Why the new Benghazi emails aren't a “smoking gun.”  —  Has the Benghazi “smoking gun” been found?  Some White House critics believe that new documents wrestled from the White House by Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group, prove that the Obama administration concocted a cover-up …

L.A. head of NAACP resigns in wake of Sterling scandal  —  Leon Jenkins resigned Thursday as president of the Los Angeles chapter of the NAACP in the wake of the Donald Sterling scandal.  (Nick Ut / AP)  —  Los Angeles NAACP President Leon Jenkins has resigned amid scrutiny surrounding …

Biking with Bush: Former president opens up about veterans, Jeb 2016  —  Crawford, Texas (CNN) - It is not an easy ride.  —  The rugged 100-kilometer mountain bike ride cuts through the Texas hill country and was designed to keep a fitness freak on his toes.

Porky's II: The Earmarkers Strike Back  —  Restoring earmarks in today's Congress would be like opening a bar tab for a bunch of recovering alcoholics.  —  Remember the $223 million in federal funds earmarked in 2005 for the “bridge to nowhere” in Alaska?  The project stalled but the public outrage …

U.S. Department of Education Releases List of Higher Education Institutions with Open Title IX Sexual Violence Investigations  —  Contact: Press Office, (202) 401-1576, press@ed.gov  —  The U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights (OCR) released today a list …

GOP State Lawmaker Writes Letter To Editor About Dangers Of Anal Sex  —  Black GOPer: Bundy Just Telling The Truth  —  Mitch Boxes In Tea Party Rival With Joint Pledge To Back GOP Nominee  —  Bundy Supporter: Harry Reid May Get His ‘Balls Ripped Off’  —  ‘Stand Your Ground’ Laws Tested In Recent Killings

Why Economics Failed  —  On Wednesday, I wrapped up the class I've been teaching all semester: “The Great Recession: Causes and Consequences.”  (Slides for the lectures are available via my blog.)  And while teaching the course was fun, I found myself turning at the end to an agonizing question …

Limbaugh To CBS Chief Over Colbert: I'm The ‘Mayor of Realville’  —  Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh on Thursday responded to CBS chief executive's comment that Stephen Colbert is not too liberal to host the “Late Show.”  —  When CBS first announced that the Comedy Central host …

Apathy in the Executive  —  John Paul II and Obama: a study in leadership contrasts.  —  Rome  —  Friends and I kept seeing groups of Poles who'd taken planes or 20-hour bus rides to be here for the canonization of John Paul II.  They did not look wealthy.

The Slush Fund  —  How Obamacare pays off insurers.  —  Widget tooltip  —  When the government provides medical care, it normally delegates the task.  Under Medicare, Washington doesn't employ doctors, nurses, and hospitals to treat the elderly.  It has to coax them to participate.

Findings of the Big Data and Privacy Working Group Review  —  Over the past several days, severe storms have battered Arkansas, Oklahoma, Mississippi and other states.  Dozens of people have been killed and entire neighborhoods turned to rubble and debris as tornadoes have touched down across the region.

How Colleges Waste Your Health Fees  —  By Jenna Ashley Robinson  —  Across the country, student health centers are showing signs of financial bloat and costly mission creep.  Funded by both hefty campus health fees and payments from students' insurers, university health centers spend …

Vatican to debate teachings on divorce, birth control, gay unions  —  Pope Francis meets with Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski, left, at the Vatican.  On the pontiff's orders, the Vatican will convene a meeting of senior clerics this fall to reexamine church teachings that touch the most intimate aspects of people's lives.

My Experiment Opting Out of Big Data Made Me Look Like a Criminal  —  Here's what happened when I tried to hide my pregnancy from the Internet and marketing companies.  —  This week, the President is expected to release a report on big data, the result of a 90-day study that brought together experts …

John Oliver on ‘Last Week Tonight,’ Turning Down CBS, and ‘Nauseating’ American Politics  —  The newly minted host of HBO's ‘Last Week Tonight with John Oliver’ sat down to discuss his new gig, the strange state of U.S. politics, and more over coffee.  —  “I'm still getting used to this whole interview thing,” says John Oliver.

Teacher Accord Gives City a Map for Other Deals  —  Mayor Bill de Blasio, confronting the unsettled labor agreements that have loomed over his first months in office, announced a deal on Thursday with New York City's largest teachers' union that would raise wages by 18 percent over nine years …

Germany blocks Edward Snowden from testifying in person in NSA inquiry  —  Officials say a personal invitation for US whistleblower to attend hearing would put ‘grave strain’ on US-German relations  —  The German government has blocked Edward Snowden from giving personal evidence in front …