The White House is not directly commenting on a newspaper report that the administration is considering a path for illegal immigrants to become legal permanent U.S. residents within eight years.

USA Today said it obtained a draft of a White House immigration plan that contained the proposal.

The White House wouldn’t comment Saturday night directly on the USA Today report but released this statement:

“The President has made clear the principles upon which he believes any commonsense immigration reform effort should be based. We continue to work in support of a bipartisan effort, and while the President has made clear he will move forward if Congress fails to act, progress continues to be made and the administration has not prepared a final bill to submit.”

Since his re-election – which got a boost from Hispanic voters -- President Barack Obama has renewed his push for an overhaul of the nation’s immigration policy, including the topic in his inaugural address and State of the Union speech and making a trip to Nevada last month to highlight the issue.

And there’s been some progress in the Senate: A bipartisan group of senators announced in late January that they had agreed on goals for a major rewrite of immigration laws. Those include creating a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants who are here already and creating a system to ensure that employers don’t hire illegal immigrants.

But reaction to the USA Today report by Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., points to the difficulty in passing any package. Rubio issued a statement Saturday saying that if the president's eventual proposal follows the draft described by USA Today, it "would be dead on arrival in Congress."   

A meteor streaked through the sky and exploded Friday over Russia's Ural Mountains with the power of an atomic bomb, its sonic blasts shattering countless windows and injuring almost 1,000 people. The spectacle deeply frightened thousands, with some elderly women declaring the world was coming to an end.

The meteor — estimated to be about 10 tons — entered the Earth's atmosphere at a hypersonic speed of at least 33,000 mph and shattered about 18-32 miles above the ground, the Russian Academy of Sciences said in a statement.

It released the energy of several kilotons above the Chelyabinsk region, the academy said.

Amateur videos broadcast on Russian television showed an object speeding across the sky about 9:20 a.m. local time, just after sunrise, leaving a thick white contrail and an intense flash.

The explosions broke an estimated 1 million square feet of glass, city officials said.

Russia's Interfax news agency said close to 1,000 people sought medical care after the explosions and most were injured by shards of glass, according to officials. Athletes at a city sports arena were among those cut up by the flying glass. It was not immediately clear if any people were struck by space fragments.

"There was panic. People had no idea what was happening. Everyone was going around to people's houses to check if they were OK," said Sergey Hametov, a resident of Chelyabinsk, about 930 miles east of Moscow, the biggest city in the affected region.

"We saw a big burst of light then went outside to see what it was and we heard a really loud thundering sound," he told The Associated Press by telephone.

Amateur videos posted to Youtube showed a bright streaks of light crossing the morning sky. In some videos, a large boom was heard -- possibly an impact or possibly a sonic boom of the meteor sailing through the Earth's atmosphere at more than the speed of sound.

 South African model Reeva Steenkamp was looking forward to Valentine's Day.

"What do you have up your sleeve for your love tomorrow?" the 29-year-old asked her thousands of followers on Twitter a day before. "Get excited."

Steenkamp was killed early Thursday in a shooting at the Pretoria home of Olympian Oscar Pistorius, her boyfriend.

He has been charged with murder. In keeping with South African law, Pistorius will be named officially as the suspect when he appears in court Friday.
Oscar Pistorius charged with murder

Pistorius spokeswoman Kate Silvers said the athlete is "assisting the police with their investigation but there will be no further comment until matters become clearer later today."

Read more: Woman found fatally shot in home of 'blade runner' Oscar Pistorius

Pistorius, nicknamed the "Blade Runner," made history when he became the first Paralympian to compete in the able-bodied Olympics last year. He ran on special carbon fiber blades affixed to his legs, which were amputated below the knees as a toddler because of a bone defect.


Capacity Relations, the agency that represents Steenkamp, announced her death. "She was the kindest, sweetest human being; an angel on earth and will be sorely missed," the agency said on Twitter.

Passengers who finally escaped the disabled Carnival cruise ship Triumph were checking into hotels early Friday for a hot shower, fresh-cooked food and sleep or boarding buses for a long haul home after five numbing days at sea on a powerless ship.

