One of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's more memorable lines in his interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity is that "a 14-year-old" could have hacked the gmail account of Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta — it was the phrase Donald Trump used when he cited the Assange interview Wednesday morning to cast doubt on the U.S. intelligence community's consensus that Russia hacked Podesta's emails. Trump fans in the conservative media have latched on to Assange's evidence to back up the claim: "We published several Podesta emails which shows Podesta responding to a phishing email. Now, how did they respond? Podesta gave out that his password was the word 'password.'" It's a good anecdote — Trump boosters ran with it:

But Podesta's password was not "password," according to the emails published by WikiLeaks. One stolen 2015 email from Podesta's assistant did list "p@ssw0rd" as the login for his Windows 8 computer, but the only password tied to his gmail account was a more-respectable combination of the word "runner" and four digits. The actual way hackers broke into Podesta's email account is bad enough — an unfortunate typo by Clinton's tech adviser and Podesta's decision to use the corrupt link in the phishing email instead of the legitimate one sent by Clinton tech support. There's no need to make stuff up. Or as Sen. Lindsey Graham puts it:

Assange's steady release of Podesta's emails in the campaign's final months kept "Clinton" and "email" in the news, and while there were no bombshells, the emails did lead to a gunman shooting up a D.C. pizza restaurant. WikiLeaks did not publish any emails from Trump's campaign or the Republican Party. Peter Weber

A day after President Trump shuttered two of his business councils, he announced he was giving up on a third. "The President's Advisory Council on Infrastructure, which was still being formed, will not move forward," a White House official confirmed Thursday. The council would have offered Trump advice on his visions for improving the nation's roads and bridges.

On Wednesday, Trump tweeted that he'd decided to disband his American Manufacturing Council and his Strategy and Policy Forum, though it seems that was already happening with or without his blessing. Members of the Strategic and Policy Forum had already announced the council was breaking up because of the president's response to the weekend's white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. Trump's American Manufacturing Council had been rapidly losing members, with seven business leaders quitting the council by Wednesday over Trump's response to the Charlottesville protests. Becca Stanek

The Dow Jones closed Thursday afternoon down more than 274 points as investors were rattled by the chaos engulfing the Trump White House in addition to a deadly terrorist attack in Barcelona. The 1.2 percent drop in the Dow made for the index's biggest drop in three months and its second-worst day of the entire year. The Nasdaq Composite also posted a 1.9 percent slide, while the S&P 500 plunged 1.5 percent.

The market was particularly spooked by the idea that former Goldman Sachs executive Gary Cohn could resign from President Trump's National Economic Council, Barron's reports, given Cohn is in charge of the administration's tax reform efforts. Cohn was reportedly "disgusted" by Trump's tepid response to the white nationalist demonstrations in Charlottesville, Virginia, over the weekend, which resulted in the death of 32-year-old Heather Heyer. Kimberly Alters

A van jumped the curb and plowed into a crowd in the center of Barcelona on Thursday. Thirteen people were killed and at least 100 were injured, Catalonian authorities said. Police have confirmed that the incident was a terrorist attack. The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attack through its Amaq news agency.

The driver of the van reportedly fled on foot after plowing into pedestrians in the city's historic Las Ramblas district, a popular tourist destination. Two suspects have been arrested. Local authorities in the Catalonian town of Vic — almost due north of Barcelona — have said they identified a second van linked to the attack in Las Ramblas, The Guardian reports.

Police have dismissed earlier reports that two armed men were hiding out in a bar following the attack. Becca Stanek

This is a breaking news story and has been updated throughout.

Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) thinks it's about time for President Trump's chief strategist Stephen Bannon to leave the White House. "I think it's important for the president to fire Steve Bannon. He should go," King, an ardent Trump supporter, said Thursday in an interview with WABC.

