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Viral rapper PSY apologizes for anti-US protests

South Korean rapper and Internet sensation PSY is apologizing to Americans for participating in anti-U.S. protests several years ago.

Park Jae-sang, who performs as PSY, issued a statement Friday after reports surfaced that he had participated in concerts protesting the U.S. military presence in South Korea during the early stages of the Iraq war.

At a 2004 concert, the "Gangnam Style" rapper performs a song with lyrics about killing "Yankees" who have been torturing Iraqi captives and their families "slowly and painfully." In another protest, he smashed a model of a U.S. tank on stage.

"While I'm grateful for the freedom to express one's self, I've learned there are limits to what language is appropriate and I'm deeply sorry for how these lyrics could be interpreted," he wrote in the statement. "I will forever be sorry for any pain I have caused by those words."

The 34-year-old rapper says the protests were part of a "deeply emotional" reaction to the war and the death of two Korean school girls, who were killed when a U.S. military vehicle hit them as they walked alongside the road. He noted antiwar sentiment was high around the world at the time.

PSY attended college in the U.S. and says he understands the sacrifices U.S. military members have made to protect South Korea and other nations. He has recently performed in front of servicemen and women.

"And I hope they and all Americans can accept my apology," he wrote. "While it's important that we express our opinions, I deeply regret the inflammatory and inappropriate language I used to do so. In my music, I try to give people a release, a reason to smile. I have learned that thru music, our universal language we can all come together as a culture of humanity and I hope that you will accept my apology."

His participation in the protests was no secret in South Korea, where the U.S. has had a large military presence since the Korean War, but was not generally known in America until recent news reports.

PSY did not write "Dear American," a song by The N.E.X.T., but he does perform it. The song exhorts the listener to kill the Yankees who are torturing Iraqi captives, their superiors who ordered the torture and their families. At one point he raps: "Kill their daughters, mothers, daughters-in-law, and fathers/Kill them all slowly and painfully."

PSY launched to international acclaim based on the viral nature of his "Gangnam Style" video. It became YouTube's most watched video, making him a millionaire who freely crossed cultural boundaries around the world. Much of that success has happened in the U.S., where the rapper has managed to weave himself into pop culture.

He recently appeared on the American Music Awards, dancing alongside MC Hammer in a melding of memorable dance moves that book-end the last two decades. And the Internet is awash with copycat versions of the song. Even former Republican Sen. Alan Simpson, the 81-year-old co-chairman of President Barack Obama's deficit commission, got in on the fun, recently using the song in a video to urge young Americans to avoid credit card debt.

It remains to be seen how PSY's American fans will react. Obama, the father of two pop music fans, wasn't letting the news change his plans, though.

Earlier Friday, the White House confirmed Obama and his family will attend a Dec. 21 charity concert where PSY is among the performers. A spokesman says it's customary for the president to attend the "Christmas in Washington" concert, which will be broadcast on TNT. The White House has no role in choosing performers for the event, which benefits the National Children's Medical Center.

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Smokers celebrate as Wash. legalizes marijuana

SEATTLE (AP) — The crowds of happy people lighting joints under Seattle's Space Needle early Thursday morning with nary a police officer in sight bespoke the new reality: Marijuana is legal under Washington state law.

Hundreds gathered at Seattle Center for a New Year's Eve-style countdown to 12 a.m., when the legalization measure passed by voters last month took effect. When the clock struck, they cheered and sparked up in unison.

A few dozen people gathered on a sidewalk outside the north Seattle headquarters of the annual Hempfest celebration and did the same, offering joints to reporters and blowing smoke into television news cameras.

"I feel like a kid in a candy store!" shouted Hempfest volunteer Darby Hageman. "It's all becoming real now!"

Washington and Colorado became the first states to vote to decriminalize and regulate the possession of an ounce or less of marijuana by adults over 21. Both measures call for setting up state licensing schemes for pot growers, processors and retail stores. Colorado's law is set to take effect by Jan. 5.

Technically, Washington's new marijuana law still forbids smoking pot in public, which remains punishable by a fine, like drinking in public. But pot fans wanted a party, and Seattle police weren't about to write them any tickets.

