Exclusive: Senate Democrats Flooding South Dakota Airwaves  —  Will voters in South Dakota and Kansas save Senate Democrats?  —  The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee will spend $1 million in South Dakota — mostly on television and the rest on field operations …

Texas Ebola patient dies  —  (CNN) — Thomas Eric Duncan, the man with Ebola who traveled to the United States from Liberia, died Wednesday morning at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas, the hospital said.  —  He had been in critical condition after being diagnosed with the virus in mid-September.

NBC Wanted to Hire Jon Stewart As Host of Meet the Press  —  “They were ready to back the Brink's truck up,” one source said  —  This Sunday marks Chuck Todd's one-month anniversary in the anchor chair at Meet the Press.  Despite an opening-week ratings spike from his exclusive sit …

Anthony Kennedy Halts Gay Marriage In Idaho, Nevada  —  Justice Anthony Kennedy issued an order to halt same-sex marriage in Idaho — and apparently also Nevada — on Wednesday after the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the states' bans one day earlier.

Jimmy Carter: President Obama blew it on ISIL  —  Former President Jimmy Carter is criticizing President Barack Obama's Middle East policy, saying he has shifting policies and waited too long to take action against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.  —  In an interviewed published Tuesday …

In Defense of Obama  —  President Obama signing the Affordable Care Act.  In our new cover story, Paul Krugman explores the president's successes.

The hardest-working man in Democratic politics  —  Hillary Clinton's potential challengers  —  Washington (CNN) — A Democrat with White House ambitions is furiously criss-crossing the country to help the party's candidates — and it's not Hillary Clinton.

Can Liberalism Be Saved From Itself?  —  My recent collision with Ben Affleck on Bill Maher's show, Real Time, has provoked an extraordinary amount of controversy.  It seems a postmortem is in order.  —  For those who haven't seen the show, most of what I write here won't make sense unless you watch my segment:

POLICE PEPPER SPRAY WAKE COUNTY TEEN INSIDE HIS HOME AFTER HE'S MISTAKEN FOR BURGLAR  —  The parents of a Wake County high school student are outraged that police pepper-sprayed him inside their home after a neighbor mistook him for an intruder.  —  It happened Monday afternoon on England Avenue in Fuquay-Varina.

REJECTED: Kroger Managers Are Refusing To Accept Bullying Tactics of Moms Demand Action  —  The body language says it all.  A Kroger store manager in Ohio (right) refuses to be an unwilling participant in Moms Demand's latest bullying public relations stunt.

No, Islamic State Militants Have Not Been Caught by U.S. Border Patrol  —  Since the U.S. began airstrikes in Iraq and Syria against the Islamic State, Republicans have frequently connected the terrorist group to border security in the U.S. In August, Texas Governor Rick Perry called it a …

Tens of thousands of Walmart workers are about to lose their health insurance — and it's good news!  —  Walmart, the world's largest retailer, announced Tuesday that it would no longer offer health insurance benefits to its 26,000 part-time workers.  —  Nobody likes losing any kind of benefit at work.

Leon Panetta Is What's Wrong With DC  —  Obama's former defense secretary is out with a scathing new memoir about his time in the White House.  But why should we buy anything he says?  —  When Harry Truman apocryphally said, “if you want a friend in Washington, buy a dog” he might have had someone like Leon Panetta in mind.

Karl Rove Is Ruining the GOP  —  Karl Rove recently tried to advise Republicans on how the party can more effectively take back the Senate in November.  He made two main suggestions.  —  One was that Republican candidates must “make the case for electing someone new who will be a check …

U.S. to Begin Ebola Screenings at 5 Airports  —  WASHINGTON — Federal officials said Wednesday that they would begin temperature screenings of passengers arriving from West Africa at five American airports, beginning with Kennedy International in New York as early as this weekend …

U.S. officials: ISIS will capture Kobani, but it's not a big concern to us  —  (CNN) — The key Syrian border city of Kobani will soon fall to the Islamist terror group ISIS, several senior U.S. administration officials said.  —  They downplayed the importance of it, saying Kobani is not a major U.S. concern.

VIDEO: Harvard students claim America is a bigger threat to peace than ISIS  — Students at Harvard University claimed America is a bigger threat to world peace than the radical terrorist organization ISIS.  — ISIS began as an al-Qaeda splinter group and gained worldwide notoriety …

Google chief blames feds for phone locks  —  Federal officials should have expected tech companies to respond to their snooping by turning to technical measures to lock them out, Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt said on Wednesday.  —  Top officials including Attorney General Eric Holder …

SAT Scores and Income Inequality: How Wealthier Kids Rank Higher  —  SAT originally stood for Scholastic Aptitude Test.  But parsing the results by income suggests it's also a Student Affluence Test.  —  On average, students in 2014 in every income bracket outscored students in a lower bracket …

For McConnell, it's now or never  —  If Republicans fall short of expectations this fall, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) could face a leadership challenge.  —  Republican senators say there is much riding on the Nov. 4 elections for McConnell, who is gunning to become majority leader …