Obama signs Sandy aid bill

President Barack Obama signs H.R. 41, which temporarily increases the Federal Emergency Management Agency's borrowing authority for carrying out the National Flood Insurance Program, in the Diplomatic Reception Room of the White House Sunday, Jan. 6, 2013. / White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy

WASHINGTON President Barack Obama has signed into law a $9.7 billion bill to pay flood insurance claims from Superstorm Sandy that devastated northeastern states last October.

The law increases the borrowing authority of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. FEMA had warned that it was set to run out of money without additional dollars from Congress.

The White House said more than 100,000 flood claim payments from Sandy would be delayed without the additional money.

The House has yet to act on a larger, more comprehensive Sandy aid package. Republican leaders did not bring the bill to the floor before the last session of Congress adjourned.

House Speaker John Boehner has promised a vote Jan. 15 on that $51 billion package, and Senate leaders have promised a vote the following week.

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GOP Leader McConnell: 'Tax Issue Is Finished'

Jan 6, 2013 10:19am

                                                                                                            (Image Credit: ABC News)

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell. R-Ky., Sunday said he will not accept any new revenue in future deals with congressional Democrats and President Obama.

“The tax issue is finished.  Over. Completed,” McConnell told me on “This Week.” “That’s behind us. Now the question is what are we going to do about the biggest problem confronting our country and that’s our spending addiction.

“We didn’t have this problem because we weren’t taxing enough,” McConnell added.

He blamed Obama and Democrats for waiting to resolve budget issues until the last minute.

Read a transcript of the full interview with Sen. Mitch McConnell HERE.

“Why we end up in these last-minute discussions is beyond me. We need to function,” McConnell said. “I mean, the House of Representatives, for example, passed a budget every year.  They’ve passed appropriation bills.

“The Senate Democratic majority and the president seem to like these last-minute deals.”

McConnell said that the biggest issue facing the country in the next year is the deficit and spending. And he predicted that the issue would occupy the congressional agenda in the first three months of the year, overtaking Obama’s other priorities, including gun control.

“But the biggest problem we have at the moment is spending and debt,” McConnell said. “That’s going to dominate the Congress between now and the end of March.  None of these issues, I think, will have the kind of priority that spending and debt are going to have over the next two or three months.”

On the expected nomination of former Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., as the secretary of Defense by Obama, McConnell said he would evaluate Hagel’s past statements before determining whether he could support his nomination in the Senate.

“I’m going to take a look at all the things that Chuck has said over the years and review that, and in terms of his qualifications to lead our nation’s military,” McConnell said. “The question we will be answering if he’s the nominee, is do his views make sense for that particular job?  I think he ought to be given a fair hearing, like any other nominee, and he will be.”

McConnell, who in 2008 praised Hagel for his clear voice and stature on foreign policy and national security, now says he will reserve judgment on his possible nomination until after a Senate confirmation hearing.

“I’m going to wait and see how the hearings go and see whether Chuck’s views square with the job he would be nominated to do,” he added.

Like “This Week” on Facebook here. You can also follow the show on Twitter here.

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Venezuela lawmakers elect Chavez ally as Assembly chief

CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuelan lawmakers re-elected a staunch ally of Hugo Chavez as leader of the National Assembly on Saturday, putting him in line to be caretaker president if the socialist leader does not recover from cancer surgery.

By choosing the incumbent, Diosdado Cabello, the "Chavista"-dominated legislature cemented the combative ex-soldier's position as the third most powerful figure in the government, after Chavez and Vice President Nicolas Maduro.

"As a patriot ... I swear to be supremely loyal in everything I do, to defend the fatherland, its institutions, and this beautiful revolution led by our Comandante Hugo Chavez," Cabello said as he took the oath, his hand on the constitution.

He had earlier warned opposition politicians against attempting to use the National Assembly to conspire against the people, saying they would be "destroyed" if they tried.

Thousands of the president's red-clad supporters gathered outside parliament hours before the vote, many chanting: "We are all Chavez! Our comandante will be well! He will return!"

If Chavez had to step down, or died, Cabello would take over the running of the country as Assembly president and a new election would be organized within 30 days. Chavez's heir apparent, Maduro, would be the ruling Socialist Party candidate.

Chavez, who was diagnosed with an undisclosed form of cancer in his pelvic area in mid-2011, has not been seen in public nor heard from in more than three weeks.

