'Skyfall' launches back to top spot with $10.8M
Label: LifestyleLOS ANGELES (AP) — The James Bond blockbuster "Skyfall" has risen back to the No. 1 spot at the weekend box office, taking in $10.8 million.
That brought its domestic total to $261.4 million and its worldwide haul to a franchise record of $918 million.
The top 20 movies at U.S. and Canadian theaters Friday through Sunday, followed by distribution studio, gross, number of theater locations, average receipts per location, total gross and number of weeks in release, as compiled Monday by Hollywood.com are:
1. "Skyfall," Sony, $10,780,201, 3,401 locations, $3,170 average, $261,400,281, five weeks.
2. "Rise of the Guardians," Paramount, $10,400,618, 3,639 locations, $2,858 average, $61,774,192, three weeks.
3. "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part 2," Summit, $9,156,265, 3,646 locations, $2,511 average, $268,691,029, four weeks.
4. "Lincoln," $8,916,813, 2,014 locations, $4,427 average, $97,137,447, five weeks.
5. "Life of Pi," Fox, $8,330,764, 2,946 locations, $2,828 average, $60,948,293, three weeks.
6. "Playing For Keeps," FilmDistrict, $5,750,288, 2,837 locations, $2,027 average, $5,750,288, one week.
7. "Wreck-It Ralph," Disney, $4,859,368, 2,746 locations, $1,770 average, $164,402,934, six weeks.
8. "Red Dawn," FilmDistrict, $4,236,105, 2,754 locations, $1,538 average, $37,240,920, three weeks.
9. "Flight," Paramount, $3,130,305, 2,431 locations, $1,288 average, $86,202,541, six weeks.
10. "Killing Them Softly," Weinstein Co., $2,806,901, 2,424 locations, $1,158 average, $11,830,638, two weeks.
11. "Silver Linings Playbook," Weinstein Co., $2,171,665, 371 locations, $5,854 average, $13,964,405, four weeks.
12. "Anna Karenina," Focus, $1,544,859, 422 locations, $3,661 average, $6,603,042, four weeks.
13. "The Collection," LD Entertainment, $1,487,655, 1,403 locations, $1,060 average, $5,455,328, two weeks.
14. "Argo," Warner Bros., $1,482,346, 944 locations, $1,570 average, $103,160,015, nine weeks.
15. "End of Watch," Open Road Films, $751,623, 1,259 locations, $597 average, $39,989,766, 12 weeks.
16. "Hitchcock," Fox Searchlight, $712,544, 181 locations, $3,937 average, $1,661,670, three weeks.
17. "Talaash," Reliance Big Pictures, $449,195, 161 locations, $2,790 average, $2,397,909, two weeks.
18. "Taken 2," Fox, $387,227, 430 locations, $901 average, $137,700,304, 10 weeks.
19. "Pitch Perfect," Universal, $305,765, 387 locations, $790 average, $63,517,408, 11 weeks.
20. "The Sessions," Fox, $218,973, 197 locations, $1,112 average, $4,948,342, eight weeks.
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Online:
http://www.hollywood.com
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Universal and Focus are owned by NBC Universal, a unit of Comcast Corp.; Sony, Columbia, Sony Screen Gems and Sony Pictures Classics are units of Sony Corp.; Paramount is owned by Viacom Inc.; Disney, Pixar and Marvel are owned by The Walt Disney Co.; Miramax is owned by Filmyard Holdings LLC; 20th Century Fox and Fox Searchlight are owned by News Corp.; Warner Bros. and New Line are units of Time Warner Inc.; MGM is owned by a group of former creditors including Highland Capital, Anchorage Advisors and Carl Icahn; Lionsgate is owned by Lions Gate Entertainment Corp.; IFC is owned by AMC Networks Inc.; Rogue is owned by Relativity Media LLC.
Surprise: New insurance fee in health overhaul law
Label: HealthWASHINGTON (AP) — Your medical plan is facing an unexpected expense, so you probably are, too. It's a new, $63-per-head fee to cushion the cost of covering people with pre-existing conditions under President Barack Obama's health care overhaul.
The charge, buried in a recent regulation, works out to tens of millions of dollars for the largest companies, employers say. Most of that is likely to be passed on to workers.
Employee benefits lawyer Chantel Sheaks calls it a "sleeper issue" with significant financial consequences, particularly for large employers.
