Geithner draws line in sand on taxes

Geithner says there's "no possibility" of closing budget gap without higher top rates Boehner says he was 'flabbergasted' by the administration's plan "I think we're going over the cliff," Graham says Top Moody's economist predicts a short-term deal (CNN) -- The Obama administration will entertain any Republican plans to avoid a so-called "fiscal cliff" at year's end, but Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner says the Bush-era tax cuts for top incomes must go. Speaking on CNN's "State of the Union" and other Sunday talk shows, Geithner said he's optimistic that the administration can reach a deal with Congress to avert a one-two punch budget analysts say could throw the U.S. economy back into a recession. But he added, "What we're not going to do is extend those tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans." "Those cost $1 trillion over 10 years," Geithner told CNN. "And there's no possibility that we're going to find a way to get our fiscal house in order without those tax rates going back up." Republican congressional leaders have flatly rejected the proposal Geithner offered last week, with House Speaker John Boehner saying Sunday he was "flabbergasted" by the plan. Geither said Sunday that the administration "would be happy to look at an alternative plan, but they have to lay that out for us." Geithner: No deal 'without rates going up' Senators clash over deficit proposals Matalin: Obama does not have a mandate Geithner: No deal without higher tax rates Rep. Terry: Republicans have no leverage "What we can't do is sit here and trying to figure out what works for them," he said. "They have to come tell us what works for them." The Bush administration tax cuts -- already extended by two years -- are set to expire at the end of 2012. In addition, spending cuts Congress approved during the Republican-led standoff over raising the federal debt ceiling in 2011 will start kicking in at the same time, cutting $1 trillion over 10 years. Those would be coupled with other cuts, such as the end of a 2-percentage-point cut in Social Security payroll taxes and extended unemployment benefits for many jobless workers, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget office. The non-partisan Tax Policy Center estimates middle-class families would pay about $2,000 a year more in taxes, or about 4%. The the top 1% of taxpayers would see their tax bills go up around 7%, or about $120,000. Those increases, along with spending cuts, would cut the projected federal budget deficit nearly in half -- but it would also threaten millions of jobs, especially those dependent on government contracting, and risk a return to recession, the CBO found. The plan administration officials presented to Republicans on Thursday called for $1.6 trillion in new taxes, including letting income tax rates go back up for families making more than $250,000 -- a big element of President Barack Obama's successful re-election campaign. Obama also wants to close loopholes, limit deductions, raise the estate tax rate to 2009 levels and increase taxes on capital gains and dividend taxes. The proposal also calls for additional spending, including a new $50 billion stimulus package, a home mortgage refinancing plan, and an extension of unemployment insurance benefits. It would also extend the payroll tax cut, passed early in Obama's administration. In return, multiple sources told CNN that Obama is offering $400 billion in new cuts to Medicare and other entitlement programs -- with specifics decided next year. Speaking on "Fox News Sunday," Boehner said the talks are "going nowhere," and blamed the administration for not taking the Republicans seriously. "They won the election, (but) they must have forgotten that Republicans continue to hold the majority in the House. But the president's idea of a negotiation is, 'Roll over and do what I ask,' " said Boehner, R-Ohio. He said he was "flabbergasted" by the plan Geithner put forward last week: "I looked at him and I said, 'You can't be serious.' I've just never seen anything like it." "We've put a serious offer on the table by putting revenues up there to try to get this question resolved, but the White House has responded with virtually nothing," Boehner told Fox. Republicans have said they are willing to raise revenue by closing tax loopholes and ending deductions, but have resisted raising rates. More than 230 GOP representatives and 40 senators have pledged to oppose tax increases, and the man behind that pledge -- conservative activist Grover Norquist -- told reporters he hoped Congress and the administration would extend the Bush tax cuts a second time. Read more: Obama warns of 'Scrooge' Christmas without tax-cut extension Norquist said the expiration of those tax cuts would be bad, but the automatic spending cuts would be "a good thing." And the anti-tax pledge, which several leading Republicans have edged away from in recent weeks, "has helped the debate," he said. "Obviously people who want bigger government are very unhappy with the popularity and the strength and the credibility of the pledge, so they attack it because they want to raise taxes so they can spend more money," he said. Geithner said Republicans "are in a hard place, and they're having a tough