• CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) -- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez says he has returned home to Venezuela after more than two months of medical treatment in Cuba following cancer surgery.
• Chavez says in a message on his Twitter account that he had arrived in Venezuela. He says "we will continue our treatment here."
• ___
• White House: Backup immigration plan being offered only in case Congress fails
• WASHINGTON (AP) -- The White House is downplaying its draft proposal as merely a backup plan if lawmakers don't come up with an immigration overhaul of their own. It won't be necessary, Republican and Democratic lawmakers alike are telling the Obama administration.
• White House chief of staff Denis McDonough said Sunday that President Barack Obama wants to "be prepared" in case the small bipartisan group of senators fails to devise a plan for the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the United States. In response, lawmakers assured the White House they are working on their own plan -- and warned that Obama would be heading toward failure if the White House gets ahead of them.
• "We will be prepared with our own plan if these ongoing talks between Republicans and Democrats up on Capitol Hill break down," McDonough said, adding he's optimistic they would not crumble.
• But he was equally realistic about the fierce partisanship on Capitol Hill.
• "Well, let's make sure that it doesn't have to be proposed," McDonough said of the president's pitch, first reported on USA Today's website late Saturday.
• ___

• HEBER SPRINGS, Ark. (AP) -- Perhaps there was one heartbreak too many for

(Continued on page 33)