Safed Journal: New Insights on Marijuana in Israel, Where It’s Illegal

Baz Ratner/Reuters

Tikkun Olam, a medical marijuana farm in Israel, blends the high-tech and the spiritual.

SAFED, Israel — Among the rows of plants growing at a government-approved medical marijuana farm in the Galilee hills in northern Israel, one strain is said to have the strongest psychoactive effect of any cannabis in the world. Another, rich in anti-inflammatory properties, will not get you high at all.

Marijuana is illegal in Israel, but farms like this one, at a secret location near the city of Safed, are at the cutting edge of the debate on the legality, benefits and risks of medicinal cannabis. Its staff members wear white lab coats, its growing facilities are fitted with state-of-the-art equipment for controlling light and humidity, and its grounds are protected by security cameras and guards.

But in addition to the high-tech atmosphere, there is a spiritual one. The plantation, Israel’s largest and most established medical marijuana farm — and now a thriving commercial enterprise — is imbued with a higher sense of purpose, reflected by the aura of Safed, an age-old center of Jewish mysticism, as well as by its name, Tikkun Olam, a reference to the Jewish concept of repairing or healing the world.

There is an on-site synagogue in a trailer, a sweet aroma of freshly harvested cannabis that infuses the atmosphere and, halfway up a wooded hillside overlooking the farm, a blue-domed tomb of a rabbinic sage and his wife.

In the United States, medical marijuana programs exist in 18 states but remain illegal under federal law. In Israel, the law defines marijuana as an illegal and dangerous drug, and there is still no legislation regulating its use for medicinal purposes.

Yet Israel’s Ministry of Health issues special licenses that allow thousands of patients to receive medical marijuana, and some government officials are now promoting the country’s advances in the field as an example of its pioneering and innovation.

“I hope we will overcome the legal obstacles for Tikkun Olam and other companies,” Yuli Edelstein, the minister of public diplomacy and diaspora affairs, told journalists during a recent government-sponsored tour of the farm, part of Israel’s effort to brand itself as something beyond a conflict zone. In addition to helping the sick, he said, the effort “could be helpful for explaining what we are about in this country.”

Israelis have been at the vanguard of research into the medicinal properties of cannabis for decades.

In the 1960s, Prof. Raphael Mechoulam and his colleague Yechiel Gaoni at the Weizmann Institute of Science isolated, analyzed and synthesized the main psychoactive ingredient in the cannabis plant, tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC. Later, Professor Mechoulam deciphered the cannabinoids native to the brain. Ruth Gallily, a professor emerita of immunology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, has studied another main constituent of cannabis — cannabidiol, or CBD — considered a powerful anti-inflammatory and anti-anxiety agent.

When Zach Klein, a former filmmaker, made a documentary on medical marijuana that was broadcast on Israeli television in 2009, about 400 Israelis were licensed to receive the substance. Today, the number has risen to about 11,000.

Mr. Klein became devoted to the subject and went to work for Tikkun Olam in research and development. “Cannabis was used as medicine for centuries,” he said. “Now science is telling us how it works.”

Israeli researchers say cannabis can be beneficial for a variety of illnesses and conditions, from helping cancer patients relieve pain and ease loss of appetite to improving the quality of life for people with post-traumatic stress disorder and neuropsychological conditions. The natural ingredients in the plant, they say, can help with digestive function, infections and recovery after a heart attack.

The marijuana harvest, from plants that can grow over six feet tall, is processed into bags of flowers and ready-rolled cigarettes. There are also cannabis-laced cakes, cookies, candy, gum, honey, ointments and oil drops. The strain known as Eran Almog, which has the highest concentration of THC, is recommended for severe pain. Avidekel, a strain rich in CBD and with hardly any psychoactive ingredient, allows patients to benefit from the drug while being able to drive and to function at work.

Working with Hebrew University researchers, the farm has also developed a version in capsule form, which would make exporting the drug more practical, should the law allow it.

Read More..

