GM recalls 145,628 mid-sized pickups for hood latch issue

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(Reuters) – General Motors Co said on Thursday it is recalling 145,628 mid-sized pickup trucks globally as the hood could open unexpectedly due to a possible missing latch.


Of the Chevrolet Colorado and GMC Canyon pickups affected by the recall, 118,800 are in the United States, 15,264 are in Canada, 7,492 are in Mexico and the rest are exports, GM said.






GM is recalling the model year 2010 to 2012 trucks because the hood may be missing a secondary hood latch, so if the primary latch is not engaged the hood could open and block the driver’s view and increase the risk of a crash, according to documents filed with the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.


There are no reports of crashes or injuries related to the issue, and there are four known cases of the secondary hood latch being missing, GM said.


GM said it will notify owners and instruct them to inspect their trucks for the presence of a secondary hood latch or take the truck to a dealer for inspection. If the secondary latch is missing, a new hood will be installed, the company said.


Dealers were notified of the issue on December 18 and GM expects to begin mailing letters to owners on January 17, according to NHTSA.


(Reporting By Ben Klayman in Detroit; Editing by Gerald E. McCormick)


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Judge rejects part of Apple App Store suit vs Amazon

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SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – A U.S. judge on Wednesday rejected part of Apple Inc‘s lawsuit against Amazon.com Inc‘s use of the term App Store, ruling Apple cannot bring a false advertising claim against the online retailer.


U.S. District Judge Phyllis Hamilton in Oakland, California, granted Amazon‘s motion for partial summary judgment, which only challenged Apple’s false advertising allegations. Apple leveled other claims against Amazon, including trademark infringement.






An Apple spokeswoman declined to comment, and an Amazon representative could not be reached immediately.


Amazon has stepped up competition against Apple in recent years, launching its cheaper Kindle tablet computer to go after the dominant iPad and trying to lure mobile application developers to its Kindle platform.


One of the first public clashes in their tussle was Apple’s 2011 lawsuit.


Apple accused Amazon of misusing what it calls its APP STORE to solicit developers for a mobile software download service. However, Amazon said its so-called Appstore has become so generic that its use could not constitute false advertising.


In a legal filing last year, Amazon added that even Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook and his predecessor, Steve Jobs, used the term to discuss rivals. Cook commented on “the number of app stores out there” and Jobs referred to the “four app stores on Android.”


In her ruling on Wednesday, Hamilton wrote that the mere use of “Appstore” by Amazon cannot be taken as a representation that its service is the same as Apple’s.


“Apple has failed to establish that Amazon made any false statement (express or implied) of fact that actually deceived or had the tendency to deceive a substantial segment of its audience,” Hamilton wrote.


A trial on Apple’s remaining claims is scheduled for August.


The case is Apple Inc v. Amazon.com Inc et al, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, No. 11-01327.


(Additional reporting by Alistair Barr in San Francisco; Editing by Tim Dobbyn and Jeffrey Benkoe)


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U.S. soul singer Bobby Womack says he has signs of dementia

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(Reuters) – U.S. singer-songwriter Bobby Womack said he is beginning to show early symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease, including trouble remembering names and song lyrics.


“The doctor said, ‘You have signs of Alzheimer’s,’” Womack, 68, told Britain’s BBC Radio 6 music station over the weekend. “He said it’s not bad yet but it’s going to get worse.”






He added: “How can I not remember songs that I wrote? That’s frustrating.”


The 2009 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee, whose hits include “Woman’s Gotta Have It” and “If You Think You’re Lonely Now,” suffered a number of health problems in the past year.


In March it was disclosed that he was diagnosed with colon cancer, which was later successfully treated, and he also underwent what was termed a “minor heart procedure.”


Other recent health issues included prostate cancer, pneumonia and collapsed lungs.


The soul veteran in October won the best album award from the British magazine Q for his 2012 release, “The Bravest Man in the Universe,” beating out much younger competition.


Womack got his start in the music business as the lead singer in the soul group The Valentinos, which he formed with his brothers, and played guitar for Sam Cooke.


He also wrote The Rolling Stones’ first chart topper in the UK, 1964′s “It’s All Over Now.”


(Reporting by Eric Kelsey, editing by Jill Serjeant and Cynthia Osterman)


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CEOs pan fiscal cliff deal, vow to continue debt fight

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(Reuters) – U.S. executives largely panned the congressional deal to steer America away from the “fiscal cliff,” saying Washington wasted an opportunity to address the nation’s long-term debt, but said they would continue to agitate for a better budget plan.


