Workers killed in Bangladesh fire were making clothes for U.S. brands

The 100-plus workers who died in a fire late Saturday at a high-rise garment factory in Bangladesh were working overtime making clothes for major American retailers, including Wal-Mart, according to workers' rights groups.

Officials in Bangladesh said the flames at the Tazreen Fashions factory outside Dhaka spread rapidly on the ground floor, trapping those on the higher floors of the nine-story building. There were no exterior fire escapes, according to officials, and many died after jumping from upper floors to escape the flames.

As firemen continued to remove bodies Sunday, officials said at least 112 people had died but that the number of fatalities could go higher.

The Tazreen fire is the latest in a series of deadly blazes at garment factories in Bangladesh, where more than 700 workers, many making clothes for U.S. consumers, have died in factory fires in the past five years. As previously reported by ABC News, Bangladesh has some of the cheapest labor in the world and some of the most deplorable working conditions.

READ the original ABC News report.

"The industry and parent brands in the U.S. have been warned again and again about the extreme danger to workers in Bangladesh and they have not taken action," said Scott Nova, executive director of the Worker Rights Consortium, an American group working to improve conditions at factories abroad that make clothes for U.S. companies. Nova said the fire was the most deadly in the history of the Bangladesh apparel industry, and "one of the worst in any country."

WATCH the 'Nightline' report on deadly factories.

Workers' activists went into the burned-out remains today to document which major retailers were using the Tazreen factory.

They say they found labels for Faded Glory, a Wal-Mart private label, along with labels they said traced back to Sears and a clothing company owned by music impresario Sean "Diddy" Combs.

"There's no question that Wal-Mart and the other customers at this factory bear some blame for what happened in this factory," Nova said.

Nova also said that Wal-Mart "knew exactly what's going on at these facilities. They have staff on site in Bangladesh."

Wal-Mart actually warned of dangerous conditions at the Tazreen factory last year, in a letter posted online by the factory owner.

Wal-Mart told ABC News that the company has not yet been able to confirm that it was still making clothes at the factory.

In a statement, Wal-Mart told ABC News, "Our thoughts are with the families of the victims of this tragedy. ... [F]ire safety is a critically important area of Wal-Mart's factory audit program and we have been working across the apparel industry to improve fire safety education and training in Bangladesh.

"As part of this effort, we partnered with several independent organizations to develop and roll out fire safety training tools for factory management and workers. Continued engagement is critical to ensure that reliable, proactive measures are in place to reduce the chance of factory fires. "

Spokespeople for Combs and Sears did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

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Tourists visit Texas ranch to remember 'Dallas' star Larry Hagman

PARKER, Texas (AP) — Tourists and locals flocked to Southfork Ranch on Saturday, bringing flowers in memory of Larry Hagman, who played the infamous J.R. Ewing on the TV show "Dallas."

Hagman died in Dallas on Friday at age 81 due to complications from his battle with cancer.

Southfork, a ranch north of Dallas, was known to millions of viewers as the Ewing family home. Exterior shots of the house and pool were shown when the series aired from 1978 to 1991, although the show wasn't filmed there.

The ranch has been open for tours since the mid-1980s, and now sees more than 100,000 visitors each year. Each room of the house has a theme for each character.

On Saturday, J.R. Ewing's room had flowers and a card for tourists to sign.

"Today is about Larry Hagman and his family," said Janna Timm, a Southfork Ranch & Hotel spokeswoman. "He was such a wonderful person, and we will really miss him."

"Dallas" was recently revived on TNT this summer, and all of the scenes were filmed at Southfork or other places in the Dallas area. Hagman had revised his role as the scheming oilman who would even double-cross his own son.

Linda Sproule of Peterborough, Ontario, had been traveling through the U.S. the past couple of weeks and heard about Hagman's death Friday while in Dallas. She said she didn't know where Southfork was but wanted to come because she was a fan of the show in the 1980s.

"I remember on Friday nights we watched it, and J.R. was bigger than life in some ways," she said after taking the Southfork tour Saturday morning. "This ranch is beautiful. Being here is kind of emotional in a way."

Barbara Quinones and her husband were in town for their daughter's soccer tournament and had already planned to visit Southfork when they heard news of Hagman's death.

"We loved him because he was so ruthless," said Quinones, of Albuquerque, N.M. "This is a sad day, but I'm glad we're here."

Some of the show's stars, including Hagman, came to Southfork for the series' 25th anniversary. The Fort Worth-born actor also had visited several times before the show was revived.

"He was definitely a gentleman, a class act," said Jim Gomes, vice president of resorts at Southfork Ranch & Hotel. "He loved the fans as much as they loved him."

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Powerful gas explosion levels Mass. buildings; at least 18 hurt

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (AP) — A natural gas explosion in one of New England's biggest cities on Friday destroyed two buildings, including one housing a strip club, and damaged others beyond repair but didn't kill anyone, authorities said.

Firefighters, police officers and gas company workers in the area because of an earlier gas leak and odor report were among more than a dozen people injured, authorities said.

"This is a miracle on Worthington Street that no one was killed," Lt. Gov. Tim Murray said at a press conference.

The explosion in a downtown area of Springfield, 90 miles west of Boston, blew out all windows in a three-block radius, leaving three more buildings irreparably damaged and prompting emergency workers to evacuate a six-story apartment building that was buckling.

Police Sgt. John Delaney marveled at the destruction at the blast's epicenter, where a multistory building was leveled.

"It looks like there was a missile strike here," he said.

Officials at two nearby hospitals said at least 18 victims were transported there with injuries but none was critical.