"Especially at a time when we are facing economic uncertainty, (companies will) be hit with a multi-million dollar assessment without getting anything back for it," said Sheaks, a principal at Buck Consultants, a Xerox subsidiary.
Based on figures provided in the regulation, employer and individual health plans covering an estimated 190 million Americans could owe the per-person fee.
The Obama administration says it is a temporary assessment levied for three years starting in 2014, designed to raise $25 billion. It starts at $63 and then declines.
Most of the money will go into a fund administered by the Health and Human Services Department. It will be used to cushion health insurance companies from the initial hard-to-predict costs of covering uninsured people with medical problems. Under the law, insurers will be forbidden from turning away the sick as of Jan. 1, 2014.
The program "is intended to help millions of Americans purchase affordable health insurance, reduce unreimbursed usage of hospital and other medical facilities by the uninsured and thereby lower medical expenses and premiums for all," the Obama administration says in the regulation. An accompanying media fact sheet issued Nov. 30 referred to "contributions" without detailing the total cost and scope of the program.
Of the total pot, $5 billion will go directly to the U.S. Treasury, apparently to offset the cost of shoring up employer-sponsored coverage for early retirees.
The $25 billion fee is part of a bigger package of taxes and fees to finance Obama's expansion of coverage to the uninsured. It all comes to about $700 billion over 10 years, and includes higher Medicare taxes effective this Jan. 1 on individuals making more than $200,000 per year or couples making more than $250,000. People above those threshold amounts also face an additional 3.8 percent tax on their investment income.
But the insurance fee had been overlooked as employers focused on other costs in the law, including fines for medium and large firms that don't provide coverage.
"This kind of came out of the blue and was a surprisingly large amount," said Gretchen Young, senior vice president for health policy at the ERISA Industry Committee, a group that represents large employers on benefits issues.
Word started getting out in the spring, said Young, but hard cost estimates surfaced only recently with the new regulation. It set the per capita rate at $5.25 per month, which works out to $63 a year.
America's Health Insurance Plans, the major industry trade group for health insurers, says the fund is an important program that will help stabilize the market and mitigate cost increases for consumers as the changes in Obama's law take effect.
But employers already offering coverage to their workers don't see why they have to pony up for the stabilization fund, which mainly helps the individual insurance market. The redistribution puts the biggest companies on the hook for tens of millions of dollars.
"It just adds on to everything else that is expected to increase health care costs," said economist Paul Fronstin of the nonprofit Employee Benefit Research Institute.
The fee will be assessed on all "major medical" insurance plans, including those provided by employers and those purchased individually by consumers. Large employers will owe the fee directly. That's because major companies usually pay upfront for most of the health care costs of their employees. It may not be apparent to workers, but the insurance company they deal with is basically an agent administering the plan for their employer.
The fee will total $12 billion in 2014, $8 billion in 2015 and $5 billion in 2016. That means the per-head assessment would be smaller each year, around $40 in 2015 instead of $63.
It will phase out completely in 2017 — unless Congress, with lawmakers searching everywhere for revenue to reduce federal deficits — decides to extend it.
Obama blasts Michigan right-to-work bills
Label: Business
President Barack Obama at the Daimler Detroit Diesel plant in Redford, Mich., on Monday. (Jason Reed/Reuters)
President Barack Obama traveled to the Daimler Detroit Diesel plant in Redford, Mich., Monday to issue a speech on the economy, pressure Republicans in Congress to raise taxes on the nation's top earners, and highlight Daimler's new $120 million investment in the plant.
But it was the president's criticism of Michigan's right-to work legislation that stole the show for the audience of Daimler union employees.
"What we shouldn't be doing is trying to take away your rights to bargain for better wages," the president told the audience, which immediately roared with cheers, applause and whistles. "These so-called right-to-work laws, they don't have to do with economics, they have everything to do with politics." They're about "giving you the right to work for less money," he added, noting that Michigan's history shows how unions have helped "build a better America."
New state right-to-work legislation, which forbids requiring all employees who benefit from a labor contract to pay union dues, is scheduled to move through the Michigan Legislature for final action this week. Republican Gov. Rick Snyder has pledged to sign the final version.
Activists have mobilized against the legislation, which they view to be an anti-union effort, resulting in a state Capitol lockdown last Thursday.
