New poll: Donald Trump still leads, but Ben Carson makes strong gains  —  Shares -  —  At 27 percent nationally, Donald Trump maintains his frontrunner status among Republican primary voters, but Ben Carson is now close behind him, a new CBS News/New York Times poll finds.

Price Tag of Bernie Sanders's Proposals: $18 Trillion  —  Democratic presidential candidate's agenda would greatly expand government  —  WASHINGTON—Sen. Bernie Sanders, whose liberal call to action has propelled his long-shot presidential campaign, is proposing an array of new programs …

How Hillary Clinton is using old photographs to make herself more ‘relatable’  —  In a bid to burnish her image with voters, the Clinton campaign is flooding the Internet with nostalgic pictures of the Democratic front-runner.  —  Splashed across social media and the airwaves, the photos are hard to miss.

POLICY & POLITICS  —  DES MOINES, Iowa — People concerned about liberal political correctness on college campuses have a powerful ally: President Obama.  —  At a town hall here on college affordability on Monday afternoon, one student asked Obama to respond to Republican presidential …

Post-ABC poll: Most say Kim Davis should issue marriage licenses to gay couples  —  Sixty-three percent of Americans say Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis should be required to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples regardless of her religious objections, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Anti-Abortion Hardliners Not Budging In Shutdown Fight With GOP Leaders  —  The plan hatched by the GOP leadership in Congress to appease abortion hardliners and avoid a government shutdown over Planned Parenthood funding shows little sign of working so far.

Donald Trump for President?  Matt Damon, Josh Brolin, Sandra Bullock Sound Off at TIFF  —  Bryan Cranston, Naomi Watts, Ellen Page, Geoffrey Rush and Davis Guggenheim assess the starry political scene, while suggesting who from Hollywood should jump to the Hill.

Court-ordered religious classes raise concerns  —  ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) — Holly Salzman was hoping to get some help co-parenting her 11-year-old twin boys with her ex-husband.  Instead she says she got 10 court-ordered religious sessions that she did not want.  —  “It's very inappropriate,” Salzman said.

CNN Hopes to Capture Candidates' Combative Spirit in G.O.P. Debate  —  SIMI VALLEY, Calif. — The leading Republican presidential hopefuls have spent the weeks since their first debate provoking each other, with distant taunts and tweeted insults.  —  And now CNN, which hosts …

There Is No Excuse for How Universities Treat Adjuncts  —  In early June, California labor regulators ruled that a driver for Uber, the app-based car service, was, in fact, an employee, not an independent contractor, and deserved back pay.  The decision made national news, with experts predicting a coming flood of lawsuits.

America's Voting Machines at Risk … Technology has changed dramatically in the last decade, but America's voting machines are rapidly aging out.  In 2016, for example, 43 states will use electronic voting machines that are at least 10 years old, perilously close to the end of most systems' expected lifespan.

Nationalist Group Wants TX Secession on Primary Ballot … Texas already seceded once — in 1861, by popular vote in a statewide election.  —  But the Texas Nationalist Movement wants a repeat a century and a half later, and thinks the March GOP primary is the place to start.

Alabama Official: God Told Me to Ban Saggy Pants  —  God may also ban short skirts and skimpy dresses in the Alabama town of Dadeville.  —  He thought about it, prayed about it, and now an Alabama councilman is close to ending one local evil that's plagued him for years: saggy pants.

Game of Thrones star Emilia Clarke 'can't stand' sex scenes  —  As the star of the ‘sex and dragons’ drama Game Of Thrones, Emilia Clarke has disrobed in the name of her art numerous times, but she has now called for fewer explicit scenes on TV.  —  ‘Sex scenes should be more subtle,’ the 28-year-old tells me at a party in Mayfair.

Questions on the Blake Assault  —  Yes, they can start by firing him.  —  James Frascatore, the New York City police officer who jumped and assaulted an innocent man, James Blake, in Manhattan last Wednesday, has disgraced the department.  Commissioner William Bratton and Mayor Bill de Blasio should make an example of him.