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Three men died and at least 15 people, including six teenagers, were wounded in shootings across the city since Saturday afternoon, police said. In the latest fatal shooting, a 27-year-old man died after being shot around 3:15 a.m. Sunday in the Old Town neighborhood downtown, said Chicago Police News Affairs Officer Hector Alfaro. Around the same time, a 24-year-old man died and two other men were in critical condition after being shot at a party around 3:10 a.m. Sunday in the Tri-Taylor neighborhood on the West Side. A 14-year-old boy was in critical condition and a 16-year-old boy was wounded...

The fate of a little-noticed ballot measure in strongly Democratic Oregon serves as a warning to President Barack Obama and his party about the political perils of immigration policy. Even as Oregon voters were legalizing recreational marijuana and expanding Democratic majorities in state government, they decided by a margin of 66-34 to cancel a new state law that would have provided driver's licenses to people who are in the United States illegally. "The Oregon measure tells you these measures are not easy or simple," said Muzaffar Chishti of the Migration Policy Institute. "The political cost may be significant, even in...

A car bomb exploded on the perimeter of Baghdad's heavily guarded international airport complex on Sunday, wounding five people, security sources said. The blast occurred at a security checkpoint close to a parking lot where passengers are searched before boarding airport taxis, three sources said. The checkpoint is several kilometres from the terminal building.

Internal checks determined the state Healthplanfinder website was miscalculating the amount of tax credits applicants were eligible for. So exchange officials decided to shut the site down for repairs. They hope to have it back up on Sunday. “It’s our plan to be up as soon as possible,” said Michael Marchand, communications director of the Washington Health Benefit Exchange, which operates Healthplanfinder. By early evening Saturday, the exchange issued a release saying it is expected to be back online by 8 a.m. Sunday. The tax-credit calculations are critical to the site’s utility. Based on an applicant’s income level, the credits...

President Barack Obama says the American public was not misled about certain provisions of his health care law. A newly surfaced video shows an adviser in the law's drafting, MIT economist Jonathan Gruber, saying "the stupidity of the American voter" helped Democrats pass the complex legislation. Gruber made the comment in 2013 but it is adding to conservatives' current call to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration on Friday unveiled data showing that many Americans with health insurance bought under the Affordable Care Act could face substantial price increases next year — in some cases as much as 20 percent — unless they switch plans. The data became available just hours before the health insurance marketplace was to open to buyers seeking insurance for 2015. An analysis of the data by The New York Times suggests that although consumers will often be able to find new health plans with prices comparable to those they now pay, the situation varies greatly from state...

A Fresno State University student is facing sexual assault charges and a sheep is being monitored by veterinarians after a bizarre incident at the Central Valley school, ABC7 Los Angeles reported. What is being referred to as the “sheep incident” has shaken up Fresno State after a student heard noises coming from a barn and found a 23-year-old man having sex with one of the ewes. The unidentified student responsible for the deed told police he had drank alcohol and was stressed out about a midterm, but offered up no other defense of his actions.

Big telecommunications companies and many Republicans in Congress have criticized President Obama’s proposal for strong rules to prevent the creation of fast and slow lanes on the Internet. They claim this is heavy-handed government regulation. But in fact, it is correcting an old mistake. Even if broadband is reclassified as a telecommunications service, no one is talking about having federal regulators approve consumer rates or requiring companies to lease their networks to competitors. What Mr. Obama wants is an Internet where service providers handle all content sent and received by consumers equally. His approach takes into account what has happened...

From halfway around the world, President Barack Obama upped the ante in the fight for immigration reform. One woman told CBS2 political reporter Marcia Kramer on Friday that reform would mean everything to the half million undocumented immigrants in New York City. The woman spoke to Kramer wearing large, dark sunglasses to hide her face and a hat to hide her hair. She was afraid that if she were to truly come out of the shadows she would be deported and separated from her 9-year-old daughter, who was born here and is an American citizen. “Every day that we leave...

Fed up with inaction from the Obama administration, Jose Luis Piscil, an undocumented worker who lives in New Haven, has sued federal immigration officials to limit deportations -- even as President Obama is on the verge of taking steps to change the status of millions of undocumented workers. Piscil, 26, is one of five immigrants currently in deportation proceedings who filed an official rulemaking petition with the Department of Homeland Security in February, asking the agency to delay deportations of immigrants with ties to the community and no criminal records. Since DHS did not respond, Piscil and the other plaintiffs...

