Cowboys hire Monte Kiffin to replace Rob Ryan

IRVING, Texas (AP) — The Dallas Cowboys have hired former Tampa Bay defensive coordinator Monte Kiffin as the replacement for Rob Ryan.
The team announced the move on its website Friday, a day after the 72-year-old Kiffin was at team headquarters to interview with coach Jason Garrett and owner Jerry Jones.
The hiring of Kiffin means the Cowboys will switch back to the 4-3 defense after going to the 3-4 under Bill Parcells in 2005.
Kiffin hasn't coached in the NFL since ending a 13-year run in Tampa in 2008. He spent the past few years coaching in college with his son, Lane Kiffin, at Tennessee and Southern California.
At Tampa, Kiffin's defenses frequently were among the league's best, and the Buccaneers won the Super Bowl with him after the 2002 season.

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Falcons get chance to end playoff misery

(Reuters) - The Atlanta Falcons earned the top seed in the National Football Conference (NFC) with a 13-3 regular season record but it is a miserable run of form in the playoffs they will try to end against the Seattle Seahawks on Sunday.
Three times in the era of head coach Mike Smith and quarterback Matt Ryan the Falcons have impressed in the regular season but have stumbled in their first games of the post-season.
Last year, the Falcons lost to the New York Giants in the wild-card round after having gone out to the Green Bay Packers in the previous year.
In fairness, both those losses came to teams who went on to win the Super Bowl that season while in 2008, the Falcons fell to the Arizona Cardinals who were so close to winning the whole thing that season.
But the inability of a team, which has looked to have quality in every area on both sides of the ball, to perform on the biggest stage has afflicted Ryan in particular.
In his three losses, the Falcons quarterback has thrown three touchdown passes and four interceptions and his best yardage was the 199 he threw for against the Giants last year - well below his career yards per game average of 243.
Ryan says he has learned from his mistakes and that this year he has been trying to keep to the same routine he has used throughout the regular season.
"The biggest thing is to get settled into your routine. Prepare the way that you normally prepare," he told reporters this week.
"My preparation this year in the regular season has been different than in the last four. I'll be consistent with that I've done this year."
The Seahawks are the biggest surprise package in the playoffs this year, having enjoyed an 11-5 season in the NFC West and then defeating the much-hyped Washington Redskins last week.
Rookie quarterback Russell Wilson has inevitably grabbed the headlines but Sunday's divisional round game could well come down to the match-up between Seattle's cornerback duo of Richard Sherman and Brandon Browner against Atlanta's impressive receivers Roddy White and Julio Jones.
"It is going to be a fun match-up," said Sherman, "They've got two of the best receivers in football. It is going to be fun."
Falcons coach Smith repaid the compliment: "I think it is arguably the best duo at the cornerback position in the NFL this year. They are big, long physical football players," he said.
With two quarterbacks in fine form, the outcome could well come down to who triumphs in that receiver-corner match-up.

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It's official: Shafer takes over at Syracuse

SYRACUSE, N.Y. (AP) — As he addressed the media at his first press conference as coach, Syracuse's Scott Shafer briefly fumbled for words as he looked over at his wife and two children and thought about his father.
"(Being a head coach) has been a goal of mine since I was 10 years old because I was influenced by my dad. I just have so many vivid memories of the influence that he had on so many young men and young women," Shafer said Friday as he remembered his father, Ron, a high school coach who died in 1994. "I came home for the funeral and I can remember as a couple of thousand people lined up outside waiting to see my dad. He touched everyone, and that's always been a goal of mine.
"It's hard not to be emotional about this sort of thing, but at a very young age I just knew it was something great."
Defensive coordinator the past four years for the Orange, Shafer succeeds Doug Marrone, who resigned and was named coach of the Buffalo Bills on Monday.
Marrone preached discipline, accountability, character, and integrity, in rejuvenating a team that went 10-37 under his predecessor, Greg Robinson, and transformed it into a two-time bowl winner. Syracuse finished 2012 at 8-5 after beating West Virginia 38-14 in the Pinstripe Bowl and earned a share of the Big East regular-season title with a 5-2 conference mark, its best since Paul Pasqualoni's 2001 team went 6-1.
Shafer promised to follow that lead with a foundation based on attitude, effort, and enthusiasm as the Orange prepare to leave the Big East and join the Atlantic Coast Conference in July.
"It's those three pillars that we will always point back to as we try to progress forward and make this community proud about the product that we put on that football field," Shafer said. "The thing that I like about Syracuse the city is that the people that live here and embrace it are tough people. They're hard-nosed people and they expect a hard-nosed football team.
"It's our job to put a product on the field that the community can say, 'That is us. That is our team. They're physical, and they're going to get after you when you come to the (Carrier) Dome.' We're going to storm that conference and do better than people think we can."
Shafer said he planned to meet with the players on Sunday when they return from semester break and Marrone is expected to address the team as well.
As for his staff, Shafer tabbed Chuck Bullough as defensive coordinator. Bullough was a two-time All-Big Ten linebacker at Michigan State and joins the Syracuse staff after two seasons as a defensive assistant with the Cleveland Browns. He was linebackers coach at Western Michigan in 2005 when Shafer was defensive coordinator and also spent five years at UCLA, the last two as defensive coordinator.
A big hole remains on Shafer's staff, though. Offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett, architect of a record-setting, uptempo offense this past season with fifth-year senior quarterback Ryan Nassib at the helm, has joined Marrone and the Bills in the same role.
"I want an offense that's fast, that's fun, and invested. I think Coach Hackett did a great job putting that on display, and we want to continue that," said Shafer, who was a quarterback in college. "What we're looking for is the right fit, that fit for Syracuse, and I'm not in a hurry to do that.
"We don't want to go about this taking the first guy that sounds exciting. We'll get the best guy in here that gives us a chance to put on a show on offense. It's unbelievable how many people want to be here."
With national signing day looming in early February, Shafer said one of his first priorities will be to reach out to recruits.
"We have to do a great job of tending to our prospects, the recruits that we're going after and trying to hold onto. You never know until signing day," he said. "I want guys that want to go to the Dome and say this is my home. All those other guys that are wavering, they'd just better make a decision that they're not going to play us if they decide to go elsewhere."
According to Rivals.com, Syracuse has received 14 commitments, nine of them three-star athletes, including quarterbacks Zach Allen of Texas and Austin Wilson of Pennsylvania. Scout.com listed 15 recruits, including five three-star athletes, and both websites had the class ranked No. 71 on Friday.
Prior to Syracuse, Shafer was an assistant at Michigan, Stanford, Western Michigan, Illinois, Northern Illinois, and Rhode Island. A 1990 graduate of Baldwin Wallace University, Shafer was one of Marrone's first hires.
Shafer's defenses have ranked among the nation's best in various categories during his four-year tenure with the Orange. In 2010, the Orange defense was No. 7 in the nation and he was nominated for the Broyles Award as the nation's top assistant.
Even though he won't be running the defense next season, Shafer doesn't expect the Orange to skip a beat.
"I envision an Orange crush defense that makes the opponents' families cringe when their child is about to get hit," he said with a smile. "I want to put the fear of God in the opposing football player that happens to have the ball underneath his arm. That's what we want to do, play an aggressive style of defense that people love to watch.

