Jay Carney says President Obama shares in good wishes for Michael Sam from Vice President Biden and Michelle Obama and “marvels at his courage.”

Usa Today Sports/Usa Today Sports

WASHINGTON — The Obama family and the Bidens expressed their support for Michael Sam Monday, just hours after the NFL draft entrant came out.

He would be the first out NFL player, if he is drafted and ends up on a team's active roster.

White House press secretary Jay Carney said he did not have any specific comments from the president to share regarding Sam, but said the president "shares the sentiment" of Vice President Biden and Michelle Obama in tweets.

"He shares the sentiments expressed by the first lady and the vice president and so many others in marveling at his courage and congratulating him on the decisions he's made, on the support he's had from his team and wishing him well in the future, including in professional football," Carney said.

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Government default will be to recognize a same-sex couple’s marriage if it was valid in the place the marriage was celebrated.

Keith Bedford / Reuters

WASHINGTON — Attorney General Eric Holder Monday released the Justice Department's formal policy guidance on "ensuring equal treatment for same-sex couples" — a policy first announced Saturday.

In significant part, Holder states, "It is the Department's policy, to the extent federal law permits, to recognize lawful same-sex marriages as broadly as possible, and to recognize all marriages valid in the jurisdiction where the marriage was celebrated."

One of the key questions since Supreme Court struck down the federal ban on recognizing same-sex couples' marriages in June 2013 has been whether the federal government would recognize same-sex couples' marriages for federal purposes based on the state were a couple is domiciled (generally, where the couple lives) or if it would instead, more broadly, recognize such marriages if valid in the place of celebration (where the couple got married).

Although some laws require reliance on the "state of domicile" rule, LGBT advocates had been pressing the federal government to use the "place of celebration" rule wherever possible. Across the federal government over the past months — from the State Department to the Internal Revenue Service — most implementation has used the "place of celebration" rule.

Holder's policy memo Monday makes the "place of celebration" rule the default government position, as the Justice Department provides legal guidance for other federal agencies in addition to implementing its own programs where the rule will be utilized.

Read the memorandum:

A continued effort to avoid answering a question about LGBT rights.

Joshua Lott / Reuters / Reuters

WASHINGTON — Labor Department officials blocked a reporter from speaking with Labor Secretary Thomas Perez Monday because of what officials believed the reporter would ask the secretary about: LGBT workers' rights.

Following an event with Perez and Michelle Obama on veteran hiring, Labor Department officials allowed all reporters present other than a BuzzFeed reporter to speak with Perez.

When asked about the decision, Labor Department spokesman Egan Reich said the BuzzFeed reporter was held outside the event because the department did not believe BuzzFeed would ask about veteran hiring.

BuzzFeed has been seeking information for more than a year about whether the Labor Department is enforcing a current executive order that bans federal contractors from discriminating on the basis of sex to include banning discrimination on the basis of gender identity. Two weeks ago, Labor Department officials declined to make Perez available for an interview about the issue.

The Labor Department's Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs is responsible for enforcing Executive Order 11246, which bans federal contractors from discriminating on several bases, including sex. Because of a 2012 Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ruling that the sex discrimination ban in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 includes a ban on anti-transgender discrimination, BuzzFeed has asked whether the Labor Department is interpreting the executive order similarly.

Department officials — including former Secretary Hilda Solis and OFCCP Director Patricia Shiu — have refused to answer.

After Secret Service closed the room Monday before the event began according to routine procedures, attendees and journalists who arrived were taken to overflow room simulcasting the event taking place in the Great Hall of the Labor Department. While other journalists from the overflow room were escorted into the Great Hall once the first lady had left the event, a BuzzFeed reporter and another journalist were left outside the event. That other journalist confirmed to BuzzFeed that he later was allowed to speak to Perez. BuzzFeed, however, was told that Perez was not available and had gone to a lunch. When pressed, the Labor Department official, Reich, told the reporter that other Labor officials believed BuzzFeed would not be asking about veterans hiring. Because the questions were not expected to be on the topic sought by the Labor Department, officials did not provide access to Perez at the public event.

Questions about the executive order were relevant to Monday's event about employment opportunities for veterans. Among the contractors highlighted at the event was Bechtel, which was identified by the Williams Institute at UCLA as one of four of the largest 15 federal contractors that does not include gender identity in its nondiscrimination policy. As recently as Feb. 7, Bechtel signed a $58 million contract with the Department of Energy.

"Too many veterans face steep challenges finding employment after completing their honorable service to our country, and for LGBT veterans, there's an added hurdle given that so many defense contractors operate in places like Virginia, Florida, and Texas where state laws fail to provide LGBT protections against unfair discrimination," Tico Almeida of Freedom to Work — which has pressed the Labor Department to explain whether its enforcement of the executive order includes transgender workers — told BuzzFeed.

“We support the efforts … of Reverend Jackson to bring Kenneth Bae home. So again we want him to come home, the North Koreans should release him,” a State Department spokeswoman says.

Desmond Boylan / Reuters

WASHINGTON — The State Department supports Rev. Jesse Jackson's offer to help secure the release of Kenneth Bae, an American imprisoned in North Korea, its deputy spokeswoman said on Monday.