How your taxes will rise under 'fiscal cliff' deal

Americans may be breathing a deep sigh of relief that Congress resolved the so-called fiscal cliff crisis for the time being – until they see their next pay stubs. That’s because payroll taxes will increase on most workers after Congress decided not to reverse an expiration of a payroll tax cut – a development that was largely expected. Payroll taxes rose to 6.2% under the deal, from 4.2% last year.

The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center estimates that 77% of Americans will see higher taxes because of the elimination of the payroll tax cut, meaning $115 billion less in disposable income.

The payroll tax cut helped Americans put more of their incomes in their pockets in 2011 and 2012, and before that, the Making Work Pay tax credit gave relief to workers in 2009 and 2010, said Joe Rosenberg, a research associate at the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center.

And “2013 will be the first year there’s not stimulus-related targeted tax relief for individuals,” he said.

A household making $50,000 to 75,000 a year will make $822 less this year than last year, according to Rosenberg’s calculations. Those making $75,000 to $100,000 will see $1,206 less in their paychecks, while those making $200,000 to $500,000 will see a drop of $2,711 in their paychecks.

Workers making $500,000 to $1 million will see a drop of $14,812 in their paychecks, more than $1,000 a month.

Studies show that high-income earners tend to save less but spend the same when they experience changes to their income, Rosenberg said.  Middle- and low-income earners tend to spend less, he said. But despite the shock workers may feel when they see their next paychecks, it could have been worse. Though Congress didn’t extend the payroll tax cut, it extended many other tax breaks for middle-income earners. Few consumers should be surprised that the payroll tax cut was on the chopping block, he said.

“This was always meant as a temporary provision to stimulate the economy when it was weak,” he said. “There was very little political support to see it continue.”

ALSO:  

The fiscal cliff con game

Fiscal cliff plan clears House with GOP divided

Fiscal cliff deal won't help labor market, economists say

Read More..

Four Android productivity apps you should use in 2013

Happy New Year! Like most folks, I am working on some resolutions for 2013. One resolution I have is to be more productive. One way I am going to do this is by using my Android phone better. Now there are apps that I have, but really have not used to their fullest. As I work on this resolution, I might discover even better apps. For now I will focus on these impressive apps that can make anyone more productive.

I use Hootsuite on the computer, but rarely find myself engaging with it on my smartphone. With Hootsuite, you can manage Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Foursquare accounts. The free version allows for up to five accounts and one member of your team to access the account. There is a pro version with a monthly fee, in which you can have more accounts and team members and helpful analytics tools.

The design of the app is very good. If you sync the web version to mobile, you will have everything automatically downloaded to the phone. When viewing content, you swipe left or right to change columns or streams. If you are in the middle of a stream, simply tap the top menu bar to automatically return to the top. The app allows for multiple profiles and scheduled tweets. My goal is to keep up with my feeds and tweets in real-time rather than waiting until I get to a computer.

Another web service that I started to use, but find myself not using it to the fullest. Producteev is a web-based task management service. With Producteev you can work as an individual or in a team by setting up workspaces and then organize tasks by labels. For each task you can assign a priority, due date, and share with team members, if you have any. Overall, this is a great service, since I like making lists, even though I rarely remember having made them.

The Producteev app is available for all platforms. The app has a very clean interface and is easy to find tasks. Probably the best way to keep up with tasks is to use the different widget for the home screen. Seeing the widgets will help keep those key tasks in the forefront of your mind. The app will work offline and syncs in the background.

I read blogs every single day, especially those related to new apps, Android, or mobile news. The only way I can do that is via my Google Reader. I find myself trying to catch up each day on the computer (just like with Twitter activity) when I would be better off reading a little bit over time during the day. NewsRob is a Google Reader that I have had for years. The interface is very clean and easy to use. The developer created a bunch of customizations options, which really make this reader stand out.

With NewsRob you can set up a notification of new articles, how you synchronize with Google and when, how many articles to keep in your cache, and more. If you set up folders within Google Reader, NewsRob will download the folders, too. This enables you to read the posts by blog or folder. The app provides a very clean blogpost display optimized for smaller screens. With each post you can zoom in or out, mark a post read or unread, view in the browser, and share the link to email or services such as Evernote. There is a free version of the app.