In another sweeping change for Washington, Gov. Chris Gregoire on Wednesday signed into law a measure that legalizes same-sex marriage. The state joins several others that allow gay and lesbian couples to wed.

The mood was festive in Seattle as dozens of gay and lesbian couples got in line to pick up marriage licenses at the King County auditor's office early Thursday.

King County and Thurston County announced they would open their auditors' offices shortly after midnight Wednesday to accommodate those who wanted to be among the first to get their licenses.

Kelly Middleton and her partner Amanda Dollente got in line at 4 p.m. Wednesday.

Hours later, as the line grew, volunteers distributed roses and a group of men and women serenaded the waiting line to the tune of "Chapel of Love."

Because the state has a three-day waiting period, the earliest that weddings can take place is Sunday.

In dealing with marijuana, the Seattle Police Department told its 1,300 officers on Wednesday, just before legalization took hold, that until further notice they shall not issue citations for public marijuana use.

Officers will be advising people not to smoke in public, police spokesman Jonah Spangenthal-Lee wrote on the SPD Blotter. "The police department believes that, under state law, you may responsibly get baked, order some pizzas and enjoy a 'Lord of the Rings' marathon in the privacy of your own home, if you want to."

He offered a catchy new directive referring to the film "The Big Lebowski," popular with many marijuana fans: "The Dude abides, and says 'take it inside!'"

"This is a big day because all our lives we've been living under the iron curtain of prohibition," said Hempfest director Vivian McPeak. "The whole world sees that prohibition just took a body blow."

Washington's new law decriminalizes possession of up to an ounce for those over 21, but for now selling marijuana remains illegal. I-502 gives the state a year to come up with a system of state-licensed growers, processors and retail stores, with the marijuana taxed 25 percent at each stage. Analysts have estimated that a legal pot market could bring Washington hundreds of millions of dollars a year in new tax revenue for schools, health care and basic government functions.

But marijuana remains illegal under federal law. That means federal agents can still arrest people for it, and it's banned from federal properties, including military bases and national parks.

The Justice Department has not said whether it will sue to try to block the regulatory schemes in Washington and Colorado from taking effect.

"The department's responsibility to enforce the Controlled Substances Act remains unchanged," said a statement issued Wednesday by the Seattle U.S. attorney's office. "Neither states nor the executive branch can nullify a statute passed by Congress."

The legal question is whether the establishment of a regulated marijuana market would "frustrate the purpose" of the federal pot prohibition, and many constitutional law scholars say it very likely would.

That leaves the political question of whether the administration wants to try to block the regulatory system, even though it would remain legal to possess up to an ounce of marijuana.

Alison Holcomb is the drug policy director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington and served as the campaign manager for New Approach Washington, which led the legalization drive. She said the voters clearly showed they're done with marijuana prohibition.

"New Approach Washington sponsors and the ACLU look forward to working with state and federal officials and to ensure the law is fully and fairly implemented," she said.

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Johnson can be reached at https://twitter.com/GeneAPseattle

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Court takes on gay marriage: What’s at stake

In a historic step that rivals other Supreme Court moves into the center of America’s cultural character, the justices on Friday agreed to consider the constitutionality of federal and state laws that deny marriage rights or marital benefits to same-sex couples. But the move carried with it the potential for stopping short of settling the core constitutional issue.

The court’s orders Friday afternoon said the justices would hear claims that states do not violate the Constitution when they allow marriage only for one man and one woman, and that the federal government does violate the Constitution when it denies benefits to same-sex couples who are already legally married under state laws. Those are the key questions on gays’ and lesbians’ right to marry.

At the same time, however, the court gave itself the option of postponing answers to those key questions. It raised a series of procedural issues that could mean that neither of the cases it granted would provide a definitive outcome. Which way it ultimately would choose to move is not predictable at this point. (Constitution Daily on Monday will provide a fuller analysis of what the court has said it would do.)