"At the request of the Bae family, I think people are aware that Reverend Jesse Jackson had offered to travel to Pyongyang on a humanitarian mission focused on Bae's release," said deputy spokeswoman Marie Harf in the State Department daily press briefing. "We support the efforts, of course, of the family, but also of Reverend Jackson to bring Kenneth Bae home. So again we want him to come home, the North Koreans should release him, and we stand ready to send our folks in certainly, Ambassador King, if they reissue an offer."

Harf said she did not know if the State Department had had contact with Jackson about traveling to Pyongyang.

The North Koreans this week rescinded their invitation to the State Department's North Korea envoy Robert King, who had planned to travel to Pyongyang to negotiate Bae's release. This is the second time they have rescinded the invitation.

"We have been speaking with Rev. Jackson for the last few weeks," said Bae's sister Terri Chung in a statement. "We are pleased that Rev. Jackson has agreed to undertake a humanitarian mission to seek Kenneth's release, if granted permission to do so from the DPRK. We fully support his efforts."

"My mother and I had the opportunity to meet with Rev. Jackson and have been touched by his warmth, generosity of spirit, and his investment in bringing Kenneth home," Chung said. "Regardless of the outcome, we are deeply grateful to Rev. Jackson for his proactive pursuits of Kenneth's freedom."

A spokesperson for Jackson did not immediately return requests for comment.

Bae, a missionary who was sentenced last year to 15 years of hard labor for "hostile acts" against the North Korean government, has been transferred from a hospital back to a labor camp.

Harf said that former U.S. Ambassador to South Korea Donald Gregg's trip to Pyongyang, which was reported by the main North Korean news agency, was as a "private delegation" and not a U.S. government-sanctioned trip.

A State Department official said that Jackson "has been interested in helping with these things around the world" and "He's someone who we do support him doing things like this."

“[T]he State respectfully moves this Court for permission to withdraw its responding brief in its entirety,” Nevada Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto asks the 9th Circuit, currently hearing a case challenging its marriage ban.

Ethan Miller / Getty Images

WASHINGTON — Nevada Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto is seeking to withdraw a previously filed defense of the state's amendment banning same-sex couples from marrying to a federal appeals court.

"When the Federal District Court decided this case in November 2012, the law regarding treatment of same-sex couples under traditional marriage laws was uncertain," she said in a statement. "But the legal landscape has since changed."

The court filing at the 9th Circuit Monday states that the filing is made on behalf of Gov. Brian Sandoval, the named defendant in the case. Cortez Masto is a Democrat, and Sandoval is a Republican.

A spokeswoman for Cortez Masto told BuzzFeed the decision to make Monday's filing was made in consultation with Sandoval's office. BuzzFeed has asked a spokeswoman for Sandoval for comment on Monday's filing. The Associated Press reported, "Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval says he agrees with the move, saying it's clear the state's arguments are no longer defensible in court."

The apparent decision by government officials in Nevada to stop defending the state's marriage ban is a dramatic change for the case, the result of another recent decision from the 9th Circuit about what level of review courts should give to laws and government policies that classify people based on sexual orientation.

Cortez Masto said in her statement that the decision "sets a new standard of review for cases in the Ninth Circuit." In that case, involving jury selection, the 9th Circuit held that "heightened scrutiny" would be given to constitutional challenges to government classifications based on sexual orientation — a decision Cortez Masto determined, as had most legal commentators, would apply to the challenge to Nevada's marriage amendment.

"After thoughtful review and analysis, the State has determined that its arguments grounded upon equal protection and due process are no longer sustainable," Cortez Masto said in Monday's statement.

The 9th Circuit does not, however, need to allow Cortez Masto to withdrew the state's brief. When the Department of Justice stopped defending the Defense of Marriage Act in 2011, for example, the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals refused to let the Justice Department withdraw its defense of the law. It did, though, allow the Justice Department to file another, superseding brief to allow it to explain its new view that DOMA is unconstitutional.

The other named defendant, the Clark County Clerk of Court, previously had decided not to defend the amendment on appeal. The Coalition for the Protection of Marriage, which had backed the amendment proposal and intervened to defend the measure, continues to defend it on appeal.

The status of the Nevada challenge differs from other marriage suits because the plaintiffs here lost at the trial court, so they — and not the state — brought the appeal.

Asked whether the state officials here plan to file another brief if the court allows the brief defending the amendment to be withdrawn, a spokeswoman for Cortez Masto told BuzzFeed only, "[T]he case will continue on in ordinary court before the 9th Circuit."

Should the plaintiffs win at the 9th Circuit, however — as the Nevada officials now appear to believe will happen — then the lack of any government official willing to defend the law could set up a situation similar to that which happened in the case challenging California's Proposition 8 where the Supreme Court held that an outside group who backed an amendment does not have standing to seek an appeal.

[This article has been updated, with the final update made at 8:20 p.m.]

Read the filing:

Obama deflty deflects a French reporter’s question.

"I have two daughters, and they are both gorgeous and wonderful, and I would never choose between them. And that's how I feel about my outstanding European partners. All of them are wonderful in their own ways."

