Boehner: Obama insisting on 'my way or the highway'

House Speaker John Boehner today said no progress has been made in negotiations with President Obama, demonstrating the persistence of a bullheaded standoff between the two party leaders just 24 days before the fiscal cliff deadline.

"This isn't a progress report because there's no progress to report," Boehner, R-Ohio, told reporters at a news conference from the Capitol this morning. "When it comes to the fiscal cliff that's threatening our economy and threatening jobs, the White House has wasted another week."

The primary sticking point continues to be a disagreement over how to address tax cuts set to expire for taxpayers making above $250,000. The president insists rates on the wealthy must increase as part of an agreement, and so far Boehner has been adamant that any new revenue included in a deal must be created by closing tax loopholes and capping deductions.

"Raising taxes on small businesses is not going to help our economy and it's not going to help those seeking work," the speaker said. "I came out the day after the election to put revenues on the table to take a step towards the president to try to resolve this. When is he going to take a step towards us?"

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Boehner said his phone call with Obama on Wednesday was not productive, and negotiations between White House officials and the speaker's top aides this week have not brought either side closer to an agreement.

"The phone call was pleasant but was just more of the same," Boehner said. "It's time for the president, if he's serious, to come back to us with a counteroffer."

Asked whether he could find a middle ground on increasing the top tax rates while simultaneously protecting small business, the speaker seemed to suggest a hint of flexibility on what has been a red line issue for Republicans up to this point.

"There are a lot of things that are possible to put the revenues that the president seeks on the table, but none of it's going to be possible [if] the president insists on his position, insists on 'my way or the highway,'" he said. "That's not the way to get to an agreement that I think is important for the American people and very important for our economy."

View ABC News' comprehensive coverage of the fiscal cliff talks.

Reports indicate that negotiations have narrowed to include only the speaker's top policy aides and senior White House officials - cutting the Senate and House Democrats out of the talks for now.

House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi declined to disclose when she last spoke with Obama, but she did have a photo taken with him at a White House holiday reception on Monday. Today, she expressed solidarity with her president.

"I don't necessarily talk about when and how many times I speak to the president, but I'm very satisfied with the communication that I have with the president," she said. "The president knows our views. He shares our values. We feel confident in any negotiation that he takes the lead in."

Boehner once again condemned the president's only formal offer on Nov. 29, which called for $1.6 trillion in new revenue over the next decade, presidential power over the debt limit, and about $400 billion in new stimulus spending, predicting it would be a recipe for "trillion dollar deficits for as far as the eye can see."

"The president has adopted a deliberate strategy to slow-walk our economy right to the edge of the fiscal cliff," Boehner said. "If the president doesn't agree with our proposal, I believe that he's got an obligation to families and small businesses to offer a plan of his own - a plan that can pass both chambers of the Congress. We're ready and eager to talk to the president about such a plan."

Boehner also derided the president's request for what the speaker describes as "an infinite increase in the debt limit, like forever."

As Obama and Boehner consider the options to devising a bipartisan package, congressional insiders say the pressure is on both leaders to find the right touch that will win over adequate support to pass in the House and Senate.

"The bigger issue is Boehner is on the hook to negotiate on good faith on a deal that we [House Democrats], the White House and Senate Democrats would ok that includes [increases to tax] rates," one senior House Democratic leadership aide said. "Hate to be in his position."

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Bombing wounds Afghan intelligence chief

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — A Taliban suicide bomber posing as a messenger of peace blew himself up near Afghanistan's newly appointed intelligence chief on Thursday, seriously wounding him, officials said.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack on Asadullah Khalid — the fifth such assassination attempt on his life in as many years, the officials added.

"Thank God, he's OK. It's positive," President Hamid Karzai told reporters outside a medical facility run by the National Directorate of Security where Khalid had surgery. "Now there is hope that he'll get healthy again."

The attempted assassination of the nation's top intelligence official came just as the president described the U.S.-led military coalition as partly responsible for instability in Afghanistan.

