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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

Top Republican ‘Fairly Satisfied’ With White House's Account Of Benghazi  —  Senate Foreign Relations Committee Ranking Member Bob Corker (R-TN) said Wednesday that he's “fairly satisfied” with the Obama administration's account of events that led to the deaths of American diplomats in Benghazi last year.

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 …

Rick Weiland's Senate run draws support from Daschle, others  —  South Dakota Democrats got a candidate for Senate on Wednesday - and it wasn't who people expected.  —  Rick Weiland, a former Tom Daschle aide who ran for Congress in 1996 and 2002, told the Argus Leader that he will try …

Jury Reaches Verdict in Jodi Arias Trial in Ariz.  —  Jurors reached a verdict Wednesday in the trial of Jodi Arias after deliberating about 15 hours over four days on whether the former waitress should be convicted of murder in the 2008 fatal stabbing and shooting of her one-time boyfriend.

Exclusive: Dagestani Relative of Tamerlan Tsarnaev Is a Prominent Islamist  —  Last year, when Tamerlan Tsarnaev spent six months in the Russian region of Dagestan, he had a guide with an unusually deep knowledge of the local Islamist community: a distant cousin named Magomed Kartashov.

New Terrorist Magazine Targets Obama, Drones  —  President Barack Obama appears with a bull's-eye on his head in a new English-language magazine published online apparently by Islamist militants, who also urge Muslims around the world to try to hack and manipulate American drones.  —  “Wanted Dead Only.

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 …

Co-Author Of Heritage Immigration Study Wanted To Bar Immigrants Based On IQ  —  From Wonkblog's Dylan Matthews:

National Democrats hit Gomez for role with group critical of Obama  —  The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee today knocked Republican Senate hopeful Gabriel E. Gomez for saying he was “never associated” with a group on whose behalf he appeared on national television.

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.

Obama, House Democrats talk jobs, deficit reduction  —  President Obama dined with House Democratic leaders Wednesday night in Washington, the latest leg of his congressional outreach campaign amid a series of high-stakes debates on Capitol Hill.  —  Gathered at the posh Jefferson Hotel in Northwest D.C. …

Senate rejects gun amendment to water infrastructure bill  —  The first GOP amendment voted on for the Senate's water infrastructure bill was about gun rights.  —  The Senate is considering the Water Resources Development Act (WRDA), which would authorize projects related to flood and storm risk reduction …