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“This is more than just NSA-style, this is more Gestapo-style collection of data on individual citizens who have no clue that this is happening,” Florida Rep. Daniel Webster said Monday at a Rules Committee hearing.

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WASHINGTON — A Republican congressman compared the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau data collection to the Gestapo at a Rules Committee hearing Monday.

"So this is far more than the NSA, far more than their meta-data, which only collects phone numbers but not names — far more because they have no reauthorization, far more because there is no appropriation restrictions placed on it," Florida Rep. Daniel Webster said. "This is more than just NSA-style, this is more Gestapo-style collection of data on individual citizens who have no clue that this is happening."

Webster made the remark after a series of questions to House Financial Services Committee Chairman Rep. Jeb Hensarling about the CFPB's collection of consumer data.

The CFPB is a an independent federal agency created in 2011 after the financial crisis to regulate consumer protections in terms of financial products and services.

Back to your roots.

On Tuesday, fancy people will gather at the White House for a state dinner with the French president.

Kevin Lamarque / Reuters

And this is the salad everyone will be eating.

AP Photo/ Evan Vucci

Not sure the White House chef even knows how to describe it.

AP Photo/ Evan Vucci

Let BuzzFeed help: This is the first Google image that pops up for "terrarium."

Via en.wikipedia.org

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Following a report that Kentucky Senate candidate Matt Bevin once supported the 2008 bank bailout he now campaigns against, conservative groups are standing by him and accusing minority leader Mitch McConnell of “smears.” Bevin says he has always opposed TARP.

Republican Senate candidate Matt Bevin.

John Sommers Ii / Reuters

WASHINGTON — Conservative groups are planning to stand by Matt Bevin in his quest to oust Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell even after a report that Bevin once appeared to support the 2008 bank bailout despite his current and strong opposition to it on the campaign trail.

The Madison Project and the Senate Conservatives Fund, two groups actively working to defeat McConnell, say his work to pass the Troubled Asset Relief Program is one of the primary reasons voters should choose Bevin in the primary. Bevin too, has made McConnell's TARP support a huge issue in the primary campaign.

Daniel Horowitz, policy director for the Madison Project, said the story was a "pathetic effort to distract from the very policy [McConnell] helped engender," and Bevin was merely doing what he needed to do for his company.

"Unlike McConnell who never spent a day in the private sector, Bevin had to work with the reality created by McConnell's poor choices the same way a healthcare executive has to work with the reality of Obamacare. TARP was referenced in every financial services prospectus the same way the ACA is mentioned in every update from a healthcare company," Horowitz said in an email to BuzzFeed.

Politico reported Tuesday morning that when he worked as an investment fund president, Bevin signed off on a memo praising TARP.

"Most of the positive developments have been government led, such as the effective nationalization of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the passage of the $700 billion TARP (don't call it a bailout) and the Federal Reserve's intention to invest in commercial paper," wrote Bevin and Daniel Bandi, chief investment officer and vice president of the fund, according to Politico. "These moves should help to stabilize asset prices and help to ease liquidity constraints in the financial system."

Bevin said that he signed the letter but did not write it and his position on TARP has not changed.

"That letter? I did not write. I did not write any of the letters that were ever published as investment commentary," he told Glenn Beck on Tuesday. "I was the president and chairman of the board and by SEC law, was required to sign prospectuses when they were sent out."

Senate Conservatives Fund sent out a similar statement of support saying McConnell was trying to "smear Matt Bevin because he's terrified of losing the Republican primary."

"He's going to lose the general election and cost Republicans the majority in the Senate. It's time for Mitch McConnell to shut down his dishonest attack machine and retire with dignity," said SCF executive director Matt Hoskins.

Meanwhile, a local tea party group told a Kentucky NPR affiliate they have questions and would be speaking with Bevin about the letter.

House Republicans have been getting a weird email in recent weeks: a threat over the debt ceiling vote that’s been sent to the lawmakers’ closely guarded personal email addresses. “It’s got to be another member. Probably one of the crazy ones,” one GOP lawmaker said.

The email accuses Speaker John Boehner of lying.

Yuri Gripas / Reuters

WASHINGTON — A group of House Republicans has received a mysterious threat in recent weeks: an anonymous email that promises political retribution for those who vote yes to a debt-limit increase — sent to their closely guarded personal email addresses.

Because of the near-secret nature of lawmakers' internal email addresses, the emails have raised more than a few eyebrows — and the possibility that one of their own was behind, or at least assisting in the attacks.

The emails, circulated to lawmakers at the end of January and during their closed door retreat earlier this month, came as Republicans struggled to come up with a plan to extend the nation's debt limit. Leadership threw in the towel Tuesday, opting to move a bill that simply raises the debt ceiling without other conditions. The bill passed Tuesday, with nearly every House Democrat and 28 Republicans voting for it.

"It's got to be another member. Probably one of the crazy ones," said a Republican who had seen the email, which was sent from an anonymous email address, unrepresentative1@gmx.com.

