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NBC News says “Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough will be a senior political analyst for the network with regular roles on “Meet the Press” and the “Today” show. Generally, over the past year, NBC News has sought to distance itself from MSNBC, where a politically liberal viewpoint dominates. NBC said Friday that Scarborough will be a regular contributor to round-table discussions on “Meet the Press." Scarborough will offer analysis on other NBC News broadcasts and work as part of the network’s election team.

Iran's Supreme Leader has approved co-operation with the US as part of the fight against Islamic State (IS) in Iraq, sources have told BBC Persian. Ayatollah Khamenei has authorised his top commander to co-ordinate military operations with the US, Iraqi and Kurdish forces, sources in Tehran say. Iran has traditionally opposed US involvement in Iraq, an Iranian ally. However, Shia Iran sees the extremist Sunni IS group, which views Shias as heretics, as a serious threat.

American employers hired at a surprisingly weak pace in August, even as the unemployment rate fell slightly, the Labor Department said Friday. Economists, along with politicians, have been hoping to see a significant rebound in the participation rate as unemployment drops and hiring picks up, but progress on this front has failed to materialize.

Syracuse, N.Y. -- Rate increases requested by health insurers offering "Obamacare" coverage through the New York's health insurance exchange have been cut by more than 50 percent. The state Department of Financial Services said today insurers offering individual coverage on the exchange had asked for an average increase of 12.5 percent for 2015. The department reduced the average increase to 5.7 percent. The state's action was praised by a consumer group and criticized by the insurance industry. "This is great news for consumers and small employers alike," said Elisabeth Benjamin, a co-founder of Health Care for All New York, a...

The establishment press is working mightily to shield President Barack Obama from blame for, or even association with, decisions he has made and actions he has taken — unilaterally and with dubious constitutional authority in many instances. One particularly egregious example is Libya. When Obama decided on his own to engage in "kinetic miliitary action" to topple Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, the press was thrilled. Now, as will be seen after the jump, three stories from major establishment press outlets don't even contain Obama's name, or any direct reference to him. The press, in completely polar opposite treatment from that...

A member of Venezuela's Socialist Party has rolled out a variation of the classic Christian "Lord's Prayer" to implore beloved late leader Hugo Chavez for protection from the evils of capitalism. "Our Chavez who art in heaven, the earth, the sea and we delegates," red-shirted delegate Maria Estrella Uribe recited yesterday at the PSUV party Congress. "Hallowed be your name, may your legacy come to us so we can spread it to people here and elsewhere. Give us your light to guide us every day," she said in front of an image of Chavez. "Lead us not into the temptation...

Racism and suffering are powerful tools in the hands of talented opportunists. With a mastery of duplicity, equivocation and guided bitterness, the result is a perfect crusade. The deadly confrontation in Ferguson, Mo., between Michael Brown and Officer Darren Wilson has been a textbook case. To their great credit, Michael Brown’s parents and Darren Wilson's supporters have navigated their suffering with great dignity. For the left, Ferguson is about winning and conquering the present legal system. It is not about evidence, guilt or innocence. It is simply about power, control and reversed racism. Led by Rep. Elijah Cummings, the Congressional...

We’ve now moved to a new stage of the racist reaction to the police killing of Michael Brown: the largely overt assertion that he deserved to be killed. In the immediate aftermath of Brown, though unarmed, being shot “multiple times” after being stopped while walking in the middle of the street, the “ballad” being played in some quarters went like this: we don’t know all the facts so we shouldn’t rush to judgment. But, once the Ferguson police released the video of Michael Brown purportedly snatching a box of cigars from the convenience store and intimidating its clerk, that advice...

Several news organizations have reported Friday night that the Connecticut State Police have been put on alert for a possible threat to President Barack Obama.

BERNE - A 21st-century Albany County initiative that combines farmers markets with online shopping is receiving extra funds to continue growth. State Sens. Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand and Rep. Paul Tonko announced Wednesday that FarmieMarket Online LLC, based in the town of Berne, is receiving $24,490 in federal funding. The SNAP’s monthly electronic benefit transfers (EBT) dollars, which 95,000 individuals and their families in the Capital Region currently receive, cannot be used in many online food stores, but only at authorized retail food stores. The new program will allow EBT users to order fresh food online with the benefit...

Labor Day used to be more than a summer-closing holiday; it was a celebration of labor unions and the American labor movement. That’s easy to forget these days because labor unions don’t have much to celebrate. At the height of their influence in the 1950s, labor unions could claim to represent about 1 of every 3 American workers. Today, it’s 1 in 9 — and falling. Some have seen the shrinking size and waning influence of labor unions as a sign that the US economy is growing more flexible and dynamic, but there’s mounting evidence that it is also contributing...

