Gordon Sondland breaks with Trump in impeachment testimony  —  Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, broke sharply from President Donald Trump on Thursday, telling House impeachment investigators that he opposed the president's request to run Ukraine policy through his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani.

Turkish president Erdogan 'threw Trump's Syria letter in bin'  —  Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan put US President Donald Trump's letter “in the bin”, the BBC has been told.  —  In the letter dated 9 October, and sent after US troops were pulled out of Syria, Mr Trump told Mr Erdogan: “Don't be a tough guy.

Elijah E. Cummings, Powerful Democrat Who Investigated Trump, Dies at 68  —  A son of sharecroppers, he fought tirelessly for his hometown of Baltimore and became a key figure in the impeachment investigation of President Trump.  —  Representative Elijah E. Cummings, a son of sharecroppers …

Trump has awarded next year's G-7 summit of world leaders to his Miami-area resort, the White House said  —  President Trump has awarded the 2020 G-7 Summit of world leaders to his own private company, scheduling the summit for June at his Trump Doral golf resort outside Miami, the White House announced on Thursday.

In U.S., Decline of Christianity Continues at Rapid Pace  —  An update on America's changing religious landscape  —  The religious landscape of the United States continues to change at a rapid clip.  In Pew Research Center telephone surveys conducted in 2018 and 2019 …

“There Is Definite Hanky-Panky Going On”: The Fantastically Profitable Mystery of the Trump Chaos Trades  —  The president's talk can move markets—and it's made some futures traders billions.  Did they know what he was going to say before he said it?  —  In the last 10 minutes of trading …

Things Aren't Getting Better for 2020's Most Vulnerable Senate Republicans  —  Five vulnerable Republicans see declines in net approval  —  Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) delivers remarks during a weekly Capitol Hill news conference on June 25.  The latest Morning Consult Senator Approval Rankings found …

Trump's “Nervous Nancy” tweet shows his problem with powerful women  —  A photo tweeted by President Trump on Wednesday shows House Speaker Nancy Pelosi chastising him while others look on at a White House meeting.  White House photo by Shealah Craighead  —  Trump tried to shame Nancy Pelosi by tweeting a photo of their meeting.

Does Trump Realize the Trouble He's In?  —  Recognizing when things are going wrong is an essential skill of the presidency.  Trump doesn't seem to have it.  —  Wednesday, the 1,000th day of Donald Trump's presidency, went badly.  That's no surprise; most of the first 999 days went badly too.

At the Times, a Hesitance to Hyperlink  —  Journalists at the New York Times and its own standards editor say that getting continually dragged by other journalists for not giving credit is embarrassing.  —  There's a joke in the journalism industry: It's not news until the New York Times says it is.

Blood fills Iowa family's basement  —  (WHO/NBC News) What sounds like a scene from a horror film is reality for the Lestina family of Bagley, Iowa.  —  Nick Lestina and his family of seven were getting ready to put their house on the market until their basement was flooded with animal blood.

Giuliani Ukraine associate had checkered past even before indictment  —  On Oct. 25, 2008, the owner of a property in Florida in which Lev Parnas had been living told Parnas to leave.  When the men began to argue and the owner told Parnas he would call the police, Parnas told the man …

The Republican political operatives who call the shots at Facebook  —  This is the online version of the Popular Information newsletter.  You can get independent accountability journalism in your inbox every week.  Sign up here:  —  Subscribe  —  In recent months, Facebook …

Inside TurboTax's 20-Year Fight to Stop Americans From Filing Their Taxes for Free  —  ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power.  Sign up for ProPublica's Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox as soon as they are published.

Ed Henry Walks the Line Between News and Opinion at Fox News  —  As the network's news wing (led until recently by Shepard Smith) and opinion wing clash, Henry regularly does double duty.  —  If anyone embodies the occasionally hard-to-define line between the news and opinion sides at Fox News, it's Ed Henry.

Facing unbearable heat, Qatar has begun to air-condition the outdoors  —  Click any temperature underlined in the story to convert between Celsius and Fahrenheit  —  DOHA, Qatar — It was 116 degrees Fahrenheit (46.7 degrees Celsius) in the shade outside the new Al Janoub soccer stadium …

Mark Zuckerberg doubles down on free speech  —  Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg cast himself and his company as champions of free speech in a 45-minute talk at Georgetown University Thursday.  —  What he's saying: “I believe we have two responsibilities: to remove content when it could cause real danger …

Rudy Giuliani's Twitter Feed Is a Boomer Conspiracy-Theory Sh*tshow  —  The president's lawyer has baffled a lot of people with his recent behavior.  Perhaps his social-media habits can explain why.  —  When Rudy Giuliani logs into Twitter, he's presented with a world where the recent …

Did Rudy Pal Igor Fruman Steal Another Man's Identity to Make a $100K Campaign Donation?  —  The effort to hide campaign donations may be more deceptive than previously known.  —  When federal prosecutors indicted Rudy Giuliani pal Igor Fruman for campaign finance violations last week …

APNewsBreak: Billionaire governor's family farms get subsidy  —  LEWISBURG, W.Va. (AP) — A farming business owned by the family of West Virginia's billionaire governor has received $125,000 in soybean and corn subsidies, the maximum allowed from a federal program meant to help American farmers through the U.S. trade war with China.