Firefighters responded to the scene at 4:20 p.m. and were investigating the gas leak when the blast happened shortly after 5 p.m. The cause of the explosion hadn't been identified but was under investigation, they said.

Springfield, which has about 150,000 residents, is the largest city in western Massachusetts. It's known as the home of the Basketball Hall of Fame, which is not in the vicinity of the blast.

The explosion, in an area of downtown Springfield with commercial properties and residences, destroyed a building that housed a Scores Gentlemen's Club.

Area resident Wayne Davis said he felt his apartment building shake a block away.

"I was laying down in bed, and I started feeling the building shaking and creaking," he said.

The Navy veteran said the boom from the explosion was louder than anything he'd ever heard, including the sound of a jet landing on an aircraft carrier.

The blast was so loud it was heard for miles around. Video from WWLP-TV showed the moment of the explosion, with smoke billowing into the air above the neighborhood.

Mayor Domenic Sarno said it was through "God's mercy" that nobody had been reported killed in the explosion.

"My thoughts and prayers are with the individuals that have been injured and the people who have been displaced," he said, adding that emergency shelter was being set up for those unable to go home.

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Associated Press writers Bridget Murphy and Bob Salsberg in Boston contributed to this story.

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Thanksgiving Day parade offers respite for storm victims

Some of the very same Republicans who have spent the last two weeks bashing Mitt Romney were, indeed, sucking up to him at a massive rally the Friday before the election — even angling for jobs in the Romney administration — a Romney adviser complains. At a rally with 100 Romney surrogates in West Chester, Ohio, Romney aide Dan Senor revealed on MSNBC Wednesday, the Romney bashers were Romney fawners. "I’m backstage with some of them, I won’t mention their names, but they’re talking about Romney like he’s Reagan," Senor said. ...

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Mistrust runs deep despite cease-fire

CAIRO/GAZA (Reuters) - A ceasefire between Israel and Gaza's Hamas rulers took hold on Thursday after eight days of conflict, although deep mistrust on both sides cast doubt on how long the Egyptian-sponsored deal can last.

Even after the ceasefire came into force late on Wednesday, a dozen rockets from the Gaza Strip landed in Israel, all in open areas, a police spokesman said. In Gaza, witnesses reported an explosion shortly after the truce took effect at 9 p.m (14:00 EDT), but there were no casualties and the cause was unclear.

The deal prevented, at least for the moment, an Israeli ground invasion of the Palestinian enclave following bombing and rocket fire which killed five Israelis and 162 Gazans, including 37 children.

But trust was in short supply. The exiled leader of Hamas, Khaled Meshaal, said his Islamist movement would respect the truce if Israel did, but would respond to any violations. "If Israel complies, we are compliant. If it does not comply, our hands are on the trigger," he told a news conference in Cairo.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had agreed to "exhaust this opportunity for an extended truce", but told his people a tougher approach might be required in the future.

Both sides quickly began offering differing interpretations of the ceasefire, brokered by Egypt's new Islamist government and backed by the United States, highlighting the many actual or potential areas of discord.

If it holds, the truce will give 1.7 million Gazans respite from days of ferocious air strikes and halt rocket salvoes from militants that unnerved a million people in southern Israel and reached Tel Aviv and Jerusalem for the first time.

"Allahu akbar, (God is greatest), dear people of Gaza you won," blared mosque loudspeakers in Gaza as the truce took effect. "You have broken the arrogance of the Jews."

Fifteen minutes later, wild celebratory gunfire echoed across the darkened streets, which gradually filled with crowds waving Palestinian flags. Ululating women leaned out of windows and fireworks lit up the sky.

Meshaal thanked Egypt for mediating and praised Iran for providing Gazans with financing and arms. "We have come out of this battle with our heads up high," he said, adding that Israel had been defeated and failed in its "adventure".

Some Israelis staged protests against the deal, notably in the southern town of Kiryat Malachi, where three people were killed by a Gaza rocket during the conflict, army radio said.

Netanyahu said he was willing to give the truce a chance but held open the possibility of reopening the conflict. "I know there are citizens expecting a more severe military action, and perhaps we shall need to do so," he said.

The Israeli leader, who faces a parliamentary election in January, delivered a similar message earlier in a telephone call with U.S. President Barack Obama, his office said.

"AN OPEN PRISON"

According to a text of the agreement seen by Reuters, both sides should halt all hostilities, with Israel desisting from incursions and targeting of individuals, while all Palestinian factions should cease rocket fire and cross-border attacks.

The deal also provides for easing Israeli restrictions on Gaza's residents, who live in what British Prime Minister David Cameron has called an "open prison".

The text said procedures for implementing this would be "dealt with after 24 hours from the start of the ceasefire".

Israeli sources said Israel would not lift a blockade of the enclave it enforced after Hamas, which rejects the Jewish state's right to exist, won a Palestinian election in 2006.

However, Meshaal said the deal covered the opening of all of the territory's border crossings. "The document stipulates the opening of the crossings, all the crossings, and not just Rafah," he said. Israel controls all of Gaza's crossings apart from the Rafah post with Egypt.

Hamas lost its top military commander to an Israeli strike in the conflict and suffered serious hits to its infrastructure and weaponry, but has emerged with its reputation both in the Arab world and at home stronger.

Israel can take comfort from the fact it dealt painful blows to its enemy, which will take many months to recover, and showed that it can defend itself from a barrage of missiles.

"No one is under the illusion that this is going to be an everlasting ceasefire. It is clear to everyone it will only be temporary," said Michael Herzog, a former chief of staff at the Israeli ministry of defence.

"But there is a chance that it could hold for a significant period of time, if all goes well," he told Reuters.

