Truce crumbles amid gunfire in Ukraine, protesters claim 100 dead  —  Are you in Ukraine?  Send us your photos and experiences but please stay safe.  —  Kiev, Ukraine (CNN) — A shaky truce crumbled Thursday as gunfire erupted at Independence Square, the center of anti-government protests …

Bachmann has confidence tea party can best Clinton in 2016  —  With less than a year left in her fourth and final term in Congress, it's a little early for an exit interview, but not too early to get the views of Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., on issues dear to a “founding mother” …

Ted Cruz assails fellow Republican senators for ‘trickery’  —  Beaumont, Texas (CNN) - Sen. Ted Cruz accused his own Republican leadership of “trickery” in trying to force a “show vote” on raising the debt ceiling last week, warning Republicans will get “clobbered in the polls” for not standing up for principle.

‘House of Cards’ is really bad  —  The second season of Netflix's “House of Cards” was a pretty big let down.  The storylines were preposterous.  The principle characters were flat and cliched.  The efforts at narrative transgression, either violent or sexual, were pathetic and unconvincing.

McNider and Christy: Why Kerry Is Flat Wrong on Climate Change  —  It was the scientific skeptics who bucked the ‘consensus’ and said the Earth was round.  —  In a Feb. 16 speech in Indonesia, Secretary of State John Kerry assailed climate-change skeptics as members of the “Flat Earth Society” …

Arizona Senate: Business owners can cite religion to refuse service to gays  —  PHOENIX — State senators voted Wednesday to let businesses refuse to serve gays based on owners' “sincerely held” religious beliefs.  —  The 17-13 vote along party lines, with Republicans in the majority …

GOProud Founder Chris Barron Quits Board Over CPAC Flap  —  “I cannot ... sit by and watch as the current leadership of the organization disingenuously pawns off an unconditional surrender to the forces of bigotry as some sort of ‘compromise,’” Chris Barron tells BuzzFeed.

The Dark Power of Fraternities  —  A yearlong investigation of Greek houses reveals their endemic, lurid, and sometimes tragic problems—and a sophisticated system for shifting the blame.  —  One warm spring night in 2011, a young man named Travis Hughes stood on the back deck …

Calif. beats ObamaCare sign-up goal weeks early  —  California announced Wednesday that it has beat its 2014 ObamaCare enrollment goals with roughly five weeks left before the first sign-up period closes.  —  Covered California, the state's health insurance marketplace …

All Cities Are Not Created Unequal  —  In December 2013, President Obama gave a speech on economic mobility, in which he called income inequality and lack of upward mobility “the defining challenge of our time.”  —  That challenge is front and center in America's big cities today.

Four Reasons The GOP Has A Huge Advantage In The 2014 Elections  —  For all their internal divisions and long-term worries as a party, political scientists and historical trends give Republicans a clear edge in the upcoming 2014 congressional elections.  —  Forget Obamacare …

How Likely Are Democrats to Lose the Senate?  —  A few weeks ago, I produced two Senate analyses.  One focused on the relationship between the president's job approval, the fate of Senate Democrats during the 2010 and 2012 elections, and what that would mean if this relationship continues through 2014.

Here's Why Obama Can't Get Democrats To Back His Trade Deal  —  WASHINGTON — The veal pen is becoming a dangerous place.  —  U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman — President Barack Obama's top trade official — ventured into it Tuesday evening, meeting with a group of liberal leaders …

Rep. Jared Wright leaves loaded handgun in House committee room  —  In the moments after lawmakers and visitors cleared a committee room Feb. 6 following a debate on concealed handgun permits, Rep. Jonathan Singer found a black canvas bag under the table where lawmakers sit.