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| Good evening. Here's the latest. |
 Tom Brenner for The New York Times |
| 1. House Democrats are upping the impeachment ante. |
| In a significant escalation, Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee will ask a judge to unseal special counsel Robert Mueller's grand jury secrets, citing their importance in any decision on whether lawmakers will seek to remove President Trump from office. |
| The committee told a judge that it needs access to evidence such as witness testimony because it is "investigating whether to recommend articles of impeachment" against the president. |
| Representative Jerry Nadler, the committee chairman, above, is attempting to sidestep a debate raging within his party over whether the House should hold a vote to formally declare the start of an impeachment inquiry. |
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![Leslie H. Wexner once praised Mr. Epstein as]() Fred Squillante/The Columbus Dispatch, via Associated Press |
| 2. Jeffrey Epstein used Leslie Wexner, the billionaire behind Victoria's Secret, to obtain access to vast wealth — and to allegedly assault a young woman seeking to become a lingerie model. |
| Mr. Epstein, who has been charged with sex trafficking, cultivated an intimate relationship with Mr. Wexner, pictured above in 2011, and developed an unusually strong hold on the retail magnate. We investigated a shadowy bond that stretches back decades. |
| Separately, Ghislaine Maxwell, Mr. Epstein's longtime companion, has been accused of participating in his abuses. Investigative reporter Megan Twohey talks about thousands of sealed records involving Ms. Maxwell that may soon be released on today's episode of "The Daily." |
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 Victor J. Blue for The New York Times |
| 3. Guatemala has signed an agreement that requires migrants who travel through the country to seek asylum there instead of the U.S. after President Trump threatened to impose tariffs or institute a travel ban. |
| But it may be difficult to stem the tide of migrants to the U.S. given the dire conditions in Central America. Sonia Nazario, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author who spent a month reporting in Honduras, details the devastating trickle-down effects of corruption there, including on taxi drivers, above. |
| "Honduras makes the swamp in Washington look like a piddling puddle," she wrote in an Op-Ed report. "If the United States wants to slow migration from Central America, that's the swamp we must help drain." |
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 Erin Schaff/The New York Times |
| 4. "I realized I have a moral responsibility to come forward. I could not live with myself if this happens to someone else and I didn't do anything to stop it." |
| Army Col. Kathryn Spletstoser says she was sexually assaulted in a hotel room by Air Force Gen. John Hyten, whom President Trump has nominated to be the vice chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. |
| General Hyten denies Colonel Spletstoser's allegations that he inappropriately touched her several times in 2017, and an Air Force official charged with investigating her complaint declined in June to refer General Hyten to a court-martial. |
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 Brittainy Newman for The New York Times |
| 5. T-Mobile and Sprint's merger was approved by the Justice Department, a crucial step in the long-running attempt to combine the third- and fourth-largest U.S. mobile phone companies. |
| Under the terms of the deal, T-Mobile would pay roughly $26 billion in stock to absorb Sprint, creating a formidable rival to AT&T and Verizon. But the deal could still fall through if the companies fail to overcome a lawsuit brought by several states. |
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 Joe Buglewicz for The New York Times |
| 6. Senator Elizabeth Warren has received one million donations to her 2020 campaign, making her only the second Democratic candidate (after Senator Bernie Sanders) to hit the grassroots fund-raising milestone. Above, Ms. Warren earlier this month in Las Vegas. |
| And in case you've forgotten, John Hickenlooper, the former Colorado governor, is still running for president, and has perhaps only one chance to break through on a national stage at next week's debate. Lately, his aides say their most viable strategy is letting Mr. Hickenlooper — and his banjo — make his case. |
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 Anthony Wallace/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images |
| 7. Hong Kong is bracing for more volatile protests. |
| Black-clad demonstrators filled the airport on Friday, and plan to rally Saturday despite a police ban in the same district where a mob attacked protesters last weekend. Above, an information desk at the airport. |
| A new development in that mob attack: A week before suspected triad gang members assaulted protesters at a rural Hong Kong train station with pipes and clubs, a Chinese official urged residents there to drive away any activists, Reuters reports. Forty-five people, including lawmakers and journalists, were injured in the attacks. |
| Meanwhile, both sides have turned identity into a weapon: Activists fear the police are using facial recognition to target them for arrest, and protesters are exposing the identity of officers and their families. |
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 Andrew Cooper/Sony Pictures |
| 8. For your leisure time: |
| In "Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood," Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt star as midlevel entertainment industry workers whose relationship forms the core of Quentin Tarantino's look at the movie past. The film will "stand as a source of debate — and delight — for as long as we care about movies," our critic writes. |
| On the small screen: The final season of "Orange Is the New Black" arrived on Netflix today. We talked to the show's creator, Jenji Kohan, about the end of her groundbreaking ensemble dramedy. |
| And on the literary front, we posed the same question to 13 novelists: What's the best murder you ever wrote? Antifreeze, cashews and a missing EpiPen all made the list. |
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 Walter Thompson-Hernández/The New York Times |
| 9. And now something for your ears. |
| In a city known for samba, members of Orquestra da Rua stand apart. The quartet of young musicians is bringing classical music from some of Rio de Janeiro's roughest favelas to the city's streets and subways. Lucas Nascimento, above center, teaches local children. |
| We also look at the influence of Blue Note Records on its 80th birthday. While jazz is in a state of diffusion, the storied label is still working to influence the genre's path forward. Listen to the music that shaped its legacy, including records from John Coltrane and Herbie Hancock. |
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 Michael Evans/The New York Times |
| 10. Finally, get your skates out — and don't forget your helmet and safety pads. |
| At first glance, roller derby seems like a 21st-century feminist punk fever dream. But the full-contact sport has roots stretching back nearly a century to the Great Depression, when an event promoter in Chicago was looking for something exciting to draw crowds. |
| Leo Seltzer, roller derby's creator, told The Times in 1971 that the sport's basic appeal was "noise, color, body contact." We went back into The Times archives and found just that. Above, the 1973 world championships at Shea Stadium in New York. |
| Hope your weekend doesn't whiz by too fast. |
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