In the email. the lawmakers received a set of forwarded emails sent by "unrepresentative one" to Oklahoma Rep. James Lankford and Speaker John Boehner. The apparent message to GOP House members: If you vote for a debt-limit increase, an outside group mentioned in the email will mobilize against you.

In the forwarded email to Boehner, the writer professes his previous loyalty to the House leader before accusing the Ohio Republican of lying. "John, I've never voted against you. Nor have I ever not done whatever you asked of me, nor am I one of the second-guessers who thinks you have an easy job. But, isn't it time we stopped lying to the American People in re the debt limit?" the email says.

The bizarrely constructed email also contains a cryptic back-and-forth between "unrepresentative one" and a shadowy third party — exposethefrauds@aim.com — who demands "High discretion required on attached - no ID on this or source $. Your colleagues merit everything planned. No idea how you can stand it, but yes, you are exempt."

The email includes several attachments, including a list of "targeted debt hikers" who voted for previous debt increases and a spreadsheet of Lankford's donors.

A Boehner spokesman declined to comment, and emails to "unrepresentative one" and exposethefrauds were not returned.

That the messages went to members' internal House emails suggests a member or high-level staffer either wrote them or provided the emails to an outside person to use.

"It's very, very difficult to get those emails," a former leadership aide said, saying that even for a member of Congress it would take work to compile a comprehensive list of members, noting that it's much easier to find, for instance, Lankford's personal, non-congressional email than his internal congressional address.

Lankford, however, downplayed the chances that one of his colleagues sent the strange missive.

"It reads too weird to be that. Some of the statements, some of the stuff in it … at one point in one of the original emails they call me Jim. No one calls me Jim. I go by James. There's one addressed to the speaker and it's starts off to 'John.' Nobody calls the speaker 'John,'" Lankford told BuzzFeed Tuesday afternoon.

"So it looks like something someone has created on the outside that wants to pretend they look like us. Because I keep looking at and reading it and thinking nobody even reads or writes like this. And it's just too weird," he added.

Lankford, who voted no on Boehner's debt ceiling plan, stressed the email had nothing to do with his decision to vote that way.

"Oh no. No, no, no. No, that's just some weird outside who knows what," Lankford said when asked whether the email had any impact on his decision.

The email lawmakers received begins with an "fyi" and then features a number of forwarded emails, starting with the most recent. The first one was sent from "unrepresentative one" to Boehner.

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Pentagon leaders are keeping quiet on why the head of U.S. special forces ordered pictures of deceased al-Qaeda chieftain Osama bin Laden destroyed.

Department of Defense / Via defense.gov

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon and intelligence community aren't saying much on why the head of U.S. special forces ordered the destruction of photos showing the dead body of al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden.

Michael Lumpkin, head of the special operations directorate at the Defense Department, told BuzzFeed on Tuesday he had not spoken to Adm. William McRaven about the incident.

McRaven, who is now head of U.S. Special Operations Command, was the top military officer who helped plan and coordinate the May 2011 Navy SEAL raid that ended with the death of the al-Qaeda leader. Emails showing he ordered the destruction of pictures proving bin Laden's death were revealed on Monday by Judicial Watch, a legal watchdog. McRaven's spokesman, Ken McGraw, declined to comment.

Lumpkin said he did not know the pictures were destroyed until news reports surfaced detailing McRaven's order to purge any photos of bin Laden's body. He said word of the order to destroy the photos was based "on a single report" that had yet to be verified by other sources.

Lumpkin declined to comment on whether questions as to why U.S. military officials still had possession of photos or material associated with the bin Laden operation, when that material should have been handed over to CIA, could be grounds for a formal inquiry by the Defense Department. The Pentagon's Inspector General's office has launched several probes into possible disclosures of sensitive or classified information tied to the raid since 2011.

Judicial Watch obtained the emails under the Freedom of Information Act. It found that less than a week after the bin Laden raid on a compound in Pakistan, McRaven sent a message to unidentified military officials saying all photos of the operation — especially those of the al-Qaeda leader's corpse — should have been handed over to the CIA.

"If you still have them, destroy them immediately," he wrote in the May 2011 email, according to The Associated Press.

CIA spokesman Ned Price declined to comment on the bin Laden photos specifically, but told BuzzFeed that any documentation of the special operations raid collected by U.S. military forces were the property of the agency, since the entire operation was under Langley's control.

Members of the Navy SEAL team that carried out the raid and reportedly took the infamous pictures of bin Laden's body were "acting under the authority of the CIA" and not the U.S. military, Price added.

Any order issued by McRaven or other top U.S. military leaders to hand over any and all photos, documents, or records of the operation to the CIA "makes perfect sense," he said.

"[Any] materials associated with the bin Laden raid were handled consistent with the fact that the operation was conducted under the direction of" the intelligence agency, Price added.

NARAL joins the call to shut down the nomination of Michael Boggs to the federal bench.

Olivier Douliery/Abaca Press / MCT

WASHINGTON — President Obama finds himself on the wrong side of major groups from his base over a judicial nominee progressives say is too socially conservative for the federal bench.

