The art of the "fiscal cliff" deal

Nobody said it would be easy.

Senators voted in the pre-dawn hours of New Year's Day to pass the long-sought agreement on the "fiscal cliff" and the House readies for its turn as soon as today, which, if the House passes it, would officially avert the tax hikes and spending cuts that technically took effect at midnight (the deal, when signed by the president, will make the new tax rates and spending retroactive to midnight).

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Biden advises not to predict outcome of "cliff" deal

How did the politicians involved get to their final agreement? Here's the rundown, according to officials familiar with the talks and with the White House's thinking:

Friday through Sunday: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's opening offer Friday night to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was a $750,000 income tax threshold and no jobless benefits and no extension of the earned-income tax credit and other low-income tax breaks, means-testing Medicare, and the Bush era estate tax rates. Offers bounced back and forth Saturday and on Sunday, Reid opted out and handed talks over to Vice President Joe Biden (at McConnell's suggestion). President Obama, Reid and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi were in tandem through the talks. Delaying the federal spending cuts, or sequester, fell out of the talks on Sunday but McConnell came down to $550,000 in income tax threshold and some estate tax concessions reflected in the final deal.

Sunday, 8 p.m. ET: Mr. Obama and senior staff met in the Oval Office to discuss their final counter-offer to McConnell. The president set the $400K and $450K income threshold with one-year of jobless benefits and some delay of the sequester. Biden and McConnell talked through the night. Their last call was at 12:45 a.m.

After that, Mr. Obama and Biden met in the Oval until 2 a.m. to go over final details. Mr. Obama sent his legislative liaison Rob Nabors to Capitol Hill at 2 a.m. to begin drafting a bill with Senate Democrats. Biden and McConnell spoke again at 6:45 a.m. The rest of Monday was devoted to resolving the sequester impasse.

Monday, 9 p.m. ET: Biden and McConnell sealed the deal by telephone (Biden spoke to McConnell after clearing final details with Mr. Obama). The president then called Reid and Pelosi for one final OK and the deal was announced/leaked/confirmed.

The officials also pointed out that to get to the final deal, moving Republicans from a position of no tax increases in debt ceiling debate to tax increases through tax reform after Mr. Obama's re-election to nothing more than $1 million in higher rates and now to $400,000 and $450,000 thresholds is a significant policy and political victory (worth $620 billion over 10 years).

When the big deal talks failed before Christmas, Mr. Obama's biggest goal was to get GOP buy-in on higher tax rates for the wealthy. It is regarded as one of the most significant policy victories in two decades, the officials said.

Compromising on the two-month sequester was difficult, the officials added. The White House wanted a full year of waiving the sequester but there was no time to negotiate the difficult policy details (the sequester talks took literally all of Monday).

As for the deal's effect on the deficit, it does not cut the deficit relative to what would have occurred if all the fiscal cliff tax cuts had been erased (meaning all Bush tax cuts expired) and the sequester kicked in full force. But, relative to a baseline that assumes all existing tax policy would have continued, the deal raises $620 billion in revenue. The Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) fix is not counted by the WH, for example, because its extension was assumed in the existing policy baseline (that doesn't mean it won't cost anything; just that the White House doesn't count the cost).

The jobless benefit extension for one year cost $30 billion and that is not paid for. The Medicare "doc fix" is paid for by savings that will be taken from other provider payouts in Medicare. It costs $31 billion, meaning those provider cuts will pay for protecting doctors from a 27 percent automatic cut in premiums.

And $12 billion in new revenue comes from allowing 401Ks and other retirement instruments into Roth IRAs. This is the revenue that forms half of the offset of the two-month sequester delay. The other $12 billion will come from a 50-50 split of non-defense and defense cuts.

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New School for Sandy Hook Duplicated to the Crayons

The students and staff of Sandy Hook Elementary School will return to school on Thursday for the first time since the shooting rampage that left 20 young students and six adults dead. The students will be in a new building where their old classrooms have been completely recreated.

Instead of returning to the halls of Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., they will be going to the building that used to be the Chalk Hill Middle School in Monroe, about six miles away.

Sandy Hook school was shut since Adam Lanza carried out his massacre shortly before Christmas.

