The high-stakes brinkmanship over whether Brett Kavanaugh's accuser would testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee came to a momentary standstill as GOP Chairman Chuck Grassley gave Christine Blasey Ford more time to decide on the terms of her appearance. The Republican-led committee insisted that if Ford missed a Friday night deadline to respond to the panel's latest offer it would hold a vote Monday on recommending Kavanaugh's Supreme Court nomination for the full Senate to consider. Get More

Some of the most vocal proponents of the #MeToo movement and droves of other women have come to the defense of Christine Blasey Ford after President Donald Trump questioned her credibility and wondered why she didn’t report her sexual assault at the time she said it happened. In a slew of unrestrained tweets Friday, Trump contended that if the attack Ford said happened at the hands of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh was “as bad” as she claims, she would have “immediately” reported it to local authorities. He asked her to produce the report to prove the details of her alleged assault and wondered, “Why didn’t someone call the FBI 36 years ago?” The president's brazen comments sparked the birth of a new trending hashtag, #WhyIDidntReport, and inspired victims to reveal their own stories of assault and share their reasons for not telling anyone about the violence. Get More

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein was joking when he discussed wearing a wire to secretly record President Donald Trump and does not believe Trump should be removed from office through the use of procedures outlined in the Constitution's 25th Amendment, according to sources familiar with his conversations. The sources were responding to a New York Times report that Rosenstein, in the tumultuous spring of 2017, had discussed with other Justice and FBI officials the possibility of recruiting members of Trump's Cabinet to declare him unfit for the job and that he offered to wear a recording device during conversations with the president, NBC News reported. Get More at NBC News

Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz had a chance to show off his often praised debating skills tonight in his first match-up against Democratic challenger Beto O’Rourke, the El Paso congressman running a strong campaign against him. Cruz is trying to win a second term in the U.S. Senate in a race that the Cook Political Report on Friday rated a toss-up. New polls show the competition tightening with a Reuters-Ipsos poll on Wednesday giving O’Rourke a two-point lead in a typically reliable red state. Countering those indications is a Quinnipiac poll had Cruz ahead by nine points. O’Rourke is a three-term congressman. He has raised more money than Cruz, a presidential hopeful in 2016 against now President Donald J. Trump, drawing national attention to the race. Get More

An independent investigation into the death of University of Maryland football player Jordan McNair has determined that trainers on the scene did not follow proper procedures after he collapsed on the field. McNair was hospitalized on May 29 after a team workout and died June 13. The family attorney said the cause of death was heatstroke. Get More

Benetta White and David Lloyd slogged through waist-deep water filling their yard to escape Hurricane Florence's latest life-threatening punch to a town in the Carolinas. It was their second evacuation in a week. They were among 100 people rescued with helicopters, boats and high-wheeled military vehicles during a six-hour rescue operation in southeastern North Carolina's Bladen County that lasted into Friday morning. Officials in North and South Carolina warn that the flooding danger is far from over, with South Carolina also ordering more evacuations as rivers rise. At least 43 people have died since the hurricane slammed into the coast more than a week ago. Get More

Target is "deeply troubled" by the Trump administration's escalating trade war, saying it threatens to undermine the U.S. economy, penalizes American families and raises prices on everything from backpacks to playpens. Target is among the hundreds of retailers and other companies pushing back against President Donald Trump's new 10 percent tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese goods. Get More

Gunmen attacked an annual Iranian military parade Saturday in the country's oil-rich southwest, killing at least 24 people and injuring more than 53 others, the deputy governor of the Khuzestan province said. At least eight of those killed were members of the country's elite Revolutionary Guard, local media reported. Get More at NBC News

The head of the federal disaster response agency used government vehicles without proper authorization, but will not lose his job over it, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said Friday. Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator William "Brock" Long had been under investigation by the Homeland Security Department's watchdog over possibly misusing government vehicles to travel to his home in Hickory, North Carolina. Word leaked of the investigation just as Hurricane Florence was poised to make landfall earlier this month. Get More

Journalist Alice Allison Dunnigan triumphed over sexism and racism to become the first black woman accredited to cover the White House. In recognition of her achievements, the Newseum unveiled a statue in her honor on Friday. The bronze life-size statue will remain in the Newseum, just steps away from the National Mall and the White House, until December. The statue, based on a photo of Dunnigan standing on the steps of the U.S. Capitol, depicts her in hat and pearls, a folded newspaper in her hands. Get More

A Maryland woman who said she was a psychic and scammed customers out of $340,000 to cure them of "curses" has been sentenced to six years in prison. Gina Marie Marks, who identified herself as Natalie Miller in her meetings with clients, stole from five people who sought her help over the course of more than two years. Get More

Two secretaries-general and diplomats from the world that Kofi Annan served for nearly 45 years paid tribute to him at the United Nations Friday, but the most moving words were from his wife and son who urged people everywhere to continue his fight for a fairer and peaceful planet. The ceremony in the General Assembly hall where the U.N.'s 193 member nations meet began with traditional music and drums from Annan's native Ghana, and a silent tribute to the world body's seventh secretary-general who died on Aug. 18 in Bern, Switzerland at age 80. Annan's widow, Nane, recalled sitting in the General Assembly hall the day he was elected secretary-general in December 1996. Get More

Housing Secretary Ben Carson is attributing the controversy over Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court nomination to people who want to "fundamentally change this country." Carson said Friday that Kavanaugh's opponents have become "desperate." "And now they don't see themselves as being able to control the courts for another generation," Carson added. "So what is left? Chaos and destruction." Get More

The Baptist bishops preaching from the pulpit are poets. The wino on the corner is a poet. Grandparents who repeat oral stories from the comfort of their favorite chair are poets. Or at least that’s what Danez Smith, the newest and youngest poet to receive the British Forward Prize for Best Collection, believes. The Minnesota native is also the first gender-neutral poet — Smith prefers the pronouns “they” and “they” — to win the £10,000 prize. They even defeated the 2018 U.S. Poet Laureate Tracey K. Smith. “We all have poets in our lives,” they said. “Poetry is for all of us, because poetry helps us see ourselves as human. [Poems] are mirrors that help me see my flesh is actually flesh and not imagined.” Get More