Justice Blocks Contraception Mandate on Insurance in Suit by Nuns  —  WASHINGTON — Justice Sonia Sotomayor on Tuesday temporarily blocked the Obama administration from forcing some religious groups to provide health insurance coverage of birth control or face penalties as part of the Affordable Care Act.

Reid says jobless aid vote coming Monday  —  Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) told The Associated Press in an interview that the Senate will vote Monday on a three-month extension of federal unemployment benefits.  —  Calling the House a “black hole of legislation,” …

13 hospitalized after building explosion in Mpls.  —  A check on Google Maps indicates that the main floor of the structure houses a business called the Otanga Grocery, with the upper two floors consisting of apartments.  —  CONNECT  —  MINNEAPOLIS - Authorities say at least 13 people …

Phil Robertson slams the Chinese, says Muslims are ‘famous for murder’ in newly surfaced video  —  The controversy surrounding Duck Dynasty star Phil Robertson has now taken a step beyond his comments about homosexuality and bestiality, along with his assertion that black people in the Jim Crow South …

Pot Shops in Denver Open Door to $578 Million in Sales  —  Toni Fox plans to open the doors of her Denver marijuana shop at 8 a.m. tomorrow to a line of customers including some who camped overnight to be the first in the U.S. to legally buy pot for recreational use.

Rescue Efforts for Trapped Antarctic Voyage Disrupt Serious Science  —  Early this morning, I received an e-mail message from one of many polar scientists whose important and costly field research in Antarctica has been seriously disrupted by the diversion of icebreakers to try to evacuate the journalists …

No, 2.1 million haven't enrolled in Obamacare plans  —  BELTWAY CONFIDENTIAL OBAMACARE HEALTH CARE KATHLEEN SEBELIUS CMS HHS  —  With President Obama's health care law scheduled to begin in earnest when the new year kicks off, Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius claimed …

Edward Snowden, the insufferable whistleblower  —  Time has not deflated Edward Snowden's messianic sense of self-importance.  Nor has living in an actual police state given the National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower any greater appreciation of the actual freedoms that Americans enjoy.

What your favorite drink says about your politics, in one chart  —  Former Mississippi governor and uber-Republican Haley Barbour loves bourbon.  Franklin Roosevelt mixed martinis.  And, as it turns out, those two partisans have something in common with their base voters …

Former first lady Barbara Bush hospitalized  —  (CNN) — Former first lady Barbara Bush has been hospitalized in Houston, Texas, for treatment of a “respiratory-related issue,” a family spokesman said Tuesday.  —  Bush, 88, was admitted Monday at Methodist Hospital, spokesman Jim McGrath said in a written statement.

MSNBC Panel Was Mocking Republicans, Not Mitt Romney's Black Grandchild  —  Melissa Harris-Perry is apologizing for something that she didn't do wrong.  A photo of the Romney family with a black baby on Mitt's knee was the subject of a panel discussion on Perry's MSNBC show.  But no one was slighting the baby.