Egypt, an important U.S. ally now under Islamist leadership, took centre stage in diplomacy to halt the bloodshed. Cairo has walked a fine line between its sympathies for Hamas, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood to which President Mohamed Mursi belongs, and its need to preserve its 1979 peace treaty with Israel and its ties with Washington, its main aid donor.

Announcing the agreement in Cairo, Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohamed Kamel Amr said mediation had "resulted in understandings to cease fire, restore calm and halt the bloodshed".

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, standing beside Amr, thanked Mursi for peace efforts that showed "responsibility, leadership" in the region.

The Gaza conflict erupted in a Middle East already shaken by last year's Arab uprisings that toppled several veteran U.S.-backed leaders, including Egypt's Hosni Mubarak, and by a civil war in Syria, where President Bashar al-Assad is fighting for survival.

In his call with Netanyahu, Obama in turn repeated U.S. commitment to Israel's security and promised to seek funds for a joint missile defence program, the White House said.

BUS BOMBING

The ceasefire was forged despite a bus bomb explosion that wounded 15 Israelis in Tel Aviv earlier in the day and despite more Israeli air strikes that killed 10 Gazans. It was the first serious bombing in Israel's commercial capital since 2006.

Israel, the United States and the European Union all classify Hamas as a terrorist organization. It seized the Gaza Strip from the Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in 2007 in a brief but bloody war with his Fatah movement.

"This is a critical moment for the region," Clinton said. "Egypt's new government is assuming the responsibility and leadership that has long made this country a cornerstone for regional stability and peace."

In Amman, U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon urged both sides to stick to their ceasefire pledges. "There may be challenges implementing this agreement," he said, urging "maximum restraint".

(Additional reporting by Noah Browning in Gaza, Ori Lewis, Allyn Fisher-Ilan and Crispian Balmer in Jerusalem, Yasmine Saleh, Shaimaa Fayed and Tom Perry in Cairo, Suleiman al-Khalidi in Amman and Margaret Chadbourn in Washington; Writing by Alistair Lyon and David Stamp; Editing by Louise Ireland)

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Securing Gaza cease-fire proves elusive

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel and the Hamas militant group edged closer to a cease-fire Tuesday to end a weeklong Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip, but after a day of furious diplomatic efforts involving the U.S. secretary of state, U.N. chief and Egypt's president, a deal remained elusive and fighting raged on both sides of the border.

Israeli tanks and gunboats pummeled targets in Gaza in what appeared to be a last-minute burst of fire, while at least 200 rockets were fired into Israel. As talks dragged on near midnight, Israeli and Hamas officials, communicating through Egyptian mediators, expressed hope that a deal would soon be reached, but cautioned that it was far from certain.

"If there is a possibility of achieving a long-term solution to this problem by diplomatic means, we prefer that. But if not, then I am sure you will understand that Israel will have to take whatever actions are necessary to defend its people," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at a late-night meeting with visiting Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Clinton was hastily dispatched to the region by President Barack Obama to join a high-profile group of world leaders working to halt the violence. Standing alongside the Israeli leader, Clinton indicated it could take some time to iron out an agreement.

"In the days ahead, the United States will work with our partners here in Israel and across the region toward an outcome that bolsters security for the people of Israel, improves conditions for the people of Gaza and moves toward a comprehensive peace for all people of the region," she said.

Clinton expressed sorrow for the heavy loss of life on both sides, but called for the Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel to end and stressed that the American commitment to Israel's security is "rock solid."

"The goal must be a durable outcome that promotes regional stability and advances the security and legitimate aspirations of Israelis and Palestinians alike," she said.

In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said Clinton met with Netanyahu and other Israeli officials for two hours.

"They discussed efforts to de-escalate the situation and bring about a sustainable outcome that protects Israel's security and improves the lives of civilians in Gaza," Nuland said. "They also consulted on her impending stops in Ramallah and Cairo, including Egyptian efforts to advance de-escalation."

Israel launched the offensive on Nov. 14 in a bid to end months of rocket attacks out of the Hamas-run territory, which lies on Israel's southern flank. After assassinating Hamas' military chief, it has carried out a blistering campaign of airstrikes, targeting rocket launchers, storage sites and wanted militants.

The campaign has killed more than 130 Palestinians, including dozens of civilians, and wounded hundreds of others. Five Israelis have been killed by rocket fire, including a soldier and a civilian contractor on Tuesday.

With Israel massing thousands of ground troops on the Gaza border, diplomats raced throughout the region in search of a formula to halt the fighting.

In a meeting with Netanyahu, U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon condemned Palestinian rocket attacks, but urged Israel to show "maximum restraint."

"Further escalation benefits no one," he said.

Israel demands an end to rocket fire from Gaza and a halt to weapons smuggling into Gaza through tunnels under the border with Egypt. It also wants international guarantees that Hamas will not rearm or use Egypt's Sinai region, which abuts both Gaza and southern Israel, to attack Israelis.

Hamas wants Israel to halt all attacks on Gaza and lift tight restrictions on trade and movement in and out of the territory that have been in place since Hamas seized Gaza by force in 2007. Israel has rejected such demands in the past.

Egypt's new Islamist government is expected to play a key role in maintaining a deal.

The crisis has thrust Egypt's president, Mohammed Morsi, into the spotlight as he plays a difficult balancing act.

Morsi belongs to the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas' parent movement, and clearly sympathizes with the Islamic militant group. At the same time, he relies heavily on U.S. aid and is trying to preserve a historic peace agreement with Israel.

Earlier, Morsi raised hopes that a cease-fire was near when he predicted the negotiations would yield "positive results" during the coming hours.