Since principal Dawn Hochsprung was one of the victims of the shooting, the school will be led by interim principal Donna Page. Page was the school's prior principal who retired in 2010.

"Please know the inspiration you and your children have been to my staff and me as we connect with you at Chalk Hill," Page wrote in a letter posted on the school's website. "Be assured that the towns of Monroe and Newtown are working night and day to ensure the facility is safe, secure, and fully operational for our return," Page wrote.

The school will host a walk-through for families on Wednesday and "Opening Day" will be Thursday.

"I want to reassure you that we understand many parents may need to be near their children on their first day(s) of school and you will be welcome," Page wrote.

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The school is encouraging students to take the bus in order to help them return to familiar routines and said parents may come to the school's classrooms or auditorium throughout the day after the 9:07 a.m. opening. They are asking that no more than one adult family member accompany each child in order "to ensure a safe and secure environment."

In addition to a parental presence at the school, comfort dogs will be returning to brighten the day. Small armies of golden retrievers spread out all over Newtown in the days following the shooting to comfort mourners young and old.

Chicago's Lutheran Church Charities' K-9 Parish Comfort Dogs were in Newtown after the shooting and are traveling back to Connecticut today. Nine dogs and their handlers gathered at their building at 1 a.m. this morning to board a caravan of one RV and two vans heading to Connecticut.

"The community of Newtown will be going through the healing process for a very long time," the group wrote on their website. "The LCC K-9 Comfort dogs will be returning to Newtown...They will be there to greet children as they return to school."

The rest of the Newtown school district resumes classes on Wednesday.

Furniture and supplies from Sandy Hook were moved to Chalk Hill in order to recreate the classrooms just as they were.

Teachers photographed their classrooms at Sandy Hook in order to replicate everything about them, from the pictures on the walls to the crayons left on the students' desks. This is all part of an effort to make the students feel as comfortable as possible.

Workers completely retrofitted the former middle school to fit the needs of its young students, including tearing out bathrooms that were made for teenagers and rebuilding them for elementary-aged kids.

New security systems are being installed at Chalk Hill school, and Newtown Councilman Steve Vavrek told ABC News that the school will be "the safest school in America."

For a school that has gone through so much, moving forward does not mean forgetting.

"I want parents and families enduring the loss of their precious children to know their loved ones are foremost in our hearts and minds as we move forward," Page wrote. "Your strength and compassion has been, and will continue to be an inspiration to me and countless others as we work to honor the memory of your precious children and our beloved staff."

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At least 61 crushed to death in Ivory Coast stampede

ABIDJAN (Reuters) - At least 61 people were crushed to death in a stampede after a New Year's Eve fireworks display at a stadium in Ivory Coast's main city Abidjan early on Tuesday, officials said.

Witnesses said police had tried to control crowds around the Felix Houphouet Boigny Stadium following the celebrations, triggering a panic in which scores were trampled.

"The estimate we can give right now is 49 people hospitalized ... and 61 people dead," said the chief of staff of Abidjan's fire department Issa Sacko.

Crying women searched for missing family members outside the stadium on Tuesday morning. The area was covered in patches of dried blood and abandoned shoes.

"My two children came here yesterday. I told them not to come but they didn't listen. They came when I was sleeping. What will I do?" said Assetou Toure, a cleaner.

Sanata Zoure, a market vendor injured in the incident, said New Year's revelers going home after watching the fireworks had been stopped by police near the stadium.

"We were walking with our children and we came upon barricades, and people started falling into each other. We were trampled with our children," she said.

Another witness said police arrived to control the crowd after a mob began chasing a pickpocket.

President Alassane Ouattara called the deaths a national tragedy and said an investigation was underway to find out what happened.

The country, once a stable economic hub for West Africa, is struggling to recover from a 2011 civil war in which more than 3,000 people were killed.

Ivory Coast's security forces were once among the best trained in the region, but a decade of political turmoil and the 2011 war has left them in disarray.

At least 18 people were killed in another stampede during a football match in an Abidjan stadium in 2010.