On Wednesday, NARAL Pro-Choice America will launch a public campaign announce its opposition to the nomination of Georgia State Appeals Court Judge Michael Boggs to the federal district court, the group's president told BuzzFeed. NARAL joins African-American advocacy groups and elected officials from Georgia who have opposed Boggs since his name was first floated by the Obama administration in October. There are signs prominent LGBT groups may join the fight too, creating a powerful coalition of would-be White House allies aligned against one of Obama's judicial nominees.

"This is a guy who actually believes that there is one definition of what it means to live your life as an American. The thing is, that's anti-American," said NARAL President Ilyse Hogue. "We cannot risk having someone like that on the bench when we know we have so many cases coming down the pike that will define the very fabric of who we are as a nation and we are not only a nation that supports diversity, but we're actually a pro-choice nation."

NARAL's online campaign will be aimed at pressuring senators to vote down the Boggs nomination.

"We're extremely disappointed that pro-choice President Obama nominated someone who doesn't share our pro-choice values," reads an email going out to NARAL supporters. "We agree with the president on a lot of things, but not this pick."

African-American leaders were the first to publicly oppose Boggs, calling on Obama to eliminate him from consideration for a slot on the Georgia district court before he was even officially nominated. They, like NARAL, object to votes Boggs took while a Democratic member of the state House of Representatives. Boggs voted against a new Georgia state flag that removed a Confederate emblem added to it by segregationists during the Civil Rights movement (the flag was eventually changed). African-American elected officials and leaders in Georgia say the vote should disqualify Boggs, and they've been pushing the White House for months over the Boggs nomination and other names put forward for the Georgia district court. The Congressional Black Caucus and other black leaders met with top Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett at the White House to push the administration to drop Boggs and other nominees for the Georgia district vacancies last week. According to The Hill, "Jarrett's answer" to the group's pleas "was a terse, 'No.'"

The issue of racial diversity among nominees has been an especially grating one for Obama's team, which has repeatedly found itself facing harsh criticisms from the CBC that White House officials publicly reject and privately call unfair. But while Jarrett gave the CBC a hard no over the Georgia nominees, she also didn't come rushing to the defense of Boggs or the others.

"We're very proud of our track record so far," she said, "but that doesn't mean we're not interested in always looking for new ways the bench can reflect the diversity of our country."

It's not clear that Boggs was the White House's first choice for the bench in the first place. The list of Georgia nominees drawing the ire of progressives was crafted in a deal the White House struck with Georgia's Republican senators in order to end their legislative holds on other judicial nominees.

NARAL says the deal isn't worth it, particularly when it comes to Boggs, who they criticize for votes he took in the state legislature. Among them: support for a "Choose Life" license plate that directed money to anti-abortion advocates and a law that required parents to accompany their daughters below the age of 18 to clinics and show a picture ID before an abortion could be performed.

Hogue said NARAL has taken its complaints about Boggs to the White House, but wouldn't characterize the response the group has received. Obama has been a close NARAL ally since 2008 when the group endorsed him over Hillary Clinton in the Democratic presidential nomination fight. On the issue of Boggs, though, Obama and NARAL are at odds.

"It's very concerning to us that with so many qualified applicants out there, this is the nominee that the Obama administration put forward, and we've let them know what we're very disappointed," Hogue said.

NARAL's email also criticizes Boggs for his Confederate flag vote, as well as a vote against marriage for same-sex couples while a Georgia legislator. The marriage vote could bring LGBT rights advocates into the push against Obama's Georgia court nominee.

"We are concerned about his nomination," said Fred Sainz, spokesman for the Human Rights Campaign. "We are looking into an awful lot of the issues associated with his record. Obviously, his position on marriage equality 10 years ago is not helpful to our consideration of his candidacy, but we are continuing to look into it."

HRC is "just not at the point yet of having a position," he added.

A Senate hearing hasn't been scheduled on Boggs' district court nomination, but progressives hope to build up momentum in the chamber against Boggs before he gets a chance to shore up support for his nomination. That puts them at odds with the White House, but that's a fight they're willing to have.

Chris Geidner contributed reporting.

The win makes Kevin Faulconer the only Republican to lead a major city in California and San Diego the nation’s largest city with a Republican mayor.

San Diego mayoral candidate Kevin Faulconer, with his wife Katherine, speaks to supporters Tuesday in San Diego.

AP

Republican City Councilman Kevin Faulconer was elected mayor of San Diego Tuesday in a contest to replace Bob Filner, who resigned last August after more than a dozen women accused him of sexual harassment.

The victory makes Faulconer the only Republican to lead a major city in California, where Democrats control most offices, and San Diego the nation's largest city with a Republican mayor.

With all precincts reporting at midnight Wednesday, Faulconer defeated Democratic Councilman David Alvarez 55% to 45%, a margin of 23,000 votes.

The councilmen were the top two candidates picked to replace Filner in a Nov. 19 special election, but neither won more than 50% of the vote, resulting in Tuesday's runoff. The victory means Faulconer will finish the former mayor's remaining 33-month term and face reelection in 2016.