"Part of the insecurity is coming to us from the structures that NATO and America created in Afghanistan," Karzai told NBC News in an interview broadcast on Thursday. Terrorism will not be defeated "by attacking Afghan villages and Afghan homes," he said.

Shafiqullah Tahiri, a spokesman for the intelligence service, said that the bomber had used the false peace offer as a ruse to close in on the intelligence chief.

The bombing was reminiscent of the September 2011 killing of former Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani, who at the time was the leader of a government-appointed peace council seeking reconciliation with militants. In that attack, an insurgent posing as a Taliban peace envoy detonated a bomb that was hidden in his turban as he met Rabbani at his home in Kabul.

Khalid, in his early 40s, suffered serious injuries to his stomach and lower part of the body when the bomb exploded at his guest house as he was receiving a visitor, a senior Afghan official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to disclose the information. The intelligence chief had used the house for private meetings he preferred not to hold at his agency's official compound, he added.

The bomber passed through at least one check without the explosives being discovered, the official said. The house was not as heavily guarded as the agency's compound, he added.

Shuja Momuzai, 31, who manages a house a couple doors from Khalid's guest house, said he heard an explosion shortly after 3 p.m., after which he saw Khalid being evacuated.

He said that people in the neighborhood knew Khalid used the house, which had at least two perimeter walls.

Karzai said Khalid would be sent elsewhere for further treatment, implying that he could be transferred outside the country.

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said the intelligence chief was the target of a suicide bombing carried out by an attacker named Hafez Mohammad.

Khalid, who was appointed to head the intelligence service in September, comes from the Pashtun ethnic group and has served as governor of restive Ghazni province in the east and Kandahar province in the south. He is also Afghanistan's former minister of tribal and border affairs.

He says he first eluded an assassin in 2006, and bombers had targeted him 3 times since, before Thursday's attack.

Karzai, in his interview, also said that he was not convinced that al-Qaida "has a presence in Afghanistan."

While weakened in recent years, the group, whose 9/11 attacks drew America into its longest war, appears to have preserved at least limited means of regenerating inside Afghanistan as U.S. influence in the country wanes. For years the main target of U.S.-led forces has been the Taliban, who ruled Afghanistan and protected al-Qaida before the U.S. invasion 11 years ago. But the strategic goal is to prevent al-Qaida from again finding sanctuary in Afghanistan from which to launch attacks on the U.S.

"I don't even know if al-Qaida exists as an organization as it is being spoken about," Karzai said. "So all we know is that we have insecurity."

In other developments, five children were killed and two others were wounded Thursday in Sangin district of Helmand province, said provincial police spokesman Fareed Ahmad. He said the children had been collecting scrap items they hoped to sell and apparently picked up a mine. The mine exploded near shops in the district, he said.

Also on Thursday, Afghan and Tajik counter-narcotics officials said a dozen suspected drug traffickers were arrested during a joint operation along the border between the two countries.

Baz Mohammad Ahmadi, Afghanistan's deputy interior minister for counter-narcotics, said Thursday that alleged ringleaders of four drug-trafficking operations in Badakhshan in northeastern Afghanistan and nearby areas of Tajikistan were among those arrested.

Weapons and 420 kilograms (926 pounds) of hashish, opium and heroin also were confiscated, he said. Two of the alleged traffickers were wounded in gun battles during the five-day operation.

U.S. drug officials and the NATO-led coalition lent technical support for the operation that began Dec. 1.

Ahmadi said the Afghan government plans to burn 200 metric tons (220 short tons) of drugs seized in operations this year.

Insurgents conduct targeted attacks to undermine public confidence in the government and show they remain a resilient force, despite being outmanned by Afghan and U.S.-led coalition forces.

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Associated Press Deb Riechmann, Heidi Vogt and Patrick Quinn contributed to this report.

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Individuality takes center stage at Grammys

Fun. helped break up the sound of dance and electronic music on Top 40 radio with its edgy pop-rock grooves. Frank Ocean made a bold statement in R&B — with an announcement about his sexuality and with his critically revered, multi-genre album, "channel ORANGE." And Mumford & Sons continued to bring its folk-rock swag and style to the Billboard charts with its sophomore album.