Netanyahu also said his country would be a "willing partner" in a cease-fire agreement.

But as the talks stretched into the evening, it became clear that a deal remained a ways off.

"Most likely the deal will be struck tomorrow. Israel has not responded to some demands, which delayed the deal," Hamas official Izzat Risheq said.

Hamas officials refused to discuss the remaining sticking points.

Israeli media quoted Defense Minister Ehud Barak as telling a closed meeting that Israel wanted a 24-hour test period of no rocket fire to see if Hamas could enforce a truce.

Palestinian officials briefed on the negotiations said Hamas wanted assurances of a comprehensive deal that included new border arrangements — and were resisting Israeli proposals for a phased agreement. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.

Although Israel claims it has inflicted heavy damage on militants' capabilities, its roughly 1,550 airstrikes and shelling attacks have failed to halt the rocket fire.

More than 1,400 rockets have been fired at Israel, including about 200 on Tuesday. A U.S.-financed Israeli rocket-defense system has knocked down roughly 400 of the incoming projectiles.

Violence raged on as the talks continued. An airstrike late Tuesday killed two journalists who work for the Hamas TV station, Al-Aqsa, according to a statement from the channel. A third journalist, from Al Quds Educational Radio, a private station, also was killed.

The Al-Aqsa TV cameramen were in a car hit by an airstrike, Gaza health official Ashraf al-Kidra said. Israel claims that many Hamas journalists are involved in militant activities. Earlier this week it targeted the station's offices, saying they served as a Hamas communications post.

Late Tuesday, a Palestinian rocket hit a house in the central Israeli city of Rishon Lezion, wounding two people and badly damaging the top two floors of the building, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said.

Minutes before Ban's arrival in Jerusalem from Egypt, Palestinian militants fired a rocket toward Jerusalem, just the second time it has targeted the city. The rocket fell in an open area southeast of the city.

Jerusalem had previously been considered beyond the range of Gaza rockets — and an unlikely target because it is home to the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, Islam's third-holiest shrine.

Israeli warplanes dropped leaflets on several Gaza neighborhoods asking residents to evacuate and head toward the center of Gaza City along specific roads. The army "is not targeting any of you, and doesn't want to harm you or your families," the leaflets said. Palestinian militants urged residents to ignore the warnings, calling them "psychological warfare."

Israeli security officials acknowledge they rely on a network of Palestinian informants to identify targets. Masked gunmen publicly shot dead six suspected collaborators with Israel in a large Gaza City intersection Tuesday, witnesses said.

An Associated Press reporter saw a mob surrounding five of the bloodied corpses shortly after the killing, and one of the bodies was dragged through the streets by a motorcycle.

Hamas did not provide any evidence against the alleged collaborators.

Clinton was also scheduled to meet with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank and Egyptian leaders in Cairo on Wednesday. Turkey's foreign minister and a delegation of Arab League foreign ministers traveled to Gaza on a separate truce mission. Airstrikes continued to hit Gaza even as they entered the territory.

"Turkey is standing by you," Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told the Hamas prime minister in Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh. "Our demand is clear. Israel should end its aggression immediately and lift the inhumane blockade imposed on Gaza."

The U.S. considers Hamas, which has killed hundreds of Israelis in suicide and other attacks, to be a terror group and does not meet with its officials. The Obama administration blames Hamas for the latest eruption of violence and says Israel has the right to defend itself. At the same time, it has warned against a ground invasion, saying it could send casualties spiraling.

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Barzak reported from Gaza City, Gaza Strip. Associated Press writers Hamza Hendawi in Cairo, Karin Laub in Gaza City and Ian Deitch in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

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Gaza offensive was years in the making

JERUSALEM (AP) — With little notice, Israel has launched a blistering air offensive against the Gaza Strip's ruling Hamas militant group. Here's a look at why the violence erupted, the goals of the warring sides and how it may end:

LIGHTNING STRIKE

Israel opened its offensive with a surprise airstrike on Nov. 14 that killed the shadowy leader of Hamas' military wing. Since then, it has carried out hundreds of airstrikes in what it says is a systematic campaign to halt years of rocket attacks launched from Gaza. While Israel claims to have inflicted heavy damage, dozens of rockets have continued to fly out of Gaza each day.

WHY NOW?

Israel launched the operation in response to days of rocket attacks out of Gaza, highlighted by a rare missile strike on an Israeli military jeep that wounded four soldiers. But the operation was actually years in the making. Since a previous Israeli offensive four years ago, Hamas has restocked its arsenal with more sophisticated and powerful weapons smuggled in from Egypt through underground tunnels. After a lull following Israel's previous offensive, rocket fire has steadily climbed the past two years. The Israeli military says more than 700 rockets were launched into Israel this year before it launched the offensive last week. In this environment, Israeli officials have said it was only a matter of time before a new round of fighting broke out.

THE BATTELFIELD

Hamas seized control of Gaza, a densely populated strip of land sandwiched between southern Israel and Egypt's Sinai desert, five years ago from the rival Fatah movement of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Hamas, a militant group sworn to Israel's destruction, has developed is rocket arsenal to the point where nearly half of Israel's population is in range.

WHY FIRE ROCKETS?

Palestinian militants, led by Hamas, say the rocket fire is a legitimate response to continued Israeli attacks. They also claim they are resisting Israeli occupation of the territory. Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, ending a 38-year military occupation. But it has maintained a blockade of the territory in a step it says is needed to prevent arms smuggling. In the murky world of Gaza politics, the attacks also stem from internal rivalries between groups eager to prove their militant credentials. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says no country would tolerate repeated missile attacks on its civilians.

