Ron Elving

Bill Clinton contrasted the "real" woman he knows and the "cartoon" version sketched by critics at the Republican convention last week — congratulating the Democratic delegates on choosing the former.

DNC officials, congressional leaders and even the icons of the party's progressive wing were subjected to jeers, catcalls and chants from an element of the audience on the convention's first day.

Finally, many party operatives felt, the big wheels of Hillary Clinton's juggernaut would mesh and roll forward together. But another story about emails emerged to steal the storyline.

The Democratic National Convention starts Monday with party chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz under fire after a leak of emails showing bias toward Hillary Clinton during the primaries.

Trump's speech was studded with statistics that had fact-checkers working feverishly into the wee hours — often finding numbers to be distorted or downright specious. But it didn't seem to matter.

The high stakes of the Donald Trump-Ted Cruz brinkmanship brought to the flashpoint all the anger and tension pent up in the GOP convention over three days — and in the party over several decades.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie got the arena rocking with a mock trial of Hillary Clinton that made the crowd "a jury of her peers." Donald Trump's daughter Tiffany Trump also spoke.

Rudy Giuliani's rhetorical questions got the delegates vocally into the act and, by the climax of his speech, they were all on their feet and roaring — making the sports arena feel like a coliseum.

If it had not grown so strong in the South, among displaced workers, white evangelicals and older white males without college degrees, the GOP might not be crowning a champion chosen by these voters.

Recent terror attacks, shootings involving police and the political fracture within the Republican Party are all creating anxiety ahead of the GOP convention in Cleveland, which starts Monday.

The greatest damage to the city and the Democratic Party in 1968 came from the television images of the mayhem beamed 'round the world and seared into the memories of a generation of Americans.

The commonality in these cautionary tales is the speed with which the final selections were made, leaving little time for thorough vetting and testing.

Though Trump called off his news conference announcing his running mate, nevertheless he made his announcement right on time — on Twitter. In the tweet, Trump said his choice is the Indiana governor.

Donald Trump was to announce his VP pick Friday morning but because of the attacks in France, he is delaying the announcement. Sources tell NPR that Trump has chosen Indiana Governor Mike Pence.

The loss of Antonin Scalia led to a number of 4-4 ties, allowing lower court decisions to stand. Harder to quantify is the impact his absence had on the thinking and decision making of other justices.

Any meeting between Loretta Lynch and anyone even remotely related to Hillary Clinton raises not only eyebrows but obvious and legitimate questions. Meanwhile, Trump's sons ask for money from abroad.

In a 6-2 vote, the justices concluded that misdemeanor assault convictions for domestic violence are sufficient to invoke a federal ban on firearms possession.

The word came from the Spanish filibustero in the 1800s and had a root in the Dutch word vribuiter or "freebooter." The original reference was to a mercenary who traveled around fomenting rebellion.

Even though the "birther" issue has long since faded, Trump has continued to subtly question whether Obama is a Christian — and he was back at it in the aftermath of the Orlando massacre.

Tuesday was the triumphal night that Hillary Clinton had worked for and awaited for a decade — or perhaps several decades. Yet with all the celebration, a whimper was audible in the background.