The last task I need to work on to be more productive is to keep up with the calendar. I find myself checking on the computer, after the fact, finding out that I am either late or forgot about a meeting or appointment. Using Google calendar is a good place to start, but I have not found the standard calendar app on my Droid was all that helpful.

Business Calendar is a very capable calendar app that has a ton of features. The app lets you view your calendar in a number of different views, and has search and favorite-calendar features, to name a few. The option of viewing different calendars, color coding and being able to easily add, delete, and edit events is helpful. The ability to use widgets for reminders is important. The pro version has over 10 different sizes and allows for the import or export of calendar files in the iCalendar format. Business Calendar also has a free version.

So my top goal or resolution for 2013 is to be more productive. I think using these apps more will help me accomplish that goal. Are there any apps you have but not using to their fullest? What resolutions do you have for 2013?

Download the Appolicious Android app

Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Title Post: Four Android productivity apps you should use in 2013
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment

Read More..

Ruling over bumper-car injury supports amusement park

SAN FRANCISCO — The California Supreme Court, protecting providers of risky recreational activities from lawsuits, decided Monday that bumper car riders may not sue amusement parks over injuries stemming from the inherent nature of the attraction.

The 6-1 decision may be cited to curb liability for a wide variety of activities — such as jet skiing, ice skating and even participating in a fitness class, lawyers in the case said.

"This is a victory for anyone who likes fun and risk activities," said Jeffrey M. Lenkov, an attorney for Great America, which won the case.

But Mark D. Rosenberg, who represented a woman injured in a bumper car at the Bay Area amusement park, said the decision was bad for consumers.

"Patrons are less safe today than they were yesterday," Rosenberg said.

The ruling came in a lawsuit by Smriti Nalwa, who fractured her wrist in 2005 while riding in a bumper car with her 9-year-old son and being involved in a head-on collision. Rosenberg said Great America had told ride operators not to allow head-on collisions, but failed to ask patrons to avoid them.

The court said Nalwa's injury was caused by a collision with another bumper car, a normal part of the ride. To reduce all risk of injury, the ride would have to be scrapped or completely reconfigured, the court said.

"A small degree of risk inevitably accompanies the thrill of speeding through curves and loops, defying gravity or, in bumper cars, engaging in the mock violence of low-speed collisions," Justice Kathryn Mickle Werdegar wrote for the majority. "Those who voluntarily join in these activities also voluntarily take on their minor inherent risks."

Monday's decision extended a legal doctrine that has limited liability for risky sports, such as football, to now include recreational activities.

"Where the doctrine applies to a recreational activity," Werdegar wrote, "operators, instructors and participants …owe other participants only the duty not to act so as to increase the risk of injury over that inherent in the activity."

Amusement parks will continue to be required to use the utmost care on thrill rides such as roller coasters, where riders surrender control to the operator. But on attractions where riders have some control, the parks can be held liable only if their conduct unreasonably raised the dangers.

"Low-speed collisions between the padded, independently operated cars are inherent in — are the whole point of — a bumper car ride," Werdegar wrote.

Parks that fail to provide routine safety measures such as seat belts, adequate bumpers and speed controls might be held liable for an injury, but operators should not be expected to restrict where a bumper car is bumped, the court said.

The justices noted that the state inspected the Great America rides annually, and the maintenance and safety staff checked on the bumper cars the day Nalwa broke her wrist. The ride was functioning normally.

Reports showed that bumper car riders at the park suffered 55 injuries — including bruises, cuts, scrapes and strains — in 2004 and 2005, but Nalwa's injury was the only fracture. Nalwa said her wrist snapped when she tried to brace herself by putting her hand on the dashboard.

Rosenberg said the injury stemmed from the head-on collision. He said the company had configured bumper rides in other parks to avoid such collisions and made the Santa Clara ride uni-directional after the lawsuit was filed.