They all were rewarded Wednesday when The Recording Academy announced the nominees for the 2013 Grammy Awards.

Those acts, who scored the most nominations with six each, were joined by typical Grammy contenders like Jay-Z and Kanye West, who also got six nominations. The Black Keys' drummer, Dan Auerbach, is also up for six awards, thanks to his nomination for producer of the year. His band earned five nods, along with R&B singer Miguel and jazz pianist Chick Corea.

"It feels like alternative music is back," said fun. guitarist Jack Antonoff. His band's gold-selling "Some Nights" is up for album of the year, competing with Black Keys' "El Camino," Mumford & Sons' "Babel," Jack White's "Blunderbuss" and "channel ORANGE," the major label debut from Ocean.

Fun. is nominated in all of the major categories, including best new artist, and record and song of the year for its breakthrough anthem "We Are Young."

Ocean, whose mother attended the nominations special, scored nods in three of the top four categories. His song "Thinkin Bout You" — which he originally wrote for another singer — will compete for record of the year with Black Keys' "Lonely Boy" and four No. 1 hits: Taylor Swift's "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together," ''Somebody I Used to Know" by Gotye and Kimbra, Kelly Clarkson's "Stronger (What Doesn't Kill You)" and "We Are Young" by fun.

Song of the year, too, features some No. 1 hits, including fun. and Clarkson's jams, as well as Carly Rae Jepsen's viral smash "Call Me Maybe." But then there's Ed Sheeran's "The A Team," a slow groove about a homeless prostitute, and Miguel's "Adorn," the R&B singer-songwriter's crossover hit.

"It's like one of those songs that wrote itself and I was the vessel," the 26-year-old said in an phone interview from New York City late Wednesday, where he performed with Trey Songz and Elle Varner.

While Miguel's excited to compete for song of the year, he's more thrilled about his sophomore album's nomination for best urban contemporary album, a new category that recognizes R&B albums with edge and multiple sounds.

"That's a huge complement to say that your entire body of work was the best of the year," he said of "Kaleidoscope Dream." ''That's the one that means the most to me. I'm really hoping maybe, just maybe."

Miguel, along with Gotye, Alabama Shakes and the Lumineers, is part of the pack of nominees who have showcased individuality and have marched to the beat of their own drum in today's music industry.

Though nominated albums by The Black Keys and Mumford & Sons are platinum-sellers, their songs are not regularly heard on Top 40 radio. Electronic and dance music, which has dominated radio airplay for a few years, were left out of the top awards this year. Also, One Direction — the boy band that released two top-selling albums this years and sold-out many arenas — was snubbed for best new artist.

Lionel Richie has one of the year's top-selling albums with his country collaboration collection, "Tuskegee," but he didn't earn any nominations. And Nicki Minaj, who released a gold-selling album this year and had a hit with "Starships," wasn't nominated for a single award.

Jay-Z and West dominated the rap categories, a familiar refrain at the Grammys. Nas scored four nominations, including best rap album for "Life Is Good." Jeff Bhasker, the producer behind fun.'s breakthrough album, also scored four nods.

Swift, who released her latest album, "Red," after the Grammy eligibility date, still scored three nominations, including two for "Safe & Sound" with The Civil Wars. Country acts were mainly left out of the major categories this year, though the genre usually has success at the Grammys. Aside from Swift's pop song competing for record of the year, there is 21-year-old Hunter Hayes, who is up for best new artist against fun., Ocean, Alabama Shakes and the Lumineers.

"I'm so proud to be, as you say, representing country music in the new artist category," said Hayes, who is also nominated for best country album and country solo performance. "I don't even feel worthy of saying that, but it's so cool for me to be able to say that."

Swift hosted the CBS special with LL Cool J and it featured performances by The Who and Maroon 5, who received multiple nominations.

The five-year-old nominations show spent its first year outside Los Angeles, making its debut in Nashville, Tenn., at the Bridgestone Arena. It marked the largest venue the show has been held in.

