Cornel West: “He posed as a progressive and turned out to be counterfeit.  We ended up with a Wall Street presidency, a drone presidency"  —  Exclusive: Cornel West talks Ferguson, Hillary, MSNBC — and unloads on the failed promise of Barack Obama  —  Cornel West is a professor …

Wrong Way Nation  —  Gov. Rick Perry of Texas is running for president again.  What are his chances?  Will he once again become a punch line?  I have absolutely no idea.  This isn't a horse-race column.  —  What I'd like to do, instead, is take advantage of Mr. Perry's ambitions to talk …

Experts' eyes turn to Colo.  —  “Wow!  You'd have to be high to re-elect a guy like that.”  —  That is comedian Bill Maher's take on Republican Rep. Mike Coffman's campaign to win a fourth term in a suburban Denver district.  Smoking marijuana is legal in Colorado but even stone-cold sober …

SAS and US special forces forming hunter killer unit to ‘smash Islamic State’  —  Task Force Black will aim to “cut the head off the snake” by hitting the command structure of the Islamist terror group responsible for a trail of destruction  —  Elite British and US special forces troops …

As Obama returns, advocates look for executive action  —  Expectations are high that President Obama can move ahead with controversial executive actions now that he has returned from his vacation.  —  Obama's two weeks on Martha's Vineyard were plagued by dual crises, in Iraq and in Ferguson …

On Ferguson, no words from Hillary Clinton  —  Hillary Clinton ignored reporters' questions about the racial conflict in Ferguson, Missouri, on Sunday at the end of a book-signing event in Westhampton Beach, a vacation enclave near her rented summer house.  —  Clinton, the potential 2016 …

EXCLUSIVE: How anger over 2010 race shaped Gov. Nikki Haley's first term  —  Nikki Haley was angry during her first year in office.  —  The Lexington Republican was angry at the GOP establishment for failing to embrace her bid for governor.  She was angry at legislators …

Local, state Democrats go rogue  —  In scattered state capitals and city halls around the country, a new group of elected officials is telling the federal government to take a hike: Up-and-coming Democrats.  —  Challenging federal power in sometimes-theatrical ways has been a hallmark …

Australian woman records ‘sex assault’ on Malaysia Airlines flight  —  An Australian woman has revealed recordings of her alleged sexual assault at the hands of the chief steward on a Malaysia Airlines flight.  —  View Comments  — Mail  —  Three hours into the half-full flight to Paris …

A LETTER FROM JIM: All letters Jim wrote to his family during his captivity were confiscated by the jailers.  So, Jim devised a better approach this last June: he asked a fellow hostage about to be released to commit a letter to memory.  Very soon after his release, this hostage called Diane and dictated what follows.

For sale: Systems that can secretly track where cellphone users go around the globe  —  Here's how cellphone tracking works.  —  Makers of surveillance systems are offering governments across the world the ability to track the movements of almost anybody who carries a cellphone, whether they are blocks away or on another continent.

A Funeral in Ferguson  —  Two weeks after the killing of Michael Brown, we have become painfully familiar with his parents through their public appearances and television interviews, their faces drawn, their sorrow apparent.  —  Brown's mother, Lesley McSpadden, constantly dabbing tears from her face …

Kidnapped US journalist freed in Syria  —  Peter Theo Curtis is handed over to UN peacekeepers in Golan Heights nearly two years after he was captured.  —  An American journalist kidnapped nearly two years ago has been freed in Syria and handed over to UN peacekeepers in the Golan Heights …