NBC Poll: Clinton Would Trounce Trump But Lose to Rubio, Carson  —  Hillary Clinton would defeat Ted Cruz and trounce Donald Trump in a hypothetical head-to-head general election matchup, but she would lose to Marco Rubio or Ben Carson, a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll finds.

Negotiating the Whirlwind  —  John Kerry, the sixty-eighth Secretary of State of the United States, was born to a temperament of wintry rectitude.  He is descended from the Winthrops, who helped found the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and the Forbeses, a Brahmin clan that made its money in railways …

What The Hell Happened To Mickey Kaus?  —  Mickey Kaus was sitting at Superba Food + Bread in Venice Beach, California, an expensive coffee place where an expensive-looking person was yelling at the counter staff about a housefly on a cookie.  —  Kaus was sorry about the location …

2015 Sportsperson of the Year: Serena Williams  —  Real life?  For Serena Williams that's the easy part now.  That's how it works when you zoom—beyond tennis, beyond $74 million in prize money, beyond one of the greatest late-career runs in sports history—into celebrity hyperspace.

The Siege of Miami  —  The city of Miami Beach floods on such a predictable basis that if, out of curiosity or sheer perversity, a person wants to she can plan a visit to coincide with an inundation.  Knowing the tides would be high around the time of the “super blood moon,” in late September …

Plumber's old truck spotted in ISIS video  —  A Texas plumber who was flooded with threats after his old truck — still emblazoned with his company's name — was seen driven by ISIS thugs in Syria has armed himself and is suing a Ford dealer.  —  Mark Oberholtzer of Mark-1 Plumbing …

The Kochs' war on poverty  —  The political operation created by the billionaire conservative mega-donors Charles and David Koch is quietly investing millions of dollars in programs to win over an unlikely demographic target for their brand of small-government conservatism ― poor people.

Santorum super PAC ad warns ‘WWIII is upon us’  —  The super PAC supporting Rick Santorum has a warning: “World War III is upon us.”  —  That message comes in the form of a radio ad from the pro-Santorum Working Again PAC, which is beginning to air the spot statewide in Iowa this week.

The Mystery of Missing Inflation Weighs on Fed Rate Move  —  U.S. near full employment, but inflation hasn't risen as predicted; Fed officials can't figure out why  —  Federal Reserve officials this week are expected to raise interest rates for the first time in nine years on the expectation …

How one word nearly killed the climate deal  —  PARIS — The proposed accord was just hours from a final vote when the glitch was spotted.  Someone had changed a single word in the draft text — from a “should” to a “shall” — and suddenly the entire climate deal appeared at risk of faltering.