CHICAGO -- For years, Illinois consumers who've bought health insurance on the state's Obamacare exchange have complained that many of the plans don't include the Chicago area's biggest hospitals.

That, however, is about to change.

With four days left to sign up for health insurance through the exchange, Northwestern Medicine and Blue Cross ...Read more

"I just snapped" is how Jessica Lioy describes her attempt in April to kill herself.

After a tough year in which she'd moved back to her parents' Syracuse, N.Y., home and changed colleges, the crumbling of her relationship with her boyfriend pushed the 22-year-old over the edge. She impulsively swallowed a handful of sleeping pills. Her mom ...Read more

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Zachary Berg usually buys guns and ammunition with relative ease. After all, he's a Sutter County sheriff's deputy and needs them for his job. California's stringent gun laws usually don't apply to him.

But Berg couldn't buy shotgun shells at his local hardware store in Yuba City prior to a duck hunting trip last month. He...Read more

MIAMI -- Chloe Wiegand was 18 months old when she plummeted 11 stories to her death on Royal Caribbean's Freedom of the Seas in July.

Three months later, Puerto Rican law enforcement authorities charged Chloe's grandfather with her death. The family adamantly said it was an accident.

Now, the family has sued Royal Caribbean in a civil suit, ...Read more

WASHINGTON -- The House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday began its long slog of a session to finalize articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump, a procedurally complex process that will probably continue through much of Thursday or even longer.

The panel is expected to approve two articles of impeachment -- one for abuse of power, ...Read more

WASHINGTON -- The White House budget office on Wednesday defended its temporary withholding of almost $400 million in Ukraine security-related funds earlier this year, saying the episode was in keeping with longstanding authorities that allow the executive branch to control the flow of appropriated funds.

"It was OMB's understanding that a ...Read more

MEXICO CITY -- Mexico's Senate majority leader is pushing for passage of changes to a new free-trade deal with the U.S. and Canada by the end of this week after the governments of the three nations completed months of negotiations.

Ricardo Monreal, from President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's ruling Morena party, said Wednesday that he wants a ...Read more

PHILADELPHIA -- The Philadelphia District Attorney's Office on Wednesday dropped all charges against an 18-year-old accused of fatally shooting his twin brother this month in their father's apartment, and DA Larry Krasner said the father "is responsible."

At an afternoon news conference, Krasner said the twins' father, Aleem Gillard, a ...Read more

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Six Indian citizens pleaded guilty to a visa fraud conspiracy after a federal government sting ensnared hundreds of foreign students at a fake university, according to government officials.

The six men recruited students to the "University of Farmington" in Michigan, which was set up by the U.S. Department of Homeland ...Read more

WASHINGTON -- When the House Judiciary Committee began its historic session Wednesday night to consider two articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump, one issue was glaringly absent -- Russia.

For three years, House Democrats made the Trump campaign's ties to Russia, and his bitter fight against the special counsel investigation ...Read more

MIAMI -- Several Miami and West Palm Beach VA Healthcare System workers and the owners of local medical supply companies were indicted in an alleged kickback scheme that netted the suppliers millions of dollars in proceeds while the Veterans Affairs employees pocketed thousands in bribes over the past decade.

Five of the employees, who worked ...Read more

AUSTIN, Texas -- Former Vice President Joe Biden has opened up a commanding 20-point lead in the Texas Democratic primary, according to a CNN poll released Wednesday.

Among likely Democratic primary voters, 35% say they support Biden, compared to 15% for U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, 13% for U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts ...Read more

CHICAGO -- Cook County State's Attorney Kim Foxx on Wednesday kicked off the first wave in a mass effort to automatically clear tens of thousands of low-level marijuana convictions from court records on the eve of the legalization of recreational cannabis in Illinois.

Foxx personally presented the county's chief judge with the first of about 1,...Read more

MEXICO CITY -- As paintings go, it is tiny -- about the size of a cereal box.

But the controversy it has incited is huge.

There, riding bareback on a white horse, is Emiliano Zapata, the Mexican revolutionary leader who, with his big mustache and steely gaze, has long been a symbol here for a certain kind of tough masculinity.

The painting ...Read more

Lawsuit by Sandy Hook families against gun manufacturer will go to trial in 2021

WATERBURY, Conn. -- A lawsuit by nine families of victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings against the company that made the gun used in the massacre will go to trial in September 2021.

On Wednesday lawyers for Remington Arms and the families agreed ...Read more

WASHINGTON -- Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is being sued over allegedly failing to preserve official notes about President Donald Trump's meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and a court ruled Wednesday that the case could move forward.

That means Pompeo must either provide evidence that he complied with the Federal Records Act, ...Read more