Obama reaches out to congressional leaders on ‘fiscal cliff’ talks

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With just five days left before the year-end “fiscal cliff” and pessimism mounting that a deal to avert it can be reached, President Obama returned to Washington on Thursday in an effort to jump-start talks after placing late-night calls to Congress’s four top leaders.


Obama made calls from Hawaii late Wednesday to Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), White House spokeswoman Amy Brundage said. She said Obama was seeking an update on the state of fiscal cliff talks before departing on an overnight flight back to Washington.


The White House provided no details about the conversations. The House is in recess pending action in the Senate, which convened Thursday amid a sense of gloom about chances for a deal to avert more than $500 billion in spending cuts and tax hikes set to hit in January.

McConnell “is happy to review what the president has in mind, but to date, the Senate Democrat majority has not put forward a plan,” a spokesman for the Republican leader said. “When they do, members on both sides of the aisle will review the legislation and make decisions on how best to proceed.”

Obama landed aboard Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews late Thursday morning Eastern time.

Earlier, Reid opened the Senate’s session with a scathing floor speech castigating Republican leaders in the House for not calling their members back to Washington to restart negotiations. He called the chances of going over the cliff increasingly likely.

Reid accused Boehner of putting a higher priority on keeping his job as leader of the House than on securing the nation’s economy. He said the only “escape hatch” out of the stalemate would be for Boehner to allow the House the vote on a measure adopted by the Senate over the summer to extend tax cuts for families making less than $250,000 a year.

Boehner has said the Senate must move first, and he has asked Democrats to take up a bill passed by the House in August to extend the rate cuts for Americans at all income levels. He has put the House on 48 hours notice to return to Washington but has indicated he has no plans to ask members to return without Senate action.

“Nothing can move forward in regards to our budget crisis unless Speaker Boehner and Leader McConnell are willing to participate in coming up with a bipartisan plan,” Reid said. “So far, they are radio silent.”

As a result, Reid said, the nation is increasingly unlikely to forestall tax hikes on nearly every American and deep automatic spending cuts on Jan. 1 — provisions that Congress approved in 2011 as a way to force compromise on a deficit-reduction deal. “It looks like that’s where we’re headed,” the Senate Democratic leader said.

Reid said Boehner will not bring up the Senate’s bill because he knows it would pass on the votes of Democrats and a handful of Republicans. He charged that the House is now run as Boehner’s own “dictatorship.”

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Oil prices decline on 'fiscal cliff' deal doubts

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NEW YORK: Oil prices declined Thursday amid doubts that an 11th-hour deal on the "fiscal cliff" crisis could be reached by a rapidly approaching end-of-year deadline.

New York's main contract, West Texas Intermediate (WTI) for February delivery, slipped 11 cents to settle at $90.87 a barrel.

Brent North Sea crude for February delivery dipped 27 cents to $110.80 a barrel in London trade.

With the clock ticking, the White House and Republican lawmakers have yet to reach a deal to keep the United States from falling off the so-called fiscal cliff, a combination of steep tax hikes and drastic spending cuts set to kick in next month.

President Barack Obama cut short his family Christmas break in Hawaii to return to Washington in a last-ditch attempt at reaching a compromise.

But the situation remained tense, with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat, saying Thursday "it looks like" the US economy will hurtle over the fiscal cliff because House Speaker John Boehner and Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell were stalling.

Crude oil prices were "being taken down on what appears to be the growing eventuality that the US is going to go over the fiscal cliff," said analyst John Kilduff of Again Capital.

There was "no doubt that the tax hikes and the spending cuts that will roll automatically will be a real drag on the economy for the us," he added.

Experts warn that going over the "fiscal cliff" could take the United States back into recession. And that could hurt oil demand in the world's biggest consumer of crude.

-AFP/ac



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Oriya author Prathiba Ray to get 47th Jnanpith award

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NEW DELHI: The Jnanpith Selection Board (JSB) on Thursday announced Oriya author Prathiba Ray's name for the 47th Jnanpith award for 2011.

The decision was announced after a JSB meeting that noted scholar, writer and Jnanpith award winner Sitakant Mahapatra chaired.

Born in 1943, Ray is one of the widely-read Oriya novelists and short story writers, a JSB communique said. "Her novels and stories are deeply and persuasively grounded in the great tradition of story-telling which brings characters and situations alive. She has a unique skill in developing the themes without being pretentious,'' it said.
Ray, who got Padma Shri in 2007, has 20 novels, 24 short stories' collections, 10 travelogues, two poetry collections besides a number of essays to her credit.

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Utah Teachers Flock to Gun Training

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The perception of schools as sanctuaries from violence has been "blown up" by recent events and some believe it's time for educators to literally take the situation into their own hands and carry guns.


