I Am an Independent, Impartial Judge  —  Yes, I was emotional last Thursday.  I hope everyone can understand I was there as a son, husband and dad.  —  I was deeply honored to stand at the White House July 9 with my wife, Ashley, and my daughters, Margaret and Liza, to accept President Trump's nomination …

Why is Lindsey Graham acting like this?  —  Lindsey Graham learned the benefits of acting audaciously at a young age.  —  As a boy, no older than 6, he hung around his mom and dad's bar in Central, S.C., dressing up as a cowboy and yukking it up with drunks for laughs.

Colorado's Cory Gardner reviewing FBI report on Kavanaugh after listening to sexual assault survivors  —  The senator wants to finish reading the FBI report before making a decision, spokesman Casey Contres said. … Sen. Cory Gardner, R-Colorado, hasn't decided how he'll vote on Judge Brett Kavanaugh …

Governors: Rating Changes Four States  —  If political geography is helping Senate Republicans, it isn't doing much for the party's quest to hold their losses in gubernatorial contests to a minimum.  There are a handful of races in very red states that have inched from the Likely …

Rifts Break Open at Facebook Over Kavanaugh Hearing  —  SAN FRANCISCO — “I want to apologize,” the Facebook executive wrote last Friday in a note to staff.  “I recognize this moment is a deeply painful one — internally and externally.”  —  The apology came from Joel Kaplan, Facebook's vice president for global public policy.

Media Mangles Its Duty to Question Ford  —  Journalistic malpractice as it's never been malpracticed.  —  A reasonable, objective, establishment media would have spent far more time than it has in delving into Dr. Christine Blasey Ford's background and credibility, and her veracity under oath …

Interpol chief missing: French police launch investigation into President Meng Hongwei's disappearance  —  Meng Hongwei, 64, has not been heard from since travelling to China in late September  — {{#singleComment}}{{value}} comment{{/singleComment}}{{^singleComme nt}}{{value}} comments{{/singleComment}}

Girl, 8, pulls a 1,500-year-old sword from a lake in Sweden  —  An eight-year-old found a pre-Viking-era sword while swimming in a lake in Sweden during the summer.  —  Saga Vanecek found the relic in the Vidöstern lake while at her family's holiday home in Jönköping County.

Still Anonymous: White House hunt for op-ed author fades  —  WASHINGTON (AP) — Remember Anonymous?  —  One month ago Friday, an unidentified Trump administration official set off a White House firestorm by claiming in a New York Times opinion piece to be part of a secret “resistance” …

2018 Nobel Peace Prize Awarded to Congolese Doctor and Yazidi Activist  —  In the midst of a global reckoning over sexual violence, a Congolese gynecological surgeon and a Yazidi woman who was a captive of the Islamic State were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for their campaigns to end the use of mass rape as a weapon of war.

US unemployment rate falls to 49-year low of 3.7 percent  —  WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. unemployment rate fell to 3.7 percent in September — the lowest level since December 1969 — while hiring slowed.  —  Employers added just 134,000 jobs, the fewest in a year, the Labor Department said Friday.