FBI: Breakdown in background check system allowed Dylann Roof to buy gun  —  Dylann Roof, who is accused of killing nine people at a church in South Carolina, should not have been able to purchase the gun used in the attack and was allowed to buy the weapon only because of breakdowns …

Katherine Archuleta, Director of Office of Personnel Management, Resigns  —  WASHINGTON — Katherine Archuleta, the director of the Office of Personnel Management, will resign effective Friday, according to a White House official, one day after it was revealed that sweeping cyberintrusions …

Hillary Clinton's push on gun control marks a shift in presidential politics  —  In her standard stump speech, Hillary Rodham Clinton talks about fighting income inequality, celebrating court rulings on gay marriage and health care and, since the Emanuel AME church massacre, toughening the nation's gun laws.

The Daily Cruz  —  How Breitbart.com, partly funded by a top Ted Cruz donor, became the Texas senator's media lifeline.  —  Ted Cruz has a media strategy.  It's called Breitbart.com.  —  The Texas senator is firmly ensconced in the middle of the Republican presidential primary pack.

Go Set A Watchman: read the first chapter - interactive  —  An exclusive extract from the new novel by Harper Lee, the author of To Kill A Mockingbird, published on 14 July  —  Since Atlanta, she had looked out the dining-car window with a delight almost physical.

Confederate flag comes down for good at S.C. Statehouse  —  COLUMBIA, S.C. — With thousands looking on, the Confederate flag at the South Carolina Statehouse came down permanently on Friday morning.  —  The flag was removed in a short ceremony by an honor guard of the South Carolina Highway Patrol …

U.S. Uninsured Rate at 11.4% in Second Quarter  —  Story Highlights  —  WASHINGTON, D.C. — The uninsured rate among U.S. adults aged 18 and older was 11.4% in the second quarter of 2015, down from 11.9% in the first quarter.  The uninsured rate has dropped nearly six percentage points since …

Greece's Economy Is a Lesson for Republicans in the U.S.  —  Greece is a faraway country with an economy roughly the size of greater Miami, so America has very little direct stake in its ongoing disaster.  To the extent that Greece matters to us, it's mainly about geopolitics …

Wisconsin's Friend at the IRS  —  Emails show a common cause in restricting political speech.  —  Wisconsin's campaign to investigate conservative tax-exempt groups has always seemed like an echo of the IRS's scrutiny of conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.

Florida Supreme Court orders redrawing of some U.S. congressional districts  —  The Florida Supreme Court on Thursday ordered the redrawing of some of the state's U.S. congressional districts before the 2016 elections.  —  In a 5-2 ruling, the state's high court found the legislature's redistricting plan …

Spotify search warrant helps nab alleged child abductors  —  There was food left on the table.  —  Dishes filled the kitchen sink.  —  It looked like 25-year-old Wellington resident Brittany Nunn, her husband Peter Barr, and her two young girls had gone out for ice cream, said Drew Weber …

Film star Omar Sharif dies aged 83  —  Omar Sharif earned an Oscar nomination for Lawrence of Arabia  —  Actor Omar Sharif, best known for his roles in classic films Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago, has died aged 83.  —  Egypt-born Sharif won two Golden Globe awards and an Oscar nomination …

Unbridled capitalism is the ‘dung of the devil’, says Pope Francis  —  The pontiff condemns the impoverishment of developing countries by the world economic order and apologised for the church's treatment of native Americans  —  Pope Francis has urged the downtrodden to change the world economic order …

Jan Brewer: Donald Trump ‘Telling It Like It Really, Truly Is’  —  (CNSNews.com) - Although he's been villified by amnesty advocates, business tycoon Donald Trump is right about the problems, including crime, caused by people crossing into the United States illegally, says the former governor of Arizona.

I tried to escape my privilege with low-wage work.  Instead I came face to face with it.  —  The advantages of race and class are not easily shed, even in a falafel shop.  —  I attended the Edmund Burke School, one of Northwest Washington's small private prep schools …