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The growing popularity of FaceApp, a photo filter app that delights smartphone users with its ability to transform the features of any face, like tacking on years of wrinkles, has prompted Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer to call for a federal investigation into the Russia-based company over what he says are potential national security and privacy risks to millions of Americans.

Jeffrey Epstein, the wealthy financier and sex offender, is due back in a New York court Thursday. Epstein is expected to learn from a federal judge whether he will be granted bail or has to remain behind bars as he awaits trial on new sex crimes charges involving underage girls.

Lawyers for Epstein argue their client should await trial at his multimillion-dollar Manhattan mansion on house arrest. Prosecutors argue the well-connected money man is a flight risk, adding if he's not detained, Epstein's victims could be subjected to "harassment and abuse by the defendant."

Updated at 9:45 p.m. ET

President Trump continued his attacks against four freshman Democratic congresswomen at a campaign rally in Greenville, N.C., on Wednesday, with the crowd breaking into a chant of "send her back" against one, echoing the president's racist message from the weekend.

Trump piled on Minnesota Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar, who immigrated to the U.S. as a refugee from Somalia as a child. Egged on by several false explosive claims against the Muslim congresswoman, Trump's supporters broke into the chant.

Keep ya head up, Jerry Foxhoven.

The public servant who led Iowa's Department of Human Services was forced to resign in June, just one business day after he sent an email to more than 4,000 agency employees that included an inspirational quote from the rapper Tupac Shakur.

He used his love of rap from time to time to "reach out to our staff, tell them that I'm human, have a little levity," he tells NPR.

The leaders of Sudan's pro-democracy movement and the country's ruling military council signed a power-sharing agreement on Wednesday. The two sides held a signing ceremony in the capital, Khartoum, marking the end of three months of protests and negotiations. The document is a step toward civilian rule, but details of the agreement, including how power would be divided, still need to be worked out.

The House of Representatives escalated its confrontation with the executive branch Wednesday by holding two Trump administration officials in criminal contempt for not providing complete copies of subpoenaed documents related to the 2020 census.

The resolution named Attorney General William Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross for failing to cooperate with a congressional oversight investigation.

The 20-person lineup for the two-night Democratic presidential debate on July 30 and 31 will look familiar, with just one change from last month's event.

Last week, California Rep. Eric Swalwell became the first major candidate to end his White House bid. Montana Gov. Steve Bullock — after only narrowly missing the mark last time — will take his place.

Planned Parenthood clinics nationwide have stopped using federal Title X family planning funds, according to the organization. The decision comes after the Trump administration announced this week that it has started enforcing regulations that prohibit Title X grant recipients from counseling patients about abortion.

Updated at 8:20 p.m. ET

Prosecutors have dropped a criminal case against Kevin Spacey in which the actor was accused of sexually assaulting an 18-year-old man in Nantucket, Mass., in 2016.

Cape and Islands District Attorney Michael O'Keefe said in court documents filed Wednesday that he was abandoning the case "due to the unavailability of the complaining witness."

Hoping to regain momentum as two rival candidates creep closer in the polls, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders returned to his signature policy theme in a major speech Wednesday: a single-payer, "Medicare for All" health insurance system.

"The time is now to go forward. The time is now to expand Medicare to every man, woman, and child in this country," Sanders told supporters and reporters in Washington, D.C.

When Steven Hoelscher first came across an essay with Langston Hughes' name on it, he says it felt "totally random." Hoelscher, a professor at University of Texas at Austin, was doing research in the archives of an investigative journalist named John L. Spivak.

High drug prices are a hot topic in politics right now. President Trump has made lowering them a cornerstone of his re-election bid and is pushing a variety of ideas to get that done.

A crowd has gathered outside Centro de Atención Integral a Migrantes in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, where migrants come to check their number on a long list of asylum seekers. Most days, a Mexican official calls several numbers off the waiting list here, and a lucky few get to cross the international bridge.

These migrants are just some of the thousands of asylum-seekers staying in Mexican border cities right now, waiting for their turn to legally cross the border and make their case in court.

Trish doesn't have many places to turn. She's living at her elderly father's home without a job because she can't afford the care he needs. And every day she says the balance sheet seems stained with more red ink.

"It's all outgoing. There's nothing coming in, that's for sure. And I'm stuck in a rock and a hard place because of my credit, so I don't — I need to make enough money that I can afford to live somewhere," she says, voice quavering.

Across from her at the table, David Perez nods quietly and takes notes.

As far as drug-smuggling plans go, this one probably should have been gone over with a fine-toothed comb.

A Colombian man trying to sneak more than a pound of cocaine into Spain was caught with the package (poorly) hidden under his toupee, a Spanish police official told NPR.

The extra carry-on bag was taped to the top of 65-year-old man's head, creating a very bizarre lewk as he disembarked from a flight arriving in Barcelona from Bogota.