time trying to figure out what they can do, what they can get support from their members for." "That's understandable," Geithner said. "This is very difficult for them, and we might need to give them a little more time to figure out where they go next." But Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, told CBS' "Face the Nation" that "I think we're going over the cliff." Graham said the administration appeared to have made "a poltical calcluation" to offer Republicans a plan they can't accept. "My side knows we lost the election, and we're willing to put revenue on the table that will get some political heat for people like me," said Graham, who is up for re-election in 2014. "That is movement in a positive way. Republicans should do revenue. We're willing to do it in a smart way." Graham has said he'd break Norquist's pledge if Democrats help pass spending reforms on government programs like Social Security and Medicare. But Rep. Keith Ellison, chairman of the House Progressive Caucus, said Obama "has the wind at his back" in the talks. "The American people want him to stand up for these essential programs," Ellison, D-Minnesota, told ABC's "This Week." "The American people do want to see cost containment, but we can do that in ways that doesn't result in cuts to beneficiaries." The Senate has already voted to extend the Bush cuts for incomes under 250,000, while allowing the others to expire. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-California, urged Boehner to bring that bill to the House floor for a vote, "end the uncertainty and stop holding middle income tax cuts hostage to tax cuts for the rich." "If Speaker Boehner refuses to schedule this widely-supported bill for a vote, Democrats will introduce a discharge petition to automatically bring to the floor the Senate-passed middle class tax cuts," Pelosi said in a statement issued Sunday. Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody's Analytics, predicted lawmakers would reach a short-term deal that will limit the economic damage, extend the U.S. debt ceiling to avoid another standoff like the one in 2011 and lay down a framework for future deficit reduction talks. "We're not going to cross the T's and dot the I's on Medicare reform and tax reform, but we're going to lay out how much we're going to reduce the deficit in the future by doing these things, then throw it into the Congress for the year and they will figure it out," Zandi told CBS. Opinion: Will President Obama push us over the cliff? CNN's Dan Merica contributed to this report.

Toddler's mystery death reignites investigation of two other deaths

Rams family via AP Prince McLeod Rams, shown in an undated photograph, who died Oct. 21 during a visit with his father in Virginia, at the age of 15 months. By The Associated Press MANASSAS, Va. — A toddler's death during a visit with his father last month in Virginia is prompting police to also more closely investigate the suicide of the man's mother and the shooting death of a onetime girlfriend in the past decade. Fifteen-month-old Prince McLeod Rams died during a three-hour, unsupervised visit with his father, Joaquin S. Rams of Manassas, police said. Manassas Police spokesman Lowell Nevill said that led police to further probe the 2008 suicide of Joaquin Rams' mother and the 2003 shooting death of his ex-girlfriend Shawn K. Mason. The boy's mother, Hera McLeod, said the system failed to protect the boy after she fought vehemently to prevent the unsupervised visits, which were ordered by a judge in Maryland. Authorities have not yet determined how the boy died, and Rams has not yet been charged with a crime. But McLeod said the unusual confluence of deaths is not easily explained. "Either he's the most unlucky bastard on this planet, or he's a killer," said McLeod, who fled the relationship with her one-time fiance about two weeks after Prince was born. Joaquin Rams did not answer calls to his cellphone. His attorney also did not return calls seeking comment. Hera McLeod said she has been given only a little information about her son's injuries. But she said the hospital called child protective services because of suspicious injuries, including dried blood in his nose and a bruise on his forehead. During a custody hearing for Prince Rams in March, investigators testified Joaquin Rams is a suspect in the killing of Mason, 22, who was shot in the head in her Manassas condo in 2003. In 2008, Rams' mother, Alma Collins, was found dead. Prince William County Police at the time ruled the death a suicide. While Manassas police say all the investigations remain a high priority, Prince William County police spokesman Jonathan Perok said investigators have so far not found anything to indicate Collins' death was not a suicide. But her son Joseph Velez — Joaquin Rams' half brother — said it makes no sense that his mother would have killed herself and said he has been interviewed by police investigating whether his mother's death was a homicide. "My mother in her life never had a history of depression," Velez said. Watch US News crime videos on NBCNews.com He described his half brother as "a monster," describing how even at age 3, his younger brother attacked him on the head with a hammer he had hidden behind his back as he feigned a request for a kiss. Like