Stakes are high in GOP leadership fight  —  If Las Vegas posted odds on what Washington politics will look like after November 2016, the betting line would be ike this:  —  1-3 a Democrat wins the White House — simply because Democrats have won 5 of the last 6 popular votes for the White House …

Hillary Clinton's legal adviser warns her — Time to lawyer up  —  One of the Clintons' oldest and most trusted legal advisers has urged Hillary to hire a criminal defense attorney to represent her in case she's indicted for mishandling classified documents on her private e-mail server and for lying under oath.

A Conundrum for Jeb Bush: How to Use George W.  —  GREENVILLE, S.C. — With Jeb Bush struggling to connect with some Republican activists, his campaign has begun exploring whether to bring in the person it thinks may be best equipped to give him a boost with skeptical conservatives: his brother George W. Bush.

The Breakdown of the Black Family  —  With the publication of “The Black Family in the Age of Mass Incarceration” Ta-Nehisi Coates has added an elegant and forceful voice to the growing frustration with the inefficacy and injustice of America's criminal-justice system.

Kinky Orthodox priest brought down by ‘cake porn’ sex tape  —  Fr. George Passias and Edith Bouzalas leaving St. Spyridon Greek Orthodox Church in 2013.  —  A high-ranking Greek Orthodox priest starred in kinky sex tapes with his much-younger parish-school principal and was forced to resign …

Carson: Pro-Islam nonprofit broke the law with political attack  —  Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson says a nonprofit Islamic advocacy group broke the law by calling for him to drop out of the presidential race.  —  “The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) …

The Reign of Recycling  —  IF you live in the United States, you probably do some form of recycling.  It's likely that you separate paper from plastic and glass and metal.  You rinse the bottles and cans, and you might put food scraps in a container destined for a composting facility.

Clinton Proposes New Gun Measures, Staking Claim Vs. Sanders  —  The front-runner is calling for repeal of a law that gives legal protection to gun manufacturers and dealers whose guns are used for criminal activity.  —  jeneps  —  Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton on Monday …

Ben Bernanke: More execs should have gone to jail for causing Great Recession  —  WASHINGTON — This season, Ben Bernanke was able to sit through an entire Nationals game.  —  During the financial meltdown in 2008, the then-chairman of the Federal Reserve would buy a lemonade and head …

Philip Chism is charged with raping and killing teacher Colleen Ritzer  —  NEW The 9th grader charged with raping and murdering his teacher has told police he turned on 24-year-old Colleen Ritzer (left) when she ‘insulted’ him.  'After she insulted me, that's when I became the teacher …

Carly Fiorina's first political campaign had a surprising problem: Money … Famed California pollster Joe Shumate was found dead in his home one month before Election Day 2010, surrounded by sheets of polling data he labored over for the flailing Senate bid of Carly Fiorina.

American Apparel Files for Bankruptcy  —  American Apparel, the one-time arbiter of edgy made-in-America cool, filed for bankruptcy protection early Monday, its business crippled by huge debts, a precipitous fall in sales, employee strife and a drawn-out legal battle with the retailer's ousted founder, Dov Charney.

'Daddy, he began to shoot": A daughter's account of Oregon rampage  —  Randy Scroggins sat down on his porch as dusk fell Saturday, his eyes red with emotion and exhaustion.  He had a story to tell.  It was time to tell it.  —  Scroggins' story was about his 18-year-old daughter, Lacey …