The tipping point for King was Bannon's latest interviews, in which he relished in the fact that the left is making the debate over Confederate monuments a discussion about race, contradicted Trump on North Korea, and openly talked about his fights with colleagues. "The race-identity politics of the left wants to say it's all racist. Just give me more. Tear down more statues. Say the revolution is coming. I can't get enough of it," Bannon told The New York Times in the aftermath of the white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, over the weekend.

For King, a man who once held hugely controversial hearings on the alleged radicalization of American Muslims, Bannon's comments went too far. "I mean, what he said the other day, where he was saying that he hopes the Democrats use race as an issue because that's a win for Republicans, that to me is exploiting a racial issue," King said. "That can't be allowed."

Watch it below. Becca Stanek

Star Wars Jedi master Obi-Wan Kenobi could be getting his very own movie. The Hollywood Reporter revealed Thursday that Disney is in the very early stages of developing a standalone film about the man who trained Anakin Skywalker.

There's not yet a script for the project, but Disney is reportedly in talks with Stephen Daldry, the Oscar-nominated director of Billy Elliot and The Hours, to direct. It's not yet clear whether Ewan McGregor, who has played Obi-Wan in the prequel trilogy, would reprise his role.

The Obi-Wan Kenobi movie apparently isn't the only Star Wars spinoff that Disney is considering: Other projects in development include standalone movies centered on Jabba the Hutt and Boba Fett. And, of course, there's the next installment in the series, Star Wars: The Last Jedi, due out Dec. 15. Becca Stanek

Republican Senate candidate Corey Stewart on Thursday tried to defend President Trump's condemnation of "both sides" for the violence at the Charlottesville, Virginia, white nationalist rally, only to be promptly shut down by CNN's Kate Bolduan.

Stewart, who is running to challenge Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine (D), acknowledged that the people at the rally shouting, "Jews will not replace us," should be condemned. But he then argued that those individuals were "not the issue here." "The issue is you've got the violent left," Stewart said.

He questioned the fact that "not even establishment Republicans have come out and condemned the far left group, Antifa, which has been espousing violence and attacking people." "Is it possible that it's because someone died who was counter-protesting?" Bolduan asked, noting that a woman was killed Saturday after a white supremacist demonstrator drove a car into a group of counter-protesters.

Stewart tried to twist that comment around. "You're trying to use this poor women's death to say that Confederate monuments should be taken down," Stewart said. "That's exactly what you're trying to say, Kate."

Bolduan attempted to explain this was actually not at all what she was trying to say, only to be repeatedly interrupted by Stewart. She eventually put her foot down: “Stop talking. Stop talking. Stop talking for a second. You're the guest on my show. I would like to continue the conversation with you, respectfully," she said.

With Stewart finally quiet, Bolduan clarified that she does believe there is "a time and a place to have a debate and a conversation about the appropriate place for Confederate statues." However, Bolduan said, "it stopped being about statues when people showed up with swastikas."

Watch the heated exchange below. Becca Stanek

President Trump hailed Gen. John Joseph "Black Jack" Pershing in a tweet Thursday, promoting the myth that the Philippine-American War officer had used bullets dipped in pigs' blood to shoot Muslims as a method of discouraging terrorism:

The tweet followed Trump's condolences to Barcelona after a suspected terrorist attack in the Spanish city left at least 13 dead. "Be tough and strong, we love you!" he tweeted.

Trump has previously touted Pershing as a disturbing example of how to deal with terrorism, telling the unproven story at a South Carolina rally in 2016: "[Pershing] took 50 bullets, and he dipped them in pig's blood," Trump claimed. "And he had his men load his rifles and he lined up the 50 people, and they shot 49 of those people. And the 50th person he said, 'You go back to your people and you tell them what happened.' And for 25 years there wasn't a problem, okay?"

The fact that there is no evidence at all to support the myth of Pershing's appalling executions — MSNBC writes that "the story appears to be a hoax spread via e-mail forwards" — is being highlighted by critics who note "the president said two days ago he waits for the facts before talking about attacks," as BuzzFeed News' David Mack points out. Jeva Lange