Odds tilt toward GOP Senate  —  Republicans are in the strongest position to win back the Senate since losing it eight years ago.  —  Over several months, the party has expanded its range of targeted seats, and the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) has helped defeat insurgents …

Barack Obama becomes mocker-in-chief on climate change skeptics  —  The sarcastic bear is loose, and he's loving every minute of it.  —  President Barack Obama is letting his inner Don Rickles run free, mocking climate deniers as the crowd who used to think the moon was made out of cheese …

A More Nuanced Breakdown of the Supreme Court  —  This is the time of year that the news media roll out a familiar graphic: Nine head shots of Supreme Court justices, arrayed from most liberal to most conservative.  —  In spacing the head shots at equal intervals, the graphics suggest a steady procession from left to right.

EMAILS: IRS OFFICIAL SOUGHT AUDIT OF GOP SENATOR  —  WASHINGTON (AP) — Congressional investigators say they uncovered emails Wednesday showing that a former Internal Revenue Service official at the heart of the tea party investigation sought an audit involving a Republican senator in 2012.

Sales of Hillary Clinton's New Memoir Drop Sharply in 2nd Week  —  Sales of Hillary Rodham Clinton's new memoir, “Hard Choices,” declined 43.5 percent to 48,000 copies in its second week on the shelves, according to Nielsen BookScan.  —  The sales figures put pressure on the publisher …

High court limits president's appointments power  —  The Supreme Court on Wednesday limited the president's power to fill high-level vacancies with temporary appointments, ruling in favor of Senate Republicans in their partisan clash with President Barack Obama.

Another agency tells Congress: File not found  —  The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the IRS share a problem: officials say they cannot provide the emails a congressional committee has requested because an employee's hard drive crashed.  —  EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy confirmed …

Big Losers in GDP Report: Democrats  —  You can sum up today's report on first-quarter gross domestic product in one short word: oof.  —  The last estimate had GDP shrinking slightly from the prior quarter.  The current estimate has it shrinking a lot: 2.9 percent on an annualized basis.

EPA Employees Told to Stop Pooping in the Hallway  —  Environmental Protection Agency workers have done some odd things recently.  —  Contractors built secret man caves in an EPA warehouse, an employee pretended to work for the CIA to get unlimited vacations and one worker even spent …

John Boehner wants to sue President Obama  —  Republicans, after years of squabbling with President Obama, have decided to resolve their differences with him according to a time-honored American tradition.  —  They are going to sue him.  —  “What we have seen clearly over the last five years …

BOULDER COUNTY BEGINS ISSUING SAME-SEX MARRIAGE LICENSES; AG SAYS NO  —  Boulder County began issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples Wednesday afternoon, just hours after the 10th U.S. Circuit Court struck down Utah's ban on gay marriage.  —  Two couples were married before the office closed …

EXCLUSIVE: Former GOP senate candidate Todd Akin doubles down on ‘legitimate rape’ comment and says ‘hypocrite’ Hillary Clinton ‘de-legitimized’ a 12-year-old rape victim  — Akin said in 2012 that abortion bans didn't need to include exceptions for rape victims because ‘legitimate rape’ rarely leads to conception

The Investigation Into Scott Walker Could Be Way, Way Bigger Than Scott Walker  —  WASHINGTON — An investigation targeting Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) for alleged illegal coordination with independent conservative groups during his 2012 recall election has been thrown into limbo by a lawsuit …