A scientific national poll of those who voted in Tuesday's congressional elections found that only 20% support "President Obama changing immigration policy on his own." THE POLL QUESTION: President Obama recently said that he plans to go around Congress and take executive action on immigration policy. Which do you support more: (ROTATED) President Obama changing immigration policy on his own, or President Obama working with Congress to change immigration policy? 74% PRESIDENT OBAMA WORKING WITH CONGRESS TO CHANGE IMMIGRATION POLICY 20% PRESIDENT OBAMA CHANGING IMMIGRATION POLICY ON HIS OWN 5% DO NOT KNOW/CANNOT JUDGE (VOL.) 1% REFUSED (VOL.) Majorities of...

For 10 straight days and nights this month, Rosario Reyes did not eat. Each morning, she camped next to a monument in Lafayette Square, across from the White House. Each evening, she returned to a bunk bed at a nearby church. Reyes is a part-time babysitter and mother of three who has lived in suburban Maryland for a decade. She is also an illegal immigrant from El Salvador, and she had vowed to remain in the park without eating until President Obama signed an order offering temporary legal status to immigrants in her situation.

A group of Walmart employees pushing for higher wages said on Friday they were planning protests at 1,600 Walmart stores nationwide on Black Friday, the biggest shopping day of the year in the United States. The labor group, Our Walmart, said it had protested 1,200 to 1,400 Walmart stores last year on Black Friday, the day after the Thanksgiving holiday. Asked about the workers' complaints, Wal-Mart spokeswoman Brooke Buchanan said the company does not retaliate against workers who strike or protest. "The reality is that few Walmart associates participate in these labor-organized protests," she said.

Senator Mitch McConnell said yesterday that he would not shut down the government, over immigration or anything else, after he takes over as Majority Leader in January. On the same day, Speaker John Boehner refused to rule out a shutdown. Both were being deceptive, but Mr. McConnell, as usual, was a little more clever about it. The House produced last year’s government shutdown when it insisted on attaching the repeal of various parts of the Affordable Care Act to spending bills necessary to keep the government open. That was a huge embarrassment for Mr. Boehner, making his caucus appear feral...

Decisions, decisions. Congressional Republicans are torn over how to respond to President Obama's executive order allowing more of the people who've settled in the United States illegally to apply for temporary visas and work permits. Although they all see this as an abuse of power, some Republicans want to threaten another government shutdown to try to block Obama, while others want to try to roll back the initiative bit by bit. The choice facing Republicans boils down to this: Do they repeat the hardball tactics they used last fall in a vain attempt to defund Obamacare or do they pick...

Rep. Dave Brat (R-Va.), who shockingly toppled former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) in a primary this summer, says he'll support John Boehner (R-Ohio) for Speaker. Brat told The Hill he plans to vote for Boehner on the floor in January when the Speaker is elected by the full House for the new Congress. "As of right now, yeah," Brat said. "I'm optimistic our leadership's going to move forward on the principles I ran on."

The police chief of a small town near La Crosse accused of harassing a local tea party activist is leaving his job. The Town of Campbell and Tim Kelemen have reached an agreement which pays the chief for about 330 hours. Kelemen admitted to using the activist's personal e-mail address to sign him up for online dating services, and even pornographic websites. Kelemen's lawyer says the chief will apply for disability benefits for a mental health condition he says stems from harassment by the local tea party activists.

LINK ONLY PER FR POSTING RULES. New Yorker article from October 2013 - during the Healthcare.gov meltdown - that says Obama had a private meeting with Jonathan Gruber in Boston. LINK HERE

Republican Senate contender Bill Cassidy and his conservative allies have outspent endangered Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu by roughly a 180-to-1 margin on television since their campaign went into overtime. It was a reverse from earlier in the campaign, when Landrieu blanketed the airwaves and conservatives held onto their cash. No outside groups so far have come to Landrieu's aid, while GOP groups have ramped up their support of Cassidy.

Remember those "other" new Obamacare exchanges—the ones that small businesses were supposed to use to sign up workers for health insurance? A new Government Accountability Office report finds that a stunningly low number of workers have enrolled in insurance plans sold on small-business health exchanges run by federal and state governments. As of last summer, only about 76,000 people working for about 12,000 employers had enrolled in insurance plans sold by 18 state-run SHOP exchanges. One state-run SHOP—Mississippi's—had just one person enrolled, the GAO report said. Washington state had the second-lowest enrollment with 42 people. Two population-heavy states, California and...