Justice Joyce L. Kennard dissented, complaining that the decision would saddle trial judges "with the unenviable task of determining the risks of harm that are inherent in a particular recreational activity."

"Whether the plaintiff knowingly assumed the risk of injury no longer matters," Kennard said.

maura.dolan@latimes.com

Read More..

Playboy Hugh Hefner marries his 'runaway bride'

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Hugh Hefner is celebrating the new year as a married man once again.

The 86-year-old Playboy magazine founder exchanged vows with his "runaway bride," Crystal Harris, at a private Playboy Mansion ceremony on New Year's Eve. Harris, a 26-year-old "Playmate of the Month" in 2009, broke off a previous engagement to Hefner just before they were to be married in 2011.

Playboy said on Tuesday that the couple celebrated at a New Year's Eve party at the mansion with guests that included comic Jon Lovitz, Gene Simmons of KISS and baseball star Evan Longoria.

The bride wore a strapless gown in soft pink, Hefner a black tux. Hefner's been married twice before but lived the single life between 1959 and 1989.

Read More..

Hispanic Pregnancies Fall in U.S. as Women Choose Smaller Families

ORLANDO, Fla. — Hispanic women in the United States, who have generally had the highest fertility rates in the country, are choosing to have fewer children. Both immigrant and native-born Latinas had steeper birthrate declines from 2007 to 2010 than other groups, including non-Hispanic whites, blacks and Asians, a drop some demographers and sociologists attribute to changes in the views of many Hispanic women about motherhood.

As a result, in 2011, the American birthrate hit a record low, with 63 births per 1,000 women ages 15 to 44, led by the decline in births to immigrant women. The national birthrate is now about half what it was during the baby boom years, when it peaked in 1957 at 122.7 births per 1,000 women of childbearing age.

The decline in birthrates was steepest among Mexican-American women and women who immigrated from Mexico, at 25.7 percent. This has reversed a trend in which immigrant mothers accounted for a rising share of births in the United States, according to a recent report by the Pew Research Center. In 2010, birthrates among all Hispanics reached their lowest level in 20 years, the center found.

The sudden drop-off, which coincided with the onset of the recession, suggests that attitudes have changed since the days when older generations of Latinos prized large families and more closely followed Roman Catholic teachings, which forbid artificial contraception.

Interviews with young Latinas, as well as reproductive health experts, show that the reasons for deciding to have fewer children are many, involving greater access to information about contraceptives and women’s health, as well as higher education.

When Marucci Guzman decided to marry Tom Beard here seven years ago, the idea of having a large family — a Guzman tradition back in Puerto Rico — was out of the question.

“We thought one, maybe two,” said Ms. Guzman Beard, who gave birth to a daughter, Attalai, four years ago.

Asked whether Attalai might ever get her wish for a little brother or sister, Ms. Guzman Beard, 29, a vice president at a public service organization, said: “I want to go to law school. I’m married. I work. When do I have time?”

The decisions were not made in a vacuum but amid a sputtering economy, which, interviewees said, weighed heavily on their minds.

Latinos suffered larger percentage declines in household wealth than white, black or Asian households from 2005 to 2009, and, according to the Pew report, their rates of poverty and unemployment also grew more sharply after the recession began.

Prolonged recessions do produce dips in the birthrate, but a drop as large as Latinos have experienced is atypical, said William H. Frey, a sociologist and demographer at the Brookings Institution. “It is surprising,” Mr. Frey said. “When you hear about a decrease in the birthrate, you don’t expect Latinos to be at the forefront of the trend.”

D’Vera Cohn, a senior writer at the Pew Research Center and an author of the report, said that in past recessions, when overall fertility dipped, “it bounced back over time when the economy got better.”

“If history repeats itself, that will happen again,” she said.

But to Mr. Frey, the decrease has signaled much about the aspirations of young Latinos to become full and permanent members of the upwardly mobile middle class, despite the challenges posed by the struggling economy.