The president's comments Monday were his first public statements on the situation in Michigan.
His appearance was pegged to Daimler's announcement of its investment in the Detroit Diesel plant, which created 115 good, new "union" jobs, the president said. "That's great for this plant, good for this community, but it's also good for American manufacturing."
The president highlighted the plant as a symbol of how American manufacturing and auto industries are rebounding and growing in the new global economy.
"The competitive balance is tipping a little," the president said.
Obama appealed to the audience, which he characterized as middle-class, on the issue of the "fiscal cliff" by warning that the average middle-class family stands to pay $2,200 more in taxes next year if the automatic spending cuts and tax increases go into effect Jan. 1.
The president said America will head into a "downward spiral" if this happens, and placed the onus once again on Republicans to resolve the crisis by agreeing to raise taxes on households making more than $250,000.
"We've got to get past this whole situation where we've manufactured crises because of politics," Obama said.
Obama met Sunday with House Republican Speaker John Boehner, the GOP's lead voice on "fiscal cliff" negotiations, but no details of that conversation have been offered.
White House spokesman Jay Carney, during Monday's briefing on Air Force One en route to Michigan, also would not reveal any information. "I won't characterize yesterday's meeting or other conversations, but the president does believe we can reach an agreement," Carney said.
Pakistan: US drone kills senior al-Qaida leader
Label: WorldPESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — A U.S. drone strike has killed a senior al-Qaida leader in Pakistan's tribal region near the Afghan border, Pakistani intelligence officials said, in the latest blow to the Islamic militant network.
Sheik Khalid bin Abdel Rehman al-Hussainan, who was also known as Abu Zaid al-Kuwaiti, was killed when missiles slammed into a house Thursday near Mir Ali, one of the main towns in the North Waziristan tribal area, the officials said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.
Al-Kuwaiti appeared in many videos released by al-Qaida's media wing, Al-Sahab, and was presented as a religious scholar for the group.
Earlier this year, he replaced Abu Yahya al-Libi, al-Qaida's second in command, who was killed in a U.S. drone strike in North Waziristan in June, the intelligence officials said. Al-Libi was a key religious figure within al-Qaida and also a prominent militant commander.
Al-Kuwaiti appeared to be a less prominent figure and was not part of the U.S. State Department's list of most wanted terrorist suspects, as al-Libi had been.
Covert CIA drone strikes have killed a series of senior al-Qaida and Taliban leaders in Pakistan's tribal region over the past few years. The attacks are controversial because the secret nature of the program makes it difficult to determine how many civilians are being killed.
On Sunday, four drone-launched missiles blew apart a house near Miran Shah, another main town in North Waziristan, killing three suspected militants, intelligence officials said. North Waziristan has become the main hub for al-Qaida and Taliban militants in Pakistan.
Pakistani officials often criticize such strikes as a violation of the country's sovereignty, which has helped make them extremely unpopular in the country. But senior Pakistani officials are known to have cooperated with strikes in the past, and many people believe they still do.
Al-Kuwaiti's wife and daughter were wounded in Thursday's drone attack, according to the intelligence officials. His wife died a day later at a hospital in Miran Shah.
Al-Kuwaiti was buried in Tappi village near Mir Ali on Friday, the officials said.
A Pakistani Taliban commander who frequently visits North Waziristan told the Associated Press by telephone that he met some Arab fighters on Saturday who were "very aggrieved." The Arabs told him they lost a "big leader" in a drone strike, but would not reveal his name or his exact position in al-Qaida.
The Taliban commander spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of revealing his identity to the Pakistani government.
Al-Qaida's central leadership in Pakistan has been dealt a series of sharp blows in the past few years, including the U.S. commando raid that killed Osama bin Laden in the Pakistani town of Abbottabad last year. A significant number of senior al-Qaida leaders have also been killed in U.S. drone attacks in the country.
Many analysts believe the biggest threat now comes from al-Qaida franchises in places like Yemen and Somalia.
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Mahsud reported from Dera Ismail Khan, Pakistan.
Top 10 Tech This Week
Label: Technology1. Here Comes the First Real Alternative to iPhone and Android
Jolla, a Finnish startup, launched a new mobile OS called Sailfish, which the company believes will become a legitimate alternative to the Coke and Pepsi of smartphone platforms: Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android. Learn more about the new OS.
Click here to view this gallery.
