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Articles by Tom Howell Jr.

Else Trinidad gets help from Omar Bonet of SRA international about information regarding ACA health insurance options in Paterson, NJ, Friday, Oct. 10, 2014. (AP Photo/The Record of Bergen County, Viorel Florescu) (AP Photo/The Record, VIOREL FLORESCU)

Attorneys general back Obama in health subsidies dispute

Eighteen states that implemented Obamacare in three discrete ways filed a legal brief Monday that says qualified Americans should enjoy the health law's tax credits no matter where they live, effectively joining the fight against high-profile lawsuits that claim federal assistance should only flow to certain states.

November 3, 2014
President Barack Obama shakes hands with Ebola survivor Dr. Kent Brantly during an event with American health care workers fighting the Ebola virus, Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2014, in the East Room of the White House in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Obama praises health care workers, ‘American exceptionalism’ in Ebola fight

President Obama on Wednesday forcefully defended U.S. health care workers returning from the Ebola outbreak's front lines in West Africa as "heroes" deserving respect, in a White House pep rally designed to lift up volunteers fighting the virus at its source while rebuking those who let "fear" and "hysteria" dictate the country's response.

October 29, 2014
People walk near an entrance to University Hospital of Newark Monday, Oct. 27, 2014, in Newark, N.J. Nurse Kaci Hickox, who was quarantined at the hospital after working in West Africa with Ebola patients, was released Monday and left the hospital in a private vehicle. The state Health Department says she will be taken to Maine, where she lives. A statement released by the office of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said health officials in Maine had been notified of her arrival and that they could decide on her treatment and monitoring from there. (AP Photo/Mel Evans)

White House steering clear of Ebola quarantine fight in Maine

The White House on Wednesday sidestepped the fight over Ebola quarantine policy that's brewing in Maine, where state officials want to legally quarantine a nurse who recently returned from West Africa and proclaimed she will not be confined to her home under protocols that put politics over science.

October 29, 2014
Nurse Kaci Hickox was placed into an isolation tent at University Hospital in Newark, New Jersey, where she was quarantined after flying into Newark Liberty International Airport following her work in West Africa caring for Ebola patients. (AP Photo/Steven Hyman)

Kaci Hickox won’t follow Maine protocols for Ebola isolation

Maine is on track to be the first state to see its quarantine laws put to the test since Ebola arrived on American shores, pitting broad state powers designed to protect public health against the liberties of health care workers who have an increasingly vocal ally in President Obama.

October 29, 2014
FILE - In this Oct. 14, 2014 file photo, President Barack Obama speaks during a meeting with more than 20 foreign defense ministers on the ongoing operations against the Islamic State group, at Andrews Air Force Base, Md. Nearly two-thirds of Americans believe the threat posed by the Islamic State militants is a very important issue, and fewer than half approve of the way President Barack Obama is handling the danger posed by them, according to an Associated Press-GfK poll. Forty-six percent of the Americans surveyed say the U.S. military response in Iraq and Syria has not gone far enough and a majority think America’s partners need to up their game in the fight. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)

Obama tries to tamp down Ebola fears

Battered by criticism on the home front, President Obama turned the nation's focus to the fight against Ebola at its source in West Africa, taking pains to praise health care workers doing "God's work over there" to keep Americans safe.

October 28, 2014
CDC Director Tom Frieden (Associated Press)

CDC unveils a four-tier Ebola risk scale to help local authorities

Federal health officials released a risk scale Monday designed to smooth out state efforts to fight Ebola while bolstering the Obama administration's plea for calm, even as the Pentagon quarantined troops returning from the West African epicenter of the outbreak.

October 27, 2014
Kaci Hickox, a health care worker who returned from fighting Ebola in West Africa, wrote a scathing review of "inhumane" treatment by inspectors at Newark Liberty International Airport and her ongoing quarantine. Ms. Hickox is the first traveler quarantined under new guidelines established in New Jersey and New York. (University of Texas at Arlington via Associated Press)

Ebola health worker quarantines pit politics vs. science

The nation's top infectious diseases official blasted states for putting into place "draconian" quarantine rules that they said could dissuade workers from volunteering on the front lines of the Ebola epidemic in West Africa and raise the threat to the U.S.

October 26, 2014
Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., right, casts his ballot with his wife Franki, left, during early voting at the Ford County Elections Office in Dodge City, Kan., Friday, Oct. 24, 2014. (AP Photo/Orlin Wagner)

Winning the Senate: Democrats and Republicans show confidence

Democrats and Republicans gazed Sunday into starkly different crystal balls ahead of midterm elections a little more than a week away, doubling down on their chances to retain or retake the upper chamber and backing their respective leaders as men of vision.

October 26, 2014