The 55th annual Grammy Awards take place Feb. 10 in Los Angeles.

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Online:

http://www.grammys.com

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AP Music Writer Chris Talbott and AP Writer Caitlin R. King in Nashville contributed to this report.

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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.

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Tanks surround Egypt's presidential palace

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt's Republican Guard restored order around the presidential palace on Thursday after fierce overnight clashes killed seven people, but passions ran high in a struggle over the country's future.

The Islamist president, Mohamed Mursi, criticised by his opponents for his silence in the last few days, was due to address the nation later in the day, state television said.

Hundreds of his supporters who had camped out near the palace overnight withdrew before a mid-afternoon deadline set by the Republican Guard. Dozens of Mursi's foes remained, but were kept away by a barbed wire barricade guarded by tanks.

The military played a big role in removing President Hosni Mubarak during last year's popular revolt, taking over to manage a transitional period, but had stayed out of the latest crisis.

Mursi's Islamist partisans fought opposition protesters well into the early hours during duelling demonstrations over the president's decree on November 22 to expand his powers to help him push through a mostly Islamist-drafted constitution.

Officials said seven people had been killed and 350 wounded in the violence, for which each side blamed the other. Six of the dead were Mursi supporters, the Muslim Brotherhood said.

The street clashes reflected a deep political divide in the most populous Arab nation, where contrasting visions of Islamists and their liberal rivals have complicated a struggle to embed democracy after Mubarak's 30-year autocracy.

The United States, worried about the stability of an Arab partner which has a peace deal with Israel and which receives $1.3 billion a year in U.S. military aid, has urged dialogue.

The commander of the Republican Guard said deployment of tanks and troop carriers around the presidential palace was intended to separate the adversaries, not to repress them.

"The armed forces, and at the forefront of them the Republican Guard, will not be used as a tool to oppress the demonstrators," General Mohamed Zaki told the state news agency.

Hussein Abdel Ghani, spokesman of the opposition National Salvation Front, said more protests were planned, but not necessarily at the palace in Cairo's Heliopolis district.

"Our youth are leading us today and we decided to agree to whatever they want to do," he told Reuters.

UNITY APPEAL

Egypt plunged into renewed turmoil after Mursi issued his November 22 decree and an Islamist-dominated assembly hastily approved a new constitution to go to a referendum on December 15.

The Supreme Guide of the Brotherhood, to which Mursi belonged before he was narrowly elected president in June, appealed for unity. Divisions among Egyptians "only serve the nation's enemies", Mohamed Badie said in a statement.

Rival factions used rocks, petrol bombs and guns in the clashes around the presidential palace.

"We came here to support President Mursi and his decisions. He is the elected president of Egypt," said demonstrator Emad Abou Salem, 40. "He has legitimacy and nobody else does."

Opposition protester Ehab Nasser el-Din, 21, his head bandaged after being hit by a rock the day before, decried the Muslim Brotherhood's "grip on the country", which he said would only tighten if the new constitution is passed.

Another protester, Ahmed Abdel-Hakim, 23, accused the Brotherhood of "igniting the country in the name of religion".

Mursi's opponents accuse him of seeking to create a new "dictatorship". The president says his actions were necessary to prevent courts still full of judges appointed by Mubarak from derailing a constitution vital for Egypt's political transition.

Mursi has shown no sign of buckling under pressure from protesters, confident that the Islamists, who have dominated both elections since Mubarak was overthrown, can win the referendum and the parliamentary election to follow.

Mahmoud Hussein, the Brotherhood's secretary-general, said holding the plebiscite was the only way out of the crisis, dismissing the opposition as "remnants of the (Mubarak) regime, thugs and people working for foreign agendas".

As well as relying on his Brotherhood power base, Mursi may also tap into a popular yearning for stability and economic revival after almost two years of political turmoil.

The Egyptian pound sank on Thursday to its lowest level in eight years, after previously firming on hopes that a $4.8 billion IMF loan would stabilise the economy. The Egyptian stock market fell 4.4 percent after it opened.

