Mr. Netanyahu goes to Washington

1. Bibi goes to Boehner House Speaker John Boehner has invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address a joint session of Congress on February 11. [The Speaker of the House of Representatives] Netanyahu would become the first foreign leader since Winston Churchill to address Congress three times. [The Atlantic / Russell Berman] Boehner says he did not consult the White House before inviting Netanyahu. [Sean Sullivan] Max Fisher: "By reaching out to Netanyahu directly and setting up a visit without the knowledge of the White House, he is undermining not just Obama's policies but his very leadership of US foreign policy." [Vox / Max Fisher] Netanyahu will speak on Iran; he's taken a harder tack than Obama with regards to their nuclear ambitions. His visit comes as a bipartisan group of senators is trying to enact harsher sanctions against Iran. [NYT / Michael Shear] Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ), the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations committee: "The more I hear from the administration and its quotes, the more it sounds like talking points that come straight out of Tehran." [CNN / Dana Bash and Deirdre Walsh] 2. Yemen The Houthis, a Shia rebel group resisting the Sunni-dominated Yemeni government, took control of the presidential palace in the country's capital of Sana'a. [Vox / Zack Beauchamp] As of tonight, President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi appears to have made a deal with the Houthis, acquiescing to many of their demands in exchange for withdrawing troops from the palace and other areas. [NYT / Shuaib Almosawa and Kareem Fahim] The deal reportedly includes a Houthi role in drafting a new constitution, greater Houthi representation in parliament, and turning Yemen into a federal state. [Washington Post / Ali al-Mujahed and Hugh Naylor] NYT: "Analysts and diplomats said on Wednesday that the Houthis had become Yemen’s de facto ruling power." [NYT / Shuaib Almosawa and Kareem Fahim] Many, including the US, claim that deposed president Ali Abdullah Saleh, who left office in 2012 following the Arab Spring, has been supporting the Houthis. [AFP] The Houthi rebellion is totally separate from the rebellion in southern Yemen by al-Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula (AQAP) and Ansar al-Sharia, a related group. AQAP has claimed responsibility in the Charlie Hebdo attack, though the true extent of its involvement is still unclear. [Vox / Zack Beauchamp] Under the deal, southern Yemen will also get greater participation in government, along with the Houthis. [Washington Post / Ali al-Mujahed and Hugh Naylor] 3. Scot-free According to a New York Times report, ex-Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson won't face federal charges for shooting and killing Michael Brown. [Vox / German Lopez] The Justice Department has the option of pursuing charges against Wilson for violating Brown's civil rights, even though a grand jury declined to charge Wilson with murder or manslaughter in November. [Vox / German Lopez] The department's investigation of the Ferguson Police Department in general, however, remains open. [NYT / Matt Apuzzo and Michael Schmidt] 4. Misc. The Senate voted down an amendment saying that human activity is causing global warming 50-49 because individual senators don't accept science and Senate rules don't accept arithmetic. [Vox / Brad Plumer] Here's how Paper Magazine made sure their website could hold up when their Kim Kardashian photoshoot "broke the internet." [Medium / Paul Ford] Apocalypse Now, Zodiac, and a slew of Bond movies disappear from Netflix on February 1. [Slate / Dee Lockett] A stranger halfway across the world emails you to say he's about to kill himself. What do you do? What can you do? [Washington Post / Cynthia McCabe] 5. Verbatim "To even try to answer them is to enter a terrain where every assertion starts to sound like a plotline from Homeland." [Newsweek / Alexander Nazaryan] "The show was a sexualized riff on the Island of Misfit Toys, plus industrial metal (the soundtrack was Rammstein)." [Matter / Emily Witt] "The only operetta ever written about Subpart F of the Internal Revenue Code made its debut on a rainy Sunday evening in May 1990, in a Fifth Avenue apartment overlooking Central Park." [Businessweek / Zachary Mider] "Here's how Killer Mike says you should ask someone on a date: 'I like you. Do you like me? If so, let's go get some lunch.'" [The Verge / Lizzie Plaugic] "People ask me why I ski.1 … 1No one has ever asked me this. No one ever asks people questions like this." [Jason Kottke] "In a classic study of prisoners in Massachusetts, psychiatrist Stuart Grassian of Harvard identified a specific psychiatric syndrome associated with solitary confinement, whose symptoms include hyper-responsivity to external stimuli, such as noise; illusions and hallucinations; panic attacks; difficulties with thinking, concentration, and memory; intrusive obsessional thoughts; the emergence of primitive aggressive ruminations; overt paranoia; and problems with impulse control, sometimes involving violence and self-mutilation." [Vanity Fair / Ted Conover]