A Civil Rights Leader Has Disguised Herself As Black For Years, Her Parents Say  —  Rachel Dolezal is president of the Spokane, Washington, chapter of the NAACP and also chairs a city police oversight commission.  Her parents also told BuzzFeed News that she is passing off her younger adopted black brother as her own son.

Last Slide  —  The Iowa Straw Poll is dead.  —  The governing board for the Republican Party of Iowa voted unanimously Friday to cancel the straw poll, a milestone on the path to the White House that had passed the strategic tipping point.  It was no longer a political risk for presidential campaigns …

Why Does Obama Want This Trade Deal So Badly?  —  The political battle over the enormous, twelve-nation trade agreement known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership keeps getting stranger.  President Obama has made the completion of the deal the number-one legislative priority of his second term.

West Baltimore's Police Presence Drops, and Murders Soar  —  BALTIMORE — From the steps of her New Bethlehem Baptist Church, the Rev. Lisa Weah looked down the block to the open-air drug market outside the bodega on the corner a few hundred feet away.  —  The traffic there had been slowing until …

Congressman On Sex Abuse Scandal: ‘The Only Victim Here Is Denny Hastert’  —  The indictment last month of former House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) on charges of illegally concealing millions in banks withdrawals and lying to the FBI also revealed another serious breach …

Elizabeth Warren Tells Us That She Can't Even With Jamie Dimon's Mansplaining  —  So that happened.  On this week's podcast, come for Sen. Eilzabeth Warren's (D-Mass.) plan to fix higher education, stay for her throwing shade back on JPMorgan's Jamie Dimon.

Midstate musician shot to death by bounty hunter  —  A deadly incident is once again focusing attention on what rights bounty hunters should have.  —  Randy Howard, a well-known musician, was shot to death by a bounty hunter inside his home.  The bounty hunter claims he fired in self-defense.

Story highlights  —  (CNN)An upstate New York maximum-security prison employee gave hacksaw blades, drill bits and eyeglasses with lights affixed to them to a pair of convicted murderers before their brazen escape, sources said Friday.  —  Clinton County District Attorney Andrew Wylie told CNN's …