Last summer, as cases on same-sex marriage were reaching the Supreme Court, the justices were told that what was at stake was “the defining civil rights issue of our time.” That was a comment from two lawyers whose own fame–and past differences in court–have added to the high visibility of those cases: Theodore B. Olson and David Boies.

Once the opposing lawyers in the court’s celebrated decision in Bush v. Gore, settling a presidential election, Olson and Boies have joined forces to help speed up an already unfolding timetable of court rulings on whether gays and lesbians will be able to marry.  They won one of the most sweeping rulings ever issued by a court, when a federal judge in San Francisco two years ago struck down California’s ban on such marriages, “Proposition 8.”

But, years before those titans of the bar joined the fight, lawyers in gay rights organizations had been pressing the marriage issue in their own lawsuits. They, too, saw it as a defining issue of the day. They actually had two parallel campaigns going in the courts: open marriage to homosexual partners, and open the military to gays and lesbians, who could serve without hiding their sexual identities.

As the court now moves into the marriage issue, the fight over gays in the military already has been won. Congress repealed that ban, and the services are now welcoming gays and lesbians without trying to regulate their private lives.

There is virtually no chance that Congress–at least Congress as presently constituted–would pass legislation to open marriage to homosexuals on a nationwide basis. That is simply not politically possible and, besides, there is a question about whether Congress could impose such a requirement upon states, which traditionally have defined who can marry.

And, since the politics of gay rights do not suggest that a constitutional amendment to permit same-sex marriages will even be attempted, the path to such marriages remains either in state legislatures, with the voters of the states, or with the courts.

Recent Constitution Daily Stories

What’s the court doing with same-sex marriage cases?
Constitution Check: Would an Obama victory turn the Supreme Court sharply to the left?
Constitution Check: Will the politics of 2012 influence the constitutionality of gay marriage?

The campaign to pursue same-sex marriage through the courts has been marked, at times, by disagreements about what was the best strategy, and what was the best time to try to advance the cause. While supporters of same-sex marriage have had some control over the process, it has not been entirely a matter of their choice. Rigorous efforts challenging same-sex marriage have been made, in politics and in the courts, and have succeeded most of the time with the voters.

Still, it has been widely assumed that, sooner or later, the issue probably would be resolved as a constitutional matter by the Supreme Court. It has had rulings on gay rights in recent years, but it has never issued a full-scale ruling on the issue of marriage for homosexual couples.

Whether the review that is now beginning will lead to a sweeping new ruling, or only one that is limited in scope, will only become clear as the time for decision approaches.

Since the same-sex marriage cases began arriving at the court last summer, a total of 11 have now been placed on the docket. At a conference Friday morning, the court had before it 10 of those petitions, and the justices were examining them to decide which issues they were ready to confront.

Lyle Denniston is the National Constitution Center’s Adviser on Constitutional Literacy. He has reported on the Supreme Court for 54 years, currently covering it for SCOTUSblog, an online clearinghouse of information about the Supreme Court’s work.

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Safety, need compete in typhoon-hit Philippines

NEW BATAAN, Philippines (AP) — The Philippine government's geological hazard maps show why this farming community was largely washed away by a strong typhoon: "highly susceptible to flooding and landslides." That didn't stop some villagers from rebuilding even with bodies still lying under the mud.

Most of the about 420 people confirmed dead from Typhoon Bopha were killed in the steep valley that includes New Bataan, a town crisscrossed by rivers and cleared from lush hillsides by banana, coconut, cocoa and mango farmers in 1968. Flooding was so widespread here that places people thought were safe, including two emergency shelters, became among the deadliest.

In the impoverished Philippines, the jobless risk life and limb to feed their families and the government can do little beyond warning of the danger.

"It's not only an environmental issue, it's also a poverty issue," said Environment Secretary Ramon Paje. "The people would say, 'We are better off here. At least we have food to eat or money to buy food, even if it is risky.'

"But somehow we would like to protect their lives and if possible give them other sources of livelihood so that we can take them out of these permanent danger zones," Paje said.

Nearly 400 people were missing Friday after the typhoon struck the southern Philippines this week.

After a night of pounding rain, floodwaters started rising around 4 a.m. Tuesday, trapping farmer Joseph Requinto, his wife and two young children in their house near a creek.

