Stranger Than Fiction

TOP NEWS

• The impeachment hearings began with a new revelation by Ambassador Taylor of a July telephone call overheard by one of his aides in which the president was preoccupied with Ukraine’s willingness to say it would look into Mr. Biden and work by his son Hunter Biden for a Ukrainian energy firm. Immediately afterward, Mr. Taylor said, the aide had been informed that Mr. Trump cared more about “investigations of Biden” than he did about Ukraine.

• A DC circuit court rejected Trump’s appeal to block access to his tax records. The case seems likely to be petitioned to the Supreme Court.

• Erdogan presented an anti-Kurd propaganda film to Trump and others, including Lindsey Graham, in the Oval Office. Hours later, Graham blocked a Senate motion to recognize the slaughter of Armenians by the Turks as a genocide.

THE ELECTION

• Sanders keeps up the fight following his heart attack

• Biden releases $1.3 trillion infrastructure plan

• Castro will miss the November debate

THE COMMENT

“Taylor was an extremely credible, unflappable and compelling witness who did not take sides but testified about facts that are very damning to President Trump, and the Republicans did not lay a glove on him,” said Theodore J. Boutrous Jr., a prominent Washington lawyer. “It’s way too soon to tell how the public and Congress will react,” he added, but “both Taylor and Kent provided a very strong foundation for the case against Mr. Trump.”

THE STRANGEST

• Cirque du Soleil founder detained for growing cannabis on private island

THE AV ROOM

• CROATIAN FIREFIGHTERS ON CALL SECONDS BEFORE WINNING

• THE ABSURDITY OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE

• RARE LOOK AT A NUCLEAR POWERED SUBMARINE