The woman accusing Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of a decades-old sexual assault has accepted a Senate committee's request to tell her side next week but Christine Blasey Ford wants to resume negotiations over the exact terms of her appearance, her lawyers said Saturday. It was not immediately clear whether the Republican-run Senate Judiciary Committee would agree to more talks with Ford's team. Also unclear was when she might come to Capitol Hill and whether she was offering to speak in a public session or a private one. The committee wanted her to appear Wednesday, but she prefers her earlier request for Thursday, according to a person familiar with the negotiations who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. Her lawyers' letter to the committee's GOP majority was released just at the 2:30 p.m. deadline set by the chairman, Sen. Chuck Grassley, to respond to the panel's latest offer. Grassley, R-Iowa, had set a possible Monday vote to decide whether to recommend Kavanaugh's nomination to the full Senate. 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

A press adviser helping lead the Senate Judiciary Committee’s response to a sexual assault allegation against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh has stepped down amid evidence he was fired from a previous political job in part because of a sexual harassment allegation against him. Garrett Ventry, 29, who served as a communications aide to the committee chaired by Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, had been helping coordinate the majority party's messaging in the wake of Christine Blasey Ford’s claim that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her 36 years ago at a high school party. In a response to NBC News, Ventry denied any past "allegations of misconduct." After NBC News raised questions about Ventry's employment history and the sexual assault allegation against him, Judiciary Committee Spokesman Taylor Foy replied in a statement: "While (Ventry) strongly denies allegations of wrongdoing, he decided to resign to avoid causing any distraction from the work of the committee." 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

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

Comcast outflanked Twenty-First Century Fox in a $39 billion takeover of British broadcaster Sky on Saturday, submitting a much higher bid in a three-round auction that pitted two of America's largest media companies against one another. The U.S. cable giant outbid its rival by $3.6 billion, offering £17.28 (over $22 per share, according to current exchange rates). Rupert Murdoch's Fox offered £15.67 (over $20) per Sky share, according to an official statement from the Takeover Panel. This follows a protracted bidding battle between Comcast and Fox over the coveted overseas competitor. The blind auction format is a highly unusual one for a deal as closely watched as the Sky acquisition. Takeover auctions are normally reserved for commercial transactions. In such auctions, bidders submit sealed offers to a third-party arbiter. Get More

Activists marking the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Maria's devastation of Puerto Rico are staging a rally and caravan focused on President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. Organizers say the Saturday afternoon event will include about 20 buses carrying Puerto Ricans and members of other Hispanic groups, along with faith leaders, progressives and others around the Palm Beach resort. A rally will follow in nearby West Palm Beach to remember those who suffered and died in last year's hurricane. Among the scheduled speakers is Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson, who faces a re-election challenge from Republican Gov. Rick Scott. Both have campaigned steadily among Puerto Ricans living in Florida. 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

The woman seen on surveillance video chasing the man who grabbed her buttocks in the subway is speaking out about her alleged attack, describing her instinct to go after him and helping to make sure it doesn't happen to anyone else. Chantal Castanon, 26, was heading home to Staten Island through Grand Central on Aug. 31, in a good mood after getting off work early -- until she felt the stranger's hand on her behind. "He did it with such a firm grip that I still felt him -- and he was all the way over there already," she told News 4 New York Friday. Get More

Two brothers, one an NYPD cop and the other an FDNY EMT, responded to the same call for a woman in labor in Times Square and together helped deliver her baby. NYPD officer Yan Poon was among the first cops responding to the 911 call from a hotel on West 43rd Street just after 12:30 p.m., according to police. In the room, he and officers Zhan Ren and Nicole Davis found Kristen Smith and her 35-year-old wife, Heather Smith, who was in active labor. "When we got to the scene, it was a little chaotic, and I knew I needed to be the one to keep everyone calm," Poon said in a statement. "I instructed her to breathe and push." 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

Travel remained dangerous Saturday in southeastern North Carolina, where the governor warned of "treacherous" floodwaters more than a week after Hurricane Florence made landfall, and urged residents to stay alert for flood warnings and evacuation orders. Gov. Roy Cooper said nine of the state's river gauges are at major flood stage and four others are at moderate stage, while parts of Interstates 95 and 40 will remain underwater for another week or more. Emergency management officials said residents whose homes were damaged or destroyed will begin moving into hotel rooms next week. "Hurricane Florence has deeply wounded our state, wounds that will not fade soon as the flood waters finally recede," Cooper said. 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