Foreign exchange reserves fell by nearly $450 million to $15 billion in November, indicating that the Central Bank was still spending heavily to bolster the pound. The reserves stood at about $36 billion before the anti-Mubarak uprising.

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Death toll from Philippine typhoon nears 300

NEW BATAAN, Philippines (AP) — Stunned parents searching for missing children examined a row of mud-stained bodies covered with banana leaves while survivors dried their soaked belongings on roadsides Wednesday, a day after a powerful typhoon killed nearly 300 people in the southern Philippines.

Officials fear more bodies may be found as rescuers reach hard-hit areas that were isolated by landslides, floods and downed communications.

At least 151 people died in the worst-hit province of Compostela Valley when Typhoon Bopha lashed the region Tuesday, including 78 villagers and soldiers who perished in a flash flood that swamped two emergency shelters and a military camp, provincial spokeswoman Fe Maestre said.

Disaster-response agencies reported 284 dead in the region and 14 fatalities elsewhere from the typhoon, one of the strongest to hit the country this year.

About 80 people survived the deluge in New Bataan with injuries, and Interior Secretary Mar Roxas, who visited the town, said 319 others remained missing.

"These were whole families among the registered missing," Roxas told the ABS-CBN TV network. "Entire families may have been washed away."

The farming town of 45,000 people was a muddy wasteland of collapsed houses and coconut and banana trees felled by Bopha's ferocious winds.

Bodies of victims were laid on the ground for viewing by people searching for missing relatives. Some were badly mangled after being dragged by raging flood waters over rocks and other debris. A man sprayed insecticide on the remains to keep away swarms of flies.

A father wept when he found the body of his child after lifting a plastic cover. A mother, meanwhile, went away in tears, unable to find her missing children. "I have three children," she said repeatedly, flashing three fingers before a TV cameraman.

Two men carried the mud-caked body of an unidentified girl that was covered with coconut leaves on a makeshift stretcher made from a blanket and wooden poles.

Dionisia Requinto, 43, felt lucky to have survived with her husband and their eight children after swirling flood waters surrounded their home. She said they escaped and made their way up a hill to safety, bracing themselves against boulders and fallen trees as they climbed.

"The water rose so fast," she told AP. "It was horrible. I thought it was going to be our end."

In nearby Davao Oriental, the coastal province first struck by the typhoon as it blew from the Pacific Ocean, at least 115 people perished, mostly in three towns that were so battered that it was hard to find any buildings with roofs remaining, provincial officer Freddie Bendulo and other officials said.

"We had a problem where to take the evacuees. All the evacuation centers have lost their roofs," Davao Oriental Gov. Corazon Malanyaon said.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies issued an urgent appeal for $4.8 million to help people directly affected by the typhoon.

The sun was shining brightly for most of the day Wednesday, prompting residents to lay their soaked clothes, books and other belongings out on roadsides to dry and revealing the extent of the damage to farmland. Thousands of banana trees in one Compostela Valley plantation were toppled by the wind, the young bananas still wrapped in blue plastic covers.

But as night fell, however, rain started pouring again over New Bataan, triggering panic among some residents who feared a repeat of the previous day's flash floods. Some carried whatever belongings they could as they hurried to nearby towns or higher ground.

After slamming into Davao Oriental and Compostela Valley, Bopha roared quickly across the southern Mindanao and central regions, knocking out power in two entire provinces, triggering landslides and leaving houses and plantations damaged. More than 170,000 fled to evacuation centers.

As of Wednesday evening, the typhoon was over the South China Sea west of Palawan province. It was blowing northwestward and could be headed to Vietnam or southern China, according to government forecasters.

The deaths came despite efforts by President Benigno Aquino III's government to force residents out of high-risk communities as the typhoon approached.

Some 20 typhoons and storms lash the northern and central Philippines each year, but they rarely hit the vast southern Mindanao region where sprawling export banana plantations have been planted over the decades because it seldom experiences strong winds that could blow down the trees.

A rare storm in the south last December killed more than 1,200 people and left many more homeless.

