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An FDNY recruit is getting a third chance to pass the training academy after collecting top firefighter pay for a year in desk jobs, sources told The Post. Choeurlyne Doirin-Holder, 39 — one of four women among 320 current probies in training — failed midway through a Fire Academy class in 2013, and returned to her former job as an EMT. After entering another class in early 2014, she dropped out because of an injury. But the FDNY kept Doirin-Holder on payroll.

The story certainly seemed like a blockbuster: A criminal investigation of Hillary Rodham Clinton by the Justice Department was being sought by two federal inspectors general over her email practices while secretary of state. It’s hard to imagine a much more significant political story at this moment, given that she is the leading candidate for the Democratic nomination for president. The story – a Times exclusive — appeared high on the home page and the mobile app late Thursday and on Friday and then was displayed with a three-column headline on the front page in Friday’s paper. The online headline...

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump at the Family Leadership Summit. Donald Trump is still the clear front-runner of the 2016 GOP presidential field. A new Economist/YouGov poll released on Friday actually showed Trump gaining support in the last week, despite a controversy over his comments questioning Sen. John McCain's (R-Arizona) status as a "war hero." According to the poll, the number of registered Republican primary voters who responded that Trump is their first choice jumped from 15% at the beginning of July to 28% last week. Another 10% of voters pick him as their second choice. That puts the real-estate...

Inside El Chapo’s secret Mexican prison escape tunnel (VIDEO) 7/27/15 | by Chris Eger Vice News traveled south of the border and dropped down the most famous underground tunnel in the world– that used by a Mexican drug lord to vacate the premises. The figurehead of the Sinaloa cartel, drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, released himself on his own recognizance on July 11, via a tunnel from Mexico’s only maximum-security prison in Mexico. It took him a year to arrange his self-parole and Vice went to Altiplano prison– where they found a different tale than what the local media...

Jeb Bush hasn't campaigned for himself in this part of Florida since 2002, but on Monday, he will return here to reconnect with former supporters and make an overt appeal to the region's fast-growing Latino population. In a first as a presidential candidate, the Republican plans to sit for a Spanish-language interview with a Telemundo news anchor. He will meet with dozens of mostly Hispanic evangelical pastors at a mega-church, visit a small business owned by a Mexican immigrant and try to introduce himself to the hundreds of thousands of people who have moved to this transient region in the...

This new poll finding, courtesy of CNN, is not all that surprising, but it is very illuminating of the demographic challenges the GOP faces right now: A big majority of Republicans believes that the government’s main focus on immigration should be not just on stopping the flow of illegal immigrants, but also on deporting those already here. The poll asks:

MSNBC host and NBC News Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent Andrea Mitchell stated that when she spoke to intelligence officials at a security conference, “nobody can give an explanation for why a cabinet secretary would have a private email system other than to thwart inquiries, FOIAs” on Monday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” Mitchell said that it’s possible that the impact of Clinton’s emails on her campaign has been underestimated. She continued, “Look, you have two inspectors general, and they are referring to this to the Justice Department. Now, you can try to confuse it, and there’s been a lot of...

On Sunday, New York City’s AM 970 host John Catsimatidis had former Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) on his “The Cats Roundtable” program to talk about the Iran nuclear deal. Lieberman started off by ripping the White House for its proposed Iran nuke deal by saying, “First, it’s a deal with somebody we can’t trust. Why? Because they have said for years and continue to say even after the agreement was signed, ‘Death to America.'”

A day after Donald Trump announced the formation of “Veterans For Trump,” a small New Hampshire-based coalition that supports the bellicose business mogul’s bid for the White House, at least two of the veterans named as supporters distanced themselves from team Trump. The announcement of the veterans group came five days after Trump said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., is only considered a war hero because he was captured by the enemy during the Vietnam War. “I don’t know anything about it,” said Ernie Fusi, a World War II veteran whose name was still listed among the 51 veteran supporters on...

Jeb Bush, Scott Walker and Rand Paul are in. Donald Trump is out.A total of 14 candidates will participate in the Voters First Republican Presidential Forum on Monday, Aug. 3, at St. Anselm College. The two-hour forum,intended to highlight the importance of the first-in-the-nation primary,along with the Iowa caucuses and South Carolina’s early primary.“I am in the North Country today,” Bush said Thursday,“meeting with voters about my message of reforming the culture in Washington. I’m looking forward to participating in the August 3rd forum. It’s clear it is a great opportunity to engage with Granite Staters about the important issues...