Jersey Garcia, a 37-year-old public health worker in Miami, is in the first generation of her family to live permanently outside of the Dominican Republic, where her maternal and paternal grandmothers had a total of 27 children.

“I have two right now,” Ms. Garcia said. “It’s just a good number that I can handle.”

“Before, I probably would have been pressured to have more,” she added. “I think living in the United States, I don’t have family members close by to help me, and it takes a village to raise a child. So the feeling is, keep what you have right now.”

But that has not been easy. Even with health insurance, Ms. Garcia’s preferred method of long-term birth control, an IUD, has been unaffordable. Birth control pills, too, with a $50 co-payment a month, were too costly for her budget. “I couldn’t afford it,” she said. “So what I’ve been doing is condoms.”

According to research by the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health, the overwhelming majority of Latinas have used contraception at some point in their lives, but they face economic barriers to consistent use. As a consequence, Latinas still experience unintended pregnancy at a rate higher than non-Hispanic whites, according to the institute.

And while the share of births to teenage mothers has dropped over the past two decades for all women, the highest share of births to teenage mothers is among native-born Hispanics.

“There are still a lot of barriers to information and access to contraception that exist,” said Jessica Gonzáles-Rojas, 36, the executive director of the institute, who has one son. “We still need to do a lot of work.”

Read More..

Optimistic stock investors reaped rewards worldwide in 2012

Wall Street closed out the year with a surge in the final trading session, betting on a last-minute resolution of the so-called fiscal cliff.

The market may have jumped the gun, but investors' hopefulness fit the pattern of 2012: It was a year of solid stock price gains worldwide, as various predictions of Armageddon fell flat.

That has reinforced many market pros' conventional cautious optimism as the new year begins. Bears can still find plenty to be dour about, but the bulls have called it right in three of the last four years since the 2008 financial-system crash.

On Monday, the Dow Jones industrial average jumped 166 points, or 1.3%, to end the year at 13,104. Stocks rallied late in the session as rumors spread that Congress would approve a deal to limit the tax increases and spending cuts otherwise set to kick in Tuesday.

But after the closing bell, a deal to avert the fiscal cliff appeared uncertain — raising fears of a blistering market sell-off Wednesday.

Still, investors who had expected a sustained slump in stocks in 2012 found themselves left behind as most world markets posted double-digit percentage gains, underpinned by a resilient U.S. economy and by central banks' efforts to keep interest rates at rock bottom.

Wall Street optimism about 2013 remains rooted in expectations that the U.S. economy will continue to expand, albeit slowly, and with it corporate earnings.

"Absent a complete failure from Washington, growth should remain positive," said Russ Koesterich, global chief investment strategist at money management giant BlackRock Inc. in New York.

That bet paid off in 2012: The Standard & Poor's 500 index, a popular benchmark for many Americans' retirement accounts, rose 1.7% to 1,426 on Monday and was up 13.4% for the year.

That was the biggest advance since the index rose 23.4% in 2009. Stocks' gains last year also beat returns on most kinds of bonds and on low-yielding short-term cash accounts.

The S&P index now has rebounded 111% from its decade low in March 2009, restoring most of the wealth lost by investors in the Great Recession — if they held on.

In Europe, the Stoxx index of 600 big-name shares rose 14.4% for the year, also the biggest rally since 2009. Japan's main market index soared 22.9%. Most so-called emerging markets also were up sharply, including those in India, Mexico and Turkey.

The 30-stock Dow index was a relative laggard, rising 7.3% for the year. It was hurt by weakness in major energy stocks as crude oil prices fell and by a collapse of shares of troubled tech giant Hewlett-Packard Co.

Markets worldwide had rallied in the first few months of 2012, then dived in spring as doubts multiplied about the global economy.

Europe, gripped for a third year by its government-debt crisis, was the epicenter of those fears: Many investors expected the Eurozone to finally break up under its debt strains, consigning Greece, Spain, Portugal and perhaps other nations to economic death spirals.

