Day: September 28, 2019

Leaders of the National Rifle Association (NRA) traveled to Moscow using NRA funds, according to a new Senate report, raising the question of whether the organization broke laws governing nonprofit spending. If the association did in fact break those laws, it could lose its tax-exempt status — and according to a former IRS official, without its tax-exempt status, the NRA could be forced to shut down.

The report, which was compiled by Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee and released on Friday, investigates the relationship between NRA leadership and Russian nationals with Kremlin ties. Those nationals include Maria …

Rudy Giuliani, personal lawyer to Donald Trump and a key figure in the Ukraine scandal, will no longer make a paid appearance at a Russia sponsored conference in Armenia, according to The Washington Post.

Giuliani has faced increasing scrutiny in recent weeks over his role in promoting a conspiracy theory at the heart of a whistleblower complaint that has roiled Washington and left Trump the subject of an impeachment inquiry. That conspiracy theory maintains — without any evidence — that former Vice President Joe Biden pressured Ukraine to fire its top prosecutor in order to protect his son. …

In 2017, President Donald Trump told Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak he believed Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential to be unimportant, according to a report from the Washington Post — and access to the memo describing the meeting was restricted to very few people, out of fear that the president’s comments would be made public.

Trump has repeatedly downplayed fears about Russian election interference in public. But the Post’s report, from Shane Harris, Josh Dawsey, and Ellen Nakashima, is the latest allegation that the White House has treated potentially embarrassing records about Trump’s conversations …

Rep. Mark Amodei (R-NV) became the first Republican in the House of Representatives to support an impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump on Friday — placing him in stark contrast with the majority of Republicans on the Hill.

During a conference call with local reporters reporters, Amodei said he read both the whistleblower complaint and the White House’s memo on President Donald Trump’s phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, according to The Nevada Independent. During the now infamous July phone call, Trump asked Zelensky to launch an investigation into fellow presidential candidate Joe Biden as a “favor.”

The …

Welcome to Vox’s weekly book link roundup, a curated selection of the internet’s best writing on books and related subjects. Here’s the best the web has to offer for the week of September 22, 2019.

On the third floor of Hauteville House, a Georgian villa on the British Channel Island of Guernsey, a man’s head, carved from the faux ivory top of a walking stick, hovers ominously above an ornately carved bed. To the right of the bed is a red curtain, which conceals a secret hidden passage. A short flight of stairs behind the curtain leads to a “crystal

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Reports of vaping-linked illness rise; upcoming Afghan elections are met with security apprehensions.

Vaping-linked illnesses climb in CDC report

Getty Images

• A new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report shows a rise in vaping-linked illnesses, now with 805 registered cases and 12 deaths. [NPR / Emily Vaughn]
• Doctors are not entirely certain the exact cause of the illness, but every

Late in The Irishman, Frank Sheeran (Robert De Niro) says that “you don’t know how fast time goes by until you get there,” and there’s just a twinkle of irony mixed into the melancholy. After all, by then, the movie is past the three-hour mark. (It ultimately tops out at 209 minutes.)

But that’s sort of the point. Time telescopes in Martin Scorsese’s newest movie, shifting back and forth through decades as old, wistful Frank narrates the tale of his life as a hitman for crime syndicate boss Russell Bufalino (Joe Pesci) and then for Teamster boss Jimmy Hoffa …