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GM to open third U.S. tech center, hire 1,000 people

DETROIT (Reuters) - General Motors Co will open a third U.S. information technology center as part of its plan to bring that work in-house and improve the automaker's efficiency and productivity.
GM said on Thursday it will hire about 1,000 people, including software developers, database experts and business analysts, to staff the center near Atlanta. It will be the third of four centers in the United States GM previously said it would open.
Last summer, GM, a pioneer in outsourcing information technology, said it would reverse that trend with plans to vastly expand the number of in-house IT experts over three years.
At the time of the announcement, GM outsourced some 90 percent of its IT services and provided 10 percent of that work in-house, an approach that had been the model at the Detroit company for most of the last three decades. The U.S. automaker said it planned to flip those percentages.
GM Chief Information Officer Randy Mott, a former Hewlett-Packard Co executive, outlined his plans last June to GM's IT employees, which then numbered about 1,500. GM currently employs about 2,200 IT staff and that number will rise to about 9,000 when the transition is completed, Mott said on Thursday.
"We've been on a journey for the past few months to transform GM IT," Mott told reporters on a conference call. "One of the key strategies in this turnaround is the opening of (information technology) innovation centers in key U.S. markets and bringing the work back in-house to GM."
Last October, GM said it would shift 3,000 people over six months to its payroll from HP, which has long handled IT work for the automaker.
In the two months prior to that, GM had announced plans to hire 2,000 workers to staff new IT centers in Texas and Michigan. The location of the fourth IT center will be announced later but employment will be on the same scale, Mott said.
GM said it has hired more than 700 IT specialists to work at the centers in Austin, Texas, and Warren, Michigan. The Georgia center will be located in Roswell, a northern suburb of Atlanta, and Mott said interviews for the location will begin next week with hiring to occur as soon as possible.

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Best Buy online sales rise as Amazon collects sales tax

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Best Buy Co, the world's largest electronics retailer, said its online sales have increased in certain markets as arch rival Amazon.com Inc collects tax on purchases in more states.
"In California, Texas and Pennsylvania where Amazon.com recently started collecting tax, it is very early, but Best Buy has seen a 4 to 6 percent increase in online sales observed in aggregate versus the rest of the chain," spokeswoman Amy von Walter wrote in an email to Reuters.
"While some people may still prefer to shop online, the sales tax parity has shown that people will shift their buying habits."
Amazon, the world's biggest Internet retailer, began collecting sales tax in California on September 15, weeks before the start of the crucial fourth-quarter holiday season. In the weeks leading up to the move, there were reports of binge buying of higher-priced items such flat-screen TVs by some California shoppers.
Amazon started collecting state sales tax in Texas in July and in Pennsylvania in September.
Critics of Amazon have argued it had an unfair advantage because big retailers, including Best Buy, Wal-Mart Stores Inc and Target Corp, have had to collect state sales tax on online sales for years because they have stores and other physical operations in these locations.
But many states, hungry for extra tax revenue in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, have introduced new laws requiring that Internet-only retailers also collect sales tax.
Big retailers hope the requirement to collect sales tax will reduce Amazon's price advantage and help them recoup some sales that lost to the Internet retailer.
Best Buy also saw an increase of 6 percent to 9 percent in online orders that are picked up in its stores in those three states compared with the rest of its chain, von Walter said.
Best Buy, which has been among the hardest hit by competition from Amazon, reports holiday sales results on Friday.
Best Buy shares closed 5 percent higher at $12.21 on Thursday, while Amazon shares were down about 0.4 percent at $265.34.
Despite the tax changes, Amazon's consumer electronics prices were still at least five percent below Best Buy's during the holiday season, according to Anne Zybowski, vice president of digital retail research at Kantar Retail. However, Best Buy may have benefited from even a small change in this area.
"Particularly in consumer electronics, any narrowing of Amazon's price advantage at the margin is important because Best Buy brings service and other shopper benefits to the category," she said.
Best Buy will take away people's old TVs when they buy a new one and the company's Geek Squad service will install devices in shoppers' homes, services Amazon does not provide, she noted.
An Amazon spokesman declined to comment when asked if the company saw an impact on fourth-quarter sales from the imposition of sales taxes in California, Texas and Pennsylvania. In the past, Amazon executives have said there was little or no impact from such changes in other regions.
Several analysts have argued that shoppers use Amazon for its vast product selection and convenient, fast shipping and returns, and not just its low prices.
Other retailers may not see a sales boost because, in categories beyond consumer electronics where service is less important, there will not be such a swing to store buying, Zybowski said, citing health, beauty and cosmetics as examples.
"I don't think retailers should get too excited," she added. "Best Buy results are isolated to consumer electronics. Once you start getting over the $100 purchase price level, the tax matters."
The main point is that new state tax laws are making Amazon equal to every other retailer in the United States, she added.
"If this had happened to Amazon when they were just a bookseller years ago, they may not be as big as they are now," Zybowski said.
But Amazon has built huge customer loyalty through programs such as its Prime shipping service and its Kindle gadget-and-content ecosystem and this should drive sales growth, she added.

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Native Canadians could block development, chief warns

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Native Canadians are so angry that they could resort to blocking resource development and bring the economy "to its knees" unless the Conservative government addresses their grievances, an influential chief said on Thursday.
Native Canadian chiefs are due to meet with Prime Minister Stephen Harper on Friday to discuss the poor living conditions facing many of Canada's 1.2 million aboriginals.
"We have had enough. Our young people have had enough. Our women have had enough ... . We have nothing left to lose," said Grand Chief Derek Nepinak from the province of Manitoba.
Activists have already blockaded some rail lines and threatened to close Canada's borders with the United States in a campaign they call "Idle No More."
Canada has 633 separate native "bands," each of which have their own communities and lands, and not all share the same opinions. The chief of the Assembly of First Nations, the aboriginal umbrella group, said his members had come to a tipping point, but he made no mention of damaging the economy.
"You cannot ignore what is happening with Idle No More... We will drive the final stake in the heart of colonialism and it will happen in this generation," Shawn Atleo told a separate news conference.
"First Nations are not opposed to resource development, they are just not supportive of development at any cost," he said.
Native Canadian leaders say they want more federal money, a greater say over what happens to resources on their land and more respect from the federal Conservative government.
"These are demands, not requests," said Nepinak. "The Idle No More movement has the people - it has the people and the numbers - that can bring the Canadian economy to its knees. It can stop Prime Minister Stephen Harper's resource development plan," Nepinak told reporters in Ottawa.
"We have the warriors that are standing up now, that are willing to go that far. So we're not here to make requests, we're here to demand attention," he said.
Aboriginal bands are unhappy about Enbridge Inc's plans to build a pipeline from the oil sands of Alberta to the Pacific province of British Columbia, and some say they will not allow the project to go ahead.
Some aboriginal bands oppose the Enbridge pipeline on the grounds that it is too environmentally dangerous while others say the company did not do enough to consult them before applying for permission to go ahead with the project.
"DIPLOMATIC HAND"
Nepinak said he wants to extend a "diplomatic hand" toward resolving the issues and gave no details about what he meant by bringing the economy to its knees.
Nepinak and other Manitoba chiefs are also demanding that Ottawa rescind parts of two recent budget acts they say reduce environmental protection for lakes and rivers, and make it easier to sell lands on the reserves where many natives live.
"We've been working tirelessly to gain access through various channels into this Harper regime ... . How do we trust the words of this prime minister?" Nepinak asked.
Successive Canadian governments have struggled for decades to improve the life of aboriginals.
Ottawa spends around C$11 billion ($11.1 billion) a year on its aboriginal population, yet living conditions for many are poor, particularly for those on reserves with high rates of poverty, addiction, joblessness and suicide.
As part of the Idle No More campaign, protesters blocked a Canadian National Railway Co line in Sarnia, Ontario, in late December and early January.