While CEOs expressed relief that $ 600 billion in tax hikes and spending cuts will not kick the fragile economy in the gut, their gratitude was salted with insults.






“I think this deal’s a disaster,” said Peter Huntsman, chief executive of chemical producer Huntsman Corp.


“We’re just living in a fantasy land. We’re borrowing more and more money. This did absolutely nothing to address the fundamental issue of the debt cliff.”


Former Wells Fargo CEO Dick Kovacevich said the agreement confirms that Washington and both parties are totally out of control.


“I think it’s a joke,” Kovacevich said of the deal. “It’s stunning to me that after working on this for months and supposedly really getting to work in the last 30 days that this is what you come up with.”


Kovacevich and others said business leaders need to consider a different approach, one that either bypasses lawmakers or lays out a much more specific plan for deficit reduction.


Corporate America had mounted a media blitz in the last two months, calling on Congress to both avert the potentially devastating fiscal cliff and replace it with a reasonable long-term plan to get the federal deficit under control.


Dozens of CEOs joined a loose coalition known as the “Fix the Debt” campaign, travelled to Washington to talk directly with lawmakers, visited the White House, and made regular rounds on TV news programs.


The executives scaled back their public posturing during the furious last-minute negotiations, which coincided with their holiday vacations, but some executives kept the phone lines to Washington open.


They are not happy with what their efforts bought them.


The final deal contained no meaningful spending cuts and adds trillions to the deficit, compared to the budget savings that would have occurred if the extreme measures of the cliff had kicked in.


It also set up another cliff of sorts in two months. That’s when the nation is expected to hit its borrowing limit, and when the across-the-board spending cuts known as “sequestration” are now scheduled kick in.


Despite executives’ distaste for the deal, they’re not turning their backs on Washington and are holding out hope for a greater deficit reduction plan.


“We cannot give up now, that’s not how a great nation acts,” said Honeywell International Inc CEO David Cote, a driving force behind the Fix the Debt group.


He said in a statement Wednesday that he’s “encouraged” by comments made by both Democrats and Republicans saying that more work needs to be done.


REGROUPING


Some in the business community are calling for a change in strategy due to the meager results of the fiscal cliff deal.


“It doesn’t work talking to the politicians, obviously,” former Wells CEO Kovacevich said. “What we’ve got to do is educate the American public that our country is going to hell.”


There are questions about how meaningful of a contribution Corporate America can make, especially if they do not deliver a unified voice on hard decisions such as industry-specific tax breaks.


Republican Senator Bob Corker from Tennessee said on CNBC on Wednesday morning that the business community could play a great role by pushing for concrete entitlement changes.


The business community appears reluctant to provide lawmakers with specific proposals.


Jon Romano, a spokesman for the Fix the Debt campaign, said the group has set out principles for a long-term deal, but it doesn’t want to prescribe what the policy should look like.


“We’re really looking to our elected leaders on both sides of Pennsylvania Avenue to come up with that solution to this issue,” Romano said.


Mark Kennedy, who heads George Washington University’s Graduate School of Political Management and served in Congress from 2001 to 2007, said business leaders need to do more.


He said executives should identify “sacred cows” that should no longer be protected, be more specific about how big a deficit reduction deal should be, and get specific about what they want included.


“It’s more helpful to get parameters as to what should be done than to just say, do something,” Kennedy said.


(Reporting by Scott Malone in Boston, Emily Stephenson in Washington. Additional reporting by Lauren Tara LaCapra and Ernest Scheyder in New York, Jim Finkle in Boston, Rick Rothacker in Charlotte and Nichola Groom in Los Angeles; Editing by Karey Wutkowski, Patricia Kranz, Dan Grebler and Leslie Gevirtz)


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Exclusive: McConnell defends 'imperfect' fiscal cliff deal

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Editor's note: This op/ed is by Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.


The first day of a new Congress always represents a fresh start. This year, it also presents a perfect opportunity to tackle the single-greatest challenge facing our nation: reining in the out-of-control federal spending that threatens to permanently alter our economy and dim the prospects and opportunities of future generations of Americans.


Earlier this week, I helped negotiate an imperfect solution aimed at avoiding the so-called “fiscal cliff.” If I had my way taxes would not have gone up on anyone, but the unavoidable fact was this if we had sat back and done nothing taxes would have gone up dramatically on every single American, and I simply couldn’t allow that to happen.


