Republican leaders look for escape plan on immigration  —  Republican leaders in the House and Senate are boxed in on immigration and searching for a way out.  —  Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) are struggling to find a way to fund the Department …

Michelle Obama's uncovered head draws Saudi Twitter critique  —  First lady Michelle Obama faced backlash from Twitter users in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday for not wearing a head covering during her brief visit there with the president.  —  Obama wore loose-fitting clothes including a long blue jacket …

Obama Is Setting Up Hillary Clinton to Fail  —  The president's approval rating is inching up, but there's little public enthusiasm for his liberal agenda.  That puts Clinton in an uncomfortable position.  —  President Obama delivered his penultimate State of the Union with renewed confidence …

Koch donors give Marco Rubio early nod  —  Straw poll at donor summit rates 5 GOP hopefuls.  —  Getty  —  The Koch brothers' conservative network is still debating whether it will spend any of its massive $889-million budget in the Republican presidential primaries, but the prospect …

Kaiser Health Tracking Poll: January 2015  —  Bianca DiJulio, Jamie Firth, and Mollyann Brodie … The Public's Views Of King V. Burwell And Exchanges  —  The U.S. Supreme Court will hear a case, King v. Burwell, in March about whether the health care law says people in all states …

Anti-tank missile fired at Israeli military vehicle on Lebanon frontier: army  —  (Reuters) - An anti-tank missile was fired at an Israeli military vehicle near the Lebanon border on Wednesday, wounding four soldiers, a military source said.  —  The incident came several hours after Israel launched …

Sheldon Silver to resign as Assembly speaker  —  Scandal-scarred Sheldon Silver Tuesday night agreed to resign as the powerful Assembly speaker.  —  Silver's decision to quit — amid calls from fellow Democrats to do so — came less than a week after being busted by the feds for allegedly using …

Mike Huckabee complains of ‘trashy’ women at Fox News  —  Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee said in a recent radio appearance that while in New York for his Fox News show, he experienced significant culture shock from all the “trashy” women swearing in a professional setting.

Obama drops proposal to cut tax benefits of 529 college savings plans  —  President Obama on Tuesday abandoned a proposal to end a major tax benefit of popular college savings accounts used by millions of American families after the White House faced mounting criticism from lawmakers and parents.

The importance of being Ernst  —  The just-elected Iowa senator aims to be a player in 2016.  —  DES MOINES, Iowa — Sen. Joni Ernst hasn't been in office a month, but she's already delivered the GOP response to the State of the Union.  And now the Iowa Republican is looking to parlay …

Americans think Pats cheated, rooting for Seahawks  —  Americans think the Patriots cheated in the AFC Championship game- and they're rooting for the Seahawks on Sunday- but in some ways their poll numbers haven't fallen that far because the Patriots weren't all that popular to begin with.

New All-Female ‘Ghostbusters’ Cast Chosen  —  The Paul Feig-directed reboot is eyeing a summer shoot in New York.  —  Kristen Wiig, Leslie Jones, Kate McKinnon, Melissa McCarthy  —  The all-new, all-female Ghostsbusters are here.  —  Melissa McCarthy, who was already in talks for one of the leads …

Canada Casts Global Surveillance Dragnet Over File Downloads  —  Canada's leading surveillance agency is monitoring millions of Internet users' file downloads in a dragnet search to identify extremists, according to top-secret documents.  —  The covert operation, revealed Wednesday by CBC News …

North Korean Leader to Visit Russia in May  —  MOSCOW — North Korea's leader, Kim Jong-un, plans to visit Moscow this May in his first trip abroad since assuming power in 2011, a Kremlin spokesman announced on Wednesday.  —  The confirmation from Dmitri S. Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman …

Testimony: ‘Ramifications upon my church,’ questions on bathroom use, ‘parading their genitalia’  —  The first four people to testify this morning at the HB 2 hearing all spoke against the bill, including Pastor Jeff Estes of Fellowship Baptist Church in Meridian, who said …