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'Smart' potty or dumb idea? Wacky gadgets at CES

LAS VEGAS (AP) — From the iPotty for toddlers to the 1,600-pound mechanical spider and the host of glitch-ridden "smart" TVs, the International CES show is a forum for gadget makers to take big — and bizarre — chances.
Many of the prototypes introduced at the annual gadget show over the years have failed in the marketplace. But the innovators who shop their wares here are fearless when it comes to pitching new gizmos, many of which are designed to solve problems you didn't know you had.
A search for this year's strangest (and perhaps least useful) electronic devices yielded an extra-loud pair of headphones from a metal band, an eye-sensing TV that didn't work as intended and more. Take a look:
—MOTORHEADPHONES
Bass-heavy headphones that borrow the names of hip-hop luminaries like Dr. Dre have become extremely popular. Rock fans have been left out of the party — until now. British metal band Motorhead, famous for playing gut-punchingly loud, is endorsing a line of headphones that "go to eleven" and are hitting U.S. stores now.
Says lead singer and bassist Lemmy Kilmister, explaining his creative input: "I just said make them louder than everybody else's. So that's the only criteria, and that it should reflect every part of the sound, not just the bass."
The Motorheadphone line consists of three over-the-ear headphones and six in-ear models. The initiative came from a Swedish music-industry veteran, and distribution and marketing is handled by a Swedish company, Krusell International AB.
WHO IT'S FOR: People who don't care about their hearing. According to Kilmister, the headphones are ideal for Motorhead fans. "Their hearing is already damaged, they better buy these."
PRICE: Prices range from $50 to $130.
—EYE-SENSING TV
A prototype of an eye-sensing TV from Haier didn't quite meet viewers eye-to-eye. An on-screen cursor is supposed to appear where the viewer looks to help, say, select a show to watch. Blinking while controlling the cursor is supposed to result in a click. In our brief time with the TV, we observed may quirks and comic difficulties.
For one, the company's demonstrator Hongzhao Guo said the system doesn't work that well when viewers wear eyeglasses. (That kind of defeats the purpose of TV, no?) But it turns out, one bespectacled reporter was able to make it work. But the cursor appeared a couple inches below where the viewer was looking. This resulted in Guo snapping his fingers to attract the reporter's eye to certain spots. The reporter dutifully looked, but the cursor was always a bit low. Looking down to see the cursor only resulted in it moving further down the TV screen.
WHO IT'S FOR: People too lazy to move their arms.
"It's easy to do," Guo said, taking the reporter's place at the demonstration. He later said the device needs to be recalibrated for each person. It worked fine for him, but the TV is definitely not ready for prime-time.
—PARROT FLOWER POWER
A company named after a bird wants to make life easier for your plants. A plant sensor called Flower Power from Paris-based Parrot is designed to update your mobile device with a wealth of information about the health of your plant and the environment it lives in. Just stick the y-shaped sensor in your plant's soil, download the accompanying app and — hopefully — watch your plant thrive.
"It basically is a Bluetooth smart low-energy sensor. It senses light, sunlight, temperature, moisture and soil as well as fertilizer in the soil. You can use it either indoors or outdoors," said Peter George, vice president of sales and marketing for the Americas at Parrot. The device will be available sometime this year, the company said.
WHOT IT'S FOR: 'Brown-thumbed' folk and plants with a will to live.
PRICE: Unknown.
—HAPIFORK
If you don't watch what you put in your mouth, this fork will — or at least try to. Called HAPIfork, it's a fork with a fat handle containing electronics and a battery. A motion sensor knows when you are lifting the fork to your mouth. If you're eating too fast, the fork will vibrate as a warning. The company behind it, HapiLabs, believes that using the fork 60 to 75 times during meals that last 20 to 30 minutes is ideal.
But the fork won't know how healthy or how big each bite you take will be, so shoveling a plate of arugula will likely be judged as less healthy than slowly putting away a pile of bacon. No word on spoons, yet, or chopsticks.
WHO IT'S FOR? People who eat too fast. Those who want company for their "smart" refrigerator and other kitchen gadgets.
PRICE: HapiLabs is launching a fundraising campaign for the fork in March on the group-fundraising site Kickstarter.com. Participants need to pay $99 to get a fork, which is expected to ship around April or May.
— IPOTTY
Toilet training a toddler is no picnic, but iPotty from CTA Digital seeks to make it a little easier by letting parents attach an iPad to it. This way, junior can gape and paw at the iPad while taking care of business in the old-fashioned part of the plastic potty. IPotty will go on sale in March, first on Amazon.com.
There are potty training apps out there that'll reward toddlers for accomplishing the deed. The company is also examining whether the potty's attachment can be adapted for other types of tablets, beyond the iPad.
"It's novel to a lot of people but we've gotten great feedback from parents who think it'd be great for training," said CTA product specialist Camilo Gallardo.
WHO IT'S FOR: Parents at their wit's end.
PRICE: $39.99
—MONDO SPIDER, TITANOBOA
A pair of giant hydraulic and lithium polymer battery controlled beasts from Canadian art organization eatART caught some eyes at the show. A rideable 8-legged creature, Mondo Spider weighs 1,600 pounds and can crawl forward at about 5 miles per hour on battery power for roughly an hour. The 1,200-pound Titanoboa slithers along the ground at an as yet unmeasured speed.
Computer maker Lenovo sponsored the group to show off the inventions at CES.
Hugh Patterson, an engineer who volunteers his time to making the gizmos, said they were made in part to learn more about energy use. One lesson from the snake is that "side winding," in which the snake corkscrews its way along the ground, is one of the most efficient ways of moving along soft ground, like sand.
Titanoboa was made to match the size of a 50-foot long reptile whose fossilized remains were dated 50 million years ago, when the world was 5 to 6 degrees warmer. The creature was built "to provoke discussion about climate change," Patterson said.
The original version of Mondo Spider, meanwhile, first appeared at the Burning Man arts gathering in Nevada in 2006.
WHO IT'S FOR: Your inner child, Burning Man participants, people with extra-large living rooms.
PRICE: The spider's parts cost $26,000. The Titanoboa costs $70,000. Engineers provided their time for free and both took "thousands of hours" to build, Patterson said.

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Obama to tap budget expert Lew to lead Treasury

