I Was An NFL Player Until I Was Fired By Two Cowards And A Bigot  —  Hello.  My name is Chris Kluwe, and for eight years I was the punter for the Minnesota Vikings.  In May 2013, the Vikings released me from the team.  At the time, quite a few people asked me if I thought …

Oregon Mother: I Can't Afford Obamacare For Myself, 1-Year-Old Son  —  PORTLAND, Ore. (CBS Seattle/AP) — One Oregon mother says that she is unable to afford health insurance for her and her 18-month-old son because it's too expensive.  —  Kate Holly, 33, tells KOIN-TV that she originally …

Medicaid Increases Emergency-Department Use: Evidence from Oregon's Health Insurance Experiment  —  1National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.  —  2Columbia University School of Social Work, New York, NY 10027, USA.  —  3Center for Outcomes Research and Education …

Duck Dynasty launch their own line of guns as Phil hatches plot to move his family to rival TV network after A&E bosses ‘humiliated’ him over anti-gay storm  — Phil Robertson feels betrayed by bosses at A&E and is plotting to get his family out of the $200,000 per episode contact they signed last August

Qaeda-Aligned Militants Threaten Key Iraqi Cities  —  BAGHDAD — Radical Sunni militants aligned with Al Qaeda threatened Thursday to seize control of Falluja and Ramadi, two of the most important cities in Iraq, setting fire to police stations, freeing prisoners from jail and occupying mosques …

Find Friends Abuse  —  When we first built Snapchat, we had a difficult time finding other friends that were using the service.  We wanted a way to find friends in our address book that were also using Snapchat - so we created Find Friends.  Find Friends is an optional service that asks Snapchatters …

Ezra Klein Is Said to Plan to Leave Washington Post  —  Ezra Klein, an analyst, columnist and television commentator who runs The Washington Post's Wonkblog, is making plans to leave the newspaper after failing to win support for a new website he wanted to create within the company …

Weed: Been There.  Done That.  —  For a little while in my teenage years, my friends and I smoked marijuana.  It was fun.  I have some fond memories of us all being silly together.  I think those moments of uninhibited frolic deepened our friendships.  —  But then we all sort of moved away from it.

Exclusive: MSNBC to name Thomas Roberts host of ‘Way Too Early’  —  MSNBC has decided to replace the anchor of “Way Too Early” with the openly-gay Thomas Roberts because the left-leaning channel wants the show to be seen as more “diverse,” a source inside the cable network tells The Daily Caller.

‘They had no idea if my insurance was active or not!’:  Obamacare confusion reigns as frustrated patients walk out of hospitals without treatment  — MailOnline spoke with patients who were told they would have to pay their bills in full if they couldn't prove they had insurance

Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates hurt in fall  —  (CNN) - Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates was back home on Thursday after injuring his neck in a fall on New Year's Day.  —  Gates accidentally fell and fractured his first vertebrae at his home in Washington state …

The Three Stages of Obamacare Acceptance  —  Now that Obamacare is clearly moving forward, Republicans are adjusting to a new reality: it may no longer be a realistic option to simply wait until the law collapses under its own weight and vanishes entirely.  GOP lawmakers are increasingly discussing …

How Netflix Reverse Engineered Hollywood  —  And then, how we reverse engineered Netflix.  The story of the streaming service's micro-genres. … If you use Netflix, you've probably wondered about the specific genres that it suggests to you.  Some of them just seem so specific that it's absurd.

Mass Shootings Are Becoming More Frequent  —  After a man opened fire at Los Angeles's airport a few months ago, friends and coworkers undoubtedly turned to each other shaking their heads: Could this really be happening again, so soon?  Are these things getting more frequent, or am I imagining it?

Frozen Out: 98% of Stories Ignore That Ice-bound Ship Was On Global Warming Mission  —  A group of climate change scientists were rescued by helicopter Jan. 2, after being stranded in the ice since Christmas morning.  But the majority of the broadcast networks' reports about the ice-locked …

Climate to be 2014 battlefield  —  Climate change and energy will be a major policy battleground in the 2014 midterms, advocates on both sides of the issue promise.  —  Republicans like Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) plan to go on the attack against President Obama's climate action plan …

Obama's Half-Brother ‘Floored’ About President's Lying About Meeting Him  —  Mark Obama Ndesandjo said he was surprised to hear his half-brother President Barack Obama say they had only recently met for the first time.  —  “I was floored by it — I don't know why he said it,” …

What's Missing in My Byline?  —  If you look closely at my Times byline, beginning with Thursday's column, you'll notice something odd.  Well, actually, you probably won't notice it.  —  I've knocked out my middle initial for the new year.  I acquired it in my byline because as a college journalist …

In the Buckeye State, the Tea Party Bucks the Establishment Republican Governor  —  Governor John Kasich once declared he was “in the Tea Party before there was a Tea Party.”  Now a conservative activist wants to revoke his membership and kick him out of office for going soft on Obamacare and more.

Lobbyists cash in on do-nothing Congress  —  Congress didn't get much of anything done last year, but you wouldn't know it looking down K Street.  —  Washington Inc. experienced only a minor squeeze, continuing to hum along even as Congress failed to pass the kind of bills that lobbyists …

Wal-Mart recalls donkey meat in China  —  Wal-Mart has recalled a donkey meat product in China after tests showed that it contained DNA of other animals.  —  Wal-Mart says it will reimburse customers who bought the “Five Spice” donkey meat and the US firm is also helping local authorities with an investigation into its local supplier.

Weeks in the Making, an Editorial on Snowden May Go ‘Beyond What Is Realistic’  —  Most newspaper editorials don't generate a great deal of heat.  Even fewer can be considered newsworthy.  —  The exception was one in The Times on Thursday, calling for Edward J. Snowden to be offered clemency or a plea bargain.