"We've had this unwritten code, even among criminals, that schools are off limits. Those are our kids. You don't mess with that," Utah Shooting Sports Council (USSC) Chairman Clark Aposhian told ABCNews.com today.


"That perception has been blown away now," he said. "It's been shattered and if there's one thing that parents across the country are united on, it's that they are committed to and serious about protecting their kids."


Aposhian spoke shortly before opening a weapons training class for teachers and school employees that drew more than 200 Utah educators organized by the USSC, a leading gun lobby group that believes that teachers should be able to fight back when faced with an armed intruder.


"One firearm in the hands of one teacher could have made the difference at Sandy Hook or Columbine, but they weren't allowed to carry in those schools," Aposhian said.


The USSC is waiving its normal $50 training fee today for teachers who wish to attend. Aposhian said the 200 person course was filled to capacity and said he plans on holding another session for people he may have to turn away today.


INFOGRAPHIC: Gun in America: By The Numbers


"We trust these teachers to be with our kids for 8 to 10 hours a day every day," Aposhian said. "I don't think it's a far reach to think that we could think that they would act responsibly and with decorum in protecting their own lives and the lives of the kids under their care."












Gun Owners Give Back: LA Residents Return Guns After Newtown Tragedy Watch Video





The idea of armed teachers has been part of a fiery debate on gun control following the rampage at Connecticut's Sandy Hook Elementary School that left 20 children and six adults dead on Dec. 14.


Utah is one of only a handful of states, including Oregon, Hawaii and New Hampshire, that allow people to carry licensed concealed weapons into public schools. It is not known how many Utah teachers carry guns in public schools because the records are not public.


But Aposhian said that he tells detractors that Utah has not had any school shootings or accidental shootings in the approximately 12 years the law has been in effect.


In Ohio, the Buckeye Firearms Association is launching a pilot armed teacher training program in which 24 teachers will be selected to attend a three-day training class.


Arizona's Attorney General Tom Horne has proposed a state law amendment that would allow one educator in each school to carry a gun.


During today's six-hour training session, the educators will be taught about gun safety, loading and unloading, manipulating the firearm, how to clear malfunctions, use of force laws and state and federal firearm laws.


The training sessions normally draw about 15 to 20 people, Aposhian said, but many of the teachers who have signed up for today have expressed strong feelings about attending the class.


"I think it runs the gamut from passive desire to get a permit because they thought about it here and there to a fervor given the recent events," Aposhian said. "Perhaps they've had an epiphany of sorts and realized that that sanctuary they work in, or at least the perceived sanctuary, isn't all that safe."


The Utah State Board of Education Chair Debra Roberts released the following statement today on the matter:


"The Utah State Board of Education expresses sympathy to all involved in the recent school shooting in Connecticut. In the face of this terrible tragedy, as schools move forward in taking measures to ensure the safety of students and school personnel, we urge caution and thoughtful consideration."


The statement noted that its schools have emergency plans to handle such situations.


Carol Lear, the board's director of school law and legislation, was more blunt about Aposhian's gun training, telling the Associated Press, "It's a terrible idea...It's a horrible, no-good, rotten idea."






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How to Live to a Ripe Old Age

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Cento di questi giorni. May you have a hundred birthdays, the Italians say, and some of them do.

So do other people in various spots around the world—in Blue Zones, so named by National Geographic Fellow Dan Buettner for the blue ink that outlines these special areas on maps developed over more than a decade. (National Geographic News is part of the National Geographic Society.)

In his second edition of his book The Blue Zones, Buettner writes about a newly identified Blue Zone: the Greek island of Ikaria (map). National Geographic magazine Editor at Large Cathy Newman interviewed him about the art of living long and well. (Watch Buettner talk about how to live to a hundred.)

Q. You've written about Blue Zones in Sardinia, Italy; Loma Linda, California; Nicoa, Costa Rica and Okinawa, Japan. How did you find your way to Ikaria?

A. Michel Poulain, a demographer on the project, and I are always on the lookout for new Blue Zones. This one popped up in 2008. We got a lead from a Greek foundation looking for biological markers in aging people. The census data showed clusters of villages there with a striking proportion of people 85 or older. (Also see blog: "Secrets of the Happiest Places on Earth.")

In the course of your quest you've been introduced to remarkable individuals like 100-year-old Marge Jetton of Loma Linda, California, who starts the day with a mile-long [0.6-kilometer] walk, 6 to 8 miles [10 to 13 kilometers] on a stationary bike, and weight lifting. Who is the most memorable Blue Zoner you've met?

Without question it's Stamatis Moraitis, who lives in Ikaria. I believe he's 102. He's famous for partying. He makes 400 liters [100 gallons] of wine from his vineyards each year, which he drinks with his friends. His house is the social hot spot of the island. (See "Longevity Genes Found; Predict Chances of Reaching 100.")