Officials say the 58-year-old is in delicate condition and has suffered multiple complications since the December 11 surgery, including unexpected bleeding and severe respiratory problems.

Late on Friday, Maduro gave the clearest indication yet that the government was preparing to delay Chavez's inauguration for a new six-year term, which is scheduled for Thursday.

'RESPECT DEMOCRACY'

Maduro said the ceremony was a formality, and that Chavez could be sworn in by the Supreme Court at a later date. The opposition says that is a "twisted reading" of the constitution.

"The president right now is president," Maduro told state television. "Don't mess with the people. Respect democracy."

The opposition says Chavez's absence would be just the latest sign that he is no longer fit to govern, and that new elections should be held in the South American OPEC nation.

Last year, the president staged what appeared to be a remarkable comeback from his illness to win re-election in October, despite being weakened by radiation therapy. He returned to Cuba for more treatment within weeks of his victory.

Should the president have to step down after 14 years in office, a new vote would probably pit Maduro, a 50-year-old former bus driver and union leader, against opposition leader Henrique Capriles, the 40-year-old governor of Miranda state.

Capriles lost to Chavez in October's presidential election.

"I don't think Maduro would last many rounds in a presidential race. He's not fit for the responsibility they have given him," Capriles said after the vice president's appearance on state television.

Chavez's condition is being watched closely by leftist allies around Latin American who have benefited from his oil-funded generosity, as well as investors attracted by Venezuela's lucrative and widely traded debt.

The country boasts the world's biggest crude reserves. Despite the huge political upheaval Chavez's exit would cause, the oil industry is not likely to be affected much in the short term, with an extension of "Chavismo" keeping projects on track, while a change in parties could usher in more foreign capital.

(Additional reporting by Deisy Buitrago; Editing by Vicki Allen)

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Tennis: Spain defeat Serbia to win Hopman Cup

PERTH, Australia: Spain upset Serbia's world number one Novak Djokovic and teammate Ana Ivanovic 2-1 to win their fourth Hopman Cup in an emotional final which finished in the early hours of Sunday.

The Spanish pairing of Fernando Verdasco and Anabel Medina Garrigues were underdogs against the top-seeded glamour Serbian pairing of Djokovic and Ivanovic.

However, the Spaniards came from behind to clinch the title in the deciding mixed doubles rubber.

The Spanish pair's massive edge in doubles experience came to the fore as they won in straight sets, 6-4, 7-5, to deny Serbia their first title.

Verdasco and Medina Garrigues were particularly effective in capitalising on Ivanovic's shaky play at the net and even though Djokovic tried desperately to lift his team-mate his efforts were in vain.

Medina Garrigues ranked the win up there with her doubles wins at the French Open in 2008 and 2009.

"Winning the Roland Garros doubles was exciting also, but here I didn't expect to be in the final and then win, so I am really happy," she said.

Verdasco paid tribute to the efforts of Medina Garrigues.

"She won three singles matches and she played really good in the mixed," he said. "Today Anabel was unbelievable."

It was a third near miss for the Serbian pair in Perth, who played together at the event in 2006 and 2011.

At their first appearance, representing Serbia and Montenegro they missed the final on a countback of sets won during the week, and in 2011 they qualified for the final but were then forced out by an abdominal injury to Ivanovic.

"We were unfortunate last time, this time we were beaten by a better team," Djokovic said.

Djokovic had appeared to put Serbia on track to claim the title when he won the men's singles clash with Verdasco, 6-3, 7-5.

However, Medina Garrigues, who battled a back problem early in the tournament, then levelled the tie with a 6-4, 6-7 (3/7), 6-2 win in a marathon match that went on for two hours and 38 minutes.

World number 13 Ivanovic had been in superb form in her singles matches all week and was expected to easily account for the 50th-ranked Medina Garrigues.

Ivanovic started well when she broke serve early in the first set, but the Spaniard dug deep to break back and then took the set after securing another break in the ninth game.

An unhappy Ivanovic called for the trainer early in the second set, but put aside any discomfort to level the match, before the Spaniard steadied in the third set as Ivanovic continued to make too many unforced errors.

The 30-year-old Medina Garrigues, who collapsed to the court immediately after her singles win, said it was the best victory of her career.

- AFP/de

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Views of a living Mars take the rouge off

This could have been Mars back before the dinosaurs built a super space ramp to our planet, at least according to software engineer and artist Kevin Gill.

