To Apple, Love Taylor  —  I write this to explain why I'll be holding back my album, 1989, from the new streaming service, Apple Music.  I feel this deserves an explanation because Apple has been and will continue to be one of my best partners in selling music and creating ways for me to connect with my fans.

A Bow to Charleston  —  A Northerner bows, deeply, to the South:  —  I have never seen anything like what I saw on television this afternoon.  Did you hear the statements made at the bond hearing of the alleged Charleston, S.C., shooter?  —  Nine beautiful people slaughtered Wednesday …

Jason Chaffetz strips Meadows of subcommittee chairmanship  —  The House Republican crackdown on bucking the leadership reaches new levels of severity.  —  The House Republican crackdown has reached a new level of severity.  —  House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Jason Chaffetz …

Gay Marriage's Moment  —  REMEMBER the AIDS crisis?  If you lived in a big American city during its spread, you were witness to constant sorrow and countless examples of gay people treated as second-class citizens.  —  One was almost certainly this: the steadfast, heartbroken man being shut …

Pope Francis' Call to Action Goes Beyond the Environment  —  IN Pope Francis' sprawling new encyclical, “Laudato Si',” there are many mansions: A meditation on biblical ecology, a discussion of environmental policy, a critique of consumerism, even a reflection on the perils of social media.

Man, 21, dies shielding mother during South Chicago shooting  —  Get 6 months of complimentary access to chicagotribune.com

Love and Terror in the Black Church  —  AT the sprawling Friendship-West Baptist Church in Dallas one day last spring, I was met by five men with earpieces who escorted me to the pastor's office.  As I prepared to preach that morning, a rolling phalanx of bodyguards shadowed my every move …

Why Do Gunmen Target Churches And Schools, Not NRA Meetings?  —  In the wake of the heinous attack on Charleston's Emanuel American Methodist Episcopal Church, Democrats' ritual calls for more gun control have louder than usual, and a mainstream media's focus on the threat of “mass shootings” has been kicked up a notch.

‘This Week’ Transcript: Tragedy in Charleston  —  OBAMA: Let's be clear, at some point, we, as a country, will have to reckon with the fact that this type of mass violence does not happen in other advanced countries and it is in our power to do something about it.

Influence of Money in Politics a Top Concern for Voters  —  Americans express far more alarm about the influence of money in politics than the fact that another Bush and Clinton are running for the White House, a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll finds.  —  Asked to rank their top concerns …

Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio's backyard battle royal  —  Florida's Miami-Dade GOP, which Jeb Bush built into a powerhouse, may not be big enough to fit two presidential candidates.  —  MIAMI — Jeb Bush built the Miami-Dade Republican Party.  And now Marco Rubio wants to take possession.

Attack Gave Chinese Hackers Privileged Access to U.S. Systems  —  WASHINGTON — For more than five years, American intelligence agencies followed several groups of Chinese hackers who were systematically draining information from defense contractors, energy firms and electronics makers …