He's also the Ikarian who emigrated to the United States, was diagnosed with lung cancer in his 60s, given less then a year to live, and who returned to Ikaria to die. Instead, he recovered.

Yes, he never went through chemotherapy or treatment. He just moved back to Ikaria.

Did anyone figure out how he survived?

Nope. He told me he returned to the U.S. ten years after he left to see if the American doctors could explain it. I asked him what happened. "My doctors were all dead," he said.

One of the common factors that seem to link all Blue Zone people you've spoken with is a life of hard work—and sometimes hardship. Your thoughts?

I think we live in a culture that relentlessly pursues comfort. Ease is related to disease. We shouldn't always be fleeing hardship. Hardship also brings people together. We should welcome it.

Sounds like another version of the fable of the grasshopper and the ant?

You rarely get satisfaction sitting in an easy chair. If you work in a garden on the other hand, and it yields beautiful tomatoes, that's a good feeling.

Can you talk about diet? Not all of us have access to goat milk, for example, which you say is typically part of an Ikarian breakfast.

There is nothing exotic about their diet, which is a version of a Mediterranean diet, which emphasizes vegetables, beans, fruit, olive oil, and moderate amounts of alcohol. (Read more about Buettner's work in Ikaria in National Geographic Adventure.)

All things in moderation?

Not all things. Socializing is something we should not do in moderation. The happiest Americans socialize six hours a day.

The people you hang out with help you hang on to life?

Yes, you have to pay attention to your friends. Health habits are contagious. Hanging out with unhappy people who drink and smoke is hazardous to your health.

So how has what you've learned influenced your own lifestyle?

One of the big things I've learned is that there's an advantage to regular low-intensity activity. My previous life was setting records on my bike. [Buettner holds three world records in distance cycling.] Now I use my bike to commute. I only eat meat once a week, and I always keep nuts in my office: Those who eat nuts live two to three more years than those who don't.

You also write about having a purpose in life.

Purpose is huge. I know exactly what my values are and what I love to do. That's worth additional years right there. I say no to a lot of stuff that would be easy money but deviates from my meaning of life.

The Japanese you met in Okinawa have a word for that?

Yes. Ikigai: "The reason for which I wake in the morning."

Do you have a non-longevity-enhancing guilty pleasure?

Tequila is my weakness.

And how long would you like to live?

I'd like to live to be 200.


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U.S. will hit debt limit on Dec. 31, Treasury Department says

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The U.S. government will hit the $16.4 trillion federal debt limit on Monday and turn to “extraordinary measures” to continue borrowing, the Treasury Department said Wednesday, beginning a countdown until Congress either passes legislation to allow for more borrowing or the government defaults on its debt.


Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner said in a letter to senior lawmakers that the Treasury would begin to undertake “extraordinary measures” in order to forestall default. Geithner said the measures could create about $200 billion in additional funding available to the government – giving Congress two months before it must raise the debt limit.


To begin conserving money, Treasury will suspend a program on Friday that helps states and localities manage their borrowing. In subsequent weeks, Treasury will start to tap the federal worker pension fund for additional financial resources. (The pension fund will be made whole once the debt limit impasse is resolved.) Geithner added that the resolution of the fiscal cliff could affect these estimates. In particular, he wrote, “the expiring tax provisions and automatic spending cuts, as well as the attendant delays in filing of tax returns, would have the effect of adding some additional time to the duration of the extraordinary measures.”

President Obama has insisted that the debt limit be taken off the table in negotiations between Democrats and Republicans over the fiscal cliff. But Republicans have insisted that the debt limit provides an important point of leverage to force spending cuts.

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Pakistan to mark five years since Bhutto murder

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LARKANA, Pakistan: Pakistan Thursday marks the fifth anniversary of the assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, with her son expected to launch his political career with a speech in the family's ancestral home town.

Bhutto, twice elected prime minister, was killed in a gun and suicide attack after an election rally in Rawalpindi, the headquarters of Pakistan's army, on December 27, 2007. No one has ever been convicted of her murder.

Thousands are expected to gather at the Bhutto family mausoleum at Larkana in the southern province of Sindh and Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, the son of Benazir and of President Asif Ali Zardari, is to make his first major public speech.

The Bhutto family has been a force in Pakistani politics for almost all of the country's 65-year history.

Benazir's father Zulfikar Ali Bhutto led the country from 1971 until he was ousted in a military coup in 1977. He was hanged in 1979 after being convicted of authorising the murder of a political opponent.

With a general election due in the spring, analysts say the ruling Pakistan People's Party (PPP) is eager to introduce a third generation of the dynasty to the public.

"It appears to be the formal launching of Bilawal Bhutto Zardari into politics," political analyst Hasan Askari told AFP.

"Bilawal has symbolic value in the Bhutto family and Zardari would like this link to be used as symbolism in the election."

