The Police Say Ryan Lochte Lied About Gunpoint Assault  —  RIO DE JANEIRO — The American swimmers who claimed they were assaulted at gunpoint over the weekend by assailants posing as police officers fabricated their account of the episode, according to Brazilian investigators.

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 …

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.

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 …

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 …

Where's the Letter from Democratic Security Officials Opposing Hillary?  —  They refuse to acknowledge their nominee's long record of bungling and deception.  —  A group of 50 conservative foreign-policy elites and veteran national-security officials of prior Republican administrations recently wrote …

Have North Carolina Republicans Found a Way to Reinstate Discriminatory Voting Rules?  —  DURHAM, N.C.—Bill Brian 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.

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.

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 …

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.

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 …

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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 …

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.

How Bernie Sanders Avoided Disclosing His Personal Finances  —  Hillary Clinton Thanks Bernie Sanders 1:37  —  This story was originally published by The Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit, nonpartisan investigative news organization in Washington, D.C.

Feingold says campaign infiltrated  —  Madison — An apparent Republican activist tried to join Democrat Russ Feingold's team this week in what Feingold's campaign suspects was a plot to dig up dirt on him.  —  In an interview with Feingold staff on Wednesday, she initially said she wanted …

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 …

Van Jones on the staggering political challenges Hillary Clinton would face as president  —  Van Jones is keenly aware of the political pressure that a new president can face.  He joined up with the Obama White House in its first year to be its “green jobs” czar.