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama will nominate White House chief of staff Jack Lew to be his second-term Secretary of the Treasury, turning to one of Washington's most knowledgeable budget experts to manage prickly fiscal negotiations with Congress and steer the still-shaky national economy.
Lew's nomination, expected Thursday, accelerates the overhaul of Obama's top advisers, with new leaders at the Pentagon, State Department, Central Intelligence Agency and Labor Department. Obama also must replace Lew with a new chief of staff, and that could have a ripple effect through the West Wing's senior ranks.
A day ahead of the formal announcement, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney praised the expected nominee: "Over the past more than quarter of a century, Jack Lew has been an integral part of some of the most important budgetary financial and fiscal agreements, bipartisan agreements in Washington."
Lew, 57, would bring to Treasury a mastery of federal budget mechanics, honed during two stints as director of the Office of Management and Budget. While running OMB during the Clinton administration, Lew helped negotiate a balanced budget agreement with Congress, something that has eluded Washington ever since.
Lew's budget background could help shape the Obama administration's strategy in talks with congressional Republicans over the federal debt ceiling. GOP lawmakers are expected to demand deep budget cuts as the price for agreeing to raise the debt limit, which is expected to be reached sometime in February.
"His resume is tailor-made for what is most important right now," said Diane Swonk, chief economist at Mesirow Financial in Chicago." On Wall Street, Lew was managing director and chief operating officer of Citi Global Wealth Management and then Citi Alternative Investments. At the start of the Obama administration, he oversaw international economic issues at the State Department.
Lew has long been considered the favorite to replace current Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. The last original member of Obama's economic team, Geithner plans to leave the administration in late January.
Lew's nomination will do little to quiet questions about diversity in Obama's second-term leadership team. The president's other nominees are all white men: Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., for the State Department, former Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel to lead the Pentagon and White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan for the CIA's top job.
One prominent woman in Obama's Cabinet, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, told colleagues Wednesday that she was resigning her post. No successor was named.
Like other Obama nominees for second-term Cabinet posts, Lew's selection underscores how the nation and the world have changed since the president took office four years ago.
Geithner brought to the job deep knowledge of Wall Street and financial markets at a time when the administration was seeking to shore up the big banks and pull the economy bank from the brink of a new depression. With the economy now stabilized, if still sluggish, Obama's second term is likely to focus more on battles with Congress over spending cuts and the debt.
Lew is expected to be easily confirmed by the Senate, though at least one prominent Republican has already stated his opposition.
"We need a Secretary of Treasury that the American people, the Congress, and the world will know is up to the task of getting America on the path to prosperity not the path to decline," said Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, the top Republican on the Senate Budget Committee. "Jack Lew is not that man."
His blend of experiences appeared to give Lew an edge other potential candidates for the Treasury job, particularly given the secretary's key role in coordinating with European allies on the continent's debt crisis.
"Geithner is handing off a European situation that is still a powder keg," said Brian Bethune, an economics professor at Gordon College in Wenham, Mass. "It is still the biggest threat out there facing the U.S. economy and the global economy."
Lew, a pragmatic liberal and Orthodox Jew who doesn't work on Saturdays, is well-liked in Washington by both Democrats and Republicans, and respected by staffers at the White House, where he has served as chief of staff since January 2012.
As chief of staff and head of OMB, Lew has already been a key player in several negotiations between the White House and Capitol Hill, including the recent talks to avert the "fiscal cliff."
A fresh series of economic deadlines would await Lew at the Treasury Department. The first will be the need, around the end of February, to raise the $16.4 trillion federal borrowing limit to avert a first-ever default by the government. That deadline is likely to bring a fresh confrontation with congressional Republicans over spending cuts.
Also, at the beginning of March, $110 billion in cuts to military and domestic programs will automatically kick in if no congressional budget deal has been reached by then. Congress and the administration postponed that issue in the fiscal cliff agreement that received final congressional passage on New Year's Day.
The third pressing deadline will occur March 27. That's when a congressional resolution that's keeping the government operating without a budget will expire. Without a new bill, the government could shut down.
The leading candidates to replace Lew as White House chief of staff are Deputy National Security Adviser Denis McDonough and Ron Klain, the former chief of staff for Vice President Joe Biden.

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Facing backlash, AIG won't join lawsuit against US

NEW YORK (AP) — Afraid of looking like a world-class ingrate, AIG on Wednesday decided against suing the federal government over the $182 billion bailout that saved the giant insurance company from collapse.
American International Group Inc. was put in the awkward position of having to consider joining a lawsuit brought against Uncle Sam by its former CEO, Maurice "Hank" Greenberg.
The suit claims that the terms of the taxpayer-funded bailout were too onerous. The government received a huge stake in AIG when it bailed the company out at the height of the 2008 financial crisis. AIG has since paid all the money back and notes that the government made a profit of $22.7 billion.
The timing could hardly have been worse for AIG. The company is in the midst of a "Thank You, America" ad campaign to show its gratitude for being rescued from the brink of collapse.
The prospect of the insurer joining the lawsuit had already triggered outrage. A congressman from Vermont issued a statement telling AIG: "Don't even think about it." Comedian Andy Borowitz likened the insurer to somebody suing a fireman for ripping a designer jacket after rescuing them from a burning building.
AIG, which was legally obligated to consider joining the lawsuit, demurred. The company said it would not join Greenberg's lawsuit and wouldn't permit Greenberg to pursue his claims in AIG's name.
"The majority of directors decided that the reputational damage was greater than the possibility on a long-shot lawsuit," said John Coffee, a professor at Columbia Law School who specializes in corporate and securities law.
AIG's CEO Bob Benmosche told CNBC in a televised interview that the company would be better off in the long run without the "headwinds" of the lawsuit and should look forward, rather than focusing on the past.
"It's not acceptable socially for AIG to take the money and go back and sue the government," Benmosche said in the CNBC interview. "A deal is a deal."
David Boies, an attorney who represents Greenberg's company, Starr International, said in a statement that AIG's attempt to prevent Starr from pursuing its claim was against the interest of the company's shareholders.
The insurer nearly imploded after making huge bets on mortgage investments that later went wrong. Regulators were concerned that if it were allowed to fail it would send shock waves through the financial system, which was already reeling as Lehman Brothers collapsed.
The company became a symbol for excessive risk on Wall Street and a touchstone of public anger. It was criticized by some members of Congress for spending $440,000 on spa treatments for executives only days after it was bailed out and for the millions of dollars in bonuses it paid to executives.
Since the financial meltdown, AIG has undergone a restructuring that has halved the size of the company, with the twin aims of focusing on its core insurance operations and repaying the government's bailout cash.
The insurer spun off Asian life insurer AIA Group in Hong Kong's biggest initial public offering in 2010, raising $20 billion, which was used to pay bailout debt. AIG also said last month that it would sell 90 percent of its airplane leasing unit, International Lease Finance Corp., to a Chinese investor group for $5.3 billion.
A federal judge has already dismissed one $25 billion lawsuit brought by Greenberg's Starr. The lawsuit, filed in November 2011, was dismissed in November by Judge Paul Engelmayer of the Manhattan federal court.
Mark Calabria, a former senior Republican aide on the Senate banking committee, said that while AIG had a duty to listen to its shareholders, the board must have weighed the potential bludgeoning it would have endured from regulators, lawmakers and taxpayers alike, had it decided to sue the government.
"There's a reason that big financial institutions don't generally sue the government. ... When was the last time you saw Citibank sue the government? They don't because if they did, the government might not bail them out next time," said Calabria, who is now director of financial regulation studies at the Cato Institute, a think tank that promotes limited government.
The Treasury Department announced last month that it sold all of its remaining shares of AIG after conducting six public offerings of the insurer's stock over 19 months. At the start of the sales, Treasury had owned 92 percent of AIG's outstanding common stock.
The Treasury said Wednesday that the lawsuit was "without merit" and welcomed AIG's decision not to support it.
"The board's decision not to join Starr International's lawsuit is the right result," Timothy G. Massad, Assistant Secretary for Financial Stability, said in a statement. "It is consistent with AIG's determination to rebuild the company, repay taxpayers, and move forward."
In November, AIG reported a third-quarter profit of nearly $2 billion thanks to strength in its insurance operations and investment returns. In the same period a year earlier it lost $4 billion.
AIG stock closed up 11 cents, or 0.3 percent, to $35.76 in Wall Street trading today. The stock has gained more than sixfold since bottoming out at $5.86 in March 2009.

