Modest Public Interest in Close of Zimmerman Trial  —  Wider Race Gap in Interest than for Rodney King, O.J. Simpson  —  OVERVIEW  —  The final days of the trial of George Zimmerman, which concluded July 13 with a verdict of not guilty, attracted relatively modest public interest overall.

Michele Bachmann aide Javier Sanchez arrested after Rayburn thefts  —  Capitol Police arrested an aide to Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) after a series of thefts from the Rayburn House Office Building.  —  Javier Sanchez, 37, was arrested last Thursday, a Capitol Police spokesman said.

McCain Suggests Letting GOP Pick Nominees  —  Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said he and Republicans are trying to strike a deal with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) to avoid his threat of triggering the “nuclear option” and would either allow up-or-down votes on seven contentious nominees or at least find …

Rand Paul, Ted Cruz join Kirsten Gillibrand push on military sexual assault  —  Sens. Rand Paul and Ted Cruz have joined an upstart effort to remove the chain of command from military sexual assault cases, POLITICO has learned.  —  The tea party favorites give the bill's lead sponsor …

Witness claims youths yelled ‘this is for Trayvon’ in beating  —  Police still investigating claim in beating of Hispanic man  —  Baltimore police say they are investigating a witness account that a group of black youths beat a Hispanic man near Patterson Park Sunday while saying, “This is for Trayvon.”

Michele Bachmann Wants To ‘Spank The President’ And Steal His ‘Magic Wand’  —  Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) warned Monday that Republicans are in danger of losing control of the House of Representatives in 2014 if they let President Obama “wave his magic wand” and allow newly legal immigrants to vote.

Hispanics of All Ages Tilt Democratic  —  Younger Hispanics, though more independent, still lean to Democratic Party  —  PRINCETON, NJ — Hispanics of all ages in the U.S. today are more than twice as likely to identify with or lean to the Democratic Party rather than the Republican Party.

BREAKING NEWS: Nueces County sheriff confirms judge found dead at courthouse  —  CORPUS CHRISTI — State District Judge Tom Greenwell was found dead from a gunshot wound Monday night in his chambers, Nueces County Sheriff Jim Kaelin confirmed.  —  Corpus Christi police …

Petraeus's Pay for Part-Time CUNY Job, Criticized at $200,000, Drops to $1  —  It was supposed to be a feather in the cap for the City University of New York's ambitious honors college.  Or perhaps a careful first step back into public life for a leader sidelined by scandal.

What Attorney General Eric Holder just said about the Zimmerman case - click to read and POST YOUR COMMENT  —  Sent to me by FNC colleague Jake Gibson:  —  There are the AG's remarks at today's Delta Sigma Theta sorority convention that will address Trayvon Martin / George Zimmerman

McDonalds Tells Workers To Budget By Getting A Second Job And Turning Off Their Heat  —  McDonalds has partnered with Visa to launch a website to help its low-wage workers making an average $8.25 an hour to budget.  But while the site is clearly meant to illustrate that McDonalds workers …

Senate Control in 2014 Increasingly Looks Like a Tossup  —  This weekend's announcement by the former governor of Montana, Brian Schweitzer, that he would not seek that state's Democratic nomination for Senate represents the latest in a series of favorable developments for Republicans as they seek control of the chamber.

EXCLUSIVE: Feds admit improper scrutiny of candidate, donor tax records  —  Justice has declined to prosecute any of the cases  —  The Treasury Department has admitted for the first time that confidential tax records of several political candidates and campaign donors were improperly scrutinized …

Rachel Jeantel Explains The Difference Between ‘N*gga’ And ‘N*gger’ To Piers Morgan  —  In the third part of Piers Morgan's extensive, exclusive interview with Trayvon Martin's friend Rachel Jeantel about her testimony in the George Zimmerman trial, the host asked his guest if there was anything she wished she'd said on the stand.

Can History Be Restarted?  —  The Daniel Johnson article on “The Decline and Fall of the History Men” linked here in our picks section yesterday deserves additional reflection.  Johnson laments the fact that no one writes “big history” in the style of Gibbon, Macaulay, or (more recently) Trevor-Roper.