(Reporting by Loucoumane Coulibaly and Alain Amontchi; Writing by Richard Valdmanis; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

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60 dead in New Year's stampede in Ivory Coast

ABIDJAN: At least 60 people died and dozens more were injured in Abidjan as crowds that had gathered for celebratory New Year's fireworks stampeded overnight, Ivory Coast rescue workers said on Tuesday.

An AFP journalist saw many injured children, while images broadcast by RTI television showed bodies stretched lifeless on the ground outside the city's main stadium.

Piles of abandoned shoes and clothing could also be seen at the stadium, where soldiers and police were deployed, along with UN peacekeepers.

"This is a real tragedy on this New Year's Day," President Alassane Ouattara said at the scene.

"We are all in shock," he added, saying a period of national mourning would be held.

The government said 60 people had died, with an average age of 18. Earlier, the head of military rescue workers, Lieutenant Colonel Issa Sako, told journalists that 61 had died.

"Forty-nine wounded were evacuated" by rescue workers, Sako said, adding that other injured victims had gone to hospital on their own. Another rescue official said at least 200 people had been wounded in all.

Sako said the flow of people at the stadium had caused a "very large crush" and that "in the crush, people were walked over and suffocated by the crowd".

Officials said around 50,000 people had gathered for the fireworks.

Witnesses said the stampede had broken out after the fireworks ended, though the cause remains unclear. It erupted near the stadium's main entrance, where security had set up tree trunks as crowd control barriers.

According to a police source, the crush occurred when two streams of spectators going in opposite directions crossed paths.

A security source added that rescue services "took some time to arrive".

Interior Minister Hamed Bakayoko said the "exact circumstances" of the tragedy are "under investigation by the security services".

Visibly shaken children were among the roughly 40 wounded taken to a hospital in the wealthy neighbourhood of Cocody, in the north of the economic capital.

A mother named Zeinab who had taken two of her children to the stadium found one of them in the hospital, a small boy who lay on a bed in a groggy state.

Zeinab said she "hurt all over" and showed a journalist the scratches on her body.

"I don't know what happened but I found myself lying on the ground with people stepping on me, pulling my hair or tearing my clothes," she said.

She said she had been knocked unconscious and that a young man had pulled her from the crowd.

The New Year's fireworks, the city's second in two years, had been touted as a symbol of national renewal under Ouattara after a violent post-election crisis that tore the country apart from December 2010 to April 2011, killing some 3,000 people.

The unrest began after Ouattara's long-time rival and former iron-fisted ruler Laurent Gbagbo refused to step down.

He was later arrested by forces loyal to Ouattara, with UN and French military backing, and transferred to the International Criminal Court in The Hague, where he is accused of crimes against humanity.

Though the troubled west African nation -- the world's top cocoa producer -- is still recovering from the political and military crisis, Ouattara had struck a note of optimism in a New Year's message on Monday evening.

He said the former French colony had "possibilities like seldom before" ahead of it, promising it would soon reap the rewards of economic growth and development.

- AFP/jc

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Stephen Hawking sucks opera singer into black hole (in an ad)

Ha. Ha. Ha.

(Credit:
MrCharliesView/YouTube; screenshot by Chris Matyszczyk/CNET)

Once you're famous, you get inundated with offers to appear in ads.

But which ones to choose? Should you peddle soap or Siri? Should you declare your love for Buick, while secretly pootling around in your Mercedes?

Stephen Hawking made an interesting choice to advertise auto insurance -- Go Compare's online auto-insurance comparison service, to be precise.

This U.K. brand's ad campaign has long featured Gio Compario, a portly opera singer urging people to, well go compare auto insurance rates.

You might not imagine that this would be an erudite scholar's first choice for an endorsement.

Ah, but in this ad, Hawking gets to suck the opera singer into a black hole.

And who doesn't know at least one authority figure, former lover, or plain annoying human being who might deserve such treatment?

For myself, the highlight of this quite joyous piece is the laugh that Hawking offers at the end.

There is something quite shivering about the coolly hawkish way Hawking offers: "Ha. Ha. Ha."

He told the Daily Mail: "I confess I am a fan of the Gocompare.com adverts, but I am also an opera fan, so I was delighted to be given the opportunity to help save the nation and silence Gio."

