BUDGET

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama unveils a $4 trillion spending plan Monday, a budget that calls for huge spending on infrastructure funded by a one-time tax on profits U.S. companies have amassed overseas. The business-friendly Republican-controlled Congress is all but certain to say no.

OBAMA

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama says the U.S. is doing everything in its power to rescue a 26-year-old woman held by the Islamic State, speaking in a wide-ranging interview also covering politics and a measles outbreak.

WASHINGTON - Government and aviation industry officials from dozens of countries are meeting in Montreal this week to try to find consensus on how to keep from losing airliners like the one that vanished in Asia and another shot down in Eastern Europe.

RIO DE JANEIRO - A Brazilian beauty pageant took a bizarre turn when the first runner-up snatched the crown off the winner of the Miss Amazonas contest, refusing to accept her loss. 

ECUADOR-CORREA-INTERNET TROLLS

QUITO, Ecuador - President Rafael Correa, showing little tolerance for online humor and "memes" poking fun at him, creates a website and Twitter account to organize social media counterattacks, calling on supporters to inundate the "defamers" with digital bombs. Critics call it yet another government attempt to censor free speech. 

UNITED STATES-SRI LANKA

WASHINGTON - The surprise defeat of Sri Lanka's authoritarian leader and the new government's early steps to end repression have stirred U.S. hopes that the South Asian island nation can revive ties with Washington and distance itself to some degree from China.

MEXICO-CANDELARIA-PHOTO ESSAY

MEXICO CITY - Each year, Catholic faithful in Mexico honor the story of the infant Christ being presented before the temple in Jerusalem by adorning a figure of baby Jesus in fine clothing and praying for blessings throughout the year.