An Episcopal priest shocked his Queens congregation recently when he left his wife and married someone else — a much younger man. The Rev. Juan Andres Quevedo-Bosch, 59, the archdeacon of Queens and rector of the Church of the Redeemer in Astoria, announced over Facebook last week that he got married in a Los Angeles church. The Cuban-born prelate was pictured on a beach with the caption: “I’m in Miami Beach with my new husband. God is good.”

Mayor de Blasio is a big fan of presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders — because the Vermont senator is a proud “Democratic socialist.” [Snip] De Blasio was quick to correct CNN’s Carol Costello after she called Sanders a “socialist,” telling her the senator is a “Democratic socialist.” “I think there’s a lot to like in that title,” he gushed.

Governor’s races in South and Midwest could be lost if party brand becomes too liberal. Centrist Democrats were wiped out in the 2014 elections and in their absence emerged a resurgent liberal movement, embodied most recently by the surprisingly competitive presidential campaign of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. But the suddenly ascendant left — its populist overtones becoming part of the mainstream Democratic pitch — is worrying Democrats who want to compete on Republican-leaning turf. The party lost every competitive gubernatorial and Senate race in the South last year. And Democrats didn’t fare much better in the heartland. Now, as Bernie...

This week on “Fox News Sunday,” Washington Post columnist George Will said voters are not going to like finding out information about Donald Trump’s past, which will show he is both “uncouth” and “unprincipled.” [Relevant portion at 4:00 mark]

(CNN) —The Republican National Committee has a message for candidates like Donald Trump: No more name-calling. That's what the party's chief strategist and communications director Sean Spicer said on CNN's "Reliable Sources" on Sunday. "I understand it's going to be the nature of any primary for folks to discuss the differences between themselves on policy issues, and I think that's fine," Spicer said. "The name calling, however, needs to stop." Spicer added: "We have got to remember what Ronald Reagan taught us, his 11th commandment, 'Thou shall not speak ill of another Republican.'" Spicer didn't point his comments directly at...

Disappointing, but not surprising. The depressing reality though that is that most of the Republican field has endorsed amnesty in one form or another. So this isn't much of a surprise. Trump is using his own vocabulary, but he's echoing the same amnesty talking points you could hear from Marco Rubio... or Barack Obama. During Friday's interview, Trump said the U.S. should take a two-step approach to the 11 million undocumented immigrants currently living in the country. "Well, the first thing we do is take the bad ones — of which there are, unfortunately, quite a few," said Trump,...

US secretary of state said over the weekend that Israel would be more isolated globally if Congress killed Iran nuclear deal. An Israeli official hit back at US Secretary of State John Kerry over the weekend following remarks that were perceived by the government in Jerusalem as "thinly veiled efforts to muzzle criticism" of the Iran nuclear agreement. Responding to Kerry's contention that Israel would face even more international isolation if Congress strikes down the Iran nuclear deal, the official told The New York Times on Saturday that the government would continue its public lobbying. “We reject the threats directed...

A shooting incident last month that forced a U.S. border patrol helicopter to make an emergency landing near Laredo, Texas, was the work of Mexican drug traffickers, and analysts say the attack highlights growing narcotics trafficking across porous U.S. borders. According to U.S. officials familiar with an investigation of the June 5 incident, members of the Los Zetas drug cartel were crossing back into Mexico from the United States when they were spotted by a U.S. Customs and Border Protection (USCBP) helicopter along the Rio Grande River near Laredo. The traffickers had finished delivering a shipment of drugs and were...

Secretary of State John Kerry had an “intense exchange” when he tried to sell the Iran nuclear deal to skeptical Jewish leaders in New York on Friday.A day after GOP senators blasted him for getting “fleeced” by Iran, Kerry faced another tough crowd in a closed-door meeting with about 120 Jewish leaders at the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.“It was very intense exchange, serious exchange,” the group’s vice chairman, Malcolm Hoenlein, told The Post.Kerry spoke from a podium and fielded pointed questions from a crowd of Israel supporters concerned that the deal could allow Iran to get...

Call it failure to launch for Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) 80%as, despite a minor bump in the polls a month or so after his April presidential campaign launch, the 44-year-old junior senator from Florida is now officially relegated to the middle of the pack—where he’s been unable to climb out. Virtually every major pollster has shown Rubio’s chances at being a serious contender for the GOP nomination slipping away... Rubio was supposed to be the golden boy who could woo the donor class but still excite the grassroots. He’s succeeded in winning over lots of big-money backing, with billionaire donors...