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Wisconsin Assembly's all-nighters targeted

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — To young people, pulling an all-nighter usually involves lots of caffeine and staying up to study.
To the Wisconsin state Assembly, it's an all-too-familiar method of doing the state's business.
The new Republican speaker of the Assembly has some ideas for ending the all-night sessions, but he refused to announce what any of them were after a private meeting Tuesday with Democratic leaders. Talks were to resume Wednesday, but Democratic Minority Leader Peter Barca said "we're worlds apart."
If Democrats don't go along with what Republicans want, the Assembly's debate Thursday on approving the new rules could — wait for it — go all night.
"It's not hard to get people to agree it's not good to be working at 3 in the morning," said former Wisconsin state Rep. Bob Ziegelbauer. "It's another thing to create the conditions where that doesn't happen."
Going past midnight happens elsewhere, especially at the end of sessions or as other deadlines loom. But the Wisconsin Assembly routinely pushes debates and votes on contentious bills into the wee hours, when only lobbyists and the cleaning crew are left in the building.
"Those overnight sessions are just killers," said former Democratic state Rep. Mordecai Lee. "After a while you just zonk out. I remember being in overnight sessions and I couldn't think straight."
Some other states have taken steps to rein in the late-night sessions, such as the 11 p.m. in curfew in Pennsylvania or the midnight one in Oklahoma. In Minnesota, lawmakers require a vote to work past midnight, although they still routinely do it. The New York Senate has an unofficial but strict rule against marathon sessions. But there's no such rule in the New York Assembly, where the final session days have all gone into the early morning in recent years.
The Wisconsin Assembly's late-night sessions have produced some dramatic moments. Passage of Republican Gov. Scott Walker's plan effectively ending collective bargaining for public workers in 2011 came at 1 a.m. after a 61-hour filibuster. Republicans hustled off the floor to a barrage of insults from the gallery and yells of "Shame!" from Democrats.
Other times, lawmakers have burst into song, imitated one other or just become unusually candid.
Take Rep. Gary Sherman's tirade around 4 a.m. in 2008.
"This is unprofessional. This is stupid. We have no business to be here," Sherman yelled. "There's people in this room with cancer. There's people in this room with heart disease. A third of the room has high blood pressure. There's elderly people. There's pregnant people. What the hell are we doing?"
Ziegelbauer, who served 20 years in the Assembly before retiring last year, said the late nights can be frustrating.
"I drove home between 3 and 6 in the morning more times than I'd like to think," said Ziegelbauer, who lives about 2 1/2 hours from the Capitol. "It used to drive me crazy. The first couple sessions I would sit there and grind my teeth when the guy who lives 15 minutes away picks a fight that's going keep us there until 2 in the morning."
Lawmakers aren't alone in their dislike of the late nights.
"It's a huge impediment to citizen oversight of the Legislature," said Mike McCabe, director of the nonpartisan government watchdog group the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign. "It leads to fewer eyes watching the Legislature, and that's never healthy."
Any solution requires cooperation from both parties and a willingness to make the change, Ziegelbauer said. It could also mean being in session more than just a day or two a week, as is typical in Wisconsin, he said.
Previous attempts to make the Assembly act more like the Senate, which is normally done by 5 p.m., have failed.
Fresh off knocking Democrats out of control of the Assembly in 1995, Republicans instituted a rule ending debate at 8 p.m. But Democrats used that to their advantage, and Republicans repealed the rule two years later.
Democrats routinely stalled debate until 8 p.m., making it more difficult for bills they opposed to be taken up, said state Sen. Luther Olsen, a Republican who was in the Assembly the two years of the curfew. Olsen said Democrats would "just talk and talk and talk" until the deadline, then start the fight anew the next morning.
David Prosser, now a Wisconsin Supreme Court justice, was speaker of the Assembly at the time. He said such rules can work.
"It seems to me a rule that ends debate at a reasonable hour, except in extreme circumstances, is a very sensible rule," Prosser said. "On the other hand, there's practical difficulty in making that rule work if everybody in the body doesn't appreciate the value of the rule."
Walker has found himself on both sides of the issue.
As a member of the Assembly in 1997, he voted with Republicans to eliminate the 8 p.m. curfew. But in his run for governor in 2010, after the Assembly pulled two all-nighters, Walker promised to sign legislation that would bar voting after 10 p.m. or before 9 a.m.
"I have two teenagers and I tell them that nothing good happens after midnight. That's even more true in politics," Walker said then. "The people of Wisconsin deserve to know what their elected leaders are voting on."

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AIG says obliged to consider joining lawsuit against government

BOSTON (Reuters) - AIG has an obligation to consider a demand by its former chief executive that the company join a lawsuit challenging some of the terms of the insurer's 2008 government rescue, AIG said on Tuesday.
In a statement, American International Group said its board expected to make a decision "in the next several weeks."

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No joke: Obama to screen TV comedy "1600 Penn" at White House

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A "trophy wife" as first lady, a hapless college-aged son who burns down a fraternity house, and a daughter frantically taking pregnancy tests in a White House bathroom - this TV comedy had better be funny.
On Wednesday, President Barack Obama is slated to hold a private screening at the White House with the cast and crew of "1600 Penn," an NBC series about a dysfunctional first family.
The show, co-created by Jon Lovett, a former speechwriter for Obama, stars Bill Pullman as U.S. President Dale Gilchrist and Jenna Elfman as his first lady, and is named after the street address of the White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
A preview of the show, which premieres on Thursday, features first son "Skip," played by the show's co-creator Josh Gad, being rescued by the Secret Service after starting a fire at his college fraternity house.
"'Meatball' is in the oven," an agent says into his lapel microphone, using the code name for the hapless Skip as he is hustled into a waiting black SUV.
But the show, which is apolitical, aims lower than other recent television dramas about the White House, like Aaron Sorkin's drama series "The West Wing" or HBO's dark satire "Veep."
"We really wanted to dissect what it meant to be a family in the most extraordinary of circumstances - and what's more extraordinary than being the first family?" Gad told reporters last month.
So will Obama laugh?
The screening in the White House's family theater is "closed press," meaning pool reporters won't be there to document whether the comedy hits home.

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Bank of America, other banks move closer to ending mortgage mess

