Another wave of health-care plan cancellation notices was set to crash on voters this fall. But the Obama administration found a way to shut that whole thing down. According to The Hill:

As early as this week, according to two sources, the White House will announce a new directive allowing insurers to continue offering health plans that do not meet ObamaCare's minimum coverage requirements.

Prolonging the "keep your plan" fix will avoid another wave of health policy cancellations otherwise expected this fall.

The cancellations would have created a firestorm for Democratic candidates in the last, crucial weeks before Election Day.

The White House is intent on protecting its allies in the Senate, where Democrats face a battle to keep control of the chamber. [The Hill]

Who knew that the Affordable Care Act could so conveniently conform itself to the changing political aims of the White House? The rule of law seems so much more negotiable now.

Despite lackluster conditions in New York City, Boston and the surrounding parts of New England received plenty of snowfall on Tuesday — some parts of the region received almost three feet of snow.

At midnight on Wednesday, Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker lifted the state travel ban, and Boston's MBTA transit system has resumed service. Boston Mayor Marty Walsh said he hoped the city's major roads would be cleared on Wednesday morning so the snow emergency could be lifted.

After the storm, New England will still experience bitter cold, though: The low in Boston is expected to be 10 degrees Fahrenheit on Wednesday, with a wind chill of minus five degrees Fahrenheit. Forecasters predict Boston temperatures won't be above freezing in the next week.

On Tuesday, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence (R) announced that his state will accept the Affordable Care Act's expansion of Medicaid, after gaining some concessions from the Obama administration. Under the deal, all new Medicaid enrollees will have to pay for part of their monthly premium, from $1 to $26 for single adults, depending on income, and they'll lose coverage for six months if they fall behind. Beneficiaries who inappropriately overuse the emergency room will also face copays of up to $25.

The Indiana waivers are "the latest example of how the GOP is trying to broaden its reach by appealing to lower earners," as well as "a growing willingness by the Obama administration to cut deals with states in order to expand insurance coverage under the 2010 health law after the Supreme Court hampered that effort," The Wall Street Journal explains. The deal could pave the way for a handful of on-the-fence GOP-led states to expand Medicaid, too — and prompt states that already adopted the ObamaCare expansion to seek similar waivers.

On Wednesday, Jordan said it has offered to hand convicted terrorist Sajida al-Rishawi to Islamic State in exchange for a Jordanian air force pilot captured by ISIS, First Lt. Moaz al-Kasasbeh. ISIS had threatened to kill Kasasbeh and a Japanese journalist today if their demands weren't met. Jordan's statement didn't mention the Japanese hostage, Kenji Goto. Earlier Wednesday, Kasasbeh's father had angrily urged Jordan's King Abdullah II to make the exchange.

Hezbollah is claiming responsibility for an attack Wednesday against an Israeli military convoy near the Israel-Lebanon border. After the attack — in which an anti-tank missile hit a vehicle, injuring four Israeli soldiers, a military source tells Reuters — Israel sent helicopters and fired at least 35 artillery shells into Lebanon, according to Lebanese security officials.

The attacks follow weeks of rising tensions in the Lebanon-Syria-Israel border area. Earlier Wednesday, Israeli jets hit Syrian military artillery posts, apparently in retaliation for Tuesday's Syrian rocket attack into the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. An Israeli airstrike on Jan. 18 killed a Hezbollah commander and a general in Iran's Revolutionary Guards; Iran is a primary sponsor of both Hezbollah and the Syrian government.

When Dr. Ghofran Ageely received the X-ray of his 16-month-old patient, he was not expecting to see SpongeBob SquarePants looking back at him.

The radiology resident at King Abdulaziz University Hospital in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, was caught off guard when he saw the cartoon character clearly show up in the image. "I thought it was just a pin," Ageely told ABC News in an email. "But when I opened the front view I was shocked to see SpongeBob looking at me with a big smile. Its angle and rotation are just perfect."

The tiny figure appeared to be a pendant, and it was safely removed from the child through a scope.

