Florida House votes down motion to take up weapons ban with Douglas students present  —  Final vote was 36-71 on first day of lobbying for students  —  TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - On their first full day lobbying Florida lawmakers in Tallahassee to change the state's gun laws …

Kushner Resists Losing Access as Kelly Tackles Security Clearance Issues  —  Jared Kushner, President Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser, is resisting giving up his access to highly classified information, prompting an internal struggle with John F. Kelly, the White House chief of staff …

Democrat Linda Belcher Takes Deep-Red Kentucky Seat, the 37th Flip Since Trump's Inauguration … Democrat Linda Belcher triumphed in a special election on Tuesday night in a deep-red Kentucky district where President Trump previously won by a whopping 50-point margin.

UPDATED: Attorney who whitewashed Tymoshenko prosecution charged with perjury  —  Former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko looks out from behind bars in November 2011.  In 2012, a team from US law firm Skadden came to Ukraine for a report that legitimized Tymoshenko's prosecution.  (UNIAN)

Senior HHS official placed on leave for promoting unfounded claims and conspiracy theories on social media  —  (CNN)A top official at the Department of Health and Human Services has been placed on administrative leave after a CNN KFile inquiry while the agency investigates social media postings …

CPAC Says Dinesh D'Souza Not Going to Speak This Year, Condemns ‘Indefensible’ Remarks  —  After Dinesh D'Souza's disgusting tweets going after teenage survivors of a school shooting, people genuinely wondered if D'Souza was lined up to speak at CPAC this week.  The organization says he is and was not.

Exclusive: Inside the Corrosive Workplace Culture of the Dallas Mavericks  — More than a dozen current and ex-employees characterize the Mavs' hostile work environment—ranging from sexual harassment to domestic violence—as an “open secret.”  Sports Illustrated details the allegations in a special investigation.

Pence was set to meet with North Korean officials during the Olympics before last minute cancellation … PYEONGCHANG, South Korea — Vice President Pence departed for a five-day, two country swing through Asia earlier this month having agreed to a secret meeting with North Korean officials …

Arizona candidate got topless selfie from legislative staffer, messages reveal  —  A legislative staffer sent Steve Montenegro a topless photo via text message, according to a series of messages between Montenegro and the staffer that were reviewed by 12 News.  —  Author: Brahm Resnik

Missouri Fought For Years To Hide Where It Got Its Execution Drugs.  Now We Know What They Were Hiding.  —  The state of Missouri did everything it could to keep secret where it got the drugs it used to put 17 inmates to death.  Now, BuzzFeed News has discovered the supplier …

The unwitting: The Trump supporters used by Russia  —  Rosenstein: Russians paid, recruited Americans  —  A Donald Trump supporter who unwittingly helped a Kremlin-linked operation to meddle in American politics says he only learned of his part in the Russian plot when the FBI showed up at his doorstep months later.

Trump Has Been Tough on Russia (Except Rhetorically)  —  This tweet from Donald Trump is inviting a lot of mockery this morning. … There's just one problem: Trump has a point.  —  Barack Obama sold out our Eastern European allies on missile defense.  He slow-walked aid to Ukraine …

You Dumb Motherfuckers, John Kelly Was Always Bad  —  FiveThirtyEight, a website that apparently still exists, has a deeply depressing story out Tuesday on White House Chief of Staff John Kelly by politics writer Perry Bacon Jr. The piece is essentially a mea culpa, where Bacon admits …

‘I was almost a school shooter’  —  That's not a sentence many people ever hear, or read.  It's also not a sentence many people would ever say publicly.  —  Author: Next with Kyle Clark  —  “I was almost a school shooter.”  —  That's not a sentence many people ever hear, or read.

Natalie Portman Doesn't Want To Live In Oblivion  —  In an interview with BuzzFeed News, Portman discusses Annihilation, Hollywood's Time's Up revolution, learning from Reese Witherspoon, and her regret over signing the Roman Polanski petition.  —  Over the course of Natalie Portman's career …

The Poison We Pick  —  This nation pioneered modern life.  Now epic numbers of Americans are killing themselves with opioids to escape it.  —  It is a beautiful, hardy flower, Papaver somniferum, a poppy that grows up to four feet in height and arrives in a multitude of colors.