polls around 1:00 — First Read is a morning briefing from Meet the Press and the NBC Political Unit on the day's most important political stories and why they matter.

Discussion: Hot Air, Baltimore Sun, Politicus USA, Politico and Talking Points Memo

The Advocate:

Our Views: Vacation or not, a hurting Louisiana needs you now, President Obama … Homes are surrounded by water in the Manchac Harbor subdivision off LA-42. Aerials of severe weather flooding in Ascension Parish on Monday August 15, 2016. — President Barack Obama speaks during the third …

Discussion: twitchy.com, Independent Journal Review, NBC News, Washington Post, Washington Free Beacon and Instapundit

Hunter Walker / Yahoo:

Donald Trump aide on awkward exchange with CNN anchor: ‘I think I unraveled her’ — An interview between a CNN anchor and a top aide to Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump devolved into a palpably uncomfortable debate over polls on Wednesday evening.

Discussion: ThinkProgress, Talking Points Memo, Daily Kos, The Daily Caller, Balloon Juice, New York Magazine, TVNewser and YouTube

Scott Dadich / Wired:

WIRED Endorses Optimism — BEEN NEUTRAL. — For nearly a quarter of a century, this organization has championed a specific way of thinking about tomorrow. If it's true, as the writer William Gibson once had it, that the future is already here, just unevenly distributed …

Discussion: The Daily Caller

Katie Benner / New York Times:

Twitter Suspends 235,000 More Accounts Over Extremism — SAN FRANCISCO — Twitter suspended 235,000 accounts that promoted terrorism over the last six months, as part of a continuing effort to keep people from using the social network for extremist causes, the company said Thursday.

Jeremy W. Peters / New York Times:

Donald Trump's Crucial Pillar of Support, White Men, Shows Weakness — Donald J. Trump's support among white men, the linchpin of his presidential campaign, is showing surprising signs of weakness that could foreclose his only remaining path to victory in November.

Discussion: Politicus USA and CNN

Kevin Cole / Omaha World-Herald:

Omaha dad finds pot brownies, eats 4 of them, says mean things to cat — An Omaha dad who mistakenly ate some marijuana brownies didn't enjoy the experience. — Omaha police officers were called to a house near 90th and Maple Streets about 9:45 p.m. Tuesday to investigate an accidental overdose.

Discussion: Vox, FiveThirtyEight, The Daily Caller, Refinery29, WDTN-TV, The Cannabist, The Week and The Stranger …

Hadas Gold / Politico:

Trump campaign manager gets rough with Breitbart reporter — Donald Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski forcibly yanked Breitbart reporter Michelle Fields out of the way after his press conference in Florida on Tuesday night. — Fields was attempting to ask Trump a question as he exited the press conference.

Discussion: Washington Post

Nancyl / Washington Monthly:

How Will the Media Handle the “Trump-light Zone”? — Robert Schlesinger writes that we have now entered the “Trump-light Zone.” … What struck me is that we have reached an interesting point in this 2016 presidential race. Trump's hiring of Bannon and Conway isn't just a signal to Republicans …

Discussion: Associated Press and Politico

Harry Enten / FiveThirtyEight:

Election Update: Why Clinton Doesn't Have This Race Locked Up — Want these election updates emailed to you right when they're published? Sign up here. — Hillary Clinton's chances of winning the presidency have held fairly steady in the FiveThirtyEight models over the past 10 days.

Discussion: Outside the Beltway

Alex Swoyer / Breitbart:

Dr. Drew: ‘Gravely Concerned’ about Hillary Clinton's Health Care — KABC's Dr. Drew Pinsky said he's “gravely concerned” about the health care Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton is receiving during a radio interview with Doug McIntyre on Tuesday. — “I'm very concerned about people …

Discussion: The Gateway Pundit, The Point, Mediaite and BizPac Review

Charles M. Blow / New York Times:

Why Blacks Loathe Trump — So now Donald Trump is campaigning for the black vote. (Long, awkward pause.) — Like so much of what Trump has said and done, this new outreach forces writers like me to conduct scatological studies, framing Trump's actions in their historical and intellectual absurdity.

Discussion: Business Insider