Patriots coach Bill Belichick acknowledged that he's "not a scientist" when he floated the theory that "atmospheric conditions" and not human meddling was behind New England's under-inflated footballs in their Super Bowl–clinching win against the Indianapolis Colts. So the National Football League is hiring actual scientists — the Columbia University physic department, in fact — to help the league understand how weather and temperature affect football pressure, The New York Times reports.

Lorin Reisner, a partner in law firm the NFL hired to look into "deflategate," called the Columbia physic department on Monday requesting "to consult with a physicist on matters relating to gas physics," according to notes taken by an administrative manager and a follow-up email, both seen by The Times.

There has actually been a fairly heated debate over Belichick's espoused theory, though it should be noted that team loyalties may be clouding judgments: Some of the high-profile scientists siding with Belichick are from the Boston area (a.k.a Patriots central), while Bill Nye ("the Science Guy"), who pooh-poohed the explanation on TV, is from Seattle, home to New England's rival Seahawks in the upcoming Super Bowl. For what it's worth, NFL football maker Wilson Sporting Goods Co. calls Belichick's nature-did-it excuse "BS."

Luckily, the NFL isn't relying entirely on science: It has hired investigators from Renaissance Associates to look over video and other electronic evidence.

Do you compare your tweets to a summer day? If so, a new website can help you turn your 140-character prose into a sonnet (possibly) worthy of Shakespeare.

Poetweet was developed by the Brazil Contemporary Art Center (b_arco) in San Paolo, which says the poems "are made by combining all user tweets and finding rhymes between them, creating curious results and sometimes surreal." The process is simple: Go to the site, enter your Twitter handle, and then choose between a sonnet (14 lines), rondel (4 lines, 4 lines, 5 lines) or an indriso (eight verses).

In mere moments, Poetweet scans your profile and gives you a poem based on your musings. Results will vary, of course, depending on what you've tweeted about — Carolyn Kellogg from the Los Angeles Times said her poem turned out "pretty awful" — but who knows, it could show you're the next Dickinson or Frost.

Since we haven't reached peak Frozen yet, the songwriters behind the movie's earworm "Let It Go" will pen an original musical number for this year's Academy Awards.

Host Neil Patrick Harris and special guests will perform an "original multimedia musical sequence" called "Moving Pictures," producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron announced Tuesday. Songwriters Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez said they are huge fans of Harris, and "when he asked us to write him a song for this year's show we said 'Yes!' before he could finish the sentence — it's possible he may have been asking us for something else." The Academy Awards will take place Feb. 22.

A trio of brazen thieves crashed a stolen SUV into the entrance to the Wells Fargo History Museum in San Francisco and took off with $10,000 worth of gold nuggets.

At about 2:30 a.m. Tuesday morning, the ski mask–wearing suspects held up a security guard at gunpoint and then grabbed at least 10 ounces of gold before taking off in a four-door sedan, NBC Bay Area reports. Wells Fargo spokesman Ruben Pulido said in a statement the company was "disturbed" by the heist, but "grateful no team member was harmed." Historic stagecoaches on the premises were not damaged.

This wasn't the first time thieves in San Francisco have used vehicles in their bold burglaries; last year, burglars drove into the Chanel store near Union Square, and two weeks ago two men backed a U-Haul into a Patagonia store near Fisherman's Wharf. Police do not think any of the incidents are related.

After a second day of closed-door meetings, Democrats in the New York State Assembly announced late Tuesday that embattled Speaker Sheldon Silver's long tenure will end Monday. It's unclear if Silver agreed to step aside, though he told reporters he "will not hinder a succession process." Majority Leader Joseph Morelle, from Rochester, will take over as interim speaker until the Assembly elects a new speaker, with a vote tentatively scheduled for Feb. 10.

Morelle is a leading candidate to replace Silver, 70, who has led the Assembly since 1994, but New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) is eager to have a speaker from the city, like Silver. Assemblyman Joseph Lentol, from Brooklyn, said that the Assembly Democrats won't allow de Blasio or Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) any input in their selection. Silver, fighting federal corruption charge, is not resigning his seat.