The U.S. government and society need to recognize the direct connections between continuing racial disparities in this country and the wrongs that gave rise to them. ... One of the most important aspects of successful transitional justice, therefore, lies in illuminating not only the victims’ suffering, but the ways in which an entire society continues to bear the burdens of history. This helps elevate an important point: correcting injustice may require affirmative steps. The U.S. government and society need to recognize — and educate citizens on — the direct connections between continuing racial disparities in this country and the wrongs...

Under pressure from nervous Democratic Senate candidates in tight races, President Obama is rethinking the timing of his pledge to act on his own to reshape the nation’s immigration system by summer’s end, and could instead delay some or all of his most controversial proposals until after the midterm elections in November, according to people familiar with White House deliberations. Inside the White House, the timing of an announcement has become the subject of a fierce debate. Some of Mr. Obama’s advisers are urging him to postpone it, fearful of the political ramifications of a sweeping action to protect millions...

LONDON — Alarmed by the suspected presence of hundreds of British jihadis among Sunni militants in Syria and Iraq, Britain increased its assessment of the terrorism threat on its own soil on Friday and said new laws would be introduced to counter what Prime Minister David Cameron called “a greater threat to our security than we have seen before.” The tone of the warnings recalled the days after July 7, 2005, when four suicide bombers killed 52 travelers on the London transit system. The show of concern, moreover, seemed intended to bolster the government’s case for contentious new legislation to...

BEIJING -- The top leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC) decided on Friday to cut salaries for executives of state-own enterprises (SOEs). During a meeting presided over by Chinese President and CPC General Secretary Xi Jinping, the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee approved plans to reform the system that determines centrally administered SOE executives' salaries and the size of their expense accounts and other privileges. In a statement released after the meeting, the Political Bureau said excessive salaries will be cut to reasonable levels. It urged SOEs to improve their corporate ethics, saying that income gaps...

Consumer spending fell in July for the first time in six months, as Americans cut back on purchases of new cars and other retail goods, the government reported Friday. The drop in spending was a bit of a surprise: economists polled by MarketWatch had predicted a seasonally adjusted 0.1% increase. The growth in incomes, meanwhile, slowed to 0.2% pace in July from 0.5% in each of the prior two months. It was the smallest gain since December and also below Wall Street expectations.

Abou Elkassim Britel can’t sleep, or he sleeps too much; it varies. He backs out of commitments. The Islamic website he wants to publish from his Italian home remains unfinished. “I would add,” he said through translation, “that I cannot think of the future.” The doctors tell Britel that he has post-traumatic stress disorder, after a decade-long ordeal of imprisonment without charge or transfer and abuse. It began in 2002, when the United States packed him onto a contractor’s Gulfstream V in Pakistan and flew him to Morocco. Britel survived what the US calls rendition, an extrajudicial process of transferring...

With a prominent grocery workers’ union back in support, the California Assembly voted on Thursday to impose a statewide ban on single-use plastic bags. Just days after the measure could not muster the 41 votes needing to pass, falling short at 38, it passed on a 44-29 vote. Seven Democrats who withheld votes on the previous attempt pivoted to vote aye. Lawmakers turned back Senate Bill 270 on Monday as the United Food and Commercial Workers Union withdrew crucial labor backing for the sweeping prohibition. Central to the union’s reversal was a provision allowing grocery stores to offer paper or...

The nation’s top television news broadcasts - in both English and Spanish - have been entirely mum on the latest revelations related to alleged obstruction of justice and politically-directed abuse of power at the Obama administration’s Internal Revenue Service. Whether at ABC, CBS and NBC, or Univision, Telemundo and Mundo Fox, these networks to date have essentially censored the admission by a U.S. Justice Department official –revealed by government watchdog group Judicial Watch – that allegedly lost e-mails of Obama IRS official Lois Lerner are in fact accessible, through the federal government’s computer back-up system. As Judicial Watch’s Tom Fitton...

Fifty years after the “war on poverty” was first waged, there are signs a new offensive is needed. Newly released Census data reveals nearly 110 million Americans – more than one-third of the country – are receiving government assistance of some kind. The number counts people receiving what are known as “means-tested” federal benefits, or subsidies based on income. This includes welfare programs ranging from food stamps to subsidized housing to the program most commonly referred to as “welfare,” Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. At the end of 2012, according to the stats, 51.5 million were on food stamps, while...