USA | Jeb Bush confirms 2016 bid

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush with his wife Columba, center, and other family members

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush launched a White House bid months in the making with a vow to win the Republican presidential nomination on his own merits. Bush is unquestionably one of the top-tier candidates in a large Republican field of 11 major candidates that lacks a true front-runner. For Bush, the 2016 Republican contest will test both his vision of conservatism and his ability to distance himself from family. “Not a one of us deserves the job by right of resume, party, seniority, family, or family narrative. It’s nobody’s turn,” Bush said Monday (yesterday, Macau time), confronting critics who suggest he simply seeks to inherit the office already held by his father and brother. “It’s everybody’s test, and it’s wide open — exactly as a contest for president should be.” Before the event, the Bush campaign came out with a new logo — Jeb! — that conspicuously leaves out the Bush surname.

Rachel Dolezal, president of the Spokane chapter of the NAACP

Civil rights activist quits after pretending to be black

Rachel Dolezal carefully constructed a life as a black civil rights activist in the last decade in America’s inland Northwest, but that world is falling apart following the disclosure by her parents that she was a white woman who for years has posed as African-American. Dolezal, a 37-year-old with a light brown complexion and dark curly hair, graduated from historically black Howard University and was married to a black man. For years, she publicly described herself as black and complained of being the victim of racial hatred in the heavily white region. Dolezal has resigned as president of the local branch of the NAACP, lost her position as a part-time African studies instructor at a local university, lost her job as a freelance newspaper columnist and become the subject of a probe by the city Ethics Commission. The furor has touched off national debate over racial identity and divided the NAACP itself.