CHARLOTTE/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Bank of America Corp announced more than $14 billion of legal settlements over bad mortgages it sold to investors and flaws in its foreclosure process, taking the bank a step closer to ending the home loan problems that have dogged it for years.
About $3 billion of Bank of America's Monday's settlements were part of a larger $8.5 billion deal between 10 big mortgage lenders and regulators to end a loan-by-loan review of foreclosures mandated by the government.
Bank of America shares touched their highest level in nearly two years as investors called it a good step toward ending the company's multiple legal woes. The shares later retreated to close down 0.2 percent at $12.09.
Analysts have estimated that Bank of America has paid out some $40 billion for mortgage settlements since the crisis began. Most of those losses stem from its 2008 purchase of Countrywide Financial, once the largest subprime lender in the United States.
But the bank is moving closer to the day when it can stop worrying about mortgages and start focusing on growth, analysts and investors said.
"It's a step in the right direction in terms of trying to put these issues behind the company," said Jonathan Finger of Finger Interests Ltd, a Houston, Texas-based investment firm that owns 1.1 million of the bank's shares.
Besides the multibank foreclosure settlement, the second largest U.S. bank also announced about $11.6 billion of settlements with government mortgage finance company Fannie Mae to end allegations the bank improperly sold mortgages that later soured, and to resolve questions about foreclosure delays.
Bank of America had already set aside money to cover most of those settlements. The deal with Fannie wipes out 44 percent of the buy-back requests the bank faced as of the end of the third quarter. It also eliminates possible future repurchase requests on about $300 billion in loans.
Bank of America's home loan problems are far from over, though. It still needs court approval for an $8.5 billion settlement with private investors and it is locked in litigation with insurer MBIA Inc over mortgage-related claims.
The agreement also does not end a lawsuit the U.S. Justice Department brought against the bank last year over Countrywide and Bank of America loans sold to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the agency said. The suit accuses Countrywide and Bank of America of causing losses to taxpayers of more than $1 billion.
"I think there is still quite a lot of litigation to go, and I don't think we'll see the end of this for some time," said Thomas Perrelli, a former top Justice Department official, speaking of industry wide legal issues stemming from the financial crisis.
BANKS SETTLE
The settlement Bank of America, Citigroup Inc, JPMorgan Chase & Co, Wells Fargo & Co and five other banks entered with regulators pays out up to $125,000 in cash to homeowners whose homes were being foreclosed when the paperwork problems emerged.
About $3.3 billion of the $8.5 billion settlement with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency will be in cash, with the rest in changes to the terms of loans or mortgage forgiveness.
In April 2011, the government required banks that collect payments on mortgages, known as servicers, to review whether errors in the foreclosure process had harmed borrowers.
The review focused on foreclosures from 2009 and 2010 and looked at processes, including "robo-signing," where servicer employees or contractors signed documents without first reviewing them.
That loan-by-loan review proved slow and expensive, the OCC said.
The reviews had already cost more than $1.5 billion. They turned up evidence that around 6.5 percent of the loan files contained some error requiring compensation, but most of those errors involved potential payouts much less than $125,000, OCC officials said.
Other banks involved in the settlement include MetLife Bank, Aurora Bank FSB, PNC Financial Services Group Inc, Sovereign Bank NA, SunTrust Banks Inc and U.S. Bancorp.
Wells Fargo said its portion of the cash settlement will be $766 million, which will result in a $644 million charge when it reports fourth-quarter earnings on Friday. The bank said it will spend another $1.2 billion on foreclosure prevention actions, which will not result in additional charges.
Citigroup, which reports earnings next week, said it will take a $305 million charge for its cash payment portion of the settlement, while existing reserves would cover $500 million in loan forgiveness and other actions.
Housing advocates said they viewed the settlement as a positive move as it ends a flawed review process and provides some money, if limited, to consumers. But some advocates and lawmakers expressed dissatisfaction with the pact and suggested hearings could follow.
"I remain concerned that banks continue to avoid full accountability, and I believe that borrowers deserve more answers and transparency than the Federal Reserve and the OCC are currently willing to provide," said Elijah Cummings, the top Democrat on the House Oversight committee.
BOFA SELLS SERVICING RIGHTS
For Bank of America, the Fannie Mae deal was the much larger of Monday's agreements.
Fannie Mae and sibling Freddie Mac essentially buy mortgages from banks and package them into bonds for investors. But during the mortgage boom, banks sold loans to the two companies that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac say should never have been sold because, for example, borrowers had misstated their income. The two mortgage finance companies are pushing banks to buy back the loans.
On Monday, Bank of America also said it was selling the rights to collect payments on about $306 billion of loans to Nationstar Mortgage Holdings and Walter Investment Management Corp. Reuters first reported on Friday that Bank of America was talking to Nationstar and Walter Investment.
Investors appear to have decided the bank is on the right track as its shares hit their highest level since May 2011 on Monday. When Warren Buffett came to the bank's rescue in August 2011 with a $5 billion investment, he received warrants for 700 million shares of stock at $7.14 per share.

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Chesapeake's McClendon will not receive 2012 bonus

Chesapeake Energy Corp , the U.S. oil and gas company battling a governance crisis and financial strain, said on Monday its chief executive officer, Aubrey McClendon, will not receive a bonus for 2012.
The board, in a filing to regulators, said it made several changes to the company's corporate governance structure and executive pay. The company said McClendon recommended he not receive a bonus.
Other actions taken include deep cuts to incentive pay, a ban on personal jet travel for top executives other than McClendon, and measures to increase shareholder influence.
Last year was rough for Chesapeake and McClendon. The company faced both a liquidity crisis brought on by low natural gas prices and heavy spending and a governance crisis that resulted in big shareholders effectively taking control of the board of directors in June.
McClendon is under scrutiny from federal regulators and his board for blurring the line between his personal dealings and that of the company. He was stripped of his title as chairman of the company he co-founded in 1989 last year.
A Reuters investigation published in April found that McClendon had arranged to personally borrow more than $1 billion from EIG Global Energy Partners, a firm that also is a big investor in Chesapeake.
The loans, arranged through McClendon's personal shell companies, were secured by his interest in company wells. McClendon is allowed to take a 2.5 percent stake in every single well Chesapeake drills under a controversial program called the Founders Well Participation Program (FWPP).
He must also shoulder the same percentage of the wells' costs. After the Reuters report on McClendon's personal loans, the company's board, at the urging of major shareholders, said in May it would end the well program 18 months early in June 2014.
The FWPP has also come under the scrutiny of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the Internal Revenue Service and Chesapeake's board.
Other Reuters investigations found McClendon ran a $200 million hedge fund that traded in the same commodities the company produced and plotted with a competitor to suppress prices of oil and gas acreage in Michigan.
The U.S. Department of Justice is investigating Chesapeake's land deals in Michigan.
In each of the prior three years, McClendon received a bonus of nearly $2 million.
WINGS CLIPPED
Shareholders, who delivered a stringing rebuke of the executive and board in June at the company's annual meeting, have demanded change.
As part of the its efforts to shore up governance, McClendon will also reimburse the company for his personal use of company aircraft in excess of $250,000. Previously that amount was $500,000, according to a filing.
Chesapeake said it will also make deep cuts to other executive's incentive compensation and eliminate their personal use of company jets, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
The Oklahoma City, Oklahoma company also pledged to implement a shareholder proposal passed in June that would eliminate the staggered election of its board of directors.
Chesapeake originally lobbied for the Oklahoma statute mandating classified boards but said it will now seek to have all of its directors elected on a annual basis, beginning in 2013.
Among other changes, Chesapeake said will adopt a proxy access measure, action New York City Comptroller John Liu said will give shareholders a much stronger voice at the table. New York City pension funds hold 1.6 million Chesapeake shares.
Chesapeake also put in place a clawback provision on executive incentive compensation that can be exercised "in the event that the company is required to restate any financial statements ..."
Some viewed the changes as relatively minor. Mark Hanson, oil analyst at Morningstar said investors are more keenly focused on the outcome of the company's probe into the FWPP and McClendon's personal loans, as well as the 2013 budget and outlook.
"Cutting overhead and slashing bonuses won't do much for a company that's facing another potential multi-billion funding shortfall in 2013," Hanson said.
Shares of Chesapeake edged lower after the close of regular trading. The stock fell to $17.58 from its New York Stock Exchange close of $17.62.

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Citigroup fires private bank CIO amid job cuts - Bloomberg

 Citigroup Inc has fired Richard Cookson, chief investment officer of its private bank, as the company looks to cut costs, Bloomberg reported on Monday.
Citigroup will no longer rely on one person to lead the firm's investment strategy and will instead seek to "better leverage the existing in-house expertise across Citi," including its markets and banking research teams, Bloomberg said, citing an internal memo. (http://r.reuters.com/caw94t)
Chief Executive Mike Corbat named two company veterans to lead its institutional and consumer businesses on Monday and set lines of command to give him more direct responsibility for executives than his predecessor.
Cookson's dismissal was part of the job cuts the bank announced in December, Bloomberg said, citing a person familiar with the matter.

