National News at a Glance

Urban Meyer Is Suspended for 3 Games by Ohio State

Urban Meyer, the famed football coach at Ohio State University, has been suspended for three games after a university investigation found fault with the way he handled the case of an assistant coach who was accused of domestic violence. The school’s athletic director, Gene Smith, was also suspended. The decision came after a two-week investigation. Meyer has been on paid administrative leave since Aug. 1 after allegations arose in a news report that he knew that one of his assistant coaches, Zach Smith, had been accused of domestic abuse in 2015.

Immunotherapy Drugs Slow Skin Cancer That Has Spread to the Brain

A new study offers a glint of hope to people in a desperate situation: Patients with melanoma, the most serious form of skin cancer, that has spread to the brain. A combination of two drugs that activate the immune system shrank brain tumors in many melanoma patients and prolonged life in a study of 94 people at 28 medical centers in the United States. Fewer than 20 percent of patients survive one year with traditional treatments, according to Dr. Hussein A. Tawbi, the first author of the study and an associate professor at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. But in the study, 82 percent were still alive after a year.

Trump Praises Manafort, Saying ‘Unlike Michael Cohen, He Refused to Break’

President Donald Trump on Wednesday praised his just-convicted former campaign chairman for refusing to “break” and cooperate with federal prosecutors investigating Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, expressing appreciation for the loyalty of a felon found guilty of defrauding the U.S. government. In a series of tweets the morning after an extraordinary day in which Paul Manafort, his former campaign chief, was convicted of tax and bank fraud and his longtime personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations he said were directed by Trump, the president appeared to suggest he was more concerned with the fallout for himself than with the crimes.

Republicans Urge Embattled Incumbents to Speak Out on Trump

Senior Republican Party leaders began urging their most imperiled incumbents on Wednesday to speak out about the wrongdoing surrounding President Donald Trump, with Rep. Tom Cole, a former House Republican campaign chairman, warning, “Where there’s smoke, and there’s a lot of smoke, there may well be fire.” Democrats face their own pressure to shed their cautious midterm strategy and hammer the opposition for fostering what Democratic leaders are labeling “a culture of corruption” that starts at Trump and cascades through two indicted House Republicans to a series of smaller scandals breaking out in the party’s backbenches.

Hackers Tried to Access Democratic Party Voter Database

The Democratic National Committee said Wednesday it was alerted to an attempted hack of its voter database this week and it had notified law enforcement. The effort to target the Democratic Party’s voter file was unsuccessful, and a party official said the identities of the culprits were unclear. When the Democratic National Committee was hacked in 2016 during the presidential campaign, the incident was traced to Russia. This week’s attempt was aggressive, two officials said. The hackers set up a fake page that mimicked the party’s login page for its voter-registration website, a tactic that could gather names, passwords and other credentials of those using the voter database.

Long-Secret Report on Leaks From Starr Inquiry May Be Released

A federal judge on Wednesday ordered the release of a long-secret report that could shed light on whether lawyers working for Ken Starr, the independent counsel who investigated President Bill Clinton, violated the law in disclosing information to news organizations. Brett Kavanaugh, President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, was among the lawyers in Starr’s office, which was accused by Clinton’s lawyers of violating grand jury secrecy rules. It is not known whether Kavanaugh was named or criticized in the 1999 report. Judge Royce C. Lamberth, of the U.S. District Court in Washington, ordered the National Archives to release the report by Friday afternoon.

Hawaii Braces for Hurricane Lane, a Rare Category 4 Storm

Hawaii was bracing Wednesday for possible landfall from Hurricane Lane, a rare Category 4 storm in the Pacific Ocean that forecasters are warning could bring whipping winds, flooding and high surf. The storm, which rose to Category 5 strength on Tuesday evening, weakened slightly on Wednesday, according to the National Weather Service. As of 5 a.m. local time Wednesday, it was about 315 miles from the southwest shore of the island of Hawaii, with wind speeds of 155 mph.