The United States extended its condolences and offered to help its Asian ally deal with the typhoon's devastation. It praised government efforts to minimize the deaths and damage.

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

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Possible Wintour appointment gets London talking

LONDON (AP) — Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, John Quincy Adams ... and now Anna Wintour?

A report suggesting that the influential editor-in-chief of Vogue is one of the candidates being considered for the top U.S. diplomatic post in France or Britain has sparked spirited debate about her qualifications, exciting Britain's glamour-hungry tabloids but raising hackles at the conservative Daily Telegraph.

"Anna Wintour may be an enticing pick for a celebrity-fixated White House," wrote Nile Gardner in the Telegraph. "But she is eminently unsuitable for America's most prestigious diplomatic posting."

The possibility that the British-born Wintour would move into London's grand ambassadorial residence was raised several years ago by The Guardian newspaper — where her brother Patrick is a prominent journalist — and again this week by Bloomberg News, which based its report on "two people familiar with the matter."

Officials at the U.S. Embassy in London said they would not speculate on President Obama's eventual choice for a successor to Ambassador Louis Susman, who has announced plans to step down. White House officials have also refused to comment.

Officials caution that a decision is months away and would only follow the appointment of a new secretary of state to replace outgoing Hillary Clinton and would also include a thorough vetting process.

Guardian fashion writer Jess Cartner-Morley said the editor — the model for the imperious character played by Meryl Streep in "The Devil Wears Prada" movie — would be well-suited for an ambassadorial position.

"Wintour is generally acknowledged as whipsmart and extremely hard-working," she wrote. "She is enormously charismatic, a born networker and a formidable fundraiser."

Cartner-Morley also challenged the dismissive view that Wintour's many years in the fashion industry are not enough, citing recent ambassadorial choices of a retired investment banker and a retired car dealership owner.

"Is a career as one of the biggest global players in an industry estimated to be worth $900 billion to the world economy really so inferior and shallow by comparison?" the writer asked.

Vogue spokeswoman Megan Salt in New York said Wednesday said that Wintour is very happy with her present job.

Wintour raised $40 million for Obama's re-election through a number of campaigns and star-studded dinners she co-hosted with some of the most powerful people in the entertainment and fashion worlds. In August, she teamed up with movie mogul Harvey Weinstein for a fundraising dinner, after a successful party at Sarah Jessica Parker's Manhattan home in July.

The ambassadorial posts in France and Britain — formally known as the Court of St. James's — are among the most coveted in the diplomatic ranks. They also typically go to wealthy individuals willing to use personal funds to buttress the government-provided entertainment budget.

Wintour, 63, is best-known for her trademark glossy bob hairstyle, oversized sunglasses and haughty demeanor. Born in London, she started in fashion journalism at Harper's Bazaar and New York magazine, and after working at the helm of other glossies became editor-in-chief at U.S. Vogue in 1988.

Carne Ross, a former British diplomat who now runs a New York-based diplomatic advisory group, said Wintour's skills — "honed in the vicious world of the fashion industry" — would qualify her for a diplomatic posting.

Ross said a large part of an ambassador's job involves taking part in social gatherings, something Wintour would be comfortable with. Often most of the real political work is done by direct communications between the White House and the prime minister's office at Downing Street, he said.

"That diminishes the political significance of the ambassador's role," he said.

Mary Jo Jacobi, a presidential adviser during two Republican administrations, said Wintour would be an unusual choice but possibly an effective one.

"Vogue is a very successful, very large publication, and she has experience with big budgets and with challenging, difficult people," Jacobi said. "She knows how to marshal resources. And her job has involved a great deal of diplomacy."

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Longer tamoxifen use cuts breast cancer deaths

Breast cancer patients taking the drug tamoxifen can cut their chances of having the disease come back or kill them if they stay on the pills for 10 years instead of five years as doctors recommend now, a major study finds.

The results could change treatment, especially for younger women. The findings are a surprise because earlier research suggested that taking the hormone-blocking drug for longer than five years didn't help and might even be harmful.

