On Thursday, Charlotte-Mecklenburg police Officer Randall Kerrick will have his first day in court. Kerrick is accused of voluntary manslaughter in the Sept. 15, 2013, shooting death of Jonathan Ferrell. But his short, routine appearance is expected to become a scene in a larger story – the nationwide debate over the use of deadly force by white police officers against unarmed African-American men.

What can today’s protest movement learn from the NRA? A focus on specific issues, and the tools to get legislation passed, can make change now.

Congressional liberals rebelled Wednesday against a must-pass spending bill that would keep the government open past midnight Thursday, complaining that it would roll back critical limits on Wall Street and sharply increase the influence of wealthy campaign donors.

It's official: Instagram is bigger than Twitter. Instagram announced Wednesday that it now has 300 million monthly active users, up 50 percent in just nine months. That makes the photo- and video-sharing app owned by Facebook more popular than Twitter, which had 284 million monthly active users as of the third quarter.