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 …

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.

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 …

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 …

Koch network cancels Rubio ads  —  The powerful donor network helmed by billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch is canceling more than half a million dollars in Florida advertising designed to help Republican Marco Rubio  —  in his Senate race, according to Koch network spokesman James Davis.

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

NC Republican Party seeks ‘party line changes’ to limit early voting hours  —  RALEIGH  —  The N.C. Republican Party encouraged GOP appointees to county elections boards to “make party line changes to early voting” by limiting the number of hours and keeping polling sites closed on Sundays.

These protesters wanted to humiliate ‘Emperor’ Trump.  So they took off his clothes.  —  For much of the past year, Donald Trump proved uniquely untouchable, a political force of such mind-boggling invulnerability that he even bragged about attracting voters after hypothetically shooting someone on Fifth Avenue.

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.

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.

Trump on the Clinton Foundation: 'Let's give them the benefit of the doubt'  —  Donald Trump urged the American people to give Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation “the benefit of the doubt” when it comes to questions surrounding the money they have received from foreign countries.

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 …

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.

3. Views of the country and feelings about growing diversity  —  Overall, voters remain divided over whether life for people like them in the country today is better or worse compared with 50 years ago: 36% say that life today is better for people like them, 47% say it is worse and 13% say it is about the same.

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.

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.

Is Richard Burr Sailing into the Perfect Storm?  —  The N.C. senator was supposed to cruise to reelection.  Now, no one's quite so sure.  —  Republicans are increasingly nervous about the Senate race in North Carolina, where Senator Richard Burr finds himself at sea in a year …

Neo-Nazi Lawyer Represents Baltimore in Suit Over Wrongful Arrest and 19-Year Imprisonment of Black Man  —  Baltimore is at the epicenter of the national debate over police violence, particularly after last week's release of a Justice Department report documenting deep racial disparities in policing in the city.

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.

Sen. Sessions: Central Park Five Ad Shows Trump Has Always Believed In Law And Order  —  Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions, a prominent surrogate for Republican nominee Donald Trump, says Trump's 1989 newspaper ads advocating the death penalty for five men of color accused of raping a jogger …

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.

Trump campaign on polls: ‘I think it helps us to be a little bit behind’  —  Donald Trump's new campaign manager Kellyanne Conway put a positive spin Thursday on the Republican nominee's recent swoon in national and state polls.  —  “I think it helps us to be a little bit behind, and we are.