Hera McLeod, Velez expressed frustration at police who failed to make a case in the slaying of Shawn Mason. And Alma Collins' sister, Elva Caraballo of Tarpon Springs, Fla., said she tried to tell Prince William County police of her suspicions about Collins' death, but detectives wouldn't return her phone calls. The most recent death occurred Oct. 21, when Hera McLeod turned over her young son to Joaquin Rams. Hera McLeod won custody of the boy in Montgomery County, Md., court. But the judge granted Rams visitation — first supervised, and then unsupervised. McLeod, an intelligence analyst who once was a contestant on the CBS reality competition "The Amazing Race," said she does not understand why the judge ignored her concerns for her son's safety, accompanied by evidence of Joaquin Rams' lack of fitness as a father: his involvement in running an online pornography business; the testimony from the Manassas detective that Rams is a suspect in his ex-girlfriend's killing; and a sexual encounter between Rams, 40, and a woman who said Rams raped her when she was 19. Rams said it was consensual. The Associated Press does not identify people who claim to be victims of sexual assault. In making his custody and visitation rulings, the judge said the suspicions about the deaths of Collins and Mason were no concern to him, describing it as "smoke that's been blown that I can see through." Hera McLeod said she wants to expose what went wrong and led to her son's death. "I knew how bad this could get. ... If the laws are not designed to protect children, then they need to be changed," she wrote about the custody ruling on a blog she maintains. "In my son's case, it appears as though death was the only threshold for denial of visitation." More content from NBCNews.com: Florida guide uses hunting as rustic therapy for combat veterans Police: Kansas City Chiefs linebacker kills girlfriend, then himself Cuba pushes swap: its spies jailed in US for American contractor held in Havana Passengers killed when tour bus hits Miami airport overpass Women warriors pass elite Army training course Teacher lured boys online to get nude pics, cops say 66 species of coral proposed for protection by US Follow US news from NBCNews.com on Twitter and Facebook © 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Cuba prisoner: US should ink no-aggression pact

Peter Kornbluh , right, stands with Alan Gross, in a picture taken on Kornbluh's iPhone by a guard during his visit to the Havana prison where Gross is being held. By Michael Isikoff NBC News HAVANA, Cuba — Three years after he was arrested in Havana, jailed American contractor Alan Gross is asking the U.S. government to sign a "non-belligerency pact" with Cuba as a first step toward negotiating his release, according to a Cuba policy analyst who just visited him. Peter Kornbluh, a Cuba specialist at the National Security Archives, a nonprofit research center in Washington, met with Gross for four hours on Wednesday at the military hospital in Havana where the contractor is being held. He said Gross appeared "extremely thin" — he has lost over 100 pounds since his arrest —and dispirited. "He's angry, he's frustrated, he's dejected — and he wants his own government to step up" and negotiate, said Kornbluh. "His message is that the United States and Cuba have to sit down and have a dialogue without preconditions. … He told me that the first meeting should result in a non-belligerency pact being signed between the United States and Cuba." Gross' comments appear to represent a new tack in an aggressive public relations campaign to win his freedom. His supporters have planned a candlelight vigil outside the Cuban interests section in Washington D.C., on Sunday and the U.S. Senate is poised to take up a resolution Monday demanding his release, Gross' wife, Judy, has also become increasingly critical of the U.S. government for not doing more to demand that her 63-year-old husband be allowed to return home. Jose Luis Magana / AP Judy Gross at her home in Washington, D.C. on Nov. 29. "He feels like a soldier in the field left to die," she said at a press conference in Washington last week. Gross, who worked for an Agency for International Development contractor, was arrested by the Cubans on Dec. 3, 2009, and accused of smuggling sophisticated satellite and other telecommunications equipment into  the country to give to the island's tiny Jewish community. Gross has said he was only trying to increase Internet access  in Cuba. But he was convicted by a Cuban court in March of last year for crimes "against the independence and territorial integrity of the state" and sentenced to 15 years. Related coverage Cuba pushes swap: its spies jailed in US for American contractor held in Havana Slideshow: Castro through the years Last month, Gross and his wife filed a $60 million lawsuit against the U.S. government and the contractor he was working for, Development Alternatives, charging he was used as a "pawn" in a U.S. government program to change the Castro regime and never advised about the dangers he faced bringing high tech satellite transmission equipment into Cuba. (The State Department, of which AID is a part and which has repeatedly called for Gross' release, declined comment. Development Alternatives has released a statement saying it has "no higher priority" than bringing Gross home.)  