RISKY BUSINESS

Prolonged fighting carries great risks for both sides. As Israel presses forward, the number of Palestinian civilian casualties is likely to rise — a scenario that could quickly turn international opinion against it. Israel's previous offensive left hundreds of civilians dead, drawing international condemnation and war crimes accusations. By continuing to fire rockets, Hamas raises the risk of tougher Israeli attacks, including a possible ground offensive. Well aware of these risks, both sides are working through mediators to arrange a cease-fire.

TERMS OF THE DEAL

Israel wants a halt to the rocket attacks and an end to arms smuggling into Gaza, most likely in a deal that is guaranteed by Egypt or other international parties. Hamas wants a halt to Israeli assassinations of its leaders and a lifting of the Israeli blockade. While gaps remain wide, both sides have strong interests in a deal. Bringing quiet to Israel's embattled south will make Netanyahu a national hero, weeks before parliamentary elections. Hamas, branded a terrorist group by Israel and the West, has seen its influence grow as the Arab Spring brings Islamists to power across the region. A cease-fire, particularly an arrangement guaranteed with international partners, would cement Hamas' control of Gaza and give it more of the international recognition it covets so much.

BY THE NUMBERS

—More than 100 Palestinians, half of them civilians, have been killed, according to Palestinian medical officials. Three Israeli civilians have died from rocket fire.

—Israel has attacked more than 1,350 targets in the current offensive, according to the Israeli army. Hamas and smaller armed groups have responded with nearly 600 rockets, the army says.

—Israel says its new "Iron Dome" rocket-defense system has shot down more than 300 incoming projectiles.

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Israeli air strike kills 11 civilians in Gaza

GAZA/JERUSALEM (Reuters) - An Israeli missile killed at least 11 Palestinian civilians including four children in Gaza on Sunday, medical officials said, apparently an attack on a top militant that brought a three-storey home crashing down.

International pressure for a ceasefire seemed certain to mount in response to the deadliest single incident in five days of Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel and Israeli air strikes on the Gaza Strip.

Egypt has taken the lead in trying to broker a ceasefire and Israeli media said a delegation from Israel had been to Cairo for talks on ending the fighting, although a government spokesman declined to comment on the matter.

Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi met Hamas political leader Khaled Meshaal and Islamic Jihad's head Ramadan Shallah as part of the mediation efforts, but a presidency statement did not say if they were conclusive.

Izzat Risheq, a close aide to Meshaal, wrote in a Facebook message that Hamas would agree to a ceasefire only after Israel "stops its aggression, ends its policy of targeted assassinations and lifts the blockade of Gaza".

Listing Israel's terms for ceasing fire, Moshe Yaalon, a deputy to the prime minister, wrote on Twitter: "If there is quiet in the south and no rockets and missiles are fired at Israel's citizens, nor terrorist attacks engineered from the Gaza Strip, we will not attack."

Gaza health officials said 72 Palestinians , 21 of them children and several women have been killed in Gaza since Israel's offensive began. Hundreds have been wounded.

Israel gave off signs of a possible ground invasion of the Hamas-run enclave as the next stage in its offensive, billed as a bid to stop Palestinian rocket fire into the Jewish state. It also spelt out its conditions for a truce.

U.S. President Barack Obama said that while Israel had a right to defend itself against the salvoes, it would be "preferable" to avoid a military thrust into the Gaza Strip, a narrow, densely populated coastal territory. Such an assault would risk high casualties and an international outcry.

A spokesman for the Hamas-run Interior Ministry said 11 people, all of them civilians, were killed when an Israeli missile flattened the home of the Dalu family. Medics said four women and four children were among the dead.

Israel's chief military spokesman said Yihia Abayah, a senior commander of rocket operations in the Gaza Strip, had been the target.

The spokesman, Yoav Mordechai, told Israel's Channel 2 television he did not know whether Abayah was killed, "but the outcome was that there were civilian casualties". He made no direct mention of the destroyed dwelling.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said earlier that he had assured world leaders that Israel was doing its utmost to avoid causing civilian casualties in the military showdown with Hamas.

"The massacre of the Dalu family will not pass without punishment," Hamas's armed wing said in a statement.

VIOLENCE

In other air raids on Sunday, two Gaza City media buildings were hit, witnesses said. Eight journalists were wounded and facilities belonging to Hamas's Al-Aqsa TV as well as Britain's Sky News were damaged.

An employee of the Beirut-based al Quds television station lost his leg in the attack, local medics said.

The Israeli military said the strike targeted a rooftop "transmission antenna used by Hamas to carry out terror activity", and that journalists in the building had effectively been used as human shields by Gaza's rulers.

For their part, Gaza militants launched dozens of rockets into Israel and targeted its commercial capital, Tel Aviv, for a fourth day, once in the morning and another after dark.

Israel's "Iron Dome" missile shield shot down all three rockets, but falling debris from the daytime interception hit a car, which caught fire. Its driver was not hurt.

In scenes recalling Israel's 2008-2009 winter invasion of Gaza, tanks, artillery and infantry massed in field encampments along the sandy, fenced-off border. Military convoys moved on roads in the area newly closed to civilian traffic.

Netanyahu said Israel was ready to widen its offensive.

"We are exacting a heavy price from Hamas and the terrorist organisations and the Israel Defence Forces are prepared for a significant expansion of the operation," he said at a cabinet meeting, giving no further details.

The Israeli military said 544 rockets fired from Gaza have hit Israel since Wednesday, killing three civilians and wounding dozens. Some 302 were intercepted and 99 failed to reach Israel and landed inside the Gaza Strip, it added.

