Chaffetz enters speaker's race, pans McCarthy  —  <p>Rep. Jason Chaffetz has officially launched his dark-horse campaign for House speaker, arguing he's a better choice to unite the fractious Republican conference and that Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy lacks the communication skills …

Polls: Trump Still Leads in IA and NH, But Loses Ground  —  Donald Trump remains ahead in the early Republican nominating contests of Iowa and New Hampshire, but his lead has shrunk from a month ago, according to brand-new NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist polls of these two states.

Biden celebrates gay rights activists for changing course of America  —  Vice President Joe Biden on Saturday praised gay rights activists for the progress they have made in recent years.  —  The vice president gave the keynote address at the Human Rights Campaign National Dinner …

She was a conservative pundit.  He was a liberal activist.  At home, none of that mattered.  —  It was so Washington, the way they met.  She was on the dais at a panel discussion on media and politics, holding forth knowledgeably; he was in the audience, smitten.

Trump: Teachers with guns could have prevented Oregon shooting  —  Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump said armed teachers could have protected the students who were killed in a mass shooting at a community college in Oregon this week.  —  “This is in light of what's gone on in Oregon …

The Curious Case of Oregon Shooter Chris Harper-Mercer - A Social Media Profile Shaped, Modified and Deleted...  The Oregon Shooter is a 26-year-old black male.  —  Birth Certificate Name is: Christopher Sean Mercer - 07/26/1989.  —  Mother: Laurel Margaret Harper - 04/05/1951 Dad: Ian Bernard Mercer - 05/15/1960

A New Way to Tackle Gun Deaths  —  We've mourned too often, seen too many schools and colleges devastated by shootings, watched too many students get an education in grief.  It's time for a new approach to gun violence.  —  We're angry, but we also need to be smart.

Ignore the Angry Middle Class At Your Peril  —  There's an interesting article today by John Judis in the National Journal about the rise of the “Middle American Radical.”  These are essentially Donald Trump's voters and Ross Perot's voters, characterized primarily by the belief that the middle class …

Guns, Campuses and Madness  —  Austin, Tex. — I'M not sure if this meets the exact definition of irony, but it definitely meets the exact definition of insanity:  —  Across the country, there's so much concern for college students' emotional safety that some schools add “trigger warnings” to novels and other texts.

Clinton mocks Trump in SNL premiere  —  <p>For the first time since her 2008 presidential campaign, Hillary Clinton on Saturday evening returned to the set of “Saturday Night Live," starring in a skit as “Val,” an easy-to-talk-to barkeep giving advice to the former secretary of state …

Air NZ: ‘There are lessons to be learned’  —  A jam-packed Air New Zealand flight stranded in Hong Kong for 19 hours left passengers - including the airline's chairman - camping out in the terminal.  —  NZ80 was due to leave the city at 7.10pm local time yesterday (12.10am today NZT) …