In what could be the setting for a gripping thriller, Cuba and the U.S. are reportedly locked in a standoff this weekend, with the fate of an American contractor hanging in the balance. NBC's Michael Isikoff reports. Kornbluh, who was advocated closer U.S.-Cuba dialogue, was in Havana last week to attend a conference marking the 50th anniversary of the Cuban missile crisis. He was granted permission to visit Gross by Cuban officials. (The Cubans so far have denied all news media requests to meet with him.) He said Gross was most upset about being unable to return home to see members of his family who are ill, especially his 90-year-old mother in Texas who has cancer. Keystone / Getty Images Ever since U.S.-backed Cuban President Fulgencio Batista was forced from power by rebels led by Fidel Castro in 1958, the relationship between the two nations has been fraught with difficulties. "He really wants to see his mother, who is quite old and infirm," said Kornbluh. When Kornbluh had his photo taken with Gross, the contractor held up a photo that read: "Hi Mom." When he asked Gross what he wanted to get out of the lawsuit, the contractor replied: "I want to see my wife and I want to see my mother." To accomplish that, Gross is seeking to nudge the Obama administration, according to Kornbluh. Gross knows that his freedom "is going to depend on his government negotiating in good faith with the Cubans," said Kornbluh. "His message to Barack Obama is: I'm fired up and ready to go. Where are you at this moment?" Michael Isikoff is NBC News' national investigative correspondent; NBC News producer Mary Murray also contributed to this report. More from Open Channel: Cuba pushes swap: its spies jailed in US for  American jailed in Havana Livestock falling ill in fracking regions Tobacco industry used trade pacts to try to snuff out anti-smoking laws Jeb Bush's reputation as education reformer gets a second look As fighting raged in Syria, Russia sent tons of cash to Damascus, records show One email exposes millions to ID theft risk in South Carolina cyberattack Study finds breast cancer risk for women in auto plastics factories Jill Kelley email: Petraeus, Allen sought help hushing 'Bubba the Love Sponge' Follow Open Channel from NBCNews.com on Twitter and Facebook

Florida guide uses hunting as rustic therapy for combat veterans

By Bill Briggs Courtesy John Bennett John Bennett, shot by a sniper while serving with the Army in Iraq, is one of many wounded veterans to go hunting with the Sportsmen's Foundation for Military Families. He bagged a nine-foot alligator in Florida. In the swamps and river bottoms near his Florida ranch, outfitter Danny SantAngelo has spent 20 years guiding veterans — some without arms, legs or sight — back to soothingly familiar country: in the field, stalking live prey, armed with weapons. Often, such group hunting excursions were contract jobs that SantAngelo accepted from what he calls "these big, million-dollar-a-year projects for wounded soldiers." "They take these soldiers and veterans, gather them up from different areas, and take them to a facility like mine where we'd house them, host them and hunt them for a few days," SantAngelo said. "A bunch of soldiers getting together in a camp again, sitting in the woods with guns, and maybe a lot of them even drink too much, so to say. And at the end, they'd high-five each other, hoot and holler and pull out of here. "We've always donated 100 percent of our services to help these groups. And, of course, I never said no. I always said yes, and did it." For SantAngelo, however, that changed three years ago when, during one outing, he spotted a veteran hunter with tears in his eyes. "He was having a tough time. He confessed to me he couldn't believe he'd been so selfish and had come. He'd been gone several years on tours, fighting in combat. He'd only been home a couple of months. But now he was off again with a bunch of soldiers, sitting around this campfire," SantAngelo said. "He'd felt like he'd walked off and left his family all over again. Well, I began to see that for these guys, there's really no benefit afterward." As large, organized hunting trips for veterans proliferate in popularity, SantAngelo is changing the rules, at least in his corner of the swamp. He's launched the Sportsmen's Foundation for Military Families, escorting combat veterans — and their spouses, children, parents or siblings — onto land he leases for hunting to spend a few days, as he sees it, of badly needed family bonding. He's executing his mission, he said, on a sparse, nonprofit budget, guiding one family per week. His two-person operation — it's just SantAngelo and his wife, Carla — is headquartered on their ranch along the Kissimmee River in central Florida, about 30 miles north of Lake Okeechobee. "You don't come here with a couple of war buddies. You come here to be with your family," SantAngelo said. "We try to support the people who suffered back home while their hero was away. "So many of these vets go on different hunting trips all over the country. But I see a lot of bad things going on out there through these big nonprofit groups," SantAngelo said. "A lot of these guys are on medications (for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder). They get there with a group of guys they don't even know. They go to drinking while on medications. Not good. So you have veterans researching all these free hunting trips that are out there for them. But those trips have nothing to do with their families. And what do they really get out of that? They go home and have all the same problems." Iraq veteran John Bennett, 41, has been on several of those group-hunting expeditions, despite using a wheelchair since a sniper shot him in 2005 while he was on patrol north of Baghdad, acknowledging: "Those trips are wonderful, don't get me wrong." But two years ago, Bennett personally saw SantAngelo's vision: hunting plus family may equal better days. He headed to Florida to track alligators at night with one of SantAngelo's hired guides. For that visit, Bennett had hoped to bring his daughter, but she couldn't attend. Instead, Bennett spent time with another veteran and his family, he said, riding in a pontoon boat, armed with a bow and arrows, searching for his intended catch. Click here for more military-related coverage from NBC News. "It's really neat to be able to include your family, especially your kids, so they can see that dad can get out there and still do the things he used to do," said Bennett, who bagged a nine-foot gator. SantAngelo later shipped him the meat. (If a veteran-client's spouse or children prefer not to hunt, they can fish or canoe or ride horses while at SantAngelo's ranch.) "The military was such a big part of my life," added Bennett, a former infantry soldier who joined the Montana Army National Guard in 1991. He lives in Cascade, Mont. "Even if I had not been a hunter before, just knowing that I could still shoot a firearm and not be completely freaked out by it was good." Indeed, SantAngelo contends hunting and fishing can serve as a form of rustic therapy for combat veterans from all wars, a return to some of the tactics and tools they once knew intimately, but now utilized in a safe, quiet environment. For that reason, SantAngelo's foundation foots the bill to bring in and then guide ex-military members with an array of devastating wounds. Blind veterans who come to his ranch use a double-stocked rifle, sharing the weapon with a guide who — when the prey is in the scope — whispers to inch the barrel slightly up or down, left or right, then instructs the best moment to squeeze the trigger. Veterans without arms can blow into a special tube, which actives the trigger of a rifle. Veterans without full use of extremities use laptops and joysticks to aim their weapons and fire at wild boar, alligators, coyotes and turkeys. SantAngelo also takes his clients on the river to fish for trophy bass. Meshing outdoors sports with the tricky transition from the battlefield to home front is a concept the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs also has adopted. VA officials have seen the same behaviors SantAngelo has witnessed: that many large hunts arranged for veterans morph into drinking parties and families are never invited. "He's exactly right," said Jose Llamas, the community and public affairs officer for the VA's National Veterans Sports Programs. "These other organizations put on weekend trips where it's hunting, camping, fishing. But it's drinking, and there's no follow-up at the end." In addition to hosting adaptive sports summits across the country where family members are encouraged to join disabled veterans in surfing, cycling, skiing, fishing and target shooting, VA recreational therapists — via various VA medical centers — routinely take local veterans fishing, Llamas said. "Hunting is not one of those things you can do in every community," he added. "But from our Paralympic grant program, we just gave $25,000 to a VA hospital in Grand Junction, Colo., to get the equipment needed to take the (disabled) veterans out hunting. "What we do is incorporate (hunting, fishing and other sports) into the health-life plan of the veteran," Llamas said. "The secretary of the VA, Eric Shinseki, is very adamant about this being not just one weekend out of the year, not a vacation, but a step in the right direction of the veteran becoming more productive in the community by living a healthy lifestyle, by being an example to other veterans." More content from NBCNews.com: Google launches new website to guide veterans into civilian work force Fired-up congressional panel vows strict VA oversight PTSD may be overdiagnosed, but deniers 'wrong,' psychiatrist says Older vets to post-9/11 vets: 'We had it harder' Double amputee to potential congressional foes: 'Bring it' Hearing loss the most prevalent injury among returning veterans Follow US news from NBCNews.com on Twitter and Facebook

Abbas calls for Palestinian unity