(Credit:
Kevin Gill)

What if the Red Planet weren't always in that constant state of blushing? Kevin Gill, a software engineer who also re-engineers planets every now and then, imagines Mars might long ago have looked quite a bit more like the aqua-green marble we call home.

To create the above image, Gill used data from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), picked an arbitrary sea level, and used a script to cover all the surfaces of Mars below that line with a nice shade of royal blue. From there, Gill writes on Google+ that it was a combination of some earthly textures borrowed from NASA and Gill's own imagination -- adhering of course to the kind of strict logic you'd expect from a career engineer... and an artist.

There is no scientific reasoning behind how I painted it; I tried to envision how the land would appear given certain features or the effects of likely atmospheric climate. For example, I didn't see much green taking hold within the area of Olympus Mons and the surrounding volcanoes, both due to the volcanic activity and the proximity to the equator (thus a more tropical climate). For these desert-like areas I mostly used textures taken from the Sahara in Africa and some of Australia. Likewise, as the terrain gets higher or lower in latitude I added darker flora along with tundra and glacial ice. These northern and southern areas' textures are largely taken from around northern Russia. Tropical and subtropical greens were based on the rainforests of South America and Africa.

Paint by number, you have met your match.

Of course, Gill points out that "this wasn't intended as an exhaustive scientific scenario" but hopes some of his assumptions will prove to be true. Here's hoping the Curiosity rover has a secret time machine built in that NASA hasn't told us about yet, so we can see just how close Gill is to the real deal.

Here are a few alternate views Gill cooked up:

A wet Mars with its own Atlantis adrift in a vast sea.

(Credit:
Kevin Gill)

Here's a closer view of the Martian land mass with added oceanic action:

(Via The Register)

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India police deny they delayed helping rape victim

An Indian family lights candles in memory of a gang-rape victim in New Delhi, India, Saturday, Jan. 5, 2013. Passers-by refused to stop to help a naked, bleeding gang-rape victim after she was dumped from a bus onto a New Delhi street, and police delayed taking her to a hospital for 30 minutes, the woman's male companion said in an interview. / AP Photo/Altaf Qadri

NEW DELHI Police in New Delhi on Saturday refuted the comments made by the male companion of a gang-rape victim that police officers debated jurisdiction for 30 minutes before taking the rape victim and her friend to a hospital.

The victim's male companion said in an interview broadcast on Friday on Indian TV station Zee News that police delayed taking her to a hospital after passers-by neglected to help her, even though she was naked and bleeding.

15 Photos

Gang-rape sparks rage in India

Joint Commissioner of Delhi Police Vivek Gogia, however, denied the companion's assertion.

At a news conference on Saturday, Gogia said police vans reached the spot where the rape victim and her friend were dumped within three minutes of receiving the alert.

He said the police vans left the spot for hospital with the victims within 12 minutes and that time had spent in borrowing bed sheets from a neighboring hotel to cover the naked rape victim and her friend.

"Zebra 54 (Police response vehicle) left the spot along with the victims at 10:39 (pm) (1709 GMT). This time was utilized in placing the victim in the van, after organizing a bed sheet from a neighboring hotel to cover the victims. Zebra 54 brought the victims to Safdarjung Hospital at 10: 55 p.m.(1725 GMT). These findings have been ascertained through the logs generated by the multi-computer configuration global positioning system," he said.

Meanwhile, a senior opposition figure in the Indian government asked what kind of "teachings and training the government of India has given to its police in Delhi?"

Ravi Shankar Prasad, Deputy Leader of India's main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) condemned the Delhi police for the alleged delay in helping the victims.

"Saving the life of critically injured people is more important, or fighting over jurisdiction is more important?" Prasad asked.

Also on Saturday, a court asked police to produce five men accused of raping the student for pre-trial proceedings on Monday.

Police have charged them with murder, rape and other crimes that could bring them the death penalty.

A sixth suspect, listed as a 17-year-old, is expected to be tried in a juvenile court, where the maximum sentence would be three years in a reform facility.

The 23-year-old woman died last weekend from massive internal injuries suffered during the attack.

The attack has sparked outrage and daily protests across India and led to calls for tougher rape legislation and reforms of a police culture that often blames rape victims and refuses to file charges against accused attackers.

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4 Dead After Aurora, Colo., SWAT Standoff

Four people were killed, including the gunman, during a hostage standoff this morning at a townhouse in Aurora, Colo., police said.