Faulconer, 47, ran on his experience as the senior member of city council and fiscal reforms, including replacing pensions for new city employees with 401(k)-style retirement plans and freezing pensionable pay. A plan Alvarez opposed. The Republican also supports same-sex marriage and expanded after school programs.

Filner resigned last August after more than a dozen women, including veterans and other prominent women, came forward with sexual harassment allegations against the 70-year-old mayor. He pleaded guilty in October to one felony of false imprisonment and two misdemeanor counts of battery and is serving a three-month home confinement sentence.

The city announced Monday it would pay one of Filner's accusers, his former communications director, Irene McCormack Jackson, $250,000 to settle her sexual harassment suit.

"We know that this city has gone through a lot in the last year, but we knew that as San Diegans that we were better than that and that we were going to come together when we had the opportunity to do that and come to together we have," Faulconer said in a speech to supporters Tuesday night.

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“You go to Brooklyn, everybody’s got a beard and plaid shirt. They may be able to tell each other apart but they kind of all look alike to me.”

An OutFront segment about the viral clip of Samuel L. Jackson reacting to a reporter who mistook him for Laurence Fishburne featured CNN's own Don Lemon who told host Erin Burnett, "People do look alike," adding that he has trouble telling some groups of people apart.

Using himself as an example, Lemon said that people used to confuse him with former CNN employee T.J. Holmes all the time, but he'd just laugh it off and say, "I'm the other black guy."

Burnett's take was that Jackson handled the situation "beautifully," but she probably gets mistaken for Emily Deschanel a lot, because, "Two white women with blue eyes, there you go."

Labor Secretary Tom Perez said the department is reviewing whether it will protect transgender employees of federal contractors from discrimination. Still unresolved after nearly two years.

Secretary of Labour Thomas Perez speaks with the media.

Larry Downing / Reuters

WASHINGTON — The Labor Department is not protecting transgender employees of federal contractors from discrimination, according to comments from Labor Secretary Tom Perez, who instead said the issue is "under review."

Nearly two years after the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission found that "sex discrimination," which is banned under federal anti-discrimination law, includes discrimination against transgender people, Perez said his agency is still reviewing whether to apply those same protections to federal contractors.

After refusing to give access to BuzzFeed to question Perez at an event earlier this week, Perez made an unannounced visit to the White House briefing room on Wednesday, where he was asked about the issue by The Washington Blade.

"[T]hat issue is under review in the aftermath of the Macy decision. And I've asked my staff to expedite that review so that we can bring that issue to conclusion at the Department of Labor," he said.

The Macy decision is an April 2012 ruling by the EEOC that Title VII's sex discrimination ban includes gender identity-based discrimination against transgender people. Under the policies of the Labor Department's Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP), it was expected that office would enforce an executive order that bans federal contractors from discriminating on the basis of sex, among other factors, to include a ban on gender identity-based discrimination.

Asked when the review — never previously mentioned by the department in repeated requests for information about the enforcement of the executive order — will come to an end, Perez said, "I'm hoping it will come to an end as soon as possible."

Although Perez's claim of an existing review goes further than the department has gone in prior requests for information, it was not immediately clear when the review began or what issues it had to consider. Back in May 2012, shortly after the Macy decision, UCLA's Williams Institute issued a report from three scholars — Nan D. Hunter, Christy Mallory, and Brad Sears — about the impact of Macy on the federal contractor executive order, Executive Order 11246.

They concluded that the OFCCP has an "explicit policy of interpreting" the executive order's nondiscrimination requirements consistent with Title VII's nondiscrimination requirements — including specifically noting that OFCCP has "followed EEOC regulations and guidance in enforcing" the executive order.

The head of OFCCP, Patricia Shiu, told BuzzFeed in December 2013 that her office "follows Title VII precedent in everything," yet would not say whether that meant the office was protecting trans workers under the executive order.

Labor officials have refused to say whether they are doing so in repeated requests made since shortly after the EEOC's Macy decision in 2012.

Both the EEOC and Justice Department — where Perez worked before becoming Labor secretary — have implemented the Macy ruling in their policies, and the Education Department applied the reasoning in the Macy decision to expand its enforcement of Title IX.

The Labor Department — despite its own policy guidance — had been silent until Wednesday, when Perez told reporters his department had not yet reached a decision on the issue.

Q: On a related note, there's also been talk about implementing existing order -- Executive Order 11246, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of gender, and apply that to transgender workers to prohibit discrimination against them in the wake of Macy v. Holder. Will the Labor Department take that step?

SECRETARY PEREZ: That issue is under review in the aftermath of the Macy decision. And I've asked my staff to expedite that review so that we can bring that issue to conclusion at the Department of Labor.

Q: When will the review come to an end?

SECRETARY PEREZ: I'm hoping it will come to an end as soon as possible.

“Obviously, it’s unfortunate,” says one youth enrollment leader. The Obama administration is giving applicants who save applications on Feb. 15 extra time to work around downtime on the site.

Jonathan Bachman / Reuters / Reuters

WASHINGTON — Saturday is National Youth Enrollment Day for Obamacare, a day designed to help make up for youth recruitment time lost while HealthCare.gov was down last year. It will be marked by a broad array of events, from Head Start information sessions to pub crawls.