It's best not to get on Hawking's wrong side.

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Lovie Smith fired as Bears coach after 9 seasons

LAKE FOREST, Ill. The Chicago Bears fired coach Lovie Smith on Monday after the team missed the playoffs for the fifth time in six seasons.

Smith was informed of the decision by general manager Phil Emery on the day after the Bears beat Detroit to finish 10-6 but still didn't make the playoffs.

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NFL coaches, GMs sacked in firing frenzy

Smith led the Bears to a Super Bowl, but also saw his team collapse in the second half of the past two seasons. Hired in 2004, Smith led the Bears to three division titles, two NFC title games and a 2007 Super Bowl appearance in his nine seasons. His record is 81-63, and he leaves with one year left on his contract.

The Bears scheduled a news conference Tuesday to discuss the move.

Even though Chicago closed with a win, the Bears needed a loss by Minnesota to get into the playoffs. The Vikings, though, beat Green Bay to clinch a postseason spot, leaving Chicago as the second team since the postseason expanded to 12 teams to miss out after a 7-1 start. The other was Washington in 1996.

CBS Sports NFL Insider Jason La Canfora reported Sunday that Smith's tenuous hold on his job "would be further imperiled should his team fail to get into the postseason."

But Smith, who had one year remaining on his current deal, shouldn't have any trouble finding work. League sources told La Canfora that Smith should land head-coaching interviews with other NFL teams.

Smith's record ranks third on the Bears' all-time list, behind George Halas and Mike Ditka.

The highlight of his tenure was the run to the title game that ended with a loss to the Indianapolis Colts. It was the first time two black coaches met for the championship, with Smith going against his mentor Tony Dungy.

The Bears made the playoffs just three times and posted three postseason victories under Smith. The 2010 team beat Seattle after the Seahawks won their division with a 7-9 record, but the Bears lost to Green Bay in the NFC title game at Soldier Field.

There was speculation Smith would be let go following the 2011 team's collapse, but he got one more year while general manager Jerry Angelo was fired.

Ultimately, the struggles on offense did him in.

Known for solid defenses, Smith oversaw a unit that was consistently effective and at times ranked among the league's best with stars such as Brian Urlacher, Lance Briggs and later Julius Peppers. Smith emphasized taking the ball away from the opposition, and no team did it more than the Bears with 310 during his tenure.

But on the other side, it was a different story.

Smith went through four offensive coordinators in Terry Shea, Ron Turner, Mike Martz and Mike Tice. He never could find the right formula, even as the Bears acquired stars such as quarterback Jay Cutler and receiver Brandon Marshall over the years.

The offensive line has struggled in a big way over the past few seasons after age took its toll on a group that was a strength during the 2005 and 2006 playoff seasons. The Bears were never able to replenish, spending first-round picks on Chris Williams (2008) and Gabe Carimi (2011) that did not pan out.

Williams had his contract terminated in October, ending a disappointing run, and Carimi struggled this season after missing most of his rookie year with a knee injury.

While Angelo took the fall after last season, Smith was not without blame in the personnel issues over the years. He pushed to bring in former Rams offensive lineman Orlando Pace and safety Adam Archuleta, players who succeeded in St. Louis when Smith was the defensive coordinator there but were busts with the Bears.

He had no bigger supporter than team matriarch Virginia McCaskey, but the fans seemed split on him. To some, he was a picture of calm, a coach who never lost his composure and never criticized his players in public, the anti-Ditka if you will.

History suggests fans who are clamoring for a high-profile replacement such as Bill Cowher or Jon Gruden might be disappointed. The last time the Bears went with an experienced NFL head coach was when Halas returned to the sideline in 1958.

They might, however, go with an offensive-minded coach for the first time since Mike Ditka was fired after the 1992 season, given the issues in that area.

That the Bears would be in this spot seemed unthinkable after they ripped Tennessee 51-20 on Nov. 4. They were sailing along at 7-1 and eyeing a big playoff run after collapsing the previous season, with the defense taking the ball away and scoring at an eye-opening rate to compensate for a struggling offense, but the schedule took a tougher turn.