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas calls for an end to Palestinian divisions NEW: Abbas said the "most important" Palestinian mission is "national unity" Clinton says U.N. decision "will not bring us closer to peace" World leaders warn building new settlements will set back peace talks Jerusalem (CNN) -- Standing before throngs of cheering supporters Sunday, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas called for an end to the division among Palestinians in the wake of the United Nations upgrading the authority's status -- as Israel refused to acknowledge that newfound recognition. "The people who have achieved the accomplishment of the 29th of November, when the world wrote the birth certificate of the state of Palestine, are capable of imposing the will of the people in making the reconciliation happen," he said at a packed rally in Ramallah. The U.N. General Assembly on Thursday elevated the authority's status from "non-member observer entity" to "non-member observer state" -- the same category as the Vatican. Palestinian leaders had previously launched a failed bid for full U.N. membership. Saeb Erakat talks Palestinian future Israel responds to U.N. Palestinian vote Palestinians celebrate UN status upgrade Abbas is a part of the Palestinian faction Fatah, which controls the West Bank. Gaza is controlled by Hamas, which has battled Fatah for power and -- until last week -- long opposed its efforts to achieve the status upgrade. Abbas, speaking Sunday, said there are "a lot of missions" ahead, and the "most important is to restore our national unity and achieve reconciliation." Israel and the United States have slammed the authority's move at the United Nations, with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Friday it was "a step that will not bring us closer to peace." And, in response to the U.N. move, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu refused Sunday to reconsider a plan to build thousands of new homes in occupied territory. The United States and a number of European nations called on Israel to roll back the settlement plan in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which was announced Friday. Israeli settlements are widely considered illegal under international law, though Israel insists they are not. "The answer to the attack on the Zionist character of the state of Israel obliges us to increase the tempo of settlement building plans in all the areas that the government has decided to settle in," Netanyahu said in remarks before the start of his weekly Cabinet meeting in Jerusalem. He said he was citing "the language of the government decision in 1975 after the U.N. decision that equated Zionism with racism." Netanyahu has called the Palestinian Authority's U.N. bid "a gross violation" of an agreement signed with the Israeli government. Israel says it violates a Palestinian agreement to work out central issues through negotiation. Netanyahu has not publicly acknowledged the approval of new construction. But a senior government official said Saturday that the prime minister signed off on building "3,000 housing units" in the East Jerusalem as well as authorizing planning and zoning for future construction in the West Bank town of Ma'ale Adumim. The Obama administration has repeatedly warned Israel against settling East Jerusalem and the West Bank, particularly the Ma'ale Adumim area, because it would make it nearly impossible to create a contiguous Palestinian state. The Israeli Cabinet, in a unanimous vote Sunday, rejected the U.N. General Assembly's decision, saying it changes nothing and will not be a basis for negotiations. The creation of a Palestinian state will require "arrangements that ensure the security of the citizens of Israel, recogntion of Israel as a Jewish state, and a declaration by Palestinians that the conflict is over," the Cabinet statement. Israel seized the West Bank, Gaza, Golan Heights and Sinai Peninsula during the 1967 war. The Sinai has since been returned to Egypt. Israel annexed the Golan Heights in 1981, a move not recognized by the international community and condemned by Syria, which still claims the land. Israel withdrew settlers from Gaza in 2005. Hamas has since regularly launched rocket attacks into southern Israel. The Palestinian bid to the United Nations and news of Israeli settlement construction came just days after a cease-fire took hold between Israel and Hamas that brought about an end to a series of Israeli military airstrikes against Gaza launched in an effort to stop the Hamas rocket attacks. Hezbollah, a militant group and political party in Lebanon, has launched attacks on Israel from the north. Both Hezbollah and Hamas receive support from Iran. A senior U.S. official told CNN last week that Iran is "finding ways to resupply Hamas" with long range rockets and other weapons. The European Union, the United States, and Israel consider Hamas a terrorist organization. The United States and Israel also consider Hezbollah a terrorist group. The Palestinian Authority's new U.N. status allows it to have cases heard before the International Criminal Court -- a concern for Israel as Palestinians have repeatedly tried to have their claims heard before the judicial body at the Hague. International efforts for a "two-state solution" focus on a plan to unite Gaza and West Bank under the authority of a single Palestinian government. Palestinian leaders want the capital in east Jerusalem. Palestinian officials have refused to enter into new talks with Israel until it stops building settlements on West Bank land. Netanyahu, meanwhile, has said there can be no such preconditions on talks. He has called on Hamas to renounce terrorism and accept the existence of Israel. CNN's Josh Levs, Michael Schwartz, and Chelsea Carter contributed to this report.

