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.

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.

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.

The Affordable Care Act in Kentucky: It's Working  —  For months, critics of the Affordable Care Act boldly vowed to eradicate what they insisted was a failed health reform plan — vows they repeated even as thousands, then tens of thousands and now hundreds of thousands of Kentuckians began …

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 …

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 …

The Arms Struggle in Chicago  —  The city of Chicago, bedeviled by street gang violence, refuses to give in to ever more restrictive court rulings against enactment of sensible gun safety laws.  The Supreme Court's misguided 2010 decision ended the nearly 30-year-long ban on handguns in Chicago.

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 …

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 …

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.

Press Laughs at Psaki Saying Obama 'Doesn't Give Himself Enough Credit' on His Foreign Policy  —  State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki was openly mocked by the assembled press corps Thursday after saying President Obama “doesn't give himself enough credit for what he's done around the world.”

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

House takes action on gun checks  —  The House on Thursday approved a funding increase for the national background check system in response to last week's mass shooting in Santa Barbara, Calif.  —  Adopted 260-145, the amendment to a 2015 appropriations bill provides an additional $19.5 million …

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.

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