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AP Interview: Palestinian PM warns of cash crisis

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — The Palestinian self-rule government is in "extreme jeopardy" because of an unprecedented financial crisis, largely because Arab countries have failed to send hundreds of millions of dollars in promised aid, the Palestinian prime minister said Sunday.
The cash crunch has gradually worsened in recent years, and the Palestinian Authority now has reached the point of not being able to pay the salaries of about 150,000 government employees, Salam Fayyad told The Associated Press. The number of Palestinian poor is bound to quickly double to 50 percent of the population of roughly 4 million if the crisis continues, he said.
"The status quo is not sustainable," Fayyad said in an interview at his West Bank office.
The Palestinian Authority, set up two decades ago as part of interim peace deals with Israel, is on the "verge of being completely incapacitated," Fayyad warned. Only a year ago, he said he expected to make great strides in weaning his people off foreign aid.
The self-rule government was meant to be temporary and replaced by a state of Palestine, which was to be established through negotiations with Israel. However, those talks repeatedly broke down, and for the past four years the two sides have been unable to agree on the terms of renewing the negotiations.
In late November, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas won U.N. recognition of a state of Palestine in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem, overriding Israeli objections to the largely symbolic step. On Sunday, Abbas asked his West Bank-based government to prepare for replacing the words "Palestinian Authority" with "State of Palestine" in all public documents, including ID cards, driving licenses and passports.
Israeli officials declined comment, including on whether Israel would prevent Palestinians with new ID cards and passports from crossing borders and checkpoints.
The U.N. bid gave the Palestinians new diplomatic leverage by affirming the borders of a future state of Palestine in lands Israel captured in 1967, but changed little in the day-to-day lives of Palestinians.
In an apparent response to the U.N. move, Israel in December halted its monthly transfer of about $100 million in tax rebates it collects on behalf of the Palestinians. That sum amounts to about one-third of the monthly operating costs of the Palestinian Authority. Fayyad said he now only takes in about $50 million a month in revenues.
Israel has said it used the withheld money to settle Palestinian Authority debt to Israeli companies, and it's not clear whether the transfers will resume. In the meantime, the 22-nation Arab League has not kept a promise to make up for the funds Israel withholds, Fayyad said.
The head of the League has written to member states, urging them to pay the $100 million, Mohammed Sobeih, a league official, said Sunday.
Fayyad pinned most of the blame for the Palestinian Authority's financial troubles on delinquent Arab donors, saying they are "not fulfilling their pledge of support in accordance with Arab League resolutions."
European countries kept their aid commitments, he said.
Some $200 million in U.S. aid were held up by Congress last year, a sum the Obama administration hopes to deliver to the Palestinians this year, along with an additional $250 million in aid. "We have made it clear that we think the money should go forward," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said last week.
The Palestinian Authority has relied heavily on foreign aid since the outbreak of the second Palestinian uprising in 2000. It has received hundreds of millions of dollars each year since then, but has struggled to wean itself off foreign support, in part because harsh Israeli restrictions on Palestinian trade and movement have hurt economic growth.
Only a year ago, Fayyad said he hoped to increase local revenues, including through spending cuts and higher taxes for wealthier Palestinians. He even set 2013 as a target for financing the government's day-to-day operations with local revenues. However, his tax plan was met by widespread protests and modest economic growth slowed.
Now he's not even sure how he will cover the government payroll, his heftiest monthly budget item.
The Palestinian Authority employs some 150,000 people, including civil servants and members of the security forces. About 60,000 live in Gaza and served under Abbas before the Hamas takeover, but continue to draw salaries even though they've since been replaced by Hamas loyalists.
In recent months, the government has paid salaries in installments.
Fayyad said he managed to pay half the November salaries by getting another bank loan, using as collateral Arab League promises of future support. He said he can't pay the rest of the November salaries, let alone start thinking about December wages.
The Palestinian Authority already owes local banks more than $1.3 billion and can't get more loans. It also owes hundreds of millions of dollars to private businesses, including suppliers to hospitals, some of whom have stopped doing business with the government.
The crisis "has put us in extreme jeopardy," Fayyad said.
The malaise has sparked growing protests. Civil servants have held warning strikes. On Sunday, their union called for four days of strikes over the next two weeks.
Walid Abu Muhsin, a government employee who makes 4,000 shekels ($1,000) a month, said he received only $500 in November, and his bank deducted 50 percent of that for car and home loans, leaving the father of three with $250 to live on.
"I am spending from the few savings I have," he said.
Fayyad said he's thought about quitting, but won't leave during a crisis. He was appointed by Abbas in 2007, after the Islamic militant Hamas seized Gaza by force. Hamas has received money from Iran, while Qatar last year pledged some $400 million for housing projects in Gaza.
Repeated attempts to heal the Palestinian rift have failed. Meanwhile, recent surveys suggest support for Hamas is on the rise, in part because it extracted what were perceived as Israeli concessions after a round of heavy cross-border fighting late last year.
The failure of the Palestinian Authority to deliver on many of its promises, Fayyad said, "has produced a reality of a doctrinal win" for Hamas.
He said the international community must decide whether it wants the Palestinian Authority, once seen as key to any Mideast peace deal, to survive.
"A weak Palestinian Authority cannot be an effective player if you are all the time preoccupied with making ends meet," he said.

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Defiant Assad pledges to continue fighting

