Obama's evolution on ISIS threat  —  The Obama administration says the nation is facing a threat from the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) that, in the words of Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, is “beyond anything we've seen.”  —  Earlier this year, however, President Obama was dismissing ISIS as the junior varsity of al Qaeda.

Michael Brown Spent Last Weeks Grappling With Problems and Promise  —  FERGUSON, Mo. — It was 1 a.m. and Michael Brown Jr. called his father, his voice trembling.  He had seen something overpowering.  In the thick gray clouds that lingered from a passing storm this past June, he made out an angel.

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 …

LIVE UPDATES: Fort Lee issues ‘all clear’ after soldier shoots herself  —  FORT LEE, Va. — Fort Lee, an Army post in Central Virginia, was on lockdown Monday morning after officials say a female solider shot herself.  —  Officials said that first responders were dispatched to a report …

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 …

NBC News President Rouses the Network  —  In her first year as president of NBC News, Deborah Turness received one message loud and clear: Welcome to the feeding frenzy.  —  It didn't take long for Ms. Turness to realize that the attention paid to broadcast journalism in America …

Ukraine accuses Russia of opening new front before leaders' meeting  —  (Reuters) - Ukraine accused Russia on Monday of sending soldiers across the border to open a new front in the separatist war that has devastated the east of the country and provoked the gravest East-West crisis since the fall of Communism.

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.

Video Spurs Questions Of Arresting Methods After Deputies Tase Man Inside Walmart  —  An arrest Saturday led to some witnesses thinking the arresting officers went a little far.  —  In a video sent to 7 On Your Side, you can see a man lying on the floor of the Walmart on Whitehorse Road and the deputies attempting to arrest him.

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 …

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 …

Club Med for Terrorists  —  THE hostilities in Gaza between Israel and Hamas persist and the diplomatic war at the United Nations continues, also without resolution.  While there is no shortage of opinions on the way forward, the most obvious solution is strikingly absent …

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 …

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 …