CNN exclusive: White House email contradicts Benghazi leaks  —  This story has been updated from its original version.  —  CNN has obtained an e-mail sent by a top aide to President Barack Obama about White House reaction to the deadly attack last September 11 on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi …

Understanding the Politics of the IRS Scandal  —  We're just at the front end of investigating the IRS scandal.  And all the standard blah blah blah about how we don't know just what we'll find.  But I think we do know pretty much exactly what the political implications will be.  And they're significant.

Justice Dept. Opens Criminal Inquiry Into I.R.S. Audits  —  WASHINGTON — Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. on Tuesday fielded questions about the seizure of telephone records from reporters and editors at The Associated Press, which apparently came in connection with an investigation of leaks inside the executive branch.

Updated Budget Projections: Fiscal Years 2013 to 2023  —  If the current laws that govern federal taxes and spending do not change, the budget deficit will shrink this year to $642 billion, CBO estimates, the smallest shortfall since 2008.  Relative to the size of the economy, the deficit this year …

My Medical Choice  —  MY MOTHER fought cancer for almost a decade and died at 56.  She held out long enough to meet the first of her grandchildren and to hold them in her arms.  But my other children will never have the chance to know her and experience how loving and gracious she was.

KMOV anchor: The IRS is targeting me  —  Larry Connors, a veteran local news anchor at KMOV Channel 4 in St. Louis, says that the Internal Revenue Service has been targeting him since an April 2012 interview he conducted with President Obama — a fact that he dismissed as coincidence until …

7-year-old boy gets handwritten letter from Biden  —  MILWAUKEE — A Wisconsin boy wrote Vice President Joe Biden with an unusual suggestion for making the nation safer: Create guns that shoot chocolate bullets.  —  On Monday, he got an unusual response: A handwritten note from Biden on vice presidential stationery.

Rich Manhattan moms hire handicapped tour guides so kids can cut lines at Disney World  —  They are 1 percenters who are 100 percent despicable.  —  Some wealthy Manhattan moms have figured out a way to cut the long lines at Disney World — by hiring disabled people to pose as family members …

Obama's claim he called Benghazi an ‘act of terrorism’  —  “The day after it happened, I acknowledged that this was an act of terrorism.”  —  Once again, it appears that we must parse a few presidential words.  We went through this question at length during the 2012 election, but perhaps a refresher course is in order.

Race And IQ.  Again.  —  I should know better than to bring this up again.  But the effective firing of a researcher, Heritage's Jason Richwine, because of his Harvard dissertation should immediately send up red flags about intellectual freedom.  I am not defending the Heritage report …

Why Washington scandal-mania may save Medicare and Social Security  —  The Monica Lewinsky scandal may have helped save Social Security in the late 1990s.  Now the scandal fever currently gripping Washington — IRS, Benghazi, Associated Press phone records — may save Social Security and Medicare two decades later.

Reid on Gosnell: We Need ‘Clean and Sterile’ Late-Term Abortion Clinics  —  At a Tuesday afternoon press conference, Senate majority leader Harry Reid blamed laws restricting abortion and pro-lifers who picket abortion clinics for pushing women to the clinic of Dr. Kermit Gosnell, who was convicted Monday for murdering three infants.

Franklin Graham: IRS targeted us, too  —  The IRS came after Billy Graham, too, his son charged Tuesday in a letter to President Barack Obama.  —  Franklin Graham, the president of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and the family's international humanitarian organization Samaritan's Purse …

Bill Hader to Leave ‘Saturday Night Live’  —  With just one departure, “Saturday Night Live” is losing its excitable “Weekend Update” city correspondent, Stefon; its frenetic incarnations of James Carville, Al Pacino, Vincent Price and Julian Assange; and any number of unctuous, self-satisfied game-show hosts.

North Miami mayoral candidate touts endorsement from Jesus Christ  —  Anna L. Pierre is one of seven candidates vying to replace Andre Pierre  —  Author: Steve Owen, Assistant News Director, sowen@local10.com  —  Benjamin Candea, Senior Web Producer, bcandea@local10.com … NORTH MIAMI, Fla. -