"After that I saw some people being swept away," he told The Associated Press. He climbed up a hill, carrying his children, and the family found shelter behind boulders that shielded them from coconut trees rolling down the hill.

"The water was as high as a coconut tree," he said. "All the bamboo trees, even the big ones, were all mowed down."

Interior Secretary Mar Roxas saw New Bataan covered in 15 centimeters (6 inches) of mud. He was told by townspeople that a pond or a small lake atop the mountain collapsed, causing torrents of water to rampage like a waterfall.

"There is hardly any structure that is undamaged in New Bataan town," he said. "Entire families may have been washed away."

New Bataan residents led reporters from Manila's GMA Television to a mound of felled trees that were swept down from the hills. At least five bodies were jammed beneath the rubble, with no sign that anyone had attempted to retrieve them. It was uncertain if there were more bodies at the site.

Dozens of people stared blankly at their devastated town as they waited at a government information center, hoping for word of missing relative. Authorities planned to display about 80 newly washed bodies in coffins at a Roman Catholic church Friday, hoping relatives will identify them.

Authorities said about 215 people died in Compostela Valley and more than 151 in nearby Davao Oriental province, with the rest in other central and southern provinces. The typhoon, which hit the region with winds of 175 kph (109 mph), was weakening and expected to dissipate in the South China Sea by the weekend.

The 20 or so tropical storms that hit the Philippines each year strike its northern and central regions more often than the southern provinces pummeled by Bopha, but still, deadly floods are common on resource-rich Mindanao Island. On another part of the island last December, 1,200 people died when a powerful storm overflowed rivers. Then and now, raging flash floods, logs and large rocks carried people to their deaths.

The Bureau of Mines and Geosciences had issued warnings before the typhoon to people living in flood-prone areas, but in the Compostela Valley, nearly every area is flood-prone.

Bureau Director Leo Jasareno said about 80 percent of the valley is a danger zone due to a combination of factors, including the mountains and rivers, as well as logging that has stripped hills of trees that minimize landslides and absorb rainwater. Logging has been banned since last year's fatal flooding, but it continues illegally.

Nearly 80 villages and soldiers died in the New Bataan village of Andap when a flash flood swamped the two emergency shelters and a military camp. Jasareno said Andap had been an especially dangerous place to be.

"There is the Mayo River there. It's a natural channel way of the water from the upstream," he said. "The water has no other path but Andap village."

People stay because the land is rich in natural resources, including timber and gold, which is dug by small-scale miners.

Compostela Valley Gov. Arturo Uy rejected criticism by scientists and central government officials that his flood-ravaged communities should relocate.

"It's not possible to have no houses there because even the town center was hit. You mean to say the whole town will be abandoned?" Uy told the AP. He doubted the basis for classifying the area as dangerous and said he had urged the central government to review the hazard maps.

Uy said previous floods had been far less damaging, and had never threatened the places where the doomed emergency centers had been set up: the village hall, a health center, a covered court.

"We thought they would be safe there, but the volume of water was so huge," he said.

The deaths came despite efforts by President Benigno Aquino III's government to force residents out of high-risk communities as the typhoon approached. Vice President Jejomar Binay directed local executives, police and military officials not to allow those displaced to return to their homes in areas classified as danger zones. However, it wasn't clear how quickly and where substitute homes would be built.

On Thursday, residents armed with hammers began to repair devastated homes and wash their muddy belongings, taking advantage of the sunny weather.

They stopped when a rescuer in orange overalls blew his whistle. He had seen a hand sticking out of a muddy heap of logs, rocks and debris.

Soldiers and volunteers converged on the pile with shovels and crowbars. They pulled four bodies from the muck, including two children.

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Associated Press writers Jim Gomez, Teresa Cerojano, Oliver Teves and Hrvoje Hranjski in Manila contributed to this report.

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No Grammy love for Justin Bieber, One Direction

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Irate fans of Justin Bieber and boy band One Direction took to social media on Thursday to voice their outrage after being snubbed by the Grammys for a chance to win the biggest honors in the music industry.