By acting, we’ve shielded more than 99% of taxpayers from a massive tax hike that President Obama was all-too willing to impose. American families and small businesses that would have seen painfully smaller paychecks and profits this month have been spared. Retirement accounts for seniors won’t be whittled down by a dramatic increase in taxes on investment income. And many who’ve spent a lifetime paying taxes on income and savings won’t be slammed with a dramatically higher tax on estates.


Was it a great deal? No. As I said, taxes shouldn’t be going up at all. Just as importantly, the transcendent issue of our time, the spiraling debt, remains completely unaddressed. Yet now that the President has gotten his long-sought tax hike on the “rich,” we can finally turn squarely toward the real problem, which is spending.


Predictably, the President is already claiming that his tax hike on the “rich” isn’t enough. I have news for him: the moment that he and virtually every elected Democrat in Washington signed off on the terms of the current arrangement, it was the last word on taxes. That debate is over. Now the conversation turns to cutting spending on the government programs that are the real source of the nation’s fiscal imbalance. And the upcoming debate on the debt limit is the perfect time to have that discussion.


We simply cannot increase the nation’s borrowing limit without committing to long overdue reforms to spending programs that are the very cause of our debt.


The only way to achieve the balance the President claims to want is by cutting spending. As he himself has admitted, no amount of tax hikes or revenue could possibly keep up with the amount of money Washington is projected to spend in the coming years. At some point, high taxes become such a drag on the economy that the revenue stalls.


While most Washington Democrats may want to deny it, the truth is, the only thing we can do to solve the nation’s fiscal problem is to tackle government spending head on — and particularly, spending on health care programs, which appear to take off like a fighter jet on every chart available that details current trends in federal spending.


The President may not want to have a fight about government spending over the next few months, but it’s the fight he is going to have, because it’s a debate the country needs. For the sake of our future, the President must show up to this debate early and convince his party to do something that neither he nor they have been willing to do until now. Over the next two months they need to deliver the same kind of bipartisan resolution to the spending problem we have now achieved on revenue — before the 11th hour.


When it comes to spending, the time has come to rise above the special interest groups that dominate the liberal wing of the Democratic Party in Washington and act, without drama or delay. The President likes to say that most Americans support tax hikes on the rich. What he conveniently leaves out is that even more Americans support cuts. That’s the debate the American people really want. It’s a debate Republicans are ready to have. And it’s the debate that starts today, whether the President wants it or not.



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France counts 1,193 cars torched on New Year’s Eve

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PARIS (AP) — A New Year’s Eve tradition for some in France of torching empty, parked cars has continued.


Interior Minister Manuel Valls said Tuesday that 1,193 vehicles were burned overnight around the country, where the stunt began in the 1990s.






There was no way to compare this figure to recent ones because the conservative government of former President Nicolas Sarkozy stopped making the numbers public while he was in office. But the rate of burned cars was apparently steady. On Dec. 31, 2009, 1,147 vehicles were burned.


For some, the decision of France’s current Socialist government to resume making public figures of New Year’s Eve’s torched cars is unwise.


Bruno Beschizza, a security chief for Sarkozy’s UMP party, said on iTele TV that publishing the numbers motivates youths to commit such crimes.


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Heartwarming moments defy chill at Rose Parade

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PASADENA, Calif. (AP) — A couple who became husband and wife on the “Love Float,” a surprise reunion between a returning soldier and his little boy, and a grand marshal famed globally for her chimpanzee research were among the highlights of the 124th Rose Parade on Tuesday.


The parade’s spectacular 42 floral floats brightened an otherwise cloudy New Year’s morning and boosted the spirits of a chilled crowd estimated at some 700,000 spectators lining the 5-mile route.






“The only way that you’re going to experience the Rose Parade is to be here in person,” said Los Angeles resident Gineen Alcantara-Nakama, who camped out Monday night to save front row sidewalk spots.


“Growing up, I watched it on television, but it’s not the same — the smell, the atmosphere, smelling the flowers as they come down the street. And the energy. It’s like being with family all night long.”


Spectators rose to a standing ovation when Army Sgt. First Class Eric Pazz, who was riding on the Natural Balance Pet Foods float along with other service members, got off the float and walked over to his surprised wife Miriam and 4-year-old son Eric Jr., who came running out of the stands into the arms of his 32-year-old father.


