Official Offers Account From Libya of Benghazi Attack  —  WASHINGTON — A State Department official presented a minute-by-minute account on Wednesday of what happened during the seige of the diplomatic compound in Benghazi last Sept. 11, offering the first public testimony from an American official …

Markey Edges Gomez In WBUR Senate Poll  —  BOSTON — A new WBUR poll (PDFs - topline, crosstabs) shows U.S. Rep. Edward Markey leading former Navy SEAL Gabriel Gomez 41 to 35 percent in the Massachusetts U.S. Senate race.  —  Markey's six-point edge expands to an eight-point margin …

Census Bureau: Black turnout passed white voters in 2012  —  A Census Bureau analysis released Wednesday shows that in the 2012 election black voters surpassed the turnout of white voters for the first time.  —  According to the report, 66.2 percent of eligible black voters cast their ballots …

Lindsey Graham faces down primary challenge  —  COLUMBIA, S.C. — If any Senate Republican up for re-election next year would seem ripe for a primary defeat it's Lindsey Graham.  —  Running in a conservative, Southern state that has proven friendly to insurgents in recent years …

Republican leader rips the media for ‘shoving us in the corner’  —  House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) ripped the media in a speech Tuesday to the Ripon Society, arguing press coverage is partly responsible for the GOP's messaging woes.  —  Cantor, who has tried to recast the image …

Top White House Aide Has A Secret Beer With Rep. Paul Ryan  —  On April 10, the day President Obama released his 2014 budget, White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough held a secret meeting with House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan at a K Street restaurant, Brasserie Beck, to talk …

Are Republicans really gunning for another debt-limit showdown?  —  The federal debt limit is set to kick back into effect next weekend after a three-month hiatus, marking the start of a political game of chicken likely to culminate in the fall, when Congress will have to give President Obama a higher limit or risk a federal default.

Cleveland Hero Was A Repeat Domestic Abuser  —  Charles Ramsey battered his wife, did prison time for three attacks  —  The Cleveland man credited with helping free female captives from a house of horrors is a convicted felon whose rap sheet includes three separate domestic violence convictions …

Microsoft Mulling Nook Media LLC Purchase For $1 Billion  —  Microsoft is offering to pay $1 billion to buy the digital assets of Nook Media LLC, the digital book and college book joint venture with Barnes & Noble and other investors, according to internal documents we've obtained.

Body of Tamerlan Tsarnaev is buried outside Massachusetts, official says  —  WORCESTER - The body of Tamerlan Tsarnaev has been buried somewhere outside of Massachusetts, according to a funeral home official briefed on the situation.  —  The official said that the remains …

Meet Democrats' Newest Republican Crush: Ted Cruz?!?!  —  Starting around the time he launched a bogus attack on then-Defense Secretary nominee Chuck Hagel, Democrats have loved to hate Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX).  —  They made sure as many as people as possible saw him condescend to Sen. Dianne Feinstein …

Stewart Rips Fox News Over Benghazi Coverage: ‘Denizens Of Bullsh*t Mountain Have Cried Wolf Before’  —  Jon Stewart tonight took on today's big Congressional hearing on Benghazi, and specifically on how it's become the latest way Fox News has gone all-out in covering a potential Obama administration scandal …

We are governed by outright morons: … You gigantic dumbass.  Sorry; there's just no other way to put it.  The entire purpose of “sequestration” was to be cuts enforced without choice.  The mechanism was meant to be so abominable that not even the human clusterf—ks that are our current Congress …

Stephen Hawking: Furore deepens over Israel boycott  —  Political motive revealed after Cambridge University first claimed scientist's non-attendance was on medical grounds  —  The celebrated physicist Stephen Hawking became embroiled in a deepening furore today over his decision to boycott …