Editor’s note: To read the full version of any story below, click on the headline (in blue).

The Economist: Brinkmanship

The countdown was a nail-biter. At midnight tonight, barring any sort of last-minute deal, around 30,000 employees of the Department of Homeland Security were going to be furloughed. Some 170,000 essential workers were nearly doomed to chug along without pay. A bill to keep the federal agency funded for another three weeks had died a grim death on the House floor earlier today. But with just two hours to go, John Boehner, the Speaker of the House, managed to corral enough votes to extend funding for the DHS for another week.

No one should call this a victory. Another ugly battle now looms just days away. But the last-minute deal does save Mr Boehner from the embarrassment he seemed destined for earlier today, when he failed to get enough House Republicans to back a bill that was created mainly to please House Republicans.

Robert Kagan/Washington Post: Netanyahu’s speech to Congress will carry a hefty price

Do we really need the Israeli prime minister to appear before Congress to explain the dangers and pitfalls of certain prospective deals on Iran’s nuclear weapons programs? Would we not know otherwise? Have the U.S. critics of those prospective deals lost their voice? Are they shy about expressing their concerns? Are they inarticulate or incompetent? Do they lack the wherewithal to get their message out?

Betty McCullum/Washington Post: Why I won’t be attending Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech in Congress

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in the midst of a heated reelection campaign. Yet he is traveling 5,900 miles to give a speech before a joint meeting of Congress on March 3 — just two weeks before Israelis go to the polls. House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), working with Israeli Ambassador to the United States Ron Dermer, a former Republican political operative who renounced his U.S. citizenship, extended the invitation in a clear effort to undermine the president while the United States and its five partners engage in tough negotiations with Iran to prevent it from obtaining nuclear weapons — a national security priority I strongly support

Tampa Bay Times Editorial: Compelling case for taking Medicaid money

Gov. Rick Scott and state legislators portray themselves as responsible stewards of taxpayer money, fiscal conservatives determined to cut costs, spend wisely and help the private sector flourish. Accepting billions in federal Medicaid expansion money to help provide private health coverage to more than 800,000 Floridians would fit nicely with that philosophy. A new coalition of businesses has presented a reasonable way forward, and the governor and state lawmakers should embrace it.

New York Times Editorial: Wisconsin, workers and the 2016 election

The Republican-dominated Senate in Wisconsin passed a bill this week to weaken the state’s private-sector unions. Similar to “right-to-work” laws in 24 other states, the bill would prevent unions from requiring dues or other fees from workers they represent in collective bargaining, a crippling constraint. The Republican-run State Assembly is expected to pass the bill next week, and Gov. Scott Walker, who stripped Wisconsin’s public employees of collective bargaining rights in 2011 and is now eyeing the Republican presidential nomination, has said he would sign it.

Washington Post Editorial: The Republican curriculum on Common Core

“WE’RE DOING Common Core in New Jersey and we’re going to continue. And this is one of those areas where I’ve agreed more with the president than not.” So proclaimed New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) just 18 months ago. So what’s to account for his recent change of heart about the K-12 academic standards?

Chicago Tribune Editorial: The trouble with Aaron Schock

U.S. Rep. Aaron Schock’s terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week has turned into his terrible, horrible, no good, very bad month.

The liberal-leaning Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics (CREW) in Washington, news outlet Politico and The Associated Press have been questioning the Peoria Republican’s use of private aircraft and two overseas trips in 2011 — one to the Royal Ascot horse races near London and one to Saudi Arabia. Neither trip was reported on Schock’s required ethics forms. He also may have skipped reporting an in-kind contribution for a luxurious golf fundraiser in Maryland that included massages, fancy shirts and personalized cigars.

Denver Post Editorial: “Jihadi John”: Yet another affluence jihadist

The news that the most infamous Islamic State executioner grew up in affluence in London and graduated from a university should surprise no one.

A remarkable number of notorious terrorists of the past two decades, including Osama bin Laden, were educated and well off. Their road to terror was one of ideological choice, not desperation

Los Angeles Times Editorial: Religion, the workplace and the Supreme Court

The federal Civil Rights Act bans discrimination in employment on the basis of religion, but it does more than that: Under the law, a company must accommodate the religious practices of workers unless doing so imposes an undue hardship on the conduct of its business. This week, the Supreme Court heard a case that could significantly strengthen that protection.

The Nation Editorial: A contested primary is good for candidates, the Democratic Party and democracy

Presidential campaigns start earlier and earlier—but depressingly seem to get emptier and emptier. Already the credulous media have coronated Hillary Clinton as the inevitable Democratic Party nominee. On the Republican side, contenders seem to be tripping over one another, with a baker’s dozen or more considering a run. Nonetheless, in the wake of Mitt Romney’s aborted exploration, the GOP’s powerful donors seem to be aligning around former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, the son and brother of former presidents.

Daniel Ruth/Tampa Bay Times: Eat, drink and grab last check before the Legislature opens

MARK YOUR CALENDARS and shield the children. This week marks the start of the annual gathering of Tallahassee’s lobster bibs of public servants, who for 60 days will burn the midnight oil to fulfill their mandate to roll over for Florida’s special interests to better ensure a generous fuzzy-wuzzy tummy rub.

