STUNNER: House GOP Votes Down Own Bill To Avert Shutdown  —  WASHINGTON — In a huge embarrassment for Republican leaders, the House voted down their bill Friday to avert a Homeland Security shutdown hours before the midnight deadline.  —  The House GOP plan was to pass a three-week stopgap bill …

Leonard Nimoy, Spock of ‘Star Trek,’ Dies at 83  —  Leonard Nimoy, the sonorous, gaunt-faced actor who won a worshipful global following as Mr. Spock, the resolutely logical human-alien first officer of the Starship Enterprise in the television and movie juggernaut “Star Trek,” …

Jeb Bush was very, very good at CPAC today  —  Did people walk out when Jeb Bush started speaking at CPAC today in Maryand?  Sure.  Did he get heckled and booed at times during his q and a with conservative commentator Sean Hannity?  Sure.  Did Bush more than hold his own with an audience …

Scott Walker Wants Colleges to Stop Reporting Sexual Assaults  —  Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's proposed budget—which would cut $300 million dollars out of the state's beloved public university system—has a non-fiscal bombshell tucked in between its insane pages.

The Science of Why No One Agrees on the Color of This Dress  —  The original image is in the middle.  At left, white-balanced as if the dress is white-gold.  At right, white-balanced to blue-black. swiked  —  Not since Monica Lewinsky was a White House intern has one blue dress been the source of so much consternation.

Russia opposition politician Boris Nemtsov shot dead  —  A leading Russian opposition politician, former Deputy Prime Minister Boris Nemtsov, has been shot dead in Moscow, Russian officials say.  —  An unidentified attacker in a car shot Mr Nemtsov four times in the back as he crossed a bridge in view of the Kremlin, police say.

CPAC Hails ‘President Paul’  —  CPAC activists waited an hour-and-a-half for Senator Rand Paul after congressional votes delayed his speech, and the pent-up energy made for a rowdy welcome.  —  “President Paul!  President Paul!  President Paul!” the attendees chanted in the middle …

GOP scrambles to keep Obamacare subsidies flowing in case of Supreme Court victory  —  What happens if Republicans win the Supreme Court case against Obamacare?  They might end up like the dog that caught the car.  —  Next Wednesday the court will hear oral arguments in King v. Burwell …

American atheist blogger hacked to death in Bangladesh  —  Protests in Dhaka after Avijit Roy, whose blog championed liberal secular writing in the Muslim-majority nation, was attacked along with his wife  —  A prominent American blogger of Bangladeshi origin has been hacked to death …