Israel's declared goal is to deplete Gaza arsenals and force the Islamist Hamas to stop rocket fire that has bedevilled Israeli border towns for years and is now displaying greater range, putting Tel Aviv and Jerusalem in the crosshairs.

Israel withdrew settlers from Gaza in 2005 and two years later Hamas took control of the impoverished enclave, which the Israelis have kept under blockade.

OBAMA CAUTIONS AGAINST GROUND CAMPAIGN

At a news conference during a visit to the Thai capital Bangkok, Obama said Israel has "every right to expect that it does not have missiles fired into its territory".

He added: "If this can be accomplished without a ramping up of military activity in Gaza that is preferable. That's not just preferable for the people of Gaza, it's also preferable for Israelis because if Israeli troops are in Gaza they're much more at risk of incurring fatalities or being wounded," he said.

Obama said he had been in regular contact with Egyptian and Turkish leaders - to secure their mediation in bringing about a halt to rocket barrages by Hamas and other Islamist militants.

"We're going to have to see what kind of progress we can make in the next 24, 36, 48 hours," he added.

Diplomatic efforts continued on Sunday when French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius met Israeli officials and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank.

"It is absolutely necessary that we move urgently towards a ceasefire, and that's where France can be useful," Fabius told French television, adding that war must be avoided.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will be in Egypt on Monday for talks with Mursi, the foreign ministry in Cairo said. U.N. diplomats earlier said Ban was expected in Israel and Egypt this week to push for an end to the fighting.

Israel's operation has so far drawn Western support for what U.S. and European leaders have called its right to self-defence, but there was also a growing number of appeals from them to seek an end to the hostilities.

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Israel bombards Gaza Strip, shoots down rocket

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israel destroyed the headquarters of Hamas' prime minister and blasted a sprawling network of smuggling tunnels in the southern Gaza Strip on Saturday, broadening a blistering four-day-old offensive against the Islamic militant group even as diplomatic efforts to broker a cease-fire appeared to be gaining steam.

Hamas officials said a building used by Hamas for broadcasts was bombed and three people were injured. The injured were from Al Quds TV, a Lebanon-based television channel. The building is also used by foreign news outlets including Germany's ARD, Kuwait TV and the Italian RAI and others.

The Israeli military spokesman was not immediately aware of the strikes but said they were investigating.

In neighboring Egypt, President Mohammed Morsi hosted leaders from Hamas and two key allies, Qatar and Turkey, to seek a way to end the fighting.

"There are discussions about the ways to bring a cease-fire soon, but there are no guarantees until now," Morsi said at a news conference. He said he was working with Turkey, Arab countries, the U.S., Russia and western European countries to halt the fighting.

Israel launched the operation on Wednesday in what it said was an effort to end months of rocket fire out of the Hamas-ruled territory. It began the offensive with an unexpected airstrike that killed Hamas' powerful military chief, and since then has relentlessly targeted suspected rocket launchers and storage sites.

In all, 48 Palestinians, including 15 civilians, have been killed and more than 400 civilians wounded, according to medical officials.

Three Israeli civilians have been killed and more than 50 wounded.

Israeli military officials expressed satisfaction with their progress Saturday, claiming they have inflicted heavy damage to Hamas.

"Most of their capabilities have been destroyed," Maj. Gen. Tal Russo, Israel's southern commander, told reporters. Asked whether Israel is ready to send ground troops into Gaza, he said: "Absolutely."

"Most of their weapons are stored in civilian's homes, they launch rockets from residential areas. We do not want to hit civilians in Gaza but we do want to hit the hornets' nest of terror in Gaza," he said.

Footage released Saturday by the Islamic Jihad showed rockets being fired from a hidden bunker in a built-up area. It wasn't clear whether it was a residential neighborhood.

Israel's Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon told channel 1 TV that "Hamas is committing a double war crime, they are firing rockets at Israeli civilians while using Palestinian civilians as human shields."

The White House said President Barack Obama was also in touch with the Egyptian and Turkish leaders. The U.S. has solidly backed Israel so far.

Speaking on Air Force One, deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes said that the White House believes Israel "has the right to defend itself" against attack and that the Israelis will make their own decisions about their "military tactics and operations."

Despite the bruising offensive, Israel has failed to slow the barrages of rockets from Gaza.

The Israeli military said 160 rockets were launched into Israel on Saturday, raising the total number to roughly 500 since this week's fighting began. Eight Israelis, including five civilians, were lightly wounded Saturday, the army said.

Israel carried out at least 300 airstrikes on Saturday, the military said, and it broadened its array of targets. One air raid flattened the three-story office building used by Hamas' prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh. He was not inside the building at the time.

In southern Gaza, aircraft went after the tunnels that militants use to smuggle in weapons and other contraband from neighboring Egypt. Tunnel operators said the intensity of the bombing was unprecedented, and that massive explosions could be heard kilometers (miles) away, both in Gaza and in Egypt.

The operators, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the illicit nature of their business, said they cannot approach the tunnel area to assess the damage, but the blasts appeared to be more powerful than in Israel's last major push to destroy the tunnels during a previous offensive four years ago. The tunnels are a key lifeline for Hamas, bringing in both weapons and supporting a lucrative trade that helps fund the group's activities.

Missiles also smashed into two small security facilities and the massive Hamas police headquarters in Gaza City, setting off a huge blaze that engulfed nearby houses and civilian cars parked outside, the Interior Ministry reported. No one was inside the buildings.

Early on Sunday, Gaza health official Ashraf al-Kidra said two teenagers were killed and ten people were injured when a building was hit.

