Jill Abramson to exit New York Times  —  New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson announced Wednesday that she will leave the paper, two sources familiar with the news informed POLITICO.  Managing editor Dean Baquet will take over as executive editor, effective immediately.

AMAZING VIDEO: Cat saves boy from dog attack in Southwest Bakersfield  —  BAKERSFIELD - A cat came to her best friend's rescue Tuesday when the young boy was attacked in his driveway in Southwest Bakersfield.  —  The surveillance video shows the boy playing on his bicycle when a dog sneaks up behind him and grabs his leg.

Harry Reid Says He “Can't Vote” For Obama's Controversial Judicial Pick  —  “Unless I have a better explanation, I can't vote for him,” the Senate majority leader said of Michael Boggs.  —  U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV).  —  Jonathan Ernst / Reuters / Reuters

New Benghazi Investigation Spooks GOP Leaders  —  It's not just the Democrats who are opposed to a new select committee looking into the Benghazi attacks.  Many top Republicans are uneasy, too.  —  Last Wednesday, as the House was preparing for its new investigation into the Benghazi attacks …

US using drones to find kidnapped Nigerian girls  —  The U.S. is now using unmanned drones in the search for hundreds of Nigerian schoolgirls kidnapped by the Islamist group Boko Haram, the White House said Wednesday.  —  The deployment of drones comes in addition to manned surveillance flights …

Eric Cantor's tea party opponent in Va. primary may be picking up momentum  —  RICHMOND — There was a time when House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) sympathized with the tea party's frustration with Washington.  —  Now, he's engaged in open warfare with the GOP's insurgent wing.

Climate Change Deemed Growing Security Threat by Military Researchers  —  WASHINGTON — The accelerating rate of climate change poses a severe risk to national security and acts as a catalyst for global political conflict, a report published Tuesday by a leading government-funded military research organization concluded.

Our Second Black President?  —  For years, we've had a running conversation about how much or whether the often vitriolic, seemingly gut level opposition to President Obama is tied to his race as opposed to simple partisanship, opposition to policies and more.

Bill Clinton Defends Hillary On Benghazi, Rove Attacks  —  Former President BIll Clinton said at the Peterson Foundation Fiscal Summit on Wednesday that his wife handled the attack in Libya appropriately and that he was “dumbfounded” by Karl Rove's suggestion she suffered brain damage from a fall in 2012

Georgia Senate Frontrunner Touches Republicans' Third Rail, Suggests Raising Taxes  —  The Georgia Republican contenders for U.S Senate have made a lot of outrageous assertions, from calling evolution a lie “straight from the pit of hell” to proposing that poor students sweep floors to pay for lunch.

In 2014 Primaries So Far, Good News for Incumbents  —  With Tuesday's elections in Nebraska and West Virginia, we are now seven states deep into the 2014 primary season.  Already, nominations have been decided in nearly 100 of the nation's 435 congressional districts.

The Origins of “Privilege”  —  The idea of “privilege”—that some people benefit from unearned, and largely unacknowledged, advantages, even when those advantages aren't discriminatory —has a pretty long history.  In the nineteen-thirties, W. E. B. Du Bois wrote about the “psychological wage” …

Georgia Accused Of Sentencing Transgender Woman To ‘Torture’  —  Georgia's prison officials will have to explain themselves in court if they continue to refuse hormone therapy to transgender inmates, warns a letter delivered to the state's Department of Corrections on Tuesday …

Nebraska Senate Nominee Says Religious Beliefs Can Justify Breaking Any Law  —  “[O]ur right to the free exercise of religion is co-equal to our right to life,” according to the campaign website of Ben Sasse, a Nebraska Republican who won his party's nomination to the United States Senate on Tuesday.

Honest Work  —  Why the GOP argument against raising the minimum wage is really an argument against having a minimum wage at all.  —  For a few hours on Friday, Mitt Romney was the subject of positive press.  Why?  Because, in an interview on MSNBC's Morning Joe, the former Republican …

Hopes fade for survivors after Turkish mine fire kills more than 230  —  (Reuters) - Hopes faded of finding more survivors in a coal mine in western Turkey on Wednesday, where 238 workers were confirmed killed and 120 more still feared to be trapped in what is likely to prove the nation's worst ever industrial disaster.