Miriam Pazz had been told she had won a contest to attend the parade and did not know her husband, who is deployed in Afghanistan, would be there. A native of Clio, Mich., Pazz is a highly decorated soldier who has also served in Iraq. The family, who currently lives in Germany, climbed aboard the float for the rest of the route.


Cheers also went up for a Chesapeake, Va., couple who tied the knot aboard Farmers Insurance “Love Float.”


Gerald Sapienza and Nicole Angelillo were high school classmates who reconnected 10 years later and won the parade wedding over three other couples in a nationwide contest. They received a trip to Pasadena, a wedding gown, tuxedo, rings, marriage license fees, Rose Bowl game tickets and hair and makeup for the bride.


The parade’s theme this year was “Oh the Places You’ll Go!” named in honor of the Dr. Seuss book. It served as a fitting slogan for grand marshal British primatologist Jane Goodall, who has spent much of her life in Tanzania studying chimpanzees.


Goodall chose conservation as her message for the parade


“My dream for this New Year’s Day is for everyone to think of the places we can all go if we work together to make our world a better place,” said Goodall, 78.


“Every journey starts with a step and I am pleased to see the Tournament of Roses continue to take steps toward not only celebrating beauty and imagination, but also a cleaner environment.”


This year’s parade also saw the first-ever float entered by the Defense Department.


The $ 247,000 military float was a replica of the Korean War Veterans Memorial in Washington to commemorate the veterans from that conflict.


The float that scooped up the parade’s grand “Sweepstakes” prize for the most beautiful floral presentation and design was “Dreaming in Paradise” by fruit and vegetable producer Dole.


According to parade rules, every inch of the floats must be covered with flowers or plant material, most of it applied by volunteers in the last weeks of December.


Besides floats, the parade also featured 23 marching bands and 21 equestrian units from around the world.


Banda El Salvador, a 200-plus member marching band and folkloric dance troupe, played sassy Latin rhythms and paid homage to their Central American country by dressing in the national colors of blue and white and shouting “Arriba El Salvador!”


The Aguiluchos band from Puebla, Mexico, earned cheers for their fancy footwork and vaquero rope tricks. Colorful dancers from Costa Rica and South Korea were other crowd pleasers.


Die-hard parade fans staked out their spots overnight or in pre-dawn hours with folding chairs, hammocks and portable barbeque grills despite frosty temperatures.


Emergency personnel received a number of cold-weather exposure calls, police department spokeswoman Lisa Derderian told City News Service.


As of 8 a.m. Tuesday, police had made a total of 22 arrests along the parade route since 6 p.m. Monday, said police Lt. Rick Aversan. All but one arrest were for suspected public intoxication. The other was for suspected possession of burglary tools that could have been used to break into cars, police said.


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“Fiscal cliff” crisis heads to resolution in Congress

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A months-long battle over the U.S. “fiscal cliff” headed to a close on Tuesday as the House of Representatives moved toward final approval of a bipartisan deal meant to prevent Washington from pushing the world’s biggest economy into recession.


The Republican-controlled House was expected to back a tax hike on the top U.S. earners shortly before midnight on Tuesday, ending weeks of high-stakes budget brinkmanship that threatened to spook consumers and throw financial markets into turmoil.






Approval of the bill would be a victory for President Barack Obama, who campaigned for re-election last November on a promise to raise taxes on the wealthiest but faced stiff opposition from congressional Republicans.


Republicans had earlier considered adding hundreds of billions of dollars in spending cuts after the bill had already passed the Senate with strong bipartisan support. That would have triggered further partisan warfare and pushed the crisis well past a self-imposed January 1 deadline.


But party leaders abandoned the effort after determining they lacked the votes.


“We’ve gone as far as we can go and I think people are ready to bring it to a conclusion,” Republican Representative Jack Kingston of Georgia said. “We fought the fight.”


Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier, a Republican, predicted the House would back the Senate bill, which also postpones for two months $ 109 billion in spending cuts on military and domestic programs set for 2013.


The bill easily cleared a procedural hurdle by a bipartisan vote of 408 to 10.


Lawmakers have struggled to find a way to head off across-the-board tax hikes and spending cuts that began to take effect at midnight, a legacy of earlier failed budget deals that is known as the fiscal cliff.


Strictly speaking, the United States went over the cliff in the first minutes of the New Year because Congress failed to produce legislation to halt $ 600 billion of tax hikes and spending cuts scheduled for this year.


