Ambassador Gordon Sondland says he was directed by President Trump to talk to Rudy Giuliani about Trump's concerns over Ukraine, bypassing normal foreign policy channels.

That "disappointed him," he says — but even as he went along, he was kept out of Trump's strategy to pressure Ukraine to investigate the family of former Vice President Joe Biden.

Sondland says that he didn't know about it at the time and that for example, the account he received of Trump's now-famous phone call with Ukraine's president did not mention Trump's request about Biden.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and his staff prepared his Republican caucus on Wednesday for the potential of becoming jurors in an impeachment trial of President Trump in the coming months.

McConnell gave the tutorial of sorts during their weekly GOP caucus luncheon, complete with a slide show and a slew of questions from Republican members.

"We intend to do our constitutional responsibility," McConnell, R-Ky., told reporters following the luncheon.

Scientists cannot yet predict when the next deadly earthquake will strike, but emergency response authorities in California plan to unveil the first statewide quake warning system Thursday, which marks the 30th anniversary of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.

The warnings will be issued in two ways: a cellphone app called MyShake and the more traditional wireless notification system that sends out Amber Alerts.

We are living through a period of unrelentingly mirthless headlines: An impeachment inquiry into the president's actions, an upsurge in the long-running war in Syria, climate crisis, disagreement over how to handle asylum seekers that has led to the separation of parents and children at the southern border. Readers seeking a break from that grim litany may be the only reason I can think of that an Oct.

For three decades, Kim Gordon helped shape the sound of underground music with her band Sonic Youth, whose wall-of-dissonant-sound approach was known as "no wave," in contrast to the poppier 80's "New Wave" sound. Gordon played bass and guitar, wrote and sang; she touched on topics that were rare in rock music — female desire, eating disorders, workplace sexual harassment.

Gordon Sondland, U.S. ambassador to the European Union, is speaking to Congress behind closed doors on Thursday as part of the House's impeachment inquiry into President Trump.

In his prepared remarks, the former businessman says: "as we go through this process, I understand that some people may have their own specific agendas: some may want me to say things to protect the President at all costs; some may want me to provide damning facts to support the other side. But none of that matters to me. ... Simply put, I am NOT here to push an agenda. I am here to tell the truth."