Gaza residents reported heavy Israeli raids overnight.

Air attacks knocked out five electricity transformers, cutting off power to more than 400,000 people in southern Gaza, according to the Gaza electricity distribution company. People switched on backup generators for limited electrical supplies.

Hamas has unveiled an arsenal of more powerful, longer-range rockets this week, and for the first time has struck at Israel's two largest cities, Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Both cities, more than 70 kilometers (45 miles) from Gaza, had previously been beyond rocket range.

In a psychological boost for Israel, a new rocket-defense system known as "Iron Dome" knocked down a rocket headed toward Tel Aviv, eliciting cheers from relieved residents huddled in fear after air raid sirens sounded in the city.

Associated Press video showed a plume of smoke following an intercepting missile out of a rocket-defense battery deployed near the city, followed by a burst of light overhead as it struck its target.

Police said a second rocket also targeted Tel Aviv. It was not clear where it landed or whether it was shot down. No injuries were reported. It was the third straight day the city was targeted.

Israel says the Iron Dome system has shot down some 250 of 500 rockets fired toward the country this week, most in southern Israel near Gaza.

Saturday's interception was the first time Iron Dome has been deployed in Tel Aviv. The battery was a new upgraded version that was only activated on Saturday, two months ahead of schedule, the Defense Ministry said.

Israel has vowed to stage a ground invasion, a scenario that would bring the scale of fighting closer to that of a war four years ago. Hamas was badly bruised during that conflict but has since restocked its arsenal with more and better weapons. Five years after seizing control of Gaza, it has also come under pressure from smaller, more militant groups to prove its commitment to fighting Israel as it turns its focus to governing the seaside strip.

Israel's Defense Minister Ehud Barak has authorized the emergency call-up of up to 75,000 reserve troops ahead of a possible ground offensive. Israel has massed thousands of troops and dozens of tanks and armored vehicles along the border in recent days.

Egypt, which is led by Hamas' parent movement, the Muslim Brotherhood, has been spearheading efforts to forge a cease-fire. Morsi has vowed to stand strong with the people of Gaza and this week recalled Cairo's ambassador from Israel to protest the offensive.

Quietly, though, non-Muslim Brotherhood members in Morsi's government are said to be pushing Hamas to end its rocket fire on Israel. Morsi is under pressure not to go too far and risk straining ties with Israel's ally, the United States.

The Hamas website said Saturday that its leader, Khaled Meshaal, met with the head of Egyptian intelligence for two hours Saturday in Cairo, a day after the Egyptian official was in the Gaza Strip trying to work out an end to the escalation in violence.

Hamas has not immediately accepted Egypt's proposal for a cease-fire, but the group's website said it could end its rocket fire if Israel agrees to end "all acts of aggression and assassination" and lift its five-year blockade on Gaza. Egypt will present the Hamas position to Israeli officials.

Israeli officials say they are not interested in a "timeout," and want firm guarantees that the rocket fire, which has paralyzed life in an area home to 1 million Israelis, finally ends. Past cease-fires have been short lived.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he spoke with the leaders of Britain, Poland, Portugal, Bulgaria to press his case. "No government in the world would allow a situation where its population lives under the constant threat of rockets," Netanyahu told them, according to a statement from his office.

The diplomatic activity in Cairo illustrated Hamas' rising influence in a changing Middle East. The Arab Spring has brought Islamists to power and influence across the region, helping Hamas emerge from years of isolation.

Morsi warned that a ground operation by Irael will have "repercussions" across the region. "All must realize the situation is different than before, and the people of the region now are different than before and the leaders are different than before," he said at a joint press conference with Turkey's Islamist prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Erdogan, like Morsi, leads an Islamist government that has chilly diplomatic ties with Israel.

On Friday, Morsi sent his prime minister to Gaza on a solidarity mission with Hamas. And on Saturday, Tunisia's Foreign Minister Rafik Abdessalem visited Gaza as well.

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Joe Federman reported from Jerusalem. Associated Press writers Karin Laub in Gaza City and Aya Batrawy in Cairo contributed reporting.

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Head vs. heart: Egypt's Gaza dilemma

The hostilities threatening to escalate into all-out war between Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza concern the two antagonists first and foremost, but the course the fighting takes is likely to be equally consequential for Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi – and for his relations with the United States.

Egypt’s Islamist president finds himself pulled in competing directions by the head and the heart. The fighting this week – the result of heavy Israeli retaliation for escalating rocket fire from Gaza into southern Israel – has the Islamist Mr. Morsi in a tight spot: caught between his co-religionists across the border in Gaza, on one side, and Washington, upon which a struggling Egypt relies for economic and military assistance, on the other.

For some Middle East analysts, this could be a moment for Morsi to emerge and establish himself as a leader to be reckoned with in the unstable and leaderless post-Awakening Arab world. But successfully maneuvering this moment will take time. And with Israeli soldiers amassing on Gaza’s border, the analysts add, it’s unclear whether Morsi will have the chance to even take the leadership test the situation presents.

IN PICTURES: Gaza: battleground and daily life under Hamas' rule

“Morsi is definitely between the proverbial rock and hard place, but if he can pull together the elements to convince Hamas to stop the rockets … and he can defuse this situation, then I think he can emerge as a leader in the region,” says Aaron David Miller, a Middle East scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center in Washington. “But he needs time and space to try to do it, and I’m not sure the Israelis are going to allow him that time.”

The sudden flare-up involving Gaza and its Islamist leaders is also testing US influence in a region where the Arab Awakening has deposed a number of autocratic leaders more disposed to upholding a US-led system of security and stability – including former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak – in favor of Islamist-led governments.