TAX HIKES FOR WEALTHIEST


While many Republicans were uneasy with the tax hikes and wanted more spending cuts in the bill, they seemed to realize that the fiscal cliff would begin to damage the economy once financial markets and federal government offices returned to work on Wednesday. Opinion polls show the public would blame Republicans if a deal were to fall apart.


House Republicans had earlier considered adding $ 330 billion in spending cuts over 10 years to the Senate bill, which raises taxes on the wealthiest U.S. households by $ 620 billion over the same period.


But Senate Democrats refused to consider any changes to their bill, which passed 89 to 8 in a rare display of unity early Tuesday.


That measure, which passed the Senate at around 2 a.m., would raise income taxes on families earning more than $ 450,000 per year and limit the amount of deductions they can take to lower their tax bill.


Low temporary rates that have been in place for the past decade would be made permanent for less-affluent taxpayers, along with a range of targeted tax breaks put in place to fight the 2009 economic downturn.


However, workers would see up to $ 2,000 more taken out of their paychecks annually with the expiration of a temporary payroll tax cut.


The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office said the Senate bill would increase budget deficits by nearly $ 4 trillion over the coming 10 years, compared to the budget savings that would occur if the extreme measures of the cliff were to kick in.


But the bill would actually save $ 650 billion during that time period when measured against the tax and spending policies that were in effect on Monday, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, an independent group that has pushed for more aggressive deficit savings.


(Additional reporting by Rachelle Younglai, Thomas Ferraro and David Lawder; Writing by Andy Sullivan; Editing by Alistair Bell and Eric Beech)


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House finally ready to vote on fiscal deal

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Maneuvered into a political corner, House Republicans abandoned demands for changes in emergency legislation to prevent widespread tax increases and painful across-the-board spending cuts and cleared the way for a final, climactic New Year's night vote.


The decision capped a day of intense political calculations for conservatives who control the House. They had to weigh their desire to cut spending against the fear that the Senate would refuse to consider any changes they made in the "fiscal cliff" bill, sending it into limbo and saddling Republicans with the blame for a whopping middle class tax increase.


Adding to the GOP discomfort, one Senate Democratic leadership aide said Majority Leader Harry Reid would "absolutely not take up the bill" if the House changed it. The aide spoke on condition of anonymity, citing a requirement to keep internal deliberations private.


The legislation cleared the Senate hours earlier on a lopsided pre-dawn vote of 89-8. Administration officials met at the White House to monitor its progress.


"I do not support the bill. We are looking, though, for the best path forward," House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., declared after one meeting of the party's rank-and-file.


Despite Cantor's remarks, Speaker John Boehner took no public position on the bill as he sought to negotiate a conclusion to the final crisis of a two-year term full of them.


It wasn't the first time that the tea party-infused House Republican majority has rebelled against the party establishment since the GOP took control of the chamber 24 months ago. But with the two-year term set to end Thursday at noon, it was likely the last. And as was true in earlier cases of a threatened default and government shutdown, the brinkmanship came on a matter of economic urgency, leaving the party open to a public backlash if tax increases do take effect on tens of millions.


After intensive deliberations — a pair of rank-and-file meetings sandwiched around a leadership session, the GOP high command had not yet settled on a course of action by early evening.


Instead, they canvassed Republicans to see if they wanted simply to vote on the Senate measure, or whether they wanted first to try and add spending cuts totaling about $300 billion over a decade. The cuts had passed the House twice earlier in the year but are opposed by most if not all Senate Democrats.


"We've gone as far as we can go," said Rep. Jack Kingston, R-Ga. "I think people are ready to bring this to a conclusion, and know we have a whole year ahead of us" for additional fights over spending.


The economic as well as political stakes were considerable.


Economists have warned that without action by Congress, the tax increases and spending cuts that technically took effect with the turn of the new year at midnight could send the economy into recession.


Even with enactment of the legislation, taxes are on the rise for millions.


A 2 percentage point temporary cut in the payroll tax, originally enacted two years ago to stimulate the economy, expired with the end of 2012. Neither Obama nor Republicans have made a significant effort to extend it.


The Senate-passed bill was designed to prevent that while providing for tax increases at upper incomes, as Obama campaigned for in his successful bid for a second term.


It would also prevent an expiration of extended unemployment benefits for an estimated two million jobless, block a 27 percent cut in fees for doctors who treat Medicare patients, stop a $900 pay increase for lawmakers from taking effect in March and head off a threatened spike in milk prices.


