Today’s Times
- The Senate Judiciary Committee approved a broad overhaul of the nation’s immigration laws on Tuesday, sending the legislation to the full Senate, where the fight is expected to last through June, Ashley Parker and Julia Preston report. After intense negotiations, the eight senators finally reached a compromise on one of the major sticking points: raising the cap for high-skilled foreign workers who could fill jobs in the high-tech industry.
- Though political leaders from both parties expressed sympathy for the victims of Oklahoma’s killer tornado, it took only hours for Washington to face off over how the cost of devastation would be paid, Peter Baker and Jeremy W. Peters report. The debate is hypothetical, as the government already has $11.6 billion available in a disaster relief fund, but it underscored the fact that even national tragedy does not always bring the capital together.
- A year ago, when the current Internal Revenue Service scandal first emerged - and could have threatened President Obama’s chances for re-election - the White House apparently shrugged, Michael D. Shear reports. For an administration typically equipped with well-honed political radar designed to sniff out and derail conservative conspiracy theories about Mr. Obama, the potentially damaging events at the I.R.S. seemed to pass with little notice.
- In spite of that and other recent controversies, Nate Silver writes, Mr. Obama’s approval ratings in various polls have held steady.
Around the Web
- “Even while members of Congress were preaching fiscal restraint and warning of fiscal cliffs and sequestration cuts, more than one-third of the United States House of Representatives was traveling the globe to often-exotic locations at taxpayers expense, with limited explanations for the trips,†The Sarasota Herald Tribune reports.
Happenings in Washington
- After Tuesday’s celebration of Carole King at the Library of Congress, the president and first lady will host a concert in the East Room of the White House also honoring the singer-songwriter, who will win the 2013 Gershwin Prize for Popular Song for “You’ve Got a Friend.â€
- The African American Civil War Memorial and Museum will celebrate the sesquicentennial of the establishment of the Bureau of United States Colored Troops with a wreath-laying ceremony.