Morsi hails from the Muslim Brotherhood, as does Hamas, the militant Palestinian organization that governs Gaza. The rockets crashing into southern Israel have been lobbed by a collection of militant Islamist groups operating in Gaza, including some aligned with Iran. But after the Israelis launched retaliatory air strikes, including a strike that killed the Hamas military leader, Ahmed Jabari, Hamas has continued the barrage of rocket fire into Israel and the fighting has largely boiled down to a battle between Israel and Hamas.

Morsi has made his sympathies clear on Egyptian television, lamenting the spilling of Palestinian blood and railing against what he calls the Israeli “aggression.” But privately he is apparently sounding more amenable to trying to convince Hamas to stand down, perhaps by accepting a cease-fire. Morsi has spoken by phone with President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton several times this week, US officials say.

This is where Morsi’s head comes in. Egypt depends on the US for some $1.5 billion in annual assistance, not to mention Washington’s advocacy before international financial institutions – including the International Monetary Fund, where Egypt currently has a $4.5 billion loan under consideration.

Egypt’s relations with the US have not sailed through the stormy waters of the Egyptian revolution unscathed. The uncertainty and growing mistrust that now characterize what was once the solid core of US relations with the region were captured by Obama’s comment in an interview in September: “I don’t think we would consider [Egypt] an ally,” the president said, “but we don’t consider them an enemy,” either.

The turbulence has led some analysts to wonder if Morsi might be willing to jeopardize US assistance in order to pursue pro-Islamist – and more overtly anti-Israeli – policies. This week’s deadly violence between Israel and Hamas has led to some speculation that Morsi, who recalled Egypt’s ambassador to Israel, might be willing to take steps jeopardizing the Camp David peace accords between Egypt and Israel.

But experts like Mr. Miller point out that Egypt’s economic stability is linked to Camp David, since receipt of the substantial US aid, and favorable treatment with international financial institutions, are both products of the 1979 accords.

Without a treaty, there’s no special relationship with the US – whether or not it’s as an ally.

Morsi might take a number of steps to convince Hamas to pull back. He could agree to open the Egypt-Gaza border (this possibility is why Israel is pressing Egypt to block any passage of weapons, including replacement rocket launch pads, across its border) and he could work with Saudi Arabia and other patron states to up their financial assistance to Gaza, Miller says.

Morsi might then come out of the Gaza crisis with a much shinier image – the question now may be whether Israel is willing to hold back to see if Egypt’s Islamist leader is capable of this role.

IN PICTURES: Gaza: battleground and daily life under Hamas' rule

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Hamas aims rockets at Israeli heartland

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — Palestinian militants targeted densely populated Tel Aviv in Israel's heartland with rockets for the first time Thursday, part of an unprecedented barrage that threatened to provoke an Israeli ground assault on Gaza. Three Israelis were killed in a separate rocket attack in southern Israel.

Air raid sirens wailed and panicked residents ran for cover in Tel Aviv, Israel's commercial and cultural capital. Israel responded by moving troops and heavy weapons toward Gaza and authorizing the call-up of tens of thousands of reservists.

There was no word on where the two rockets aimed at Tel Aviv landed, raising the possibility they fell into the Mediterranean. A third rocket landed in an open area on the southern outskirts of Tel Aviv.

The fighting, the heaviest in four years, came after Israel launched a ferocious air assault Wednesday to stop repeated rocket fire from Gaza. The powerful Hamas military chief was killed in that strike, and another 18 Palestinians have died over two days, including five children. Some 100 Palestinians have been wounded.

Israeli warplanes struck dozens of Hamas-linked targets in Gaza on Thursday, sending loud booms echoing across the narrow Mediterranean coastal strip at regular intervals, followed by gray columns of smoke. After nightfall, several explosions shook Gaza City several minutes apart, a sign the strikes were not letting up, and the military said the targets were about 70 underground rocket-launching sites.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the army was hitting Hamas hard with what he called surgical strikes, and warned of a "significant widening" of the Gaza operation. Israel will "continue to take whatever action is necessary to defend our people," said Netanyahu, who is up for re-election in January.

There were mounting signs of a ground operation. At least 12 trucks were seen transporting tanks and armored personnel carriers toward Gaza late Thursday, and a number of buses carrying soldiers arrived. Israeli TV stations said a Gaza incursion was expected on Friday, though military officials said no decision had been made.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak said he authorized the call-up of reservists, and the army said up to 30,000 additional troops could be drafted.

"We will continue the attacks and we will increase the attacks, and I believe we will obtain our objectives," said Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz, Israel's military chief.

Hamas, meanwhile, warned it would strike deeper inside Israel with Iranian-made Fajr-5 rockets, acknowledging for the first time it has such longer-range weapons capable of hitting targets some 47 miles (75 kilometers) away. Tel Aviv is 40 miles (70 kilometers) from Gaza.

By nightfall Thursday, Hamas said it had fired more than 350 rockets into Israel. Israel, which estimates Gaza militants have as many as 12,000 rockets, said some 220 rockets struck the Jewish state and another 130 were intercepted by an anti-missile shield.

Israel believes Hamas has significantly boosted its arsenal since the last Gaza war four years ago, including with weapons from Iran and from Libyan stockpiles plundered after the 2011 fall of the regime there.

"After four years, we became stronger, we have a strategy and we became united with all the military wings in Gaza," said Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum, referring to Hamas' setbacks during Israel's last major offensive in late 2008.

In the current round of fighting, Israel is facing an emboldened Hamas with a stronger arsenal and greater regional backing. Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi, like Hamas a member of the region-wