Police in Portland, Ore., are looking for the parents of three young children, ages 3 and under, who were found living among a group of homeless people on Thursday morning.

CNN reports that the children appear to be related, with the youngest being a baby girl estimated to be 8-15 months old.

Local resident Judy Baxter said she notified a neighbor that there were homeless people gathered in an empty shed next door to his home but that she had no idea there were children among them.

"Little did I know they had three babies in the backyard," Baxter told the Oregonian. "It was real sad when we saw the kids come out.''

When police arrived, the homeless people on the scene told authorities they believe the children belong to a woman who abandoned them there on Wednesday night.

Police say they are now working with the state Department of Human Services to learn more about the children, including their identities and exact ages.

Your tax dollars are going to fund new and inventive ways to spy on your internet communications

Most of us are very protective of our email, online banking, and even social networking accounts. We know what a nightmare it can be to get hacked, or just as bad, to have a stranger learn all sorts of personal information about us. But according to a new CNET report, it's not strangers we should be the most worried about eavesdropping on our comings and goings on the net — it's our own government.

According to the report, the FBI has opened a new $54 million Domestic Communications Assistance Center (DCAC) in Quantico, Virginia. The goal of the DCAC is simple: To develop technology to allow the government to break encryption, eavesdrop on private communications, and even intercept Skype calls. The DCAC also serves to assist federal, local, and state authorities in their digital wiretapping efforts. The center does not perform wiretapping itself; it simply helps other agencies execute their own wiretapping plans.

Predictably, civil liberties groups are up in arms over the agency —

A powerful forthcoming documentary tells the story of the "Stars and Strips Honor Flights" project, in which a nonprofit group sends World War II veterans to Washington, D.C., to visit the National World War II Memorial and pay respects at Arlington National Cemetery.

The film follows the plight of Honor Flight volunteers in Wisconsin who are working to send every local veteran to the memorial at no cost to them.

About 1,000 veterans from the war die each day on average, so the group's organizers see the effort as a race against the clock. The memorial was dedicated in 2004, long after many of the war's veterans had died.

D.C.-based Freethink Media is producing the film and encouraging fans to share the video on Memorial Day weekend on social media using the hashtag #DoMore. The documentary will premiere at Miller Park in Milwaukee on Aug. 11.

"Making 'Honor Flight' has changed our lives," said director Dan Hayes. "The people we've met through the Stars and Stripes Honor Flight and the experiences they let us observe, forced us to grapple with the issues of gratitude, family and freedom in our own lives."

President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama. (AP Photo)President Barack Obama's daily routine often starts with a tune and ends with a tuck, first lady Michelle Obama told People magazine.

"We have a ritual where he tucks me in, because I'm usually in bed before anybody, it was reported she told the magazine for an upcoming issue. "He'll come and turn the lights out and give me a kiss and we'll talk. He's like, "Ready to be tucked?" I'm like, "Yes I am."'

The 44th president of the United States also has a penchant for singing.

"He loves it in the shower in the morning, sings to the kids," she told People. "But it's not a song. He'll sing one line of something romantic or cute."

[Related: Healthy lunch ideas, first lady style]

Speaking of singing, when asked if she could be someone else, the first lady told the magazine, "Gosh. If I had some gift, I'd be Beyoncé, I'd be some great singer," ABC OTUS News reported.

[Related: Michelle Obama photos and videos]

Other revelations about Michelle Obama from the magazine interview:

• Family

A fugitive Humboldt penguin swims in the water in Tokyo Bay. (AP Photo/Japan Coast Guard's 3rd Regional Coast Guard …A penguin on the lam for more than two months in Tokyo is finally back at its aquarium.

The famous fugitive bird, simply known as Number 337, scaled a 13-foot wall and squeezed through a fence at Tokyo Sea Life Park in March, according to a BBC report.

There have been numerous sightings of the penguin swimming in rivers around town, but captors weren't able to nab the elusive bird until May 24, on a river bank near the aquarium.

The penguin appears to be in good shape: "It hasn't lost weight," a spokesman for the aquarium told the BBC. "It hasn't got fatter either, but its health seems good."

After one sighting caught on video, Kazuhiro Sakamoto, vice-head of the aquarium, said the penguin appeared "as if it's been living quite happily in the middle of Tokyo Bay," reports MSNBC. But Sakamoto is glad to have the penguin back at the aquarium safe.

Number 337 is part of the Humboldt breed from the Pacific Coast of South America and offshore islands of Chile and Peru, thought to be declining in number.

Number 337 isn't the only rogue animal to go missing, capturing media attention. In March of last year a venomous cobra snake escaped from the Bronx Zoo. Before it was caught almost a week later, it had its own Twitter account with 200,000 followers.

Click image to see more photos.

The New Republic's Alec MacGillis quizzed Ohio Democratic leaders about rumored Romney VP shortlister Sen. Rob Portman. His find: Portman is well-liked among Democrats in his home state even though they disagree with him on most issues.

The most colorful response came from Ohio Democratic Party Chairman Chris Redfern:

"He's a disciplined right-wing ideologue," Redfern said, emphasizing the modifier. "He's polite. It's easy ... to dislike, say, Newt Gingrich, because he's a pain in the ass. Rob Portman is not a pain in the ass."

Read the whole thing.

Kim Jong Un salutes during a mass military parade (AP Photo/Korean Central News Agency via Korea News Service) …A new Amnesty International report paints a gruesome picture of summary executions, torture and ill-treatment in North Korea as Kim Jong Un succeeded his late father, Kim Jong Il, as the country's ruler last December.

The country used firing squads or staged traffic accidents to execute 30 officials involved in talks to unite North and South Korea, according to the 2012 Amnesty International report released Thursday. It also notes that the country had been questioned about another 37 reported executions between 2007 and 2010 for "financial crimes."

As the ruling authority shifted to Kim Jong Un, the country's State Security agency detained another 200 North Korean officials, some of whom are now feared executed or in prison camps, the report notes.

Credible reports estimated that up to 200,000 prisoners were held in horrific conditions in six sprawling political prison camps, including the notorious Yodok facility. Thousands were imprisoned in at least 180 other detention facilities. Most were imprisoned without trial or following grossly unfair trials and on the basis of forced confessions.

Men, women and children, who were kept in the prison camps,  were tortured and forced to work in dangerous conditions, according to the report. Many of the prisoners die or get sick while in custody due to the horrendous conditions, beatings, lack of medical care and unhealthy living conditions.

Meantime, the North Korean government denies the existence of the political prison camps.

[Related: North Koreans in rice belt starving to death]

Amnesty International also reports that hunger is widespread in the country, as 6 million urgently need food and the country is unable to feed its people. The country earlier this year reportedly requested its embassies to appeal for international aid. While the the European Commission has helped, the United States has not provided aid to North Korea, "reflecting concerns over the monitoring of its distribution," according to the report.

[Related: Gov't moving ahead with reactor plans]

North Koreans do not have freedom of speech, and criticism of the government and its leaders is forbidden. Few people have access to the Internet, and there are tight controls on mobile phones and phone connections, according to the report. Citizens' movement inside and out of the country are tightly monitored. People who escape to China are often returned to North Korea, where they are often detained and beaten by the government.

Bill Clinton he was not. When it came to smoking pot, the teenage Barack Obama had rules. You had to embrace "total absorption" or face a penalty. When you smoked in the car, "the windows had to be rolled up." And he could horn his way in, calling out "Intercepted!" and grab the joint out of turn.

Best-selling author David Maraniss' "Barack Obama: The Story" describes the future president's teenage antics, notably his copious marijuana smoking, details of which were published early Friday by Buzzfeed. While the book won't be released until June 19, vast sections of it were already available Friday on Google Books.

[Related: Obama ex-girlfriend recalls his 'sexual warmth']

Starting on page 293, the reader begins to get the dope on high school-age Obama's group of basketball- and fun-loving buds, who dubbed themselves the "Choom Gang," from a verb meaning "to smoke marijuana."

"As a member of the Choom Gang, Barry Obama was known for starting a few pot-smoking  trends. The first was called 'TA,' short for 'total absorption.' To place this in the physical and political context of another young man who would grow up to be president, TA was the antithesis of Bill Clinton's claim that as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford he smoked dope but never inhaled," writes Maraniss, author of a biography of the 42^nd president.

"When you were with Barry and his pals, if you exhaled precious pakalolo (Hawaiian slang from marijuana, meaning "numbing tobacco") instead of absorbing it fully into your lungs, you were assessed a penalty and your turn was skipped the next time the joint came around. "'Wasting good bud smoke was not tolerated,' explained one member of the Choom Gang, Tom Topolinski, the Chinese-looking kid with a Polish name who answered to Topo."

[Related: Aides gave filmmakers bin Laden raid info]

Obama also made popular a pot-smoking practice that the future president and his pals called "roof hits." When they smoked in the car, they rolled up the windows, and "when the pot was gone, they tilted their heads back and sucked in the last bit of smoke from the ceiling," Maraniss writes.

Obama "also had a knack for interceptions. When a joint was making the rounds, he often elbowed his way in, out of turn, shouted 'Intercepted' and took an extra hit. No one seemed to mind," according to the text.