BEIRUT (AP) — A defiant Syrian President Bashar Assad rallied a chanting and cheering crowd Sunday to fight the uprising against his authoritarian rule, dismissing any chance of dialogue with "murderous criminals" that he blames for nearly two years of violence that has left 60,000 dead.
In his first public speech in six months, Assad laid out terms for a peace plan that keeps himself in power, ignoring international demands to step down and pledging to continue the battle "as long as there is one terrorist left" in Syria.
"What we started will not stop," he said, standing at a lectern on stage at the regal Opera House in central Damascus — a sign by the besieged leader that he sees no need to hide or compromise even with the violent civil war closing in on his seat of power in the capital.
The theater was packed with his supporters who interrupted the speech with applause, cheers and occasional fist-waving chants, including "God, Bashar and Syria!"
The overtures that Assad offered — a national reconciliation conference, elections and a new constitution — were reminiscent of symbolic changes and concessions offered previously in the uprising that began in March 2011. Those were rejected at the time as too little, too late.
The government last year adopted a constitution that theoretically allows political parties to compete with Assad's ruling Baath Party. It carried out parliamentary elections that were boycotted by his opponents.
Assad demanded that regional and Western countries must stop funding and arming the rebels trying to overthrow him.
"We never rejected a political solution ... but with whom should we talk? With those who have an extremist ideology, who only understand the language of terrorism? "Or should we with negotiate puppets whom the West brought?" he asked.
"We negotiate with the master, not with the slave," he answered.
As in previous speeches and interviews, he clung to the view that the crisis was a foreign-backed plot and not an uprising against him and his family's decades-long rule.
"Is this a revolution and are these revolutionaries? By God, I say they are a bunch of criminals," he said.
He stressed the presence of religious extremists among those fighting in Syria, calling them "terrorists who carry the ideology of al-Qaida" and "servants who know nothing but the language of slaughter."
He said the fighters sought to transform the country into a "jihad land."
Although he put up a defiant front, Assad laid out the grim reality of the violence, and he spoke in front of a collage of photos of what appeared to be Syrians killed in the fighting.
"We are now in a state of war in every sense of the word," Assad said, "a war that targets Syria using a handful of Syrians and many foreigners. It is a war to defend the nation."
He said Syria will take advice but not dictates from anyone — a reference to outside powers calling on him to step down.
The speech, which was denounced by the West, including the U.S. and Britain, came amid stepped-up international efforts for a peaceful way out of the Syrian conflict. Previous efforts have failed to stem the bloodshed.
U.N.-Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi met Assad last month to push for a peace plan for Syria based on a plan first presented in June at an international conference in Geneva. The proposal calls for an open-ended cease-fire and the formation of a transitional government until new elections can be held and a new constitution drafted.
The opposition swiftly rejected Assad's proposals. Those fighting to topple the regime have repeatedly said they will accept nothing less than his departure, dismissing any kind of settlement that leaves him in the picture.
"It is an excellent initiative that is only missing one crucial thing: His resignation," said Kamal Labwani, a veteran dissident and member of the opposition's Syrian National Coalition umbrella group.
"All what he is proposing will happen automatically, but only after he steps down," Labwani told The Associated Press by telephone from Sweden.
Haitham Maleh, an opposition figure in Turkey, said Assad was offering the initiative because he feels increasingly besieged by advancing rebels.
"How could he expect us to converse with a criminal, a killer, a man who does not abide by the law?" he asked.
Assad has spoken only on rare occasions since the uprising began, and Sunday's speech was his first since June. His last public comments came in an interview in November to Russian TV in which he vowed to "live and die" in Syria.
On Sunday, he seemed equally confident in the ability of his troops to crush the rebellion despite the recent fighting in Damascus.
"He did not come across as a leader under siege, nor as a leader whose regime is on the verge of collapse," said Fawaz A. Gerges, head of the Middle East Center at the London School of Economics.
"He seemed determined that any political settlement must come on his terms, linking those terms with the Syrian national interest as if they are inseparable," he said.
U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said in a statement that Assad's speech was "yet another attempt by the regime to cling to power and does nothing to advance the Syrian people's goal of a political transition."
British Foreign Secretary William Hague called Assad's speech "beyond hypocritical." In a message posted on his official Twitter feed, Hague said "empty promises of reform fool no one."
European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton's office said in a statement that the bloc will "look carefully if there is anything new in the speech, but we maintain our position that Assad has to step aside and allow for a political transition."
Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu of Turkey said the speech was filled with "empty promises" and repetitive pledges of reform by a leader out of touch with the Syrian people.
"It seems (Assad) has shut himself in his room, and for months has read intelligence reports that are presented to him by those trying to win his favor," Davutoglu told reporters in the Aegean port city of Izmir on Sunday.
Turkey is a former ally of Damascus, and while Ankara first backed Assad after the uprising erupted, it turned against the regime after its violent crackdown on dissent.
Observers said the speech signaled the violence would continue indefinitely as long as both sides lacked the ability to score a victory on the battlefield.
Randa Slim, a research fellow at the New America Foundation in Washington, said Assad's made clear he has no intention of making way for a political transition.
"He sees himself rather as an orchestrator and arbiter of a process to be organized under his control," she said.
The Internet was cut in many parts of Damascus ahead of the address, apparently for security reasons, and some streets were closed.
At the end of his speech, loyalists shouted: "With our blood and souls we redeem you, Bashar!"
As he was leaving the hall, supporters pushed forward and swarmed around him to try to talk to him. Nervous security guards tried to push them away.
Many shouted "Shabiha forever!" — referring to the armed regime loyalists whom rebels have blamed for sectarian killings.
Amid the melee, Assad quickly shook hands with some of them and blew kisses to others.

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Egypt Copts mark Christmas with fear of future

CAIRO (AP) — Egypt's minority Christians were celebrating their first Christmas after the election of an Islamist president and a new pope — and following adoption of a constitution many argue has an Islamist slant.
Christians gathered in Cairo's main cathedral Sunday for Midnight Mass on the eve of Orthodox Christmas led by their new pope. Pope Tawadros II was elected in November to replace longtime Pope Shenouda III, who died in March after 40 years as the leader of the church.
Islamist President Mohammed Morsi called Tawadros with Christmas greetings and sent one of his aides to the Christmas mass.
Concerned for their future and their ancient heritage in Egypt, some Copts are reportedly considering leaving the country.
As Egypt struggles with the role of religion in society, many Copts are aligning themselves with moderate Muslims and secular Egyptians who also fear the rise of Islamic power.
Amir Ramzy, a Coptic Christian and a judge in Cairo's court of appeals, said Christmas is a chance to retreat and pray for a "better Egypt."
"Christians are approaching Christmas with disappointment, grief and complaints, fearing not only their problems but Egypt's situation in general," Ramzy said. "During the reign of (ousted President Hosni) Mubarak and the (military rulers), mainly Christians were facing problems, but now with the Muslim Brotherhood leaders, each and every moderate Egyptian is facing problems."
In one of his first public messages after his enthronement, Tawadros said the ouster of Mubarak opened the way for a larger Coptic public role, encouraging them to participate in the nation's evolving democracy.
Egypt's Coptic Christians, who make up about 10 percent of Egypt's 85 million people, have long complained of discrimination by the state and the country's Muslim majority. Clashes with Muslims have occasionally broken out, sparked by church construction, land disputes or Muslim-Christian love affairs.
Following the ouster of Mubarak in 2011, sectarian violence rose, and attacks on churches sent thousands of Coptic protesters into the streets. A protest in October 2011 was violently quelled by the country's military rulers, leaving 26 people dead and sparking further outrage.
Ereny Rizk, 34, whose brother George died in that incident, said it was the second Christmas without him, but that the election of a new pope has raised her spirits.
"I felt like he's my father. Having him lessened the severity of my grief," she said. "I definitely thought about leaving the country, but two things stopped me. First the churches and the monasteries in Egypt, our heritage that I'll be missing. Also, I decided not to let my brother's blood go in vain."
The violence has abated, and 2012 was characterized more by the struggle for political and religious rights, said Hossam Bahgat, the director of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights.
"It is not actual frequent sectarian violence, it is fear of further marginalization and second class citizenship," he said, adding that Egypt has been deeply polarized as it drafted the constitution. Christians and liberals walked out of the committee writing it, complaining that their concerns were not being addressed by the Islamist majority.
Youssef Sidhom, the editor of Egypt's main Coptic newspaper, Watani, said Christians are more concerned for the identity of Egypt, saying that legislation based on the new constitution will be focus of attention out of fear of restrictions on the way of life of Christians and their freedom of worship and expression.
"Egypt is stepping into 2013 split and divided between Copts and moderate Muslims on one side confronting political Islam and fundamentalists on the other side," Sidhom said. "It will only be (resolved) through reconciliation, and this is the challenge that we will have to meet."
Ishak Ibrahim, a researcher with EIPR who monitors religious freedom cases in Egypt, said Coptic Christians are facing two new sets of problems: cases of insulting Islam and fear for their life style because of increasingly assertive radical Islamists.
In October, two Coptic boys were put in a juvenile detention after locals accused them of urinating on pages of the Quran, Islam's holy book. It was one in a series of cases against Coptic Christians in the same period, following the fury over an anti-Islam film produced in the United States. The case against the boys was later dropped after mediation.
Ibrahim said some wealthy Copts, who have connections abroad, have temporarily sought to leave Egypt.
"But the majority (of Christians) are also less fortunate," he said. "Like most Egyptians, they are with little education and have difficult economic conditions."
Verna Ghayes, a 21-year old arts student, also noted the deteriorating economic situation. Her father, an architect, lost his job because of a tight market. She felt the hardships, have, in turn, encouraged Christians to seek relief from God.
"With all the unfortunate events that are happening to Egypt, Christians came closer to God, they started to pray more, believing that only God could handle it," she said. "For me that's the good thing, and everything is according to God's plan," she said.

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