Indie-pop band fun and rapper Frank Ocean led the 2013 nominations, tying with The Black Keys, Mumford & Sons, Jay-Z and Kanye West for six nods. But The Recording Academy overlooked some of the year’s biggest and most commercially successful artists in Wednesday’s nominations.

While Bieber, 18, who won three American Music Awards in November, stayed quiet on his omission, his manager Scooter Braun took to Twitter.

“Grammy board u blew it on this one. the hardest thing to do is transition, keep the train moving. The kid delivered. Huge successful album, sold out tour, and won people over. … This time he deserved to be recognized,” Braun posted in a series of tweets.

Many of Bieber’s 31 million Twitter fans quickly followed suit, with hashtags such as #BieberForGrammys trending on the micro-blogging service.

The Canadian singer, who has never won a Grammy, in June released album “Believe,” showcasing a more grown-up image. The album, which produced top 10 hits “Boyfriend” and “As Long As You Love Me,” has sold more than 1.1 million copies.

British boy band One Direction was also left empty-handed despite their debut album “Up All Night” having topped the Billboard 200 album chart.

The quintet has performed sold-out shows across the world and won three MTV video music awards earlier this year.

The Grammy Awards are voted on by members of The Recording Academy and recognize achievement in 81 categories.

Lady Gaga, rapper Nicki Minaj and Korea’s Psy also failed to snag any nominations.

While Gaga hasn’t released new music this year, focusing on her global tour, Minaj released “Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded,” which topped the Billboard 200 chart and spawned singles such as “Starships.”

Psy may have YouTube’s most watched video ever with “Gangnam Style,” – over 897 million views – but he missed out on becoming the first Korean artist to receive a Grammy nod.

The Grammy Awards will be handed out at a live performance show and ceremony on February 10 in Los Angeles.

(Reporting By Piya Sinha-Roy; editing by Jill Serjeant and Todd Eastham)

Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Actor Stephen Baldwin charged in NY tax case

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. (AP) — Actor Stephen Baldwin was charged Thursday with failing to pay New York state taxes for three years, amassing a $350,000 debt.

Rockland County District Attorney Thomas Zugibe said Baldwin, of Upper Grandview, skipped his taxes in 2008, 2009 and 2010.

The youngest of the four acting Baldwin brothers pleaded not guilty at an arraignment and was freed without bail. His lawyer, Russell Yankwitt, said Baldwin should not have been charged.

"Mr. Baldwin did not commit any crimes, and he's working with the district attorney's office and the New York State Tax Department to resolve any differences," Yankwitt said.

The district attorney said Baldwin could face up to four years in prison if convicted. The actor is due back in court on Feb. 5.

Zugibe said Baldwin owes more than $350,000 in tax and penalties.

"We cannot afford to allow wealthy residents to break the law by cheating on their taxes," the district attorney said. "The defendant's repetitive failure to file returns and pay taxes over a period of several years contributes to the sweeping cutbacks and closures in local government and in our schools."

Thomas Mattox, the state tax commissioner, said, "It is rare and unfortunate for a personal income tax case to require such strong enforcement measures."

Baldwin, 46, starred in 1995's "The Usual Suspects" and appeared in 1989's "Born on the Fourth of July." He is scheduled to appear in March on NBC's "The Celebrity Apprentice."

His brothers Alec, William and Daniel are also actors.

A bankruptcy filing in 2009 said Stephen Baldwin owed $1.2 million on two mortgages, $1 million in taxes and $70,000 on credit cards.

In October, Baldwin pleaded guilty in Manhattan to unlicensed driving and was ordered to pay a $75 fine. Earlier this year, he lost a $17 million civil case in New Orleans after claiming that actor Kevin Costner and a business partner duped him in a deal related to the cleanup of the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill. The actors and others had formed a company that marketed devices that separate oil from water.

Baldwin co-hosts a radio show with conservative talk figure Kevin McCullough.

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Celebrations planned as Wash. legalizes marijuana

SEATTLE (AP) — Legal marijuana possession becomes a reality under Washington state law on Thursday, and some people planned to celebrate the new law by breaking it.