Greene: Cost of having a baby -- $70

Newborns diagnosed with neonatal abstinence syndrome are transported to East Tennessee Children's hospital for treatment. Bob Greene's friend found the hospital bill from his birth in 1947. It was $70, $726 in 2012 dollars He says the price of a hospital birth in 2008 was $11,000. Why is it so expensive now? He says huge pricetag is partly due to advanced technology that has greatly cut infant mortality Greene: Some say not all costly procedures necessary, but outcomes are better now Editor's note: CNN Contributor Bob Greene is a bestselling author whose 25 books include "Late Edition: A Love Story"; "Chevrolet Summers, Dairy Queen Nights"; and "When We Get to Surf City: A Journey Through America in Pursuit of Rock and Roll, Friendship, and Dreams." (CNN) -- Seventy dollars. Gary Bender had difficulty believing what was right before his eyes. Bender, an accountant who lives in Irvine, California, was looking at a hospital bill he had found while going through the possessions of his late mother, Sylvia. "I'm kind of the family historian," he told me. "I keep things." What he was looking at was the bill for his own birth, in 1947. Become a fan of CNNOpinion Stay up to date on the latest opinion, analysis and conversations through social media. Join us at Facebook/CNNOpinion and follow us @CNNOpinion on Twitter. We welcome your ideas and comments. The bill had been mailed to his parents after they, and he, had left Grant Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, in May of that year. The grand total for his mother's six-day stay at Grant, for the use of the operating room, for his days in the nursery, for the various medicines and lab work -- for all aspects of his birth -- was $70. "It made me think, 'How did we get from that, to where we are today?'" Bender said. He was referring to the soaring costs of health care in the United States. For all the discussion of how out of hand the price of medical treatment has become, somehow that one old piece of paper put the subject in sharper focus for Bender than all the millions of words in news accounts analyzing the topic. 10 ways falling off the fiscal cliff could hurt your health "It can't just be inflation, can it?" he asked. Documentary: Health care overhaul needed Miracle baby lives after pronounced dead Obama win means health care law stays Medical marijuana for a 7-year-old? No, it can't. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, $70 in 1947 would be equivalent to $726 in 2012 dollars. Does it cost $726 for a hospital stay to deliver a baby these days? Dream on. According to a 2011 report from the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), the cost for a hospital stay, including physician fees, for a conventional birth with no complications was a little over $11,000 in 2008, the most recent year the report covered. For a birth involving a Caesarean section, the cost was around $19,000. (While five- or six-day hospital stays were commonplace for mothers and newborns in the 1940s, today they routinely leave the hospital within 48 hours of childbirth -- so the higher costs are for shorter stays.) At Grant Hospital in Columbus -- now called Grant Medical Center -- a spokeswoman told me that the average cost for having a baby is around $15,000. So what exactly has happened, for costs to rise so astronomically? A lot of things, said Dr. Gary Hankins of the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, a former chair of ACOG's obstetric practice committee. The technology available to keep mothers and babies safe is light years removed from what was available in 1947, he said, and "regrettably, the technology is expensive." He said that in almost every way, new mothers and their babies are better off now than they were 65 years ago. The antibiotics that have been developed to fight infections, the improved surgical procedures, the sophisticated anesthesia, the highly accurate electronic fetal monitors and other medical machinery -- all provide advantages for mother and child that did not exist in 1947. Medical malpractice insurance premiums figure into the high cost of childbirth today, he said. And there are some physicians who question whether all procedures that are regularly performed, increasing costs, are routinely necessary. But for all the frustration that patients feel about the price of medical care, one fact is indisputable: The rate of infant mortality, and the rate of mortality for new mothers, has plummeted, said Hankins. In 1950 nearly 30 infants out of 1,000 died at or soon after birth; in 2009, that number was 6.4 out of 1,000, according to the ACOG report. It may be more expensive to give birth to a child today, but both the mother and child, if there is trouble during delivery, have a much better chance of survival than they once did. Opinion: Fairness needed for pregnant workers At Grant, where Gary Bender was born, Dr. Michael Sprague, medical director of women's health, told me that "infection, blood clots, hemorrhage -- our ability to diagnose and treat all