Ben Carson blasts RNC, threatens to leave Republican Party  —  Ben Carson on Friday blasted the Republican National Committee following a Washington Post report that nearly two-dozen establishment party figures were prepping for a potential brokered convention as Donald Trump continues to lead most polls.

Trump: I will mandate death penalty for killing police officers  —  Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump on Thursday vowed to issue an executive order to mandate the death penalty for anyone who kills a police officer.  —  “One of the first things I'd do in terms of executive order …

San Bernardino shooters planned bigger attack, investigators believe  —  An FBI dive team on Thursday searches for electronic devices or other evidence possibly left in Seccombe Lake, about two miles north of the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino.  —  An examination of digital equipment recovered …

Donald Trump Really Doesn't Want Me to Tell You This, But ...  Over a long weekend on assignment for Playboy magazine, Mark Bowden found that behind the garish Trump façade lies only more ugliness.  —  I spent a long, awkward weekend with Donald Trump in November 1996 …

Empowering the Ugliness  —  We live in an era of political news that is, all too often, shocking but not surprising.  The rise of Donald Trump definitely falls into that category.  And so does the electoral earthquake that struck France in Sunday's regional elections, with the right-wing …

Is Affirmative Action Finished?  —  “If this Court rules that the University of Texas can't consider race, or if it rules that universities that consider race have to die a death of a thousand cuts for doing so, we know exactly what's going to happen,” Gregory Garre, the lawyer for the University of Texas …

Colorado ACLU Board Member: Shoot Trump Voters ‘Before Election Day’  —  Loring Wirbel, board member of the American Civil Liberties Union's Colorado chapter and co-chair of the ACLU's Colorado Springs chapter, called for supporters of GOP presidential hopeful Donald Trump to be shot before they vote for the billionaire businessman.

Camille Paglia Takes on Taylor Swift, Hollywood's #GirlSquad Culture  —  Can group selfies advance women's goals?  In an essay for The Hollywood Reporter, the famed feminist urges social media packs to skip the “tittering, tongues-out mugging of Taylor Swift” — whose “twinkly persona …

Survey of Kentucky Residents on State Health Policy  —  Liz Hamel, Mira Norton, and Mollyann Brodie  —  Executive Summary  —  Kentucky has received national attention as the only Southern state to fully embrace the Affordable Care Act (ACA) by creating its own state-based health insurance marketplace …

America's Immigration Challenge  —  On Wednesday, FBI director James Comey alleged that the San Bernardino shooters were already plotting a mass-murder attack on the United States before Tafsheen Malik received the K-1 visa admitting her to the United States.  Her husband-to-be, Syed Farook, was born a U.S. citizen.

EXCLUSIVE: Video shows customer hit worker, break glass in NYC restaurant as he rails against Muslims; man kicks woman, calls her ‘trash’ in separate crime  —  A customer at a Herald Square restaurant burst into an anti-Muslim tirade, slapping one worker than busting glass partitions with a chair …

Donald Trump has gone too far for French far-right leader Marine Le Pen  —  Donald Trump has been frequently compared (including by me) to “far-right” populist movements in Europe.  Indeed, scholarly experts on fascism say that this — rather than fascism — is the correct comparison to make about Trump.

Priest paid his male ‘sex master’ from collection plate: lawsuit  —  A Catholic priest swiped collection-plate donations to pay for drug-fueled sex romps with a heavily muscled S&M “master,” a new lawsuit charges.  —  Parishioners claim the Rev. Peter Miqueli has stolen at least $1 million since 2003 …