[More from Mashable: Jimmy Fallon and Mariah Carey Take on ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’]
It’s been awhile since the big tech companies launched products in time for the holiday shopping season. So this week, tech news has mostly been filled with cool scientific developments and — of course — drones.
We learned about Swiss researchers who created an underwater drone that resembles a sea turtle, and a father who built a DIY drone to track his kid walking from home to the bus each morning.
[More from Mashable: News Corp. Kills ‘The Daily’]
This week, we also took a look at new innovations: One groups of scientists created the lightbulb of the future, and another team built the largest-ever model of a functioning brain.
There was also plenty of mobile news. Read up on a new Finnish mobile OS that aims to be the alternative to iOS and Android, and about a Casio watch that syncs with your iPhone.
For these stories and more, check out this week’s Top 10 Tech gallery, above.
This story originally published on Mashable here.
Wireless News Headlines – Yahoo! News
Plane of singer Jenni Rivera missing in Mexico
Label: LifestyleMONTERREY, Mexico (AP) — A small plane carrying popular Mexican-American singer Jenni Rivera went missing Sunday after taking off from the city of Monterrey, said authorities in northern Mexico.
The mayor of the town of Iturbide in Nuevo Leon state, Jose Antonio Gonzalez, said a plane had been located in the municipality of Los Tejocotes, but it has not been confirmed that it is the plane Rivera was travelling in.
Jorge Domene, spokesman for Nuevo Leon's government, said he didn't have any knowledge of her plane being found.
Domene said the Rivera's plane left Monterrey about 3:30 a.m. local time after a concert there and aviation authorities lost contact with the craft about 10 minutes later. It had been scheduled to arrive in Toluca, which is located outside Mexico City, about an hour later. A search for the plane is under way with civilian protection agency helicopters flying over the state.
Seven people including her publicist, lawyer, makeup artist and the flight crew were believed to be aboard the U.S.-registered Learjet 25, the ministry of transportation and communication said in a statement.
Alejandro Argudin, of Mexico's civil aviation agency, said Sunday afternoon that Rivera's plane was still listed as missing.
The 43-year-old who was born and raised in Long Beach, California, is one of the biggest stars of the Mexican regional style known as grupero music, which is influenced by the norteno, cumbia and ranchera styles.
The so-called Diva of the Banda recently won two Billboard Mexican Music Awards: Female Artist of the Year and Banda Album of the Year for "Joyas prestadas: Banda." Her famous songs include "La Gran Senora" and "De Contrabando."
The singer, businesswoman and actress appeared in the movie Filly Brown, as the incarcerated mother of Filly Brown, and has her own reality shows including "I Love Jenni" and "Jenni Rivera Presents: Chiquis and Raq-C" and her daughter's "Chiquis 'n Control."
Rivera had given a concert before thousands of fans in Monterrey on Saturday night. After the concert she gave a press conference during which she spoke of her emotional state following her recent divorce from former Major League Baseball pitcher, Esteban Loaiza who played for teams including the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers.
"I can't get caught up in the negative because that destroys you. Perhaps trying to move away from my problems and focus on the positive is the best I can do. I am a woman like any other and ugly things happen to me like any other woman," she said Saturday night. "The number of times I have fallen down is the number of times I have gotten up."
The mother of five children and grandmother of two had announced in October that she was divorcing Loaiza after two years of marriage. It was her third marriage.
Rivera is the sister of Mexican singer Lupillo Rivera. Patricia Chavez of Lupillo Rivera's office in the United States told The AP that "for now we don't have any information that would be useful."
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Associated Press Writer Galia Garcia-Palafox contributed to this report from Mexico City.
Smokers celebrate as Wash. legalizes marijuana
Label: HealthSEATTLE (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
Obama, Boehner meet to discuss 'fiscal cliff'
Label: BusinessWASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner met Sunday at the White House to discuss the ongoing negotiations over the impending "fiscal cliff," the first meeting between just the two leaders since Election Day.
Spokesmen for both Obama and Boehner said they agreed to not release details of the conversation, but emphasized that the lines of communication remain open.
The meeting comes as the White House and Congress try to break an impasse over finding a way to stop a combination of automatic tax increases and spending cuts scheduled to kick in at the beginning of next year.
Obama met in November with Boehner, as well as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. The president spoke by telephone with Reid and in person with Pelosi on Friday.