Voters in Washington and Colorado last month made those the first states to decriminalize and regulate the recreational use of marijuana. Washington's law takes effect Thursday and allows adults to have up to an ounce of pot — but it bans public use of marijuana, which is punishable by a fine, just like drinking in public.

Nevertheless, some people planned to gather at 12:01 a.m. PST Thursday to smoke in public beneath Seattle's Space Needle. Others planned a midnight party outside the Seattle headquarters of Hempfest, the 21-year-old festival that attracts tens of thousands of pot fans every summer.

"This is a big day because all our lives we've been living under the iron curtain of prohibition," said Hempfest director Vivian McPeak. "The whole world sees that prohibition just took a body blow."

In another sweeping change for Washington, Gov. Chris Gregoire on Wednesday signed into law a measure that legalizes same-sex marriage. The state joins several others that allow gay and lesbian couples to wed.

That law also takes effect Thursday, when gay and lesbian couples can start picking up their wedding certificates and licenses at county auditors' offices. Those offices in King County, the state's largest and home to Seattle, and Thurston County, home to the state capital of Olympia, planned to open the earliest, at 12:01 a.m. Thursday, to start issuing marriage licenses. Because the state has a three-day waiting period, the earliest that weddings can take place is Sunday.

The Seattle Police Department provided this public marijuana use enforcement guidance to its officers via email Wednesday night: "Until further notice, officers shall not take any enforcement action — other than to issue a verbal warning — for a violation of Initiative 502."

Thanks to a 2003 law, marijuana enforcement remains the department's lowest priority. Even before I-502 passed on Nov. 6, police rarely busted people at Hempfest, despite widespread pot use, and the city attorney here doesn't prosecute people for having small amounts of marijuana.

Officers will be advising people to take their weed inside, police spokesman Jonah Spangenthal-Lee wrote on the SPD Blotter. "The police department believes that, under state law, you may responsibly get baked, order some pizzas and enjoy a 'Lord of the Rings' marathon in the privacy of your own home, if you want to."

Washington's new law decriminalizes possession of up to an ounce for those over 21, but for now selling marijuana remains illegal. I-502 gives the state a year to come up with a system of state-licensed growers, processors and retail stores, with the marijuana taxed 25 percent at each stage. Analysts have estimated that a legal pot market could bring Washington hundreds of millions of dollars a year in new tax revenue for schools, health care and basic government functions.

But marijuana remains illegal under federal law. That means federal agents can still arrest people for it, and it's banned from federal properties, including military bases and national parks.

The Justice Department has not said whether it will sue to try to block the regulatory schemes in Washington and Colorado from taking effect.

"The department's responsibility to enforce the Controlled Substances Act remains unchanged," said a statement issued Wednesday by the Seattle U.S. attorney's office. "Neither states nor the executive branch can nullify a statute passed by Congress" — a non-issue, since the measures passed in Washington and Colorado don't "nullify" federal law, which federal agents remain free to enforce.

The legal question is whether the establishment of a regulated marijuana market would "frustrate the purpose" of the federal pot prohibition, and many constitutional law scholars say it very likely would.

That leaves the political question of whether the administration wants to try to block the regulatory system, even though it would remain legal to possess up to an ounce of marijuana.

Colorado's measure, as far as decriminalizing possession goes, is set to take effect by Jan. 5. That state's regulatory scheme is due to be up and running by October 2013.

___(equals)

Johnson can be reached at https://twitter.com/GeneAPseattle

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Will anyone else join the 'compromise club'?

WASHINGTON—While President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner negotiate a deal to avoid a series of automatic tax increases and spending cuts set to begin next year, both camps continue to publicly tangle over whether to increase taxes on the wealthy.

But within Boehner's caucus, there is a small group of Republicans who say they are open to raising tax rates, but only for a price.

"We should have everything on the table, and we should discuss it," said Michael Mahaffey, a spokesman for Florida Republican Rep. Tom Rooney. Rooney has expressed a willingness to let taxes go up in return for a massive restructuring of the way the federal government pays for Social Security and Medicare. "If we can get a big deal that includes real entitlement reform, then we should consider ways to balance that with more revenue," Mahaffey continued.

