Ben Carson says 'no path forward' in his bid for White House

WASHINGTON (AP) — Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson said he is effectively ending his bid for the White House Wednesday, concluding a roller-coaster campaign that briefly took him to the top of a chaotic GOP field but ended with a Super Tuesday whimper.

Carson's exit reduces the active Republican field to four candidates, though billionaire Donald Trump remains the clear leader in earned delegates and voter preference polls.

Carson, 64, was one of several anti-establishment candidates who shaped the early stages of a Republican race defined by conservatives' wide-ranging disgust with the nation's direction and GOP leaders' perceived inability to alter it.

He made foreign policy flubs, from a mistaken suggestion that China is militarily involved in Syria's civil war, to a high profile speech in which he repeatedly mispronounced the name of the Palestinian political and military organization Hamas.

The only African-American among the presidential contenders of either major party, Carson announced his bid in May from his native Detroit, where he was raised in a poor neighborhood by a single mother.