Sen. Warren Warns That Spending Bill Sets Dangerous Precedent  —  Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. (right), a member of the Senate banking committee, and Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., ranking member of the House financial services committee, express their outrage to reporters …

Sydney gunman reportedly demands ISIS flag as some hostages escape  —  Sydney (CNN) — Australia, and the world, looked on with dread Monday as a gunman holding hostages inside a darkened Sydney cafe demanded an ISIS flag and a phone call with Prime Minister Tony Abbott.

Journalists Shouldn't Help the Sony Hackers  —  “Jolie a ‘Spoiled Brat’ From ‘Crazyland,’ ” says The New York Post.  —  “Shocking New Reveals From Sony Hack,” says The Daily Beast.  —  “Sony's Hacked Emails Highlight Hollywood's Problems With Diversity,” says The Huffington Post.

Martin Place, Sydney siege gunman identified as Man Haron Monis  —  Siege hostage taker identified as Man Monis  —  The man who continues to hold more than a dozen people hostage, placing Sydney's CBD into lockdown is no stranger to the NSW police or the judiciary.

Cleveland Cops Demand Apology For Browns Player's Tamir Rice Protest Shirt  —  A Cleveland police union has demanded that the Cleveland Browns football team apologize for a player who wore a T-shirt before Sunday's game protesting the police shootings of two black people.

Report: Shooting spree leaves up to 5 dead in Philly suburbs  —  WPVI-TV reports that a gunman is barricaded in a house in Souderton, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia.  Police were called after two people were found dead in a home.  Three others were found shot to death in two other locations.

Dick Cheney Defends the Torture of Innocents  —  When I was growing up, Americans thought of torture as a tactic used by history's villains.  A brutal dictator might keep a depraved regime in power with torture.  People in foreign countries might suffer inside torture chambers.

Most Americans consider waterboarding to be torture: poll  —  A barbed wire fence surrounds a military area is in the forest near Stare Kiejkuty village, close to Szczytno in Northeastern Poland, in this January 24, 2014 file photo.  Poland threatened to halt the transfer of al Qaeda suspects …

NBC's Brian Williams stays true to news, with a new contract expected  —  Riding an Amtrak train from Washington, D.C., to New York last week, Brian Williams gets the greetings and nods of recognition from passengers expected for someone who has spent 10 years in the anchor chair at “NBC Nightly News.”

Is It Bad Enough Yet?  —  THE police killing unarmed civilians.  Horrifying income inequality.  Rotting infrastructure and an unsafe “safety net.”  An inability to respond to climate, public health and environmental threats.  A food system that causes disease.  An occasionally dysfunctional and even cruel government.

Torture and the Truth  —  It's hard to describe it as a positive development when a branch of the federal government releases a four-hundred-and-ninety-nine- page report that explains, in meticulous detail, how unthinkable cruelty became official U.S. policy.