For Rooney, the specific language outlining the entitlement overhaul would need to be written into the bill and not just promised as a future goal. It also must be immediate.

Ohio Republican Rep. Steve LaTourette, an outgoing member who is also open to tax increases as part of a grand bargain, said he won't budge for less than $4 trillion to $6 trillion in deficit reduction over 10 years.

There are only a handful of other Republican members who have been willing to publicly say they agree.

LaTourette and Republican Rep. Mike Simpson of Idaho co-signed a letter with Democratic Reps. Heath Shuler of North Carolina and Jim Cooper of Tennessee that they plan to send to House and Senate leaders urging them not to keep anything off-limits, even tax increases.

"To succeed, all options for mandatory and discretionary spending and revenues must be on the the table," the bipartisan House members write in the letter. They intend to gather more signatures before sending it to congressional leaders.

Still, the Compromise Club remains small. Oklahoma Republican Rep. Tom Cole, who has been a ubiquitous face on cable news of late, was one of the most recent to express an openness to compromise on tax rates.

This week, Democratic House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner reiterated that there will be no agreement without raising income tax rates on households earning more than $250,000 annually. Boehner has remained equally steadfast in his unwillingness to agree to anything that raises those rates, offering a plan to raise revenue by eliminating loopholes and deductions within the tax code instead.

Many Democrats continue to oppose any measure that would alter the entitlement reforms, and there remains staunch opposition to any tax increases among Republicans. As of this week, talks between Obama and Boehner appear to remain at a standstill.

This article has been updated since publication.

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Rupert Murdoch's mother Elisabeth dies at age 103

SYDNEY (AP) — Dame Elisabeth Murdoch, a prominent Australian philanthropist and mother of media mogul Rupert Murdoch, has died at age 103.

News Ltd., the Australian media company headed by her son, confirmed her death.

She died peacefully on Wednesday surrounded by family members in her garden estate outside Melbourne. She had been hospitalized in September after a bad fall in which she broke her leg.

"We have lost the most wonderful mother but we are all grateful to have had her love and wisdom for so many years," Rupert Murdoch said in a family statement.

Rupert, 81, has said that his mother's long life was evidence that he would be able to continue leading News Corp., the global media company which he founded, for many years.

Dame Elisabeth was a patron of the arts and contributed to an estimated 100 charities annually.

"Probably the most useful contribution one can make is to forget oneself and care for others," she once said.

She was the wife of Sir Keith Murdoch, a hotshot journalist and newspaper publisher, and the mother of his four children — Rupert Murdoch, Anne Kantor, Janet Calvert-Jones, and Helen Handbury, who died in 2004.

Murdoch's philanthropic roots began during her childhood, when she started knitting woolen tops for babies at a children's hospital and volunteering at a kindergarten. As a teen, she volunteered for the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

In 1927, Keith Murdoch — one of Melbourne's most coveted bachelors — spotted a photo of Elisabeth in a society magazine. At 18, she was 23 years his junior, but he was intent on meeting her. They were introduced at a dance and she later said she fell instantly in love.

Her family and friends were initially panicked over the age difference, but she ignored their warnings and married him the following year. The two were married for 24 years, before Keith died in 1952.

By then, philanthropy had become the main focus of her life. She spent more than three decades on the board of Melbourne's Royal Children's Hospital. Queen Elizabeth II made her a dame in 1963 in recognition of her service to the community.

Murdoch was open about the advantages wealth had granted her, particularly the opportunity to help others.

"Wealth can be very misused, but generally speaking it's a tremendous tool in here in helping community," she told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. in 2008.

"People say to me sometimes, 'You must be very proud of Rupert,' and I know what they mean. They think he's made a lot of money and I say, 'I am very proud of him because he's a good father and a good son.' And that's what I'm proud of. Not so proud of his wealth."

She has 77 direct descendants, including 50 great-grandchildren and six great-great-grandchildren.

Her family said arrangements for a memorial service were still being decided, but that the funeral was expected to be private.

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