Daniel Kline/The Motley Fool: Net neutrality is here, and 75% of Americans don’t know what it is

The Federal Communications Commission has passed new rules that establish net neutrality by reclassifying broadband Internet providers as utilities or common carriers under Title II of the Telecommunications Act of 1934. The proposal, which passed on a 3-2 part line vote (with the Democrats supporting the move), will prevent blocking, throttling, and paid prioritization of content on the Internet.

Glenn Greewald/The Intercept: Net neutrality is here – thanks to an unprecedented guerrilla activism campaign

This morning, the Federal Communications Commission voted to guarantee the open Internet through so-called net neutrality rules, and with it, forged ahead with one of the biggest policy accomplishments of the Obama administration.

Michael Weiss/The Daily BeastL Boris Nemtsov exposed Putin’s corruption – and paid with his life

“We need to talk about Magnitsky.”

The last time I saw Boris Nemtsov, in Tallinn, Estonia in 2013, he had wanted to find a way to tack on more Putin regime officials to a U.S. law that would ban them from entering the country or freeze whatever assets they held here. The former first deputy prime minister of Russia, who was brutally shot to death within eyeshot of the Kremlin this evening, had many enemies, not least of them the president of Russia. He was handsome, charismatic and popular in the West and in Eastern Europe. “First we liberate Belarus, and then Russia!” former Belarusian presidential candidate, dissident and Lukashenko torture victim Andrei Sannikov told him on that same occasion. Nemtsov joyfully agreed. On Sunday he had planned to lead a march against Vladimir Putin’s unacknowledged dirty war in Ukraine. He was shot repeatedly in the back by several assailants emerging from a car while he walking down the Moskvoretskiy bridge with Anna Durickaya, a Ukrainian model.

David Brooks/New York Times: Converting the Ayatollahs

Over the past centuries, Western diplomats have continually projected pragmatism onto their ideological opponents. They have often assumed that our enemies are driven by the same sort of national interest calculations that motivate most regimes. They have assumed that economic interests would trump ideology and religion — that prudent calculation and statecraft would trump megalomania.

Gail Collins/New York Times: Adieu, Chris Christi, adieu

Chris Christie is political toast.

Cause of his charred presidential prospects: an unreformed state pension system. I know that’s disappointing. Not nearly as exciting as the political near-death experiences that went before. We were hoping the next disaster would be something like Governor Yells at Elmo. Or a reprise of the day he chased a guy down the boardwalk while waving an ice cream cone, this time maybe featuring Tom Hanks or Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Michael Gerson/Washington Post: Scott Walker and judging the faith of another

When Scott Walker pronounced himself agnostic about President Obama’s patriotism and Christian faith, it must have seemed like a clever formulation. “I’ve never asked him, so I don’t know,” he said. And about Obama’s Christianity: “I’ve never asked him that.”

George Will/Washington Post: Two reading lessons from the Supreme Court

The Supreme Court frequently ponders arcane matters. Next week, however, in oral arguments concerning two cases, the justices’ task will be to teach remedial reading to Congress and to Arizona.

Kathleen Parker/Washington Post: Is Twitter really America’s conscience?

Denizens of social media were rankled during Sunday night’s Academy Awards telecast when actor Sean Penn made a crack about Mexican director Alejandro González Iñárritu and green cards.

Bill Kristol/The Weekly Standard: Netanhahu’s moment

Sometimes a speech is just a speech. Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech about Iran policy on March 3 will not be his first address to Congress. It will make familiar, if important, arguments. One might assume that, like the vast majority of speeches, it would soon be overtaken by events in Israel and the United States and the world.

Scott Martelle/Los Angeles Times: After this tantrum, House Republicans need a timeout

Conservative congressional Republicans who have refused to work on comprehensive immigration reform are upset because President Obama invoked prosecutorial discretion and prioritized which immigrants here illegally should be targeted for removal. Obama also set up a system under which parents of American citizens or legal permanent residents, and an expanded pool of people brought here as children, would be able to live without immediate fear of deportation, and in some cases get permission to work (now on hold pending a legal challenge).

Jeb Lund/The Guardian: CPAC 2015 wants you to know you are in terrible danger

Welcome to the Conservative Political Action Conference, a three-day-long performance from an improv troupe whose hat has only has one statement in it: you’re in terrible danger. But that doesn’t mean you’re in terrible danger right now. Right now, there are seminars. About the danger. I have been to them, as part of my quest to be America’s Most Impervious Man. I don’t even care to what.

Noga Tamopolsky/Reuters: All about Iran: One-Note Netanyahu goes totally tone deaf

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is not having a good election.

Recent polls show his right-wing Likud Party running neck-and-neck with the left-of-center Zionist Union, or in some cases, running behind.

Monica Potts: And now, the GOP is going after injured workers

In the late 1990s, as he approached 50, my dad started to have a series of small strokes. Many of them went undiagnosed, until the summer of 2000, when he finally went to the hospital. He slowly stopped working after that until, finally, in the fall of 2004, he decided to apply for disability, which he collected until he died in November 2006.