The day will also feature a HealthCare.gov outage that came as a surprise to the White House allies who have been planning Feb. 15 enrollment activities for weeks.

"We just found that out," said Aaron Smith, co-founder of the recruitment group Young Invincibles. "Obviously it's unfortunate."

"It's not ideal," another Obamacare ally said.

With the website's enrollment system down, the administration is extending the Feb. 15 enrollment deadline for coverage by March 1, the official said, to Feb. 18.

"For those who are unable to finish signing up on Saturday but still want coverage starting March 1, [the Center for Medicaid Services] is allowing people to save their applications and finish enrolling on Feb. 18 and still have their coverage start on March 1," the official said. "Usually you have to finish by the 15th of a month to have your coverage start at the beginning of the next month."

Smith and other advocates participating in National Youth Enrollment Day said they found out about the scheduled HealthCare.gov outage — caused by maintenance to Social Security data verification services over the long President's Day weekend — when everyone else did, in a Monday release from the Department of Health and Human Services.

The Obamacare website outage begins at 3 p.m. ET and carries on through Tuesday at 5 a.m. ET. While the Social Security system is down for maintenance, HealthCare.gov users will not be able to formally send in an application for health insurance, though they will be able to browse plans and, the enrollment groups say, calculate what insurance will cost for their family.

A functioning website has always been pitched by the administration and its allies as key to securing youth enrollment in health care. It's not the most important thing, they say — affordability information is the key to getting youth enrollment. But a working website is a key piece to the puzzle.

The timing of the outage and the services that will remain functional on Healthcare.gov means the website downtime, though a clear optics problem for an enrollment team trying to tell young people the broken website they've heard so much about actually works, won't have much of an impact on National Enrollment Day, Smith and other advocates said.

"The maintenance starts at 3 p.m., which is fortunate because most of our enrollment events start in the morning," said Smith. "The night events are more about education and information."

There are hundreds of events scheduled for National Youth Enrollment Day across the country aimed at reaching a very broad population of the young and uninsured. In Austin, Texas, events on National Youth Enrollment day include an event at an African-American Heritage Festival, an enrollment event at a Baptist church, a neighborhood health care fair, and an "ACA pub crawl" starting at a bar called The Liberty.

The Obamacare recruitment groups say they'll have paper applications ready for those who can't use the website to apply and will direct potential enrollees to Navigators during the outage.

For its part, the Obama administration says everything's going ahead as planned with National Youth Enrollment Day, despite the inconvenient outage to HealthCare.gov.

"National Youth Enrollment day is still happening," an administration official said. "This is one of many on-the-ground efforts to help young adults enroll in coverage by March 31, the end of open enrollment."

The deadline extension from Feb. 15 to 18 will help, say the White House allies. But the real source of their confidence is the experience they've already had trying to get young people to enroll in Obamacare while the website is down.

"Given that we worked around the website being down for two months we'll be able to work around it," one White House ally said of this weekend's outage.

Smith said his recruiters are battle-hardened when it comes to convincing people health care is working while the health care website is not.

"You got to remember we went through a first month where folks were saying the website's never going to work," said Smith. "We roll with the punches. This is really not a big deal for us."

An HHS official sought to clarify Wednesday the enrollment downtime on Healthcare.gov and rejected the term "outage" to describe the loss of functionality at HealthCare.gov. Applicants who "filled out the application, got their eligibility determination before 3 p.m., they can still shop and choose a plan and finishing enrolling anytime even after 3 p.m. ET," the official said in an email. Would-be enrollees who begin the process of enrollment on National Youth Enrollment Day and do not receive their eligibility determination by 3 p.m. ET — or don't begin the signup process until after 3 p.m. ET — will not be able to sign up for health insurance through the website until the enrollment system comes back online.

The Department of Health and Human Services said Wednesday that the extra time to sign up is not an extension of the deadline.

"The deadline isn't being 'extended,'" an HHS official said in an email. "If you have saved your application and wanted to complete your application on the 15th, but couldn't, you can contact our call center starting on the 18th to request a March 1 start date."

In the email Wednesday, HHS clarified that new enrollees would need to save an application by the end of the day on Feb. 15 to qualify for the additional application time. "An individual needs to call the call center and explain that they started on the 15th after 3 p.m. and could not finish," an official said. "We will check against our information in our system."

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The Fair Healthcare Pricing Act would cap how much hospitals could charge and would reduce hospital costs in California by at least $3 billion annually. A state hospital organization argues the initiative is an attempt by a union to increase its membership.

The Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.

Jorobeq / Wikipedia

LOS ANGELES — A California ballot initiative seeking to lower hospital costs is currently gathering signatures, but a state hospital organization argues the efforts are more about bolstering union membership than making health care more affordable.

The Fair Healthcare Pricing Act, pushed by the labor union Service Employees International Union, or SEIU, would cap hospital's gross charges at no more than 25% above the actual cost of providing care.

"These prices are just outrageous," Steve Trossman, a spokesman for SEIU, told BuzzFeed. "We're just hearing story after story after story about this problem."