But the doomsday predictions were thwarted by the European Central Bank. In late July, ECB President Mario Draghi shocked markets by declaring that the central bank would do whatever was necessary to preserve the Eurozone. "And believe me, it will be enough," Draghi said.

The ECB followed that pledge with a commitment to buy unlimited sums of Eurozone governments' bonds, if necessary, to pull down countries' borrowing costs — similar to the U.S. Federal Reserve's ongoing program of buying Treasury debt.

The ECB's move sparked a sharp rally in the euro that buoyed confidence in European stocks as well, despite deep recessions in the Continent's hardest-hit economies.

The U.S. economy, meanwhile, confounded expectations that it would slide back into recession. The economy grew at a 3.1% annualized rate in the third quarter after slowing to a 1.3% rate in the second quarter. Growth was supported in part by the housing market's continuing rebound.

"Housing got us into this mess. Now it's one of the sectors to get us out," said Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist at S&P Capital IQ in New York.

Housing-related stocks were some of the year's biggest winners, with builder PulteGroup Inc. up 188%, appliance maker Whirlpool Corp. rising 114% and paint producer Sherwin-Williams Co. up 72%.

Worldwide, investors' confidence also benefited as worries dissipated about a war between Israel and Iran. And late in the year, hopes rose that China's slowing economy would avoid a so-called hard landing — which could have put it in a recession — and instead would help drive global growth in the new year. The Shanghai stock market rocketed nearly 15% in December alone.

Emerging markets such as China could be a big lure for global investors in 2013, some experts said. Many governments in those markets have more leeway than developed economies to bolster growth with fiscal stimulus measures and with lower interest rates, said Jack Ablin, chief investment officer at BMO Private Bank in Chicago.

By contrast, Ablin worries that U.S. economic growth and corporate earnings growth will be much slower than many investors are anticipating in the new year.

Whatever the ultimate workout of the fiscal cliff, Ablin said, "We are going to see taxes go up incrementally and spending go down incrementally," weighing on the economy.

Market pessimists believe that stock markets since 2009 have been driven largely by cheap credit supplied by central banks, particularly the Federal Reserve. Critics say the Fed's latest decision to ramp up purchases of Treasury bonds, aimed at pumping more money into the economy, smacks of desperation.

Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke, however, has insisted that the Fed still has plenty of tools left to help the U.S. recovery gain speed. Wall Street, by and large, believes Bernanke.

"If they can print money," Stovall said, "are the central banks ever really out of bullets?"

business@latimes.com

Read More..

iPad App Video Review: Anomaly Korea

The tower offense pioneers over at 11 Bit Studios finally released the sequel to their smash hit, Anomaly Warzone Earth. They branched out a bit, releasing the amusing Funky Smugglers and the dreamlike puzzler, Sleepwalker’s Journey, but now they’re back, and as this game will remind you a few times, Baghdad was just the beginning. The battle against a mysterious alien tower menace continues with new visuals, units, modes, and an awesome but sometimes hilarious Korean undertone.

The core game here is still the same, with you planning convoy routes through enemy infested streets, able to change your route on the fly. You technically continue to play as the invisible but ever-present commando unit, with your various power-ups, such as smoke screen, repair field, and others, activating and placing them with a simple tap or two. New units like the Horangi tank join your ranks, with unique unit abilities, like the aforementioned tank’s area of effect blast. As you make your way through the world, you’ll collect resources and upgrade units as well.

It’s not just new unit and enemy types mixing things up. For example, there are now artillery zones that will automatically be targeted and be fired upon as you pass through them, but only after a short countdown. Subtle additions like this are quite elegant, adding more dimensions of strategy without changing anything from previous games. Another great new addition is the Art of War trials. As you play and do well, you’ll unlock these brief but brutal challenges, and they are very satisfying to complete.

The visuals have received an upgrade, as has the voice acting. Still, there’s something kind of funny about all the Korean accented English speaking, along with the still excellent Asian-styled soundtrack. It’s not bad at all, but can feel out of place at first. All in all, Anomaly Korea offers more of the same, but improved, building upon the last game in all the right ways. You don’t even need to have played the first game to enjoy this one, so go ahead and download it for the current price of three dollars. I can’t wait to see where in the world this anomaly pops up next.