They dropped back-to-back games to Houston and San Francisco and five of six in all before closing out with wins at Arizona and Detroit. Injuries mounted along the way, and what looked like a playoff run slipped from their grasp, just as it did after a promising start in 2011.

That year, they won seven of their first 10 only to wind up at 8-8 after a monumental collapse sparked by a season-ending injury to Cutler.

While Angelo was fired, Smith got spared and Emery took the job with a mandate to keep the coach at least one more year.

He quickly went to work retooling the roster, landing Marshall in a blockbuster trade with Miami that reunited Cutler with his favorite target in Denver.

He also added depth in other areas, bringing in Jason Campbell as the backup quarterback after Caleb Hanie failed the previous season and teaming running back Michael Bush in the backfield with Matt Forte.

All those moves sent expectations soaring. The results were awfully familiar, though.

Now, Smith's out of a job.

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Time's Up: Sides Closing In on 'Fiscal Cliff' Deal

President Obama said an 11th-hour agreement to avert year-end tax hikes on 98 percent of Americans is "within sight" but not yet complete with just hours to go before the nation reaches the so-called fiscal cliff.

"There are still issues left to resolve but we're hopeful Congress can get it done," Obama said at a midday White House news conference. "But it's not done."

Congressional and White House negotiators have forged the contours of an agreement that would extend current tax rates for households making $450,000 or less; raise the estate tax from 35 to 40 percent for estates larger than $5 million; and prevent the Alternative Minimum Tax from hammering millions of middle-class workers, sources said.

The deal would also extend for one year unemployment insurance benefits set to expire Tuesday, and avert a steep cut to Medicare payments for doctors.

"I can report that we've reached an agreement on the all the tax issues," said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in an afternoon speech on the Senate floor.

Both sides remained at odds over what to do about the other significant piece of the "fiscal cliff" -- the more than $1 trillion of automatic cuts to defense and domestic programs set to begin tomorrow.

The White House has proposed a three-month delay of the cuts to allow more time to hash out details for deficit reduction, while many Senate Democrats want a flat one-year delay. Republicans insist that some spending cuts should be implemented now as part of any deal.

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"In order to get the sequester moved, you're going to have to have real, concrete spending cuts," Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., said. "[Without that], I don't know how it passes the House."

Vice President Joe Biden and McConnell, R-Ky., have been locked in behind-the-scenes negotiations for much of the day, sources said, following several "good" conversations that stretched late into Sunday night.

"We are very, very close," McConnell said today. "We can do this. We must do this."

If a deal is reached between Biden and McConnell, members in both chambers would still need to review it and vote on it later today. Passage is far from guaranteed.

"This is one Democrat that doesn't agree with that at all," Iowa Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin said of the tentative deal. "No deal is better than a bad deal, and this looks like a very bad deal the way this is shaping up."

"I don't see how you get something voted on today," Rogers said. "Even if they get a handshake deal today, you have to put the whole thing together and that's probably not going to happen before midnight. So it would make sense to roll into tomorrow to do that."

Failure of Congress to act on a tax measure by Tuesday morning would trigger income tax hikes on all Americans. The average family would pay an extra $3,446 in 2013 under the higher rates, according to the Tax Policy Center.

Regardless of the "cliff," virtually all workers are due to see less in their paychecks starting in January when the temporary 2 percent payroll tax cut will expire.

More than $1 trillion in automatic spending cuts to defense and domestic programs will also begin to take effect later this week unless Congress delays or replaces them.

"It is absolutely inexcusable that all of us find ourselves in this place at this time," Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., said Sunday night on the Senate floor.

"Something has gone terribly wrong when the biggest threat to our American economy is our American Congress," he said, echoing a frustration shared by many Americans.

Both sides say the cost of failure is high.

"If we are not able to reach an agreement, it will be dire," Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., said Sunday on ABC's "This Week." "Probably at least another million jobs lost, an unemployment rate over 9 percent, and putting us back into recession."

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State Department made "grievous mistake" over Benghazi: Senate report

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The State Department made a "grievous mistake" in keeping the U.S. mission in Benghazi open despite inadequate security and increasingly alarming threat assessments in the weeks before a deadly attack by militants, a Senate committee said on Monday.