of these" is considerably better today. "You never know who that patient is going to be," Sprague said -- the mother or baby who suddenly requires all the resources a hospital maintains, at great expense, to save lives during delivery. I sent copies of Gary Bender's childbirth bill to Hankins and Sprague. Both were amazed at the particulars: The hospital room charge for Sylvia Bender was $7 per day, for six days. The cost for Gary to stay in the nursery was $2 per day. The flat rate for maternity service was $15. Grant Hospital, by the way, was not an anomaly; a 1947 brochure from Santa Monica Hospital in California, to use one example, listed a similar price structure for having a baby: $17.50 for maternity service, $2 per day for the nursery, an extra $15 if the birth was by cesarean section. And Gary Bender, who came into this world for $70? He told me that last year, the cost of the health insurance he and his employer sign up for, covering him and his wife, was in excess of $18,000 -- and that was before a single visit to a physician, and before a single prescription was filled. "It just astonishes me that in our lifetime, we have seen such extremes in medical costs," said Bender, who was one of more than 3.8 million American babies born in 1947. And who -- with that old hospital bill still in hand -- lived to tell the tale. Follow us on Twitter @CNNOpinion Join us on Facebook/CNNOpinion The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Bob Greene.

Opposition: Syria waging 'mental war'

NEW: State-run TV shows graphic images of bodies of rebels killed in town near Lebanon "So far, all areas that had Internet service before Thursday are connected," opposition says The outage sparks fears that the government is stepping up efforts to quash the uprising The government has blamed "terrorists" for the blackout (CNN) -- Syria's two-day Internet blackout was "a mental war" inflicted by the government, an opposition activist said Sunday, as service to the country was largely restored. "So far, all areas that had Internet service before Thursday are connected," said Alexia Jade, a spokeswoman for the opposition Damascus Media Office. While Internet access is back, theories and concerns abound on what caused the outage. It also sparked fears that the government is stepping up efforts to quash the uprising by crushing the flow of information and alienating the country from the outside world. "It appears to be back to normal, but it is impossible to tell if filtering or monitoring technology was installed during the outage," said Matthew Prince, CEO of CloudFlare, an Internet security company. Global Web monitors said the country lost contact with the Web on Thursday, plunging into an Internet black hole. Syria's information minister said "terrorists" cut the cable, knocking out Web communication with other countries. The government uses the word "terrorists" to refer to rebels in the ongoing civil war, and blamed them for car bombing near a mosque in Homs that killed 15 people and wounded 24 others Sunday. According to state-run media, a car bomb in Barzeh killed three people. Syrian TV also showed graphic pictures of bodies in a field and reported 21 rebels were killed as they tried to smuggle weapons into Talkalakh, a town near the border with Lebanon. The military also carried out operations in Aleppo, state-run media said. At least eight rebels died in Aleppo when they were bombed by warplanes as they attacked Syrian military positions, the opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. The group claimed the Syrian military also bombed targets in Damascus and Reef al-Raqqa. More than 42,000 people have died in the Syrian conflict since the uprising began in March 2011, according to opposition activists. CNN cannot confirm claims by the government or the opposition because of government restrictions that prevent journalists from reporting freely within Syria. During the Syrian rebellion, anti-government fighters have routinely used the Web to transmit bloody images, including what they say are military attacks on civilians. Rebel leaders accused the government of creating the blackout to hide its mass killings from the outside world. "The regime knows that Internet is the main communication method for us," Jade said. "Taking that down is almost like blinding the normal Internet users related to the revolution." Internet and cell phone coverage were restored Saturday to most Syrian provinces, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The same day, state media reported the Internet and communications lines were back in service in Damascus and its suburbs, blaming the outage on a malfunction in the main grid. A Web security expert said the outage was almost certainly the work of the Syrian government. Prince said his firm's investigations showed that all four Internet cables linking Syria to the outside world would have had to been cut simultaneously for a whole country outage to occur. CNN's Salma Abdelaziz, Faith Karimi, Samira Said and Laura Smith-Spark contributed to this report.