I think we have a very good chance for coming together on an agreement that not just protects 98% of Americans from a tax increase and protects the economy from deeply damaging upfront spending cuts and protects the economy from leaving us vulnerable to periodic threats of defaults by politicians. I think we can do better than that and do something good for the long-term future of the American economy.
Failure to reach a deal will automatically trigger tax rises and spending cuts.
Heavy snow has caused a 50-kilometer-long traffic jam on a highway that links Russia's largest cities of Moscow and St. Petersburg. Thousands of vehicles are stuck. Some of them have been in the queue for more than two days after extreme snow brought traffic to a halt on Friday.
A 200-year-old letter in which the French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte gave the order to blow up Kremlin citadel in Moscow has been sold at auction for almost 200,000 dollars. Hugh Schofield has this report from Paris.
This letter is of a particular interest, partly because it's in code, a not very complex number for letter substitution, but also because it was written at the turning point of Napoleon's career. As he invaded Russia in 1812, he's captured Moscow, but with the Russian army being withdrawn and winter approaching. He knows he has to turn back. So the letter, to his foreign minister at Vilnius in modern-day Lituania, described how he was given the order of the Kremlin to be destroyed. In the event, only part of the walls were demolished. The emperor himself began the long and disastrous journey back to France, for two years later, he would be defeated and forced to abdicate.