A letter from a friend: Jackie's story is not a hoax  —  My name is Emily, and I was Jackie's suitemate first year.  I am writing to you in regards to Rolling Stone's recent statement of “misplaced trust” in Jackie.  I feel this statement is backwards, as it seems it was Jackie who misplaced her trust in Rolling Stone.

Dems, It's Time to Dump Dixie  —  With Mary Landrieu's ignominious exit, the Democrats will have lost their last senator in the Deep South.  And that's a good thing.  They should write it off—because they don't need it.  —  I don't remember a much sadder sight in domestic politics …

G.O.P. Donors Seek to Narrow Field of Presidential Candidates to One  —  Dozens of the Republican Party's leading presidential donors and fund-raisers have begun privately discussing how to clear the field for a single establishment candidate to carry the party's banner in 2016 …

Columbia Law School Lets Students Postpone Exams Due to Grand Jury Decisions  —  Columbia University Law School is allowing its students to reschedule their exams if they feel traumatized by the recent grand jury decisions in the Eric Garner and Michael Brown cases.

Massive downtown L.A. fire burns 3 towers; freeways begin to reopen  —  A massive fire in downtown Los Angeles early Monday engulfed an apartment tower under construction, damaged two other buildings and left freeways and roads closed.  —  The northbound 110 Freeway remained closed as of 5 a.m. …

The Kochs eclipse the RNC  —  Meet the guys behind the right's best data shop.  —  The Koch brothers and their allies are pumping tens of millions of dollars into a data company that's developing detailed, state-of-the-art profiles of 250 million Americans, giving the brothers' political operation all the earmarks of a national party.

The College Rape Overcorrection  —  Sexual assault on campus is a serious problem.  But efforts to protect women from a putative epidemic of violence have led to misguided policies that infringe on the civil rights of men.  —  An Accusation  —  Drew Sterrett couldn't know that when his friend slipped …

Bush and C.I.A. Ex-Officials Rebut Torture Report  —  WASHINGTON — A long-awaited Senate report condemning torture by the Central Intelligence Agency has not even been made public yet, but former President George W. Bush's team has decided to link arms with former intelligence officials and challenge its conclusions.

No comments.  An experiment in elevating the conversation  —  For the next two months, we are turning off the comment function on all editorials, columns and letters in the opinion section.  —  Why?  —  Ferguson.  —  Last Sunday, we challenged our region to have the serious discussion …

Why I'm Giving Up My Passport  —  LONDON — THE mayor of London, Boris Johnson, who was born in New York and holds both American and British passports, recently said that he would not pay a tax bill from the United States on capital gains from the sale of his home in the London borough of Islington.

White House to reporters: no selfies with Prince William  —  The President's aides warn the press against taking pictures of themselves during Obama's meeting with the Duke of Cambridge  —  The White House politely but firmly asked reporters not to take selfies in the Oval Office during …

CBC Member: Ben Carson Supporters Have “Vein Of Ignorance,” Are “Like A Lynch Mob”  —  “...when we have blacks like that trying to tap into the ignorance of people who have been whipped into a frenzy, like a lynch mob, and you go to try to garner support from those folks …

Racial politics in plain sight  —  America's racial tensions, hot after the painful non-indictments in Ferguson and New York, bubbled up on Capitol Hill last week.  The occasion was a House Judiciary hearing on President Obama's executive authority to limit deportations of illegal immigrants.

Democrats secretly backed independent Greg Orman in race for U.S. Senate in Kansas  —  Campaign reports filed late last week revealed that key Democrats funneled money to Greg Orman's campaign for the U.S. Senate in Kansas.  —  A political committee known as the Senate Majority PAC run …

Recovery at Last?  —  Last week we got an actually good employment report — arguably the first truly good report in a long time.  The U.S. economy added well over 300,000 jobs; wages, which have been stagnant for far too long, picked up a bit.  Other indicators, like the rate at which workers are quitting …