Download the Appolicious Android app

Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Title Post: iPad App Video Review: Anomaly Korea
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment

Read More..

Obama urges Congress to reach a 'fiscal cliff' deal

President Obama says it appears that an agreement to avoid the fiscal cliff is 'in sight,' but says it's not yet complete and work continues.

WASHINGTON – As negotiators closed in on a tax-and-spending deal to avert the “fiscal cliff,”  President Obama delivered a nationally televised plea Monday for a final push by Congress in the hours remaining before midnight Monday when taxes are set to increase.

“They’re close, but they’re not there yet,” Obama said, referring to bipartisan talks led by Vice President Joe Biden and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

The president added, “if there’s one second left” before Congress has to act, “they will use that last second.” Among the issues left to be resolved, he said, confirming earlier news reports, is an agreement that would delay across-the-board spending cuts, which would otherwise go into effect on Wednesday.

“So keep the pressure on over the next 12 hours or so,” he said to an invited audience that reacted with applause and laughter to his brief remarks, including when he said that he would be spending New Year’s Eve in Washington as lawmakers try to finalize a deal that can win approval in both houses.

QUIZ: How much do you know about the fiscal cliff?

Obama appeared to anticipate criticism, already building from liberals, that he is giving too much away.  He won re-election last month on a plan to raise taxes on annual income above $250,000 for couples. But the deal would raise that threshold to $450,000 a year, and generate considerably less than half of the $1.6 trillion in additional revenue over 10 years that Obama had initially sought.

The president emphasized that the potential agreement, though “modest,” would achieve his “top priority:” preventing an income tax hike on 98% of U.S. taxpayers.

He also pointed out that the deal would extend tax credits for families with children, tuition tax credits for college students, tax credits for clean energy and extended unemployment benefits for 2 million jobless Americans.

Obama said he would have preferred a much larger agreement on government revenues and long-term spending. “But with this Congress, that was obviously a little too much to hope for,” he said, to laughter from the audience.

And while he insisted that Congress needed to stay focused on the needs of the American people – “not politics” – he drew applause when he boasted that the potential deal, if approved, would result in something that Republicans had said they “would never agree” to: a permanent tax-rate increase on the wealthiest Americans.

PHOTOS: President Obama’s past

He also began staking out political turf for the next phase of the tax-and-spending fight, which will play out over much of 2013, if not longer. Any agreement to deal with spending cuts would have to be balanced, with increased revenues as one part of the equation.

If Republicans think that can “shove only spending cuts” as a way of shrinking the deficit in future years, “they have another think coming. That’s not how it’s going to work,” Obama said.

However, some liberals, including former Obama administration economic advisor Jared Bernstein, are warning that Republicans will never agree to higher taxes beyond those contained in whatever year-end deal is finally struck.

The highly choreographed event at the White House office complex included what Obama aides described as middle-class taxpayers. Obama shook hands with many of the 14 men and women who stood onstage behind him, then ushered them into another room for a photo session.

Obama ended what may have been his final public event of 2012 by wishing everyone a happy new year.

Follow Politics Now on Twitter and Facebook

paul.west@latimes.com

Twitter: @paulwestdc

Read More..

Armstrong better, Green Day to resume tour in 2013

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Green Day is going back out on the road.

The Grammy-winning punk band announced new tour dates Monday.

The band canceled the rest of its 2012 club schedule and postponed the start of a 2013 arena tour after singer-guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong's substance abuse problems emerged publicly in September when he had a profane meltdown on the stage of the iHeartRadio Music Festival in Las Vegas.

Armstrong told fans in a statement Monday that he's "getting better every day" and "the show must go on."

The tour is scheduled to begin March 28 at the Allstate Arena in the Chicago area.

The band released its most recent album, "Tre," on Dec. 11, more than a month ahead of schedule.

Read More..