Funding bill struggles for votes as government shutdown nears  —  A $1.1 trillion bill to keep the government open appeared to be teetering Thursday after House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) announced her opposition and the package narrowly survived a procedural vote.

Open Carry Activist Charged With Shooting Ex-Husband And Stepdaughter Dead  —  A woman charged with shooting and killing her ex-husband and stepdaughter has strong connections to groups advocating for expanding open carry gun laws in Texas.  —  Local news outlets on Wednesday reported …

Backers: Romney more open to 2016 run  —  He has sounded unimpressed with the emerging GOP field, associates say.  —  For most of the past year, Mitt Romney supporters have publicly said he should consider running again.  And for most of the past year, Romney has seemed uninterested.  —  Until recently.

Scott Rudin Apologizes After Leak Of Sony's Hacked Racially Insensitive E-Mails On Barack Obama  —  EXCLUSIVE: Producer Scott Rudin has issued a public apology for the racially insensitive comments that surfaced last night in an exchange of hacked private e-mails between him and Sony Pictures Entertainment chairman Amy Pascal.

C.I.A. Director Defends Use of Interrogation Tactics, Avoiding Issue of Torture  —  Brennan on Tactics and Finding Bin Laden Brennan on Tactics and Finding Bin Laden  —  John O. Brennan, the C.I.A. director, said that information obtained from detainees that were subjected …

Bill Cosby Drugged Me.  This Is My Story.  —  Like most Americans, I spent the 60s, 70s, and part of the 80s in awe of Bill Cosby and his total domination of popular culture.  He was the first African American to star in a dramatic television series, I Spy, a show my family in Buffalo, New York, always watched.

Sources: Leadership Promised to Pull Cromnibus  —  I'm hearing from two sources, including one Republican lawmaker, that Representative Marlin Stutzman (R., Ind.) provided one of the final, decisive votes needed to clear a crucial procedural hurdle because House leadership promised to pull …

Few See Quick Cure for Nation's Political Divisions  —  Large Majority Expects No Progress on Top Problems Facing U.S.  —  As 2014 draws to a close, the public is deeply pessimistic about the prospects for healing the nation's deep political divisions.  And most Americans …

‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ character names revealed (in coolest way possible) — exclusive  —  We finally got to meet some new characters in the teaser trailer for Star Wars: The Force Awakens, but now we're getting to put some names with the faces.  —  J.J. Abrams, the film's co-writer …

Tea party fumes over campaign finance plan  —  Activists see high dollar limits as a power grab by GOP establishment.  —  Tea party activists are attacking a campaign finance rider in the $1.1 trillion spending bill that they view as a sneaky power grab by establishment Republicans designed to undermine outside conservative groups.