A report from the Senate Homeland Security Committee on the September 11 attacks on the U.S. mission and a nearby CIA annex, in which the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other Americans died, faulted intelligence agencies for not focusing tightly enough on Libyan extremists.

It also faulted the State Department for waiting for specific warnings instead of improving security.

The committee's assessment, "Flashing Red: A Special Report On The Terrorist Attack At Benghazi," follows a scathing report by an independent State Department accountability review board that resulted in a top security official resigning and three others at the department being relieved of their duties.

Joseph Lieberman, an independent senator who chairs the committee, said that in thousands of documents it reviewed, there was no indication that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had personally denied a request for extra funding or security for the Benghazi mission. He said key decisions were made by "midlevel managers" who have since been held accountable.

Republican Senator Susan Collins said it was likely that others needed to be held accountable, but that decision was best made by the Secretary of State, who has the best understanding "of how far up the chain of command the request for additional security went."

The attacks and the death of U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens put diplomatic security practices at posts in risky areas under scrutiny and raised questions about whether intelligence on militant activity in the region was adequate.

The Senate report said the lack of specific intelligence of an imminent threat in Benghazi "may reflect a failure" by intelligence agencies to focus closely enough on militant groups with weak or no operational ties to al Qaeda and its affiliates.

"With Osama bin Laden dead and core al Qaeda weakened, a new collection of violent Islamist extremist organizations and cells have emerged in the last two to three years," the report said. That trend has been seen in the "Arab Spring" countries undergoing political transition or military conflict, it said.

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The report recommended that U.S. intelligence agencies "broaden and deepen their focus in Libya and beyond, on nascent violent Islamist extremist groups in the region that lack strong operational ties to core al Qaeda or its main affiliate groups."

Neither the Senate report nor the unclassified accountability review board report pinned blame for the Benghazi attack on a specific militant group. The FBI is investigating who was behind the assaults.

President Barack Obama, in an interview on NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday, said the United States had "very good leads" about who carried out the attacks. He did not provide details.

The Senate committee said the State Department should not have waited for specific warnings before acting on improving security in Benghazi.

It also said it was widely known that the post-revolution Libyan government was "incapable of performing its duty to protect U.S. diplomatic facilities and personnel," but the State Department failed to fill the security gap.

"Despite the inability of the Libyan government to fulfill its duties to secure the facility, the increasingly dangerous threat assessments, and a particularly vulnerable facility, the Department of State officials did not conclude the facility in Benghazi should be closed or temporarily shut down," the report said. "That was a grievous mistake."

The Senate panel reviewed changing comments made by the Obama administration after the attack, which led to a political firestorm in the run-up to the November presidential election and resulted in U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice withdrawing her name from consideration to replace Clinton, who is stepping down early next year.

Rice had said her initial comments that the attack grew out of a spontaneous protest over an anti-Islam film were based on talking points provided by intelligence agencies.

Lieberman said it was not the job of intelligence agencies to formulate unclassified talking points and they should decline such requests in the future.

The report said the original talking points included a line saying "we know" that individuals associated with al Qaeda or its affiliates participated in the attacks. But the final version had been changed to say: "There are indications that extremists participated," and the reference to al Qaeda and its affiliates was deleted.

The report said that while James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, had offered to provide the committee with a detailed chronology of how the talking points were written and evolved, this had still not been delivered to Capitol Hill because the administration had spent weeks "debating internally" whether or not it should turn over information considered "deliberative" to Congress.

(Editing by Warren Strobel and David Brunnstrom)

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President Obama says deal in sight to avert fiscal cliff

WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama said on Monday a deal to avert the fiscal cliff budget crisis was in sight, as dramatic New Year's Eve negotiations went down to the wire ahead of a midnight deadline.

"It appears that an agreement to prevent this New Year's tax hike is within sight. It's not done. There are still issues left to resolve, but we're hopeful that Congress can get it done," Obama said at the White House.

The framework of a possible deal to head off automatic tax increases due to kick in with the turn of a year appeared to be in place after through the night negotiations between Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill.

