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Amazingly candid quote from a GOP aide on the Hill who works the health care portfolio on why it's so hard for Republicans to craft an alternative to Obamacare, via TPM's Sahil Kapur:

The nation's capital is close to allowing self-driving vehicles on its streets.

New rules for the operation of so-called autonomous vehicles were filed Friday by the District of Columbia's Department of Motor Vehicles, reports WAMU in Washington. Self-driving cars have received approval in California, Michigan, Florida, and Nevada.

What will you need to "drive" a self-driving car in DC?

After a number of delays and false starts, USAID launched its new Global Development Lab this week, which is intended to foster the application of science and technology to the problem of extreme global poverty.

It has been called the State Department's version of DARPA, but with a focus on ending extreme global poverty by 2030. The lab is tasked with scalable projects in the areas of water, health, food security and nutrition, energy, education, and climate change that can reach at least 200 million people in the next five years, according to USAID.

A lot of the Republican-on-Republican political infighting going on day to day is below the national political radar, but some of it surfaced today when the primary challenger to Sen. Thad Cochran (R-MS) got tripped up by that whole white nationalist thing. The pro-Cochran establishment political types have had a field day with it.

Ocean of liquid water discovered on a moon of Saturn, buried under miles of ice.

Robert Gibbs caused a stir today when it was reported that he said it was likely that Obamacare's employer mandate would be repealed. The White House pushed back, but this isn't coming out of the blue. Here's the backstory on why the employer mandate may fall -- and why it wouldn't necessarily be the end of the world.

Ann Arbor is gearing up for the launch of a total of 9,000 intelligent vehicles in in the next two years. That would expand the current fleet of 3,000 vehicles operating in Ann Arbor as "the world's largest on-road, vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure model deployment," according to the University of Michigan.

The developing wireless technology enables vehicles to communicate with one another automatically. It allows to "sense threats and hazards with a 360 degree awareness of the position of other vehicles and the threat or hazard they present, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation, which is supporting the development of vehicle to vehicle communications.

"The idea is not only to improve safety — a V2V car will alert the driver of the sudden braking of another V2V car further up the road — but also to test the feasibility of automated, driverless vehicles," the Ann Arbor News reports.

A school district in Louisiana gets popped for pushing Christianity and discriminating against a Buddhist student -- but it sure doesn't seem sorry about it. (You can still see the school board's "beliefs" posted on its old website, where No. 1 is "God exists.")