Former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to buy Clippers for $2 billion  —  Former Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer won a frenetic bidding war for ownership of the Los Angeles Clippers, with his $2-billion offer setting a record price for an NBA team, The Times has learned.

Dems help upend Obama's scandal playbook  —  President Barack Obama tried to handle the Veterans Affairs scandal like he had all the others.  —  He couldn't.  —  Democrats wouldn't let him.  —  There's a well-worn Obama playbook: Let conservative critics burn hot, put off decisions during …

Exclusive: Hillary Clinton's Benghazi chapter  —  Hillary Clinton offers a detailed account of the deadly attack on the American embassy in Benghazi — and a pointed rebuttal to Republican critics who've laced into her over the incident — in a much-anticipated chapter of her forthcoming book, “Hard Choices,” obtained by POLITICO.

Toddler critically burned during SWAT raid  —  ATLANTA —  A family says a SWAT team raided their home in the middle of the night and seriously injured a 19-month-old boy with a stun grenade.  —  Alecia Phonesavanh told Channel 2's Ryan Young her child is at the Grady Memorial Hospital burn unit …

Edward J. Snowden email inquiry to the NSA Office of General Counsel  —  May 29, 2014  —  NSA has now explained that they have found one email inquiry by Edward Snowden to the Office of General Counsel asking for an explanation of some material that was in a training course he had just completed.

Kaiser Health Tracking Poll: May 2014  —  Liz Hamel, Jamie Firth and Mollyann Brodie … Majority Says They Haven't Been Impacted By ACA; Partisan Divide In Who Reports Being Helped And Hurt  —  With open enrollment closed and the first year of the ACA's coverage expansions underway …

NBC's Richard Engel: U.S. Relations Have Not Improved With a Single Nation During Obama Presidency  —  On the May 29 edition of CNBC's Squawk Box, Richard Engel, NBC's chief foreign correspondent, conceded that he could not name a single nation where relations have improved …

Joe The Plumber: ‘Guns Are Mostly For Hunting Down Politicians’  —  Samuel Wurzelbacher — better known as Joe the Plumber — likes guns.  And he wants everyone to know why.  —  “Guns are mostly for hunting down politicians who would actively seek to take your freedoms and liberty away from you …

Big Money, the Koch brothers and me  —  Here's what happens when you try to cover the new oligarchs of American politics.  —  It was a dreary Pacific Northwest evening in February 2012, and President Barack Obama's mood matched the weather.  Despite being among supporters who had gathered …

Don't Major in Intolerance  —  Universities lie at the heart of the American experiment in democracy.  They are places where people of all backgrounds and beliefs can come to study and debate their ideas freely and openly.  I'd like to talk with you about how important it is for that freedom …

House Votes To End DEA Raids On Legal Medical Marijuana Operations  —  “Marijuana does not make people commit crime.  It makes them overeat,” Rep. Steve Cohen said.  The amendment passed 219-189.  —  WASHINGTON — The House passed an amendment late Thursday night to restrict …

Business Lobby Tries to Frighten America About Clean Energy, Fails Utterly  —  Better scare tactics, please, U.S. Chamber of Commerce.  —  Will President Obama's plan to regulate power plants, due to come out Monday, hurt him and his party?  Not long ago I wrote a column arguing that they would.

Working Families Party Warns Cuomo of a Possible Opponent  —  For weeks now, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York, a Democrat seeking re-election this year, has been working behind the scenes to soothe misgivings by the leadership of a small but influential political party made up of labor unions …

Vergara v. California: The Most Important Court Case You've Never Heard Of  —  You didn't know that nine California kids were suing their state over substandard teaching at their public schools?  You should—it's an example to all who want equal access to education.

Laverne Cox Talks to TIME About the Transgender Movement  —  The Orange Is the New Black star on politics, happiness and why genitalia isn't destiny  —  On TIME's cover this week is an unlikely icon: Laverne Cox.  Bullied and harassed for appearing feminine while growing up in Mobile …

Doubling Down on a Muddled Foreign Policy  —  The president has somehow managed to combine the worst features of isolationism and multilateralism.

I killed my first wife, stoned Pakistani woman's husband says  —  Islamabad, Pakistan (CNN) — The husband of Farzana Parveen, the Pakistani woman stoned to death for refusing to participate in an arranged marriage, told CNN he killed his first wife so he could marry Parveen.

When Bushies blew a CIA cover, it was ‘treason’; now, it's a mistake  —  BELTWAY CONFIDENTIAL CIA NATIONAL SECURITY GEORGE W. BUSH SPYING  —  Valerie Plame doesn't deny that blowing the cover of the CIA station chief in Afghanistan is a serious matter.  It's just that, discussing the issue …

Conservative Scholar Blames UCSB Shooting On Marriage Equality  —  Blackwell blamed the “attack on natural marriage and the family” for the shooting.  Ken Blackwell is a former Republican official.  He was the mayor of Cincinnati, Ohio State Treasurer, Ohio Secretary of State, and failed-U.S. Senate candidate.

Myanmar's Appalling Apartheid  —  SITTWE, Myanmar — Minura Begum has been in labor for almost 24 hours, and the baby is stuck.  Worse, it's turned around, one tiny foot already emerging into the world in a difficult breech delivery that threatens the lives of mother and child alike.

Measles cases in the United States reach 20-year high  —  CDC urges vaccination as summer travel season approaches  —  Two hundred and eighty-eight cases of measles were reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the United States between Jan. 1 and May 23, 2014.

Transcript And Audio: President Obama's Full NPR Interview … NPR's Steve Inskeep interviewed President Obama on Wednesday about foreign policy, including his approaches to Syria, Ukraine and China, as well as his remaining White House priorities and his effort to close Guantanamo Bay prison.