But Obama hinted that the proposed pact would not deal with complementary and punishing cuts to government spending also due to take place in the New Year, which he said would have to be dealt with down the line.

The president said the deal would extend tax credits for clean energy firms and also unemployment insurance for two million people which are due to expire later Monday.

"For now, our most immediate priority is to stop taxes going up for middle class families, starting tomorrow. I think that is a modest goal that we can accomplish. Democrats and Republicans in congress have to get this done."

Even if the Democratic-controlled Senate does sign off on a deal Monday, avoiding the cliff could go down to the wire.

The bill must then go to the Republican-held House of Representatives.

The chamber is in session on Monday, but House Speaker John Boehner has struggled to control his party's restive conservatives, many of whom may balk at signing on to any Obama-approved deal that raises taxes.

The key areas of friction are the income threshold at which taxes should rise, Obama's insistence on extending unemployment benefits and Republican demands for increased federal spending cuts.

Reports said that the deal would see taxes rise for families earning more than $450,000 a year. Obama had originally campaigned for the threshold to kick in for those making $250,000 and above.

"There are a number of issues on which the two sides are still apart," Democratic Senate Majority Harry Reid conceded. "Negotiations are continuing as I speak, but we really are running out of time."

Days of last-gasp talks have produced no deal between US political leaders struggling for a compromise to head off a fiscal crisis that could roil global markets and plunge the United States back into a punishing recession.

Republicans have dropped their demand for a new way of calculating inflation that would have cut the level of benefits for Social Security recipients.

But they were reportedly maintaining their insistence that estate inheritance tax rates stay at current levels.

The two sides remained bitterly at odds over the $109 billion in automatic spending cuts set to hit the Pentagon as well as other federal agencies beginning in early January.

Democrats said they were pushing for a delay of the cuts, known as the "sequester," for about two years, while some Republicans, including Senator Roy Blunt, said it was inconceivable to allow a delay without imposing more targeted offsets to pay for such a postponement.

Don Stewart, McConnell's spokesman, said in a statement on Monday that the Republican leader and Biden had talked long into the night to try to hammer out a deal.

Democratic congressman Chris Van Hollen said there was better than a 50-50 chance of a pre-midnight agreement, but his Republican rivals were a question mark.

"One big question of course is whether an agreement put together by the senators on a bipartisan basis, whether that can pass the House of Representatives," he told CNN.

Republicans largely oppose raising taxes on anyone.

There may be a push by conservatives to let the economy slide off the cliff so that taxes rise on all Americans, only for lawmakers to quickly turn around and vote for a tax cut on the middle class.

- AFP/de

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Geek pasties sparkle with 'Star Trek,' Grumpy Cat

Spock, have you seen my command pasties?

(Credit:
MontabahnPasties)

The words "geeky" and "sexy" haven't always seemed like they should go together, but a line of geek pasties from Etsy is looking to change that perception.

Pasties, for those unfamiliar with the term, are patches that cover part of the bosom for modesty or decorative purposes. In my mind, the highlight of MontabahnPasties' offerings is the "Star Trek" pasties. The famous logo/uniform insignia is available in either silver or pink versions with coordinating tassels. Though these look like the insignia from "Star Trek: The Next Generation," they're not likely to trigger your communicator when tapped.

For the meme crowd, there are Nyan Cat and Grumpy Cat pasties. The Nyan Cat pasties are particularly well rendered, complete with butt rainbow and rosy kitty cheeks. If you're more into feathery geek things, then the Angry Birds Red Bird pasties are worth checking into.

Apple fans will have plenty to dance for with the Apple logo pasties. Sorry,
Android users, I couldn't find green droid pasties anywhere in the Etsy store.

Each set of sparkly, cotton-backed pasties costs $45. They come with pasty tape, application instructions, and the promise to "never leave residue behind." One size fits all.

These pasties may be intended for the geek ladies, but there's no reason geek guys couldn't get in on the fun. A set of Spider-Man coverings may be just the ticket for subtly expressing your Marvel allegiance at the next Comic-Con.

Turn that frown upside-down, Grumpy Cat.

(Credit:
MontabahnPasties)

(Via Fashionably Geek)

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