Police pumped tear gas into the home in an attempt to get the gunman to leave, and then went into the home and shot him, ABC News Denver affiliate KMGH-TV reported.

The three people found dead in the home are believed to be relatives of the shooter, Aurora Police Sgt. Cassidee Carlson told KMGH. A fourth person was found unharmed, she said.

Officers responded to the home after the first reports of gunshots came in around 3 a.m.

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The suspected gunman was found dead inside the townhome at 9 a.m., but police were not sure when he had been shot by officers or killed himself, she said.

"We're just getting in there with our crime scene detectives, so obviously we'll have to determine if it was our rounds or his rounds," Carlson said. "This is a big investigation, and a lot is entailed."

Carlson said neighboring residences were evacuated while the SWAT team attempted to resolve the standoff.

"We've evacuated several residences in the neighboring townhomes and in the immediate area where we believed would be the most dangerous," Carlson told KMGH-TV earlier today.

The Colorado town was the site of a movie theater massacre last July. A gunman opened fire during a midnight screening of "The Dark Knight Rises," killing 12 people and injuring 58 others.

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Abbas sees Palestinian unity as Fatah rallies in Gaza

GAZA (Reuters) - President Mahmoud Abbas predicted the end of a five-year split between the two big Palestinian factions as his Fatah movement staged its first mass rally in Gaza with the blessing of Hamas Islamists who rule the enclave.

"Soon we will regain our unity," Abbas, whose authority has been limited to the Israeli-occupied West Bank since the 2007 civil war between the two factions, said in a televised address to hundreds of thousands of followers marching in Gaza on Friday, with yellow Fatah flags instead of the green of Hamas.

The hardline Hamas movement, which does not recognize Israel's right to exist, expelled secular Fatah from Gaza during the war. It gave permission for the rally after the deadlock in peace talks between Abbas's administration and Israel narrowed the two factions' ideological differences.

The Palestinian rivals have drawn closer since Israel's assault on Gaza assault in November, in which Hamas, though battered, claimed victory.

Egypt has long tried to broker Hamas-Fatah reconciliation, but past efforts have foundered over questions of power-sharing, control of weaponry, and to what extent Israel and other powers would accept a Palestinian administration including Hamas.

An Egyptian official told Reuters Cairo was preparing to invite the factions for new negotiations within two weeks.

Israel fears grassroots support for Hamas could eventually topple Abbas's Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank.

"Hamas could seize control of the PA any day," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday.

The demonstration marked 48 years since Fatah's founding as the spearhead of the Palestinians' fight against Israel. Its longtime leader Yasser Arafat signed an interim 1993 peace accord that won Palestinians a measure of self rule.

Hamas, which rejected the 1993 deal, fought and won a Palestinian parliamentary election in 2006. It formed an uneasy coalition with Fatah until their violent split a year later.

Though shunned by the West, Hamas feels bolstered by electoral gains for Islamist movements in neighboring Egypt and elsewhere in the region - a confidence reflected in the fact Friday's Fatah demonstration was allowed to take place.

"The success of the rally is a success for Fatah, and for Hamas too," said Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri. "The positive atmosphere is a step on the way to regain national unity."

Fatah, meanwhile, has been riven by dissent about the credibility of Abbas's statesmanship, especially given Israel's continued settlement-building on West Bank land. The Israelis quit Gaza unilaterally in 2005 after 38 years of occupation.

"The message today is that Fatah cannot be wiped out," said Amal Hamad, a member of the group's ruling body, referring to the demonstration attended by several Abbas advisers. "Fatah lives, no one can exclude it and it seeks to end the division."

In his speech, Abbas promised to return to Gaza soon and said Palestinian unification would be "a step on the way to ending the (Israeli) occupation".

(Editing by Dan Williams, Alistair Lyon and Jason Webb)

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Delhi gang-rape victim's boyfriend speaks out

NEW DELHI: The boyfriend of a 23-year-old woman who died after a brutal gang rape on a New Delhi bus spoke out Friday for the first time about the savage attack that has sparked protests across the nation and his own trauma over his inability to save her.

The 28-year-old man, who suffered a fractured leg and other injuries in the attack, has been deeply traumatised and is currently at his parents' home in rural northern India where he is taking time out from his job at a software firm in New Delhi.

"What can I say? The cruelty I saw should not be seen ever. I tried to fight against the men but later I begged them again and again to leave her," he told AFP in an interview by phone from Gorakhpur, a town in Uttar Pradesh state.