In the new study, researchers found that women who took tamoxifen for 10 years lowered their risk of a recurrence by 25 percent and of dying of breast cancer by 29 percent compared to those who took the pills for just five years.

In absolute terms, continuing on tamoxifen kept three additional women out of every 100 from dying of breast cancer within five to 14 years from when their disease was diagnosed. When added to the benefit from the first five years of use, a decade of tamoxifen can cut breast cancer mortality in half during the second decade after diagnosis, researchers estimate.

Some women balk at taking a preventive drug for so long, but for those at high risk of a recurrence, "this will be a convincer that they should continue," said Dr. Peter Ravdin, director of the breast cancer program at the UT Health Science Center in San Antonio.

He reviewed results of the study, which was being presented Wednesday at a breast cancer conference in San Antonio and published by the British medical journal Lancet.

About 50,000 of the roughly 230,000 new cases of breast cancer in the United States each year occur in women before menopause. Most breast cancers are fueled by estrogen, and hormone blockers are known to cut the risk of recurrence in such cases.

Tamoxifen long was the top choice, but newer drugs called aromatase inhibitors — sold as Arimidex, Femara, Aromasin and in generic form — do the job with less risk of causing uterine cancer and other problems.

But the newer drugs don't work well before menopause. Even some women past menopause choose tamoxifen over the newer drugs, which cost more and have different side effects such as joint pain, bone loss and sexual problems.

The new study aimed to see whether over a very long time, longer treatment with tamoxifen could help.

Dr. Christina Davies of the University of Oxford in England and other researchers assigned 6,846 women who already had taken tamoxifen for five years to either stay on it or take dummy pills for another five years.

Researchers saw little difference in the groups five to nine years after diagnosis. But beyond that time, 15 percent of women who had stopped taking tamoxifen after five years had died of breast cancer versus 12 percent of those who took it for 10 years. Cancer had returned in 25 percent of women on the shorter treatment versus 21 percent of those treated longer.

Tamoxifen had some troubling side effects: Longer use nearly doubled the risk of endometrial cancer. But it rarely proved fatal, and there was no increased risk among premenopausal women in the study — the very group tamoxifen helps most.

"Overall the benefits of extended tamoxifen seemed to outweigh the risks substantially," Dr. Trevor Powles of the Cancer Centre London wrote in an editorial published with the study.

The study was sponsored by cancer research organizations in Britain and Europe, the United States Army, and AstraZeneca PLC, which makes Nolvadex, a brand of tamoxifen, which also is sold as a generic for 10 to 50 cents a day. Brand-name versions of the newer hormone blockers, aromatase inhibitors, are $300 or more per month, but generics are available for much less.

The results pose a quandary for breast cancer patients past menopause and those who become menopausal because of their treatment — the vast majority of cases. Previous studies found that starting on one of the newer hormone blockers led to fewer relapses than initial treatment with tamoxifen did.

Another study found that switching to one of the new drugs after five years of tamoxifen cut the risk of breast cancer recurrence nearly in half — more than what was seen in the new study of 10 years of tamoxifen.

"For postmenopausal women, the data still remain much stronger at this point for a switch to an aromatase inhibitor," said that study's leader, Dr. Paul Goss of Massachusetts General Hospital. He has been a paid speaker for a company that makes one of those drugs.

Women in his study have not been followed long enough to see whether switching cuts deaths from breast cancer, as 10 years of tamoxifen did. Results are expected in about a year.

The cancer conference is sponsored by the American Association for Cancer Research, Baylor College of Medicine and the UT Health Science Center.

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Marilynn Marchione can be followed at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP

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Dems call Republicans 'hostage takers' on debt talks

Screen shot from GOPHostageTakers.com

House Democrats on Wednesday launched a new microsite, GOPHostageTakers.com, criticizing Republican leaders for not holding a vote to exclusively extend middle-income tax rates for another year as part of avoiding the so-called fiscal cliff.