The vacation ship carrying some 4,200 people docked late Thursday in Mobile after a painfully slow approach that took most of the day. Passengers raucously cheered after days of what they described as overflowing toilets, food shortages and foul odors.

"Sweet Home Alabama!" read one of the homemade signs passengers affixed alongside the 14-story ship as many celebrated at deck rails lining several levels of the stricken ship. The ship's horn loudly blasted several times as four tugboats pulled the crippled ship to shore at about 9:15 p.m. CST. Some gave a thumbs-up sign and flashes from cameras and cellphones lit the night.

Less than four hours later, the last passenger had disembarked.

Some, like 56-year-old Deborah Knight of Houston, had no interest in boarding one of about 100 buses assembled to carry passengers to hotels in New Orleans or Texas. Her husband Seth drove in from Houston and they checked into a downtown Mobile hotel.

"I want a hot shower and a daggum Whataburger," said Knight, who was wearing a bathrobe over her clothes as her bags were unloaded from her husband's pickup truck. She said she was afraid to eat the food on board and had gotten sick while on the ship.

Buses arrived in the pre-dawn darkness at a Hilton in New Orleans to reporters and paramedics on the scene with wheelchairs to roll in passengers who were elderly or too fatigued to walk.

Many were tired and didn't want to talk. There were long lines to check into rooms. Some got emotional as they described the deplorable conditions of the ship.

"It was horrible, just horrible" said Maria Hernandez, 28, of Angleton, Texas, tears welling in her eyes as she talked about waking up to smoke in her lower-level room Sunday and the days of heat and stench to follow. She was on a "girls trip" with friends.

She said the group hauled mattresses to upper-level decks to escape the heat. As she pulled her luggage into the hotel, a flashlight around her neck, she managed a smile and even a giggle when asked to show her red "poo-poo bag" — distributed by the cruise line for collecting human waste.

This was only part of her journey to get home. Hernandez, like hundreds others, would get to enjoy a brief reprieve at the hotel before flying home later in the day.

"I just can't wait to be home," she said.

It wasn't long after the ship pulled into the Port of Mobile that passengers began streaming down the gang plank, some in wheelchairs and others pulling carry-on luggage. One man gave the thumbs up.

If your Valentine’s Day plans include an engagement, congratulations! Besides romance, you also are more likely to experience financial joy – if your marriage works out.

Couples who get and stay married can have as much as four times the wealth of their single or divorced peers. Experts say that's not only because they can combine their salaries and share expenses once they get married.

Spouses are better off because of a combination of factors, starting with who is getting married these days.

“It’s more educated, more affluent and also more religious Americans that tend to get married in the first place,” said Bradford Wilcox, director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia.

That gives them a starting advantage over their peers who aren’t married. 

Once they are married, the couples also are able to take advantage of economies of scale – anything from buying just one dishwasher to relying on one another’s health insurance. That allows them to build wealth more quickly than their peers who are single, divorced or  living together romantically.

“You have further advantages,” said Pamela Smock, director of the Population Studies Center at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

A huge fireball fell from the skies over Russia's Chelyabinsk region early Friday, resulting in a powerful blast that reportedly injured about 400 people.

Reports from Russia suggested that the fireball was caused by a meteorite.

"Preliminary indications are that it was a meteorite rain," the RIA-Novosti news agency quoted an emergency official as saying. "We have information about a blast at 10,000-meter (32,800-foot) altitude. It is being verified."

The Associated Press quoted a spokesman for the Russian Interior Ministry, Vadim Kolesnikov, as saying that the fireball caused in an explosion and sonic boom that broke windows.

City authorities in Chelyabinsk, 930 miles east of Moscow, said about 400 people sought medical help, mainly for light injuries caused by flying glass, Reuters reported.

The sounds of car alarms and breaking windows could be heard in the area, the witness told Reuters, and mobile phones were working intermittently.

"I was standing at a bus stop, seeing off my girlfriend," said Andrei, a local resident who did not give his second name. "Then there was a flash and I saw a trail of smoke across the sky and felt a shockwave that smashed windows."