On December 16, the couple had been out to watch a movie and decided to get into a private bus when several rickshaws had refused to drive them back to the victim's home in a New Delhi suburb.

Once in the bus, he was attacked and his girlfriend was gang-raped by six allegedly drunk men, including the driver, who also violated her with an iron bar causing immense internal damage that would lead to her death last weekend.

The horrifying crime has appalled India and brought simmering anger about widespread crime against women to the boil amid angry calls for better protection by police and changed social attitudes.

The boyfriend, who asked not to be named, also recounted how passersby had failed to come to their rescue after they were thrown out of the moving vehicle at the end of their nearly hour-long ordeal.

He was also critical of police for failing to be sensitive to his and his girlfriend's mental condition and also raised questions about the emergency care given in the public hospital where she was admitted.

"A passerby found us (after the attack), but he did not even give my friend his jacket. We waited for the police to come and save us," he told AFP.

The police have since arrested six suspects for the crime -- five men and a minor believed to be aged 17 -- who were charged with murder, rape and kidnapping in a city court on Thursday.

"I was not very confident about getting into the bus but my friend was running late, so we got into it. This was the biggest mistake I made and after that everything went out of control."

The driver of the bus then made lewd remarks and his accomplices joined him "to taunt" the couple, the boyfriend said.

He said he told the driver to stop the bus, but by then his accomplices had locked the two doors.

"They hit me with a small stick and dragged my friend to a seat near the driver's cabin."

After that the "driver and the other men raped my friend and hit her in the worst possible ways in the most private parts of her body".

"I cannot tell you what I feel when I think of it. I shiver in pain," he said.

He said the police who came to their rescue took his girlfriend to a government hospital, but failed to take into account his injuries and mental trauma.

"I was treated like an object by the police.... They wanted all the help to solve the case even before getting me the right treatment. Nobody witnessed the trauma I suffered," he said.

- AFP/jc

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What will you buy next: Tablet, phablet, laptop, or convertible?

The Lenovo Yoga 13 combines laptop and tablet, but maybe CES will reveal even better convertibles.

(Credit:
Lenovo)

I'm about to start packing for CES, which kicks off next week in Las Vegas, and I'm having a devil of a time deciding what tech to bring.

My phone, sure, but what else? Do I go laptop or
tablet? If I choose laptop, am I better off with a convertible? If I choose tablet, do I want something as large as an
iPad, or would I be happier with something more pocket-friendly -- a phablet, perhaps?

These are common questions nowadays as the lines between mobile devices grow ever blurrier. We want a screen, obviously, but what size should it be? What OS should drive it? And should there be a keyboard attached?

Obviously there's no one-device-fits-all solution, but I'll tell you where I stand -- for now, anyway. My trip to CES will involve two four-hour flights, some blogging work, various opportunities to capture photos and video, and occasional moments of down time.

In other words, I want to be loaded for work and play. Writing and reading. Watching movies and recording them. There's no question my
iPad 3 would be ideal for all those tasks, provided I paired it with a comfortable keyboard. Just one problem: My blogging activities require several proprietary content-management systems (i.e. blog tools), and most of them won't work in iOS Safari.

What's more, I need to be able to create and edit screenshots I can insert into those blog posts, and that's way more difficult in the confines of iOS than it is in, say, Windows.

Speaking of which, a Microsoft Surface tablet might be better suited to the kind of work I need to do, especially since I can plug in a mouse for finer graphics stuff, but obviously the apps just aren't there yet, and I'm no fan of Windows RT.

In other words, I need a laptop. But should I consider a convertible? Danny Sullivan laid out many of the latest options in "My hunt for the perfect Windows 8 convertible laptop," but I must admit I'm not wild about shelling out at a minimum of $1,000 when I already own a laptop and a tablet.

On the other hand, I'm also not wild about bringing along two separate devices with their two separate chargers and all the other extras. Maybe at CES I'll discover the ultimate laptop/tablet combo for my needs -- with a price that's more palatable.

In the meantime, I'll probably go "full nerd" and bring my laptop, iPad, and phone, just so all my bases are covered. It's not ideal, but it's where I'm at for the moment.

What about you? What screen-machine are you eyeing for your next purchase? Tablet? Phablet? Laptop? Or convertible? Hit the comments and tell me what's motivating your decision.

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