Obama has been pushing higher tax rates on the wealthiest Americans as one way to reduce the deficit — a position Boehner and other House Republicans have been steadfastly against. Republicans are demanding steeper cuts in costly government entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security.
One GOP senator said Sunday that Senate Republicans would probably agree to higher tax rates on the wealthiest Americans if it meant getting a chance to overhaul entitlement programs.
The comments by Bob Corker of Tennessee — a fiscal conservative who has been gaining stature in the Senate as a pragmatic deal broker — puts new pressure on Boehner and other Republican leaders to rethink their long-held assertion that even the very rich shouldn't see their rates go up next year. GOP leaders have argued that the revenue gained by hiking the top two tax rates would be trivial to the deficit, and that any tax hike hurts job creation.
But Corker said insisting on that red line — especially since Obama won re-election after campaigning on raising tax rates on the wealthy — might not be wise.
"There is a growing group of folks looking at this and realizing that we don't have a lot of cards as it relates to the tax issue before year end," Corker told "Fox News Sunday."
If Republicans agree to Obama's plan to increase rates on the top 2 percent of Americans, Corker added, "the focus then shifts to entitlements and maybe it puts us in a place where we actually can do something that really saves the nation."
Besides getting tax hikes through the Republican-dominated House, Corker's proposal faces another hurdle: Democrats haven't been receptive to GOP proposals on the entitlement programs. Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., on Sunday was skeptical about proposals to increase the eligibility age for Medicare from 65 to 67. He said he doesn't see Congress addressing the complicated issue of Medicare overhaul in the three weeks remaining before the end of the year.
"I just don't think we can do it in a matter of days here before the end of the year," Durbin said. "We need to address that in a thoughtful way through the committee structure after the first of the year."
And hard-line fiscal conservatives in the House are holding fast to their position.
"No Republican wants to vote for a rate tax increase," said Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, chairman of the House Republican Conference.
Added Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn.: "I'm not sure there is support for the rate hikes. There is support for revenue by cleaning up the code."
Still, at least one House Republican has said there is another way. Rep. Tom Cole, of Oklahoma, has said Obama and Boehner should agree not to raise tax rates on the majority of Americans and negotiate the rates for top earners later. Cole said Sunday that most House Republicans would vote for that approach because it doesn't include a rate hike.
"You know, it's not waving a white flag to recognize political reality," Cole said.
Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., already has said he could support higher tax rates on upper incomes as part of a comprehensive plan to cut the federal deficit.
When asked Sunday what it would take to sign on to a tax rate increase, Coburn echoed Corker's comments by responding, "Significant entitlement reform." He quickly added, however, that he has estimated that such a tax rate increase would only affect about 7 percent of the deficit.
"Will I accept a tax increase as a part of a deal to actually solve our problems? Yes," Coburn said. "But the president's negotiating with the wrong people. He needs to be negotiating with our bondholders in China, because if we don't put a credible plan on the discussion, ultimately, we all lose."
Obama's plan would raise $1.6 trillion in revenue over 10 years, partly by letting decade-old tax cuts on the country's highest earners expire at the end of the year. He would continue those Bush-era tax cuts for everyone except individuals earning more than $200,000 and couples making above $250,000. The highest rates on top-paid Americans would rise from 33 percent and 35 percent to 36 percent and 39.6 percent.
Boehner has offered $800 billion in new revenues to be raised by reducing or eliminating unspecified tax breaks on upper-income people. The Republican plan would cut spending by $1.4 trillion, including by trimming annual increases in Social Security payments and raising the eligibility age for Medicare.
Hensarling and Coburn spoke on ABC's "This Week." Blackburn and Cole spoke on CNN's "State of the Union." Durbin spoke on NBC's "Meet the Press."
Storm that killed 600 threatens Philippines again
Label: WorldNEW BATAAN, Philippines (AP) — A typhoon that had left the Philippines after killing nearly 600 people and leaving hundreds missing in the south has made a U-turn and is now threatening the country's northwest, officials said Saturday.
The weather bureau raised storm warnings over parts of the main northern island of Luzon after Typhoon Bopha veered northeast. There was a strong possibility the disastrous storm would make a second landfall Sunday, but it might also make a loop and remain in the South China Sea, forecasters said. In either case, it was moving close to shore and disaster officials warned of heavy rains and winds and possible landslides in the mountainous region.
Another calamity in the north would stretch recovery efforts thin. Most government resources, including army and police, are currently focused on the south, where Bopha hit Tuesday before moving west into the South China Sea.
With many survivors still in shock, soldiers, police and outside volunteers formed most of the teams searching for bodies or signs of life under tons of fallen trees and boulders swept down from steep hills surrounding the worst-hit town of New Bataan, municipal spokesman Marlon Esperanza said.
"We are having a hard time finding guides," he told The Associated Press. "Entire families were killed and the survivors ... appear dazed. They can't move."
He said the rocks, mud, tree trunks and other rubble that litter the town have destroyed landmarks, making it doubly difficult to search places where houses once stood.
On Friday, bodies found jammed under fallen trees that could not be retrieved were marked with makeshift flags made of torn cloth so they could be easily spotted by properly equipped teams.
Authorities decided to bury unidentified bodies in a common grave after forensic officials process them for future identification by relatives, Esperanza said.
The town's damaged public market has been converted into a temporary funeral parlor. A few residents milled around two dozen white wooden coffins, some containing unidentified remains.
One resident, Jing Maniquiz, 37, said she rushed home from Manila for the wake of two of her sisters, but could not bring herself to visit the place where her home once stood in Andap village. Her parents, a brother and nephew are missing.
"I don't want to see it," she said tearfully. "I can't accept that in just an instant I lost my mother, my father, my brother."
She said that at the height of the typhoon, her mother was able to send her a text message saying trees were falling on their house and its roof had been blown away.
Maniquiz said her family sought refuge at a nearby health center, but that was destroyed and they and dozens of others were swept away by the raging waters.
"We are not hopeful that they are still alive. We just want to find their bodies so that we will have closure," she said.
Mary Joy Adlawan, a 14-year-old high school student from the same village, was waiting for authorities to bury her 7-year-old niece.
Her parents, an elder sister, five nieces and a nephew are missing.
"I don't know what to do," she said as she fixed some flowers on the coffin.
Esperanza said heavy equipment, search dogs and chain saws were brought by volunteers from as far away as the capital, Manila, about 950 kilometers (590 miles) to the north.
Nearly 400,000 people, mostly from Compostela Valley and nearby Davao Oriental provinces, have lost their homes and are crowded inside evacuation centers or staying with relatives.
The typhoon plowed through the main southern island of Mindanao, crossed the central Philippines and lingered over the South China Sea for the past two days. It made a U-turn Saturday and is now threatening the northwestern Ilocos region.
President Benigno Aquino III, after visiting the disaster zone, declared a state of national calamity late Friday to speed up rescue and rehabilitation, control prices of basic commodities in typhoon-affected areas and allow the quick release of emergency funds.
In Bangkok, Thailand, U.N. humanitarian chief Valerie Amos said the Philippines had appealed for international aid. She said many countries have already provided assistance, but did not specify the amounts.
Officials say 276 people were killed in Compostela Valley, including 155 in New Bataan, and 277 in Davao Oriental. About 40 people died elsewhere and nearly 600 are still missing, 411 from New Bataan alone.
Davao Oriental Gov. Corazon Malanyaon told the AP that clean water and shelter were the biggest problem in three towns facing the Pacific Ocean. She said she imposed a curfew there and ordered police to guard stores and shops to stop looting.
The Philippines is also counting economic losses. Banana growers reported that 14,000 hectares (34,600 acres) of export banana plantations, equal to 18 percent of the total in Mindanao, were destroyed. The Philippines is the world's third-largest banana producer and exporter, supplying international brands such as Dole, Chiquita and Del Monte.
Stephen Antig, executive director of the Pilipino Banana Growers and Exporters Association, said losses were estimated at 12 billion pesos ($300 million), including 8 billion pesos ($200 million) in damaged fruits that had been ready for harvest, and the rest for the cost of rehabilitating farms, which will take about a year.
At the Vatican, Pope Benedict XVI expressed closeness to the people hit by the typhoon. "I pray for the victims, for their families and for the many homeless," the pontiff said Saturday, addressing pilgrims and tourists from his studio window overlooking St. Peter's Square.
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Associated Press writers Oliver Teves and Hrvoje Hranjski in Manila, Francisco Rosario in Bangkok, Thailand, and Frances D'Emilio in Rome contributed to this report.
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