Vox is our next  —  Early last year, Melissa Bell, Matt Yglesias and I began wrestling with a question that had bugged all of us for a long time: why hadn't the Internet made the news better at delivering crucial context alongside new information?  —  This year, we're founding a new publication …

Rand Paul: Clintons should be judged for Bill's ‘predatory behavior’ with Lewinsky  —  Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) suggested Sunday that the Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky scandal should give Americans pause when it comes to evaluating the Clinton legacy — and, by extension, Hillary Rodham Clinton's potential presidential campaign.

CBS Host Laughs In Ted Cruz's Face For Repeatedly Denying He Shut Down Government  —  CBS host Bob Schieffer's was driven nearly to a fit of giggles on Sunday after Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) repeatedly refused to take responsibility for last year's government shutdown.

Why Is the American Dream Dead in the South?  —  Upward mobility has stayed the same the past 50 years despite skyrocketing inequality.  But it's lower in the South (and Ohio) than anywhere else in the U.S.—or the rest of the developed world.  —  The top 1 percent aren't killing the American Dream.

Obama's rough 2013 prompts a new blueprint  —  An internal White House assessment concludes that President Obama must distance himself from a recalcitrant Congress after being badly damaged last year by legislative failures, a government shutdown and his own missteps.

What Drives Success?  —  A SEEMINGLY un-American fact about America today is that for some groups, much more than others, upward mobility and the American dream are alive and well.  It may be taboo to say it, but certain ethnic, religious and national-origin groups are doing strikingly better than Americans overall.

Grammys to Feature On-Air Weddings of 34 Couples  —  LOS ANGELES — At the Grammy Awards on Sunday night, pop's megastars will compete for the music industry's most prestigious trophy, and put on flashy performances that are sure to ricochet through social media.

The Koch Party  —  Only a few weeks into this midterm election year, the right-wing political zeppelin is fully inflated with secret cash and is firing malicious falsehoods at supporters of health care reform.  —  As Carl Hulse of The Times reported recently, Democrats have been staggered …

Putin a better president than Obama: Romney  —  Mitt Romney thinks Vladimir Putin is better at being president than Barack Obama.  —  Romney, who lost the presidential race to Obama, told NBC that the Russian leader “outperformed” the president “time and time again on the world stage.”

Mitch McConnell: It's ‘Irresponsible’ Not To Try To Hold The Debt Ceiling Hostage  —  Despite agreeing to a budget this month, it seems Congressional Republicans are not yet done holding the economic fate of the country hostage in order to pass aspects of its agenda.

Exclusive: Google to Buy Artificial Intelligence Startup DeepMind for $400M  —  Google is shelling out $400 million to buy a secretive artificial intelligence company called DeepMind.  —  Google confirmed the deal after Re/code inquired about it, but declined to specify a price.

Iran Is Not Our Friend  —  n the foreign policy front . . .  I find myself wondering why we cannot regard another country, in this case Iran, as just that, as one more country which we would regard as neither friend nor foe, with whom we are prepared to deal on a day-to-day basis …