In congressional testimony last year, Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Douglas Shulman denied accusations that the agency was targeting conservative groups for political reasons.

On Friday, IRS officials conceded that the agency had in fact subjected tax-exempt status applications from conservative and Tea Party-related organizations to greater scrutiny. The officials said that the agency had flagged groups that used the words “patriot” or “tea party” and that managers had sent out memos telling agency workers to give additional attention to Tea Party-affiliated local organizations, CNN notes.

The admissions come as the IRS inspector General prepares to release a report this week that indicates that IRS scrutiny of conservative groups began in 2010. In addition to the Tea Party, IRS officials singled out groups who criticized the size of the national debt and government spending. Read 

Just days after the revelation that a libertarian activist and his non-profit group had created a working 3D-printed handgun, the government has apparently put the kibosh on their plans.

According to Cody Wilson, the founder of non-profit organization Defense Distributed, he was asked by the Pentagon to pull plans for his plastic printed gun today. The web site that hosted the design for the gun, defcad.org, now has a banner up at the top of the site that reads “DEFCAD files are being removed from public access at the request of the US Department of Defense Trade Controls.  Until further notice, the United States government claims control of the information.”

More than 100,000 copies of the plans were downloaded between Monday, when they were first posted online, and when they were pulled today. Gun control advocates were worried about the ease of smuggling these guns past metal detectors — all the gun’s parts, save for a metal nail that serves as the firing pin — are made from plastic. There is a slot created by the gun’s plans that allows for a piece of metal to be inserted, in order to comply with the Undetectable Firearms Act. Read 

On July 1, same-sex couples in Delaware will be able to get married.

On Tuesday, Governor Jack Markell — just minutes after the bill passed the legislature — signed the bill into law, the Associated Press reports.

Markell was on hand for the vote and told cheering supporters, “I do not intend to make any of you wait one moment longer.” The Delaware Senate passed the bill 12-9 following passage in the House 23-18. Read 

Yesterday, the U.S. Senate passed the Marketplace Fairness Act that requires online retailers to collect state sales taxes.

The measure — which passed the Senate 69-27 — gives the individual states the authority to require online retailers to collect and pass along state sales taxes, Bloomberg reports.

Previously, online stores were only required to collect sales taxes in states where they had a physical location. Therefore, the majority of companies collected — and passed on to the states — only a small fraction of possible taxes. This has drawn protests for years from brick-and-mortar retailers who argue that it places them at a pricing disadvantage against their online rivals. Read 

New Jersey Governor Christ Christie had weight-loss surgery last February.

Christie had the surgery — in which a band was placed around his stomach to restrict the amount he could eat — at the urging of his family, the Associated Press is reporting.

Christie has long been the butt of jokes about his weight. While he’s never disclosed how much he actually weighs, he’s always held that the subject was fair game for comedians. However, he did take exception when a former White House physician, Dr. Connie Mariano, commented that she worried about him dying in office. Read 

In a golf outing designed to ease tensions between Senate Republicans and President Barack Obama, one of the Republican Senators invited managed to steal the show.

Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., struck a hole-in-one on the par-3 11th hole on the golf course at Joint Base Andrews today.  Buoyed by the excellent shot, Chambliss and his partner, Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., won their match against Obama and his partner, Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo.

Interestingly enough, Chambliss was not the best golfer present among the foursome playing. According to Golf Digest‘s ratings of political golfers, Udall is the best golfer in Congress with an estimated handicap of 2. Corker is right behind him with a handicap of 2.1. Chambliss was actually the third-best golfer present, with a handicap of 7.4. Read