As head of state President Zardari, who came to power in elections held a month after his wife's murder, is barred from leading the PPP election campaign. He is also hugely unpopular, tainted by years of corruption allegations.

Though the 24-year-old Bilawal will be too young to stand if elections go ahead as expected in the spring -- the lower age limit is 25 -- Askari said he could provide a fresh new figurehead for the PPP campaign.

Bilawal, co-chairman of the PPP with his father, in May accused former military ruler Pervez Musharraf of "murdering" his mother by deliberately sabotaging her security.

A UN report in 2010 also said the murder could have been prevented and accused Musharraf's government of failing to protect Bhutto properly.

The Musharraf regime blamed the assassination on Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud, who denied any involvement and was killed in a US drone attack in August 2009.

There has been a surge in terror attacks in Pakistan in the past weeks. Brigadier Saad Khan, a former officer with the powerful Inter-Services Intelligence agency, warned the Taliban may continue their campaign with an attack on events marking the anniversary.

-AFP/ac



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Manmohan congratulates Japan's new PM Shinzo Abe

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NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday congratulated Shinzo Abe, the new PM of Japan, on the victory of his Liberal Democratic Party in the general elections recently held in Japan. The PM underlined the importance of the strategic and global partnership between India and Japan and noted that Abe has been a key architect of this partnership, sources said.

He emphasized that the bilateral relationship between the two countries is of immense importance to ensure peace, stability and prosperity in the region and the world. He also noted that the rapid growth in the bilateral economic engagement (through trade, investment and flagship projects) has brought rich dividends to both the countries.

Singh expressed confidence that Japan's economy will further prosper and Japan will play an important role in the world affairs under his leadership and emphasized on working with him for further strengthening India's relations with Japan.

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Space Pictures This Week: Green Lantern, Supersonic Star

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Weather Death Toll Up to 6 as Storm Churns North

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A killer Christmas storm is churning its way north leaving hundreds of thousands without power and snarling travel plans for people trying to get home after the holiday.


Six people have died, mostly in weather related car crashes, as the South was hammered by as many as 34 tornadoes and a lethal coating of sleet and snow that spread from the South into the Midwest.


Over 280,000 customers are without across the South today with 100,000 without power in Little Rock, Ark. alone.


The wild weather isn't over. Eighteen states from Tennessee to Maine are under winter storm warnings, blizzard warnings and advisories. Between one and two feet of snow is expected from Indianapolis to Cleveland to Syracuse, N.Y. and into Maine.


The number of flight cancellations nationwide is growing by the hour on one of the busiest travel days of the holiday season. But by 2 p.m. more than 1,000 flights were canceled, according to FlightAware.com.


"Traveling will definitely be affected as people go home for the holidays," Bob Oravec, lead forecaster for the National Weather Service, told ABC News. "Anywhere from the Mississippi Valley into the Ohio Valley and the Northeast, there's definitely going to be travel issues as we have heavy snow and some very high winds."


Flights were disrupted in traffic hubs like Indianapolis International Airport because of heavy snowfall as well as Dallas/Fort Worth which was hit with five inches of snow on Christmas, a rarity for the city.


PHOTOS: Christmas Storms






Joe Harpring/The Republic/AP Photo













Cancellations and delays are expected to ripple into the Northeast today where high winds, flooding and more than a foot of snow in some areas is expected.


Heavy winds could further complicate matters for travelers. According to Flightaware.com, fliers are experiencing delays up to an hour in Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York City and Washington, D.C.


Some airlines are issuing flexible travel policies for travelers holding airline tickets today and tomorrow. Delta Airlines is allowing travelers to change their flights through Jan. 2 with no penalty. United Airlines has enacted a similar policy, as has Southwest. Policies vary slightly from airline to airline, travelers should check their carrier's web site for specifics. JetBlue, which has a major presence in New York, has not yet issued a policy but warned travelers via its web site to be prepared for delays.


Wild Holiday Weather


Severe weather on Christmas day spawned 34 tornado reports from Texas to Alabama.


In Mobile, Ala., a wide funnel cloud was barreled across the city as lightning flashed inside like giant Christmas ornaments.


The punishing winds mangled Mobile's graceful ante-bellum homes, and today, dazed residents are picking through debris while rescue crews search for people trapped in the rubble.


Teresa Mason told ABC News that she and her boyfriend panicked when they saw the tornado heading toward them in Stone County, in southern Mississippi, but she says they were actually saved when a tree fell onto the truck.


"[We] got in the truck and made it out there to the road. And that's when the tornado was over us. And it started jerking us and spinning us, "she said."This tree got us in the truck and kept us from being sucked up into the tornado."


The last time a number of tornadoes hit the Gulf Coast area around Christmas Day was in 2009, when 22 tornadoes struck on Christmas Eve morning, National Weather Service spokesman Chris Vaccaro told ABC News.






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