The group cites high costs like $21 for a single aspirin at Centinela Hospital Medical Center in Los Angeles in one of its ads.

"You really don't know how much it's going to cost before you go [to the hospital]," Trossman said. "It's like going into buy a car and signing for it before you know how much it costs."

SEIU estimates the initiative would reduce hospital costs in California by at least $3 billion annually.

A representative for the California Hospital Association said the initiative is an attempt by the union to increase its membership.

"The union is trying to pressure hospitals into signing neutrality agreements for union organizing by threatening to file these initiatives if they don't get what they want," said spokeswoman Jan Emerson-Shea. "These initiatives are dangerous, dishonest, and deceptive ... Union leaders are using the threat of these initiatives as a bargaining chip under the belief that hospitals will capitulate to their organizing demands."

The California Hospital Association estimates if successful, the initiative would reduce hospital revenue by $12 billion annually and more than 50,000 health care workers could lose their jobs.

Emerson-Shea called hospital pricing "a relic from another era," necessary because of federal requirements. "There's a difference in hospital finance between what a hospital charges and what it gets paid."

"It's a pricing system that doesn't make any sense to anyone and we'd be the first to admit it," she said. "The charges get inflated. They're meaningless numbers because no one pays them."

Trossman said he agrees "to a certain degree" that prices don't reflect what hospital patients actually pay, but said those who can least afford to pay overpriced hospital bills are often the ones who do. "No amount of verbal gymnastics can explain away a $21 aspirin or $300 crutches." He also said he "disputes" the California Hospital Association's accusation the initiative is to increase union membership.

John Romley, a research assistant professor at USC's Center for Health Policy and Economics said high hospital charges "are in most cases meaningless," but draw attention. He doubts whether the initiative would be helpful in actually lowering costs.

"I do question whether, for example, that restriction on charges is going to do anything," he said. However, "for those people (without health insurance), this might mitigate some of the pain and hassle of the process."

Two similar initiatives were filed in 2012 by the SEIU, Emerson-Shea said, however they were not passed and the SEIU and California Hospital Association reached an agreement "to work in good faith, along with other key stakeholders, to find practical solutions that can replace or improve the current hospital pricing system," according to a press release.

About 150,000 signatures were collected for the 2014 initiative in the first 10 days, Trossman said, and the group expects there to soon be 500 signature gatherers working across the state.

A commercial titled "Real Stories of Hospital Pricing" began airing in Sacramento Monday. More ads tailored to specific markets are being planned for future release, Trossman said.

The California Hospital Association has not spent "any significant money" opposing the initiative yet, but it has opened a $10 million opposition account called Californians Against Initiative Abuse.

Oh.No.You.Didn’t.

Which meant loads of touristy pictures for the French journos.

vine.co

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Pretty please?

Even though the forecast seems pretty bleak, OPM will typically wait until the last minute to close the Federal Government.

Via weather.com

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The drug is currently listed as Schedule I, the same category as LSD and heroin.

Rick Wilking / Reuters / Reuters

Last month, President Obama said he believes marijuana is no less dangerous than alcohol; this month, 18 Congress members are seeing if he'll stand by his comments by requesting he remove marijuana from being listed as a hard drug by the federal government.

Currently, marijuana is listed as a Schedule I drug, the same category as heroin and LSD, and a harsher classification than cocaine and meth, which are Schedule II.

"We were encouraged by your recent comments," the letter said. "We request that you take action to help alleviate the harms to society caused by the federal Schedule I classification of marijuana."

Drugs that are listed as Schedule I are deemed to have no medicinal use, which "disregard[s] both medical evidence and the laws of nearly half of the states that have legalized medical marijuana," they wrote. They added that Schedule I or II classification also means dispensaries can't deduct business expenses from their taxes.

"This makes no sense," the 17 Democrats and one Republican wrote.

The lawmakers, nearly half of who are from the California, are asking that Attorney General Holder delists or reclassifies weed.

Letter signers include California Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, the only Republican, who last year told TIME, "If it was a secret ballot, the majority of Republicans would have voted to legalize marijuana a long time ago," and Oregon Democratic Rep. Earl Blumenauer, who has pushed for tax reform for dispensaries.

"Lives and resources are wasted on enforcing harsh, unrealistic, and unfair marijuana laws," they wrote.

Activists have long been pushing for a reclassification of marijuana, which the federal government currently says has a "high potential for abuse."

"When President Obama took office, he promised his administration's policy decisions would be based on 'science and the scientific process,' not politics or ideology. Every day marijuana remains a Schedule I drug, his administration is breaking that promise," Dan Riffle, the Marijuana Policy Project's director of federal policies, told BuzzFeed in a statement. "If marijuana is safer than alcohol, as the President has acknowledged, his administration should treat it that way by removing it entirely from the list of scheduled substances."

Just yesterday, a bill was introduced in Congress seeking to repeal laws that prevent the director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, commonly called the "drug czar," from studying the potential benefits of legalizing marijuana.

The Unmuzzle the Drug Czar Act, pushed by Rep. Steve Cohen, also seeks to rewrite legal wording that requires the office to oppose any effort to legalize marijuana.