Current tax rates for all income levels are set to automatically increase in 2013 unless Congress takes action this year. Most Republicans want to extend the current rates for all income levels, while Democrats want taxes to increase for households earning more than $250,000 annually.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee launched the site as part of a larger messaging effort to goad Republicans into voting on a bill that excludes those earning more than $250,000 from the rate extension.

This week, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, submitted a "discharge petition" that would force a vote on a bill to extend rates only for middle-class taxpayers, but only if she can persuade 218 members of the Republican-led House to sign it. (Realistically, it's unlikely.) On the microsite, House Democrats list the names of some Republicans they consider "vulnerable" who have declined to sign Pelosi's petition.

Earlier this year, the Republican-led House approved a bill to extend tax rates for all income brackets while the Democrat-controlled Senate passed a measure that extends them for households under the $250,000 level.

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Powerful typhoon kills at least 74 in Philippines

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — At least 43 villagers and soldiers drowned in a southern Philippine town Tuesday when torrents of water dumped by a powerful typhoon cascaded down a mountain, engulfing emergency shelters and an army truck, officials said. The deaths raised the toll from one of the strongest storms to hit the country this year to at least 74.

Gov. Arturo Uy said rain from Typhoon Bopha accumulated atop a mountain and then burst down on Andap village in New Bataan town in hard-hit Compostela Valley province. The victims included villagers who had fled from their homes to a school and village hall, which were then swamped by the flash flood. An army truck carrying soldiers and villagers was washed away, according to Uy and army officials.

"They thought that they were already secure in a safe area, but they didn't know the torrents of water would go their way," Uy told DZBB radio.

He said the confirmed death toll in the town was likely to rise because several other bodies could not immediately be retrieved from floodwaters strewn with huge logs and debris.

Bopha slammed into Davao Oriental province region at dawn, its ferocious winds ripping roofs from homes and its 500-kilometer (310-mile) -wide rain band flooding low-lying farmland.

The storm, packing winds of 140 kilometers (87 miles) per hour and gusts of up to 170 kph (106 mph), toppled trees, triggered landslides and sent flash floods surging across the region's mountains and valleys.

Two entire provinces lost power and more than 100 domestic flights were canceled. About 60,000 people fled to emergency shelters.

Twenty-three people drowned or were pinned by fallen trees or collapsed houses in Davao Oriental province's coastal town of Cateel, which had the most deaths after New Bataan, Davao Oriental Gov. Corazon Malanyaon told the ABS-CBN TV network, citing police reports.

Some towns in the province were so battered that no roofs remained on buildings, Malanyaon said.

The other deaths included three children who were buried by a wall of mud and boulders that plunged down a mountain in Marapat village, also in Compostela Valley. Their bodies were wrapped in blankets by their grieving relatives and placed on a stage in a basketball court.

"The only thing we could do was to save ourselves. It was too late for us to rescue them," said Valentin Pabilana, who survived the landslide.

In Davao Oriental, a poor agricultural and gold-mining province about 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) southeast of Manila, an elderly woman was killed when her house was struck by a falling tree, said Benito Ramos, who heads the government's disaster-response agency.

The other victims either drowned or were hit by trees, he said, adding that the death toll was expected to rise.

While some 20 typhoons and storms normally lash the archipelago nation annually, the southern provinces battered by Bopha are unaccustomed to fierce typhoons, which normally hit the northern and central Philippines.

A rare storm last December killed more than 1,200 people and left many more homeless and traumatized, including in Cagayan de Oro city, where church bells pealed relentlessly on Tuesday to warn residents to scramble to safety as a major river started to swell.

Officials were taking no chances this year, and President Benigno Aquino III appealed on national TV on Monday for people in Bopha's path to move to safety and take storm warnings seriously.

In Compostela Valley, authorities halted mining operations and ordered villagers to evacuate to prevent a repeat of deadly losses from landslides and the collapse of mine tunnels in previous storms.

Bopha, a Cambodian word for flower or a girl, is the 16th weather disturbance to hit the Philippines this year. Forecasters say at least one more storm may strike the country before Christmas.

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Associated Press writer Teresa Cerojano contributed to this report.

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