At the same time, it would stop $24 billion in spending cuts set to take effect over the next two months, although only about half of that total would be offset with spending reductions elsewhere in the budget.


The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office said the measure would add nearly $4 trillion over a decade to federal deficits, a calculation that assumed taxes would otherwise have risen on taxpayers at all income levels. There was little or no evident concern among Republicans on that point, presumably because of their belief that tax cuts pay for themselves by expanding economic growth and do not cause deficits to rise.


The relative paucity of spending cuts was a sticking point with many House Republicans. Among other items, the extension of unemployment benefits costs $30 billion, and is not offset by savings elsewhere.


"I personally hate it," said Rep. John Campbell of California. "The speaker the day after the election said we would give on taxes and we have. But we wanted spending cuts. This bill has spending increases. Are you kidding me? So we get tax increases and spending increases? Come on."


Others said unhappiness over spending outweighed fears that the financial markets will plunge on Wednesday if the fiscal cliff hasn't been averted.


"There's a concern about the markets, but there's a bigger concern, which is getting this right, which is something we haven't been very good at over the past two years," said Rep. Steve LaTourette of Ohio.


House Democrats met privately with Biden for their review of the measure, and the party's leader, Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California, said afterward that Boehner should permit a vote.


"That is what we expect. That is what the American people deserve," she said.


For all the struggle involved in the legislation, even its passage would merely clear the way for another round of controversy almost as soon as the new Congress convenes.


With the Treasury expected to need an expansion in borrowing authority by early spring, and funding authority for most government programs set to expire in late March, Republicans have made it clear they intend to use those events as leverage with the administration to win savings from Medicare and other government benefit programs.


McConnell said as much moments before the 2 a.m. Tuesday vote in the Senate — two hours after the advertised "cliff" deadline.


"We've taken care of the revenue side of this debate. Now it's time to get serious about reducing Washington's out-of-control spending," he said. "That's a debate the American people want. It's the debate we'll have next. And it's a debate Republicans are ready for."


The 89-8 vote in the Senate was unexpectedly lopsided.


Despite grumbling from liberals that Obama had given way too much in the bargaining, only three Democrats opposed the measure.


Among the Republican supporters were Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, an ardent opponent of tax increases, as well as Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, elected to his seat two years ago with tea party support.


It marked the first time in two decades that Republicans willingly supported higher taxes, in this case on incomes over $400,000 for individuals and $450,000 for couples. Taxes also would rise on estates greater than $5 million in size, and on capital gains and dividend income made by the wealthy.


___


Associated Press writers Andrew Taylor, Larry Margasak and Julie Pace contributed to this story.


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Pope marks end of difficult year, notes God’s good

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VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Benedict XVI marked the end of a difficult year Monday by saying that despite all the death and injustice in the world, goodness prevails.


Benedict celebrated New Year’s Eve with a vespers service in St. Peter’s Basilica to give thanks for 2012 and look ahead to 2013. He appeared tired during the service and used a cane afterward — an indication that the busy Christmas season may be taking a toll on the 85-year-old Benedict.






In his homily, Benedict said it’s tough to remember that goodness prevails when bad news — death, violence and injustice — “makes more noise than good.” He said taking time to meditate in prolonged reflection and prayer can help “find healing from the inevitable wounds of daily life.”


This past year was full of highs and lows for the pope, including a successful trip to Mexico and Cuba but also the betrayal of his butler, convicted in October of stealing Benedict’s personal papers and leaking them to a journalist.


After the service, Benedict was brought out in a covered car to pray before the Vatican’s main nativity scene in St. Peter’s Square. Walking with a cane in the chilly piazza, Benedict chatted animatedly with the artist who crafted the scene, which recreated an entire village from the poor, southern Italian region of Basilicata which donated this year’s crèche.


The Vatican gladly accepted Basilicata’s donation after the €550,000 price tag the Vatican paid for the 2009 nativity scene was revealed in the documentation leaked by Benedict’s ex-butler Paolo Gabriele.


Gabriele was convicted of aggravated theft by a Vatican tribunal and sentenced to 18 months in prison. He received a pre-Christmas papal pardon and is expected to soon leave his Vatican City apartment for a new home and job elsewhere.


On Tuesday morning, Benedict celebrates a New Year’s Day Mass, which the Catholic Church celebrates as its world day of peace.


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