The meteorite raced across the horizon, leaving a long white trail in its wake which could be seen as far as 125 miles away in Yekaterinburg.

"I was driving to work, it was quite dark, but it suddenly became as bright as if it was day," Viktor Prokofiev, 36, a resident of Yekaterinburg, told Reuters. "I felt like I was blinded by headlights."

No fatalities were reported but President Vladimir Putin, who was due to host Finance Ministry officials from the Group of 20 nations in Moscow, and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev were informed.

Multiple videos posted to YouTube showed the object flaring brightly as it sped across the sky. Twitter users posted photos showing broken windows. One video showed an office building in Chelyabinsk being hurriedly evacuated.

Russian news media quoted local residents as speculating that the blast could have been caused by a missile explosion or a military plane crash, but an unnamed emergency official told Reuters that was not the case.

Would you renounce your U.S. citizenship if it meant you’d be sending less of your hard-earned dollars to Uncle Sam?

As Americans face higher taxes and stricter enforcement, a growing number of them are, indeed, deciding to turn in their US passports. As of 2013, 77% of Americans will pay higher federal tax rates because the cuts in Social Security payroll taxes expired when Congress passed its tax package on New Year’s Day.

But the wealthiest households face the highest tax increases. From 2009 to 2011, the number of expatriates, or those who renounced their U.S. citizenship, doubled to 1,781.

Nigel Green, CEO of deVere Group, which provides financial services for expatriates, said that since the start of this year, 48% more of his clients in January than in a typical month inquired about moving funds abroad and the possible tax implications of changing citizenship.

The income tax rate rose this year to 39.6% from 35% for individuals earning more than $400,000 a year and married couples earning more than $450,000.

The Tax Policy Center estimated that those who earn more than $1 million would pay an average of  $170,341 more in taxes.

Green said there’s a tipping point for most people with regard to tax issues affecting their choice of location and citizenship. “If there’s only 10% tax [on income], no one would be leaving. But if there’s 90%, then most people would leave,” he said.

Federal taxes aren’t the only issue, though. Increases in state income tax rates factor into these decisions as well. Recently, California enacted Proposition 30, which raised state income tax rates to 10.3% from 9.3% for individuals making at least $250,000 and 13.3% from 10.3% for those earning at least $1 million. Golfer Phil Mickelson publicly voiced his concern over the tax increases and threatened to leave California because of the higher rates.

Famous Faces
In the first three quarters of 2012, more than 1,100 people left the United States, according to the Federal Register, which tracks Americans who renounce their citizenship. (The Federal Register doesn’t make note of why these people give up their citizenships; we can only guess there are financial considerations in many situations.) Among them, one of the most high-profile examples was Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin, who filed to relinquish his U.S. citizenship in September 2011; Facebook had its initial public offering in May 2012. Saverin, a Brazil native, had already been living in Singapore for three years after emigrating to the U.S. in 1998. He could reportedly save as much as $100 million in taxes because Singapore does not tax capital gains.

Saverin isn’t the only famous renunciation. Singer and socialite Denise Rich also gave up her citizenship last year under her maiden name, Denise Eisenberg. She is well-known as the ex-wife of former international fugitive Marc Rich, a commodities trader who was indicted on 50 counts of wire fraud, tax evasion, racketeering and other charges. But on his last day in office in 2001, former president Bill Clinton pardoned Rich. Reports claimed that Eisenberg gave up her citizenship to be closer to her long-time partner, an Austrian citizen. Austria also has tax benefits for nationals who live abroad for more than half the year.

Chinese kung fu star and actor Jet Li held American and Chinese citizenships, but dropped both in 2009 in order to be a citizen in Singapore. (Singapore prohibits dual citizenship.) In interviews Li indicated that he chose Singapore because it was free from paparazzi and provided language opportunities for his children.

Most recently, actor Gerard Depardieu made headlines for renouncing his French citizenship to become a Russian citizen in order to avoid France’s proposed 75% tax on earned income above $1.4 million. Russia has a flat 13% tax rate.