1. RICE TO MEET WITH SENATE CRITICS
U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice, whom President Obama is considering as his next secretary of state, is scheduled to meet Tuesday with three key Republican senators to answer questions about remarks she made in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attack that killed four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens, in Benghazi, Libya. Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), and Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) agreed to the meeting at the request of Rice's office. McCain had threatened to block Rice's confirmation if she's nominated, but he said Sunday that he might vote to confirm her if she could explain why, shortly after the attack, she said it appeared to have been a spontaneous outburst of violence rather than a planned terrorist attack. Rice has said she was merely passing on the tentative assessment of the intelligence community. [Politico]
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2. EGYPTIAN PROTESTERS REJECT MORSI'S PROMISES
Protesters returned to Tahrir Square in Cairo on Tuesday despite President Mohamed Morsi's promise to roll back a decree expanding his powers. Morsi, a former leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, met with judges on Monday after provoking an outcry with his Nov. 22 edict giving himself power to legislate by decree, without court oversight. Morsi, through a spokesman, said the courts would be able to review most of his decisions — just not those involving "sovereign" matters. Critics, including Egyptian Nobel laureate Mohamed ElBaradei, said Morsi was trying to turn himself into a "pharaoh." [Bloomberg]
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3. GREECE GETS EMERGENCY AID
Eurozone finance ministers and the International Monetary Fund agreed early Tuesday to release emergency loans and reduce Greece's debt to keep the nearly bankrupt country from collapsing. In the third marathon meeting in three weeks, Greece's international lenders struck a deal to let Greece have the next slice of its bailout money, around $57 billion, and to reduce Greek debt to 124 percent of the country's gross domestic product by 2020. The news gave a modest lift to the region's riskiest government bonds. "The fate of Greece is no longer a day-in, day-out worry," said interest rate strategist Ciaran O'Hagan at French bank Societe Generale. [Reuters]
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4. PALESTINIANS ASK FOR U.N. RECOGNITION
The Palestinian Authority, struggling for relevance against rival Palestinian faction Hamas, submitted a draft resolution to the United Nations officially asking the U.N. General Assembly to recognize it as a nonmember state. A vote is expected on the measure Thursday, and if it passes, as expected, it could raise another barrier to the suspended peace process with Israel, which has threatened punitive measures if PA President Mahmoud Abbas goes through with the resolution. The U.S. blocked a bid for full Palestinian membership from coming to a vote in the U.N. Security Council, and the U.S. Congress is threatening to withhold $500 million in financial aid to the Palestinians. [Wall Street Journal]
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5. TRANSPLANT SURGERY PIONEER DIES
Dr. Joseph Murray, who performed the world's first successful kidney transplant, died on Monday at age 93. Murray won the Nobel Prize for his pioneering work in human organ transplants. In 1954, after developing new surgical techniques by performing transplants on dogs, Murray transplanted a kidney into 23-year-old Richard Herrick, who had end-stage kidney failure. Herrick, who got his new kidney from his identical twin so his body wouldn't reject it, lived another eight years. "Kidney transplants seem so routine now," Murray told The New York Times after winning a Nobel Prize in 1990. "But the first one was like Lindbergh's flight across the ocean." [Associated Press]
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6. PALESTINIAN LEADER ARAFAT'S BODY EXHUMED
Yasser Arafat's remains were exhumed from his mausoleum in the West Bank town of Ramallah on Tuesday so forensic experts could perform tests to determine whether he was poisoned. Arafat died in November 2004 at a French military hospital after a sudden illness. Doctors determined that the cause of death was a stroke triggered by a blood infection, but a documentary team found high levels of polonium-210, a lethal radioactive substance, in some of the late Palestinian leader's clothes and personal effects, fueling his family's suspicions that he had been murdered. [Associated Press]
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7. NORTH KOREA APPEARS READY FOR ROCKET TEST
Satellite images suggest that North Korea is preparing to defy a United Nations ban and test launch a new long-range rocket. Satellite operator DigitalGlobe said Tuesday that it had detected "a marked increase in activity" at North Korea's Sohae Space Launch Station. The reclusive communist regime launched an Unha-3 rocket, which broke apart shortly after takeoff, from the same site in April. Pyongyang said that rocket was carrying a scientific satellite into orbit, but the launch derailed a plan for the U.S. to ship humanitarian aid in exchange for a halt to North Korean missile and nuclear tests. [New York Times]
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8. FACEBOOK PRIVACY CHANGES PROVOKE OUTCRY
Two privacy groups are urging Facebook to reverse its decision to stop letting users vote on controversial policy changes. Up to now, the social networking giant has let users vote on proposed changes if they get more than 7,000 comments, and the tweaks have been scrapped if more than 30 percent voted them down. Facebook says that it has grown so huge that it's too easy to muster 7,000 critics, making the user input mechanism unwieldy. [TG Daily]
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9. CALIFORNIA FAMILY SWEPT TO SEA
A California couple — Mary Elena Scott and Howard Gregory Kuljian — drowned after they were swept out to sea along with their 16-year-old son in a frantic rush to rescue their dog from the surf. The boy is missing and presumed dead. The dog ran to the water's edge to fetch a stick and was pulled in when a 10-foot "sneaker wave" crashed into the beach at Big Lagoon, about 300 miles north of San Francisco. The boy, Gregory James Kuljian, rushed to save it, and his father and mother followed. The dog got out on its own. [Associated Press]
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10. HALLE BERRY'S EX CRIES FOUL
A judge granted Gabriel Aubry, the estranged father of Halle Berry's 4-year-old daughter, a restraining order against the Oscar-winning actress' fiancé, actor Olivier Martinez. Aubry, 37, was arrested on suspicion of misdemeanor battery after a violent Thanksgiving spat with Martinez in Berry's driveway. Martinez told police Aubry attacked him, but Aubry told the court that Martinez jumped him and left him with a black eye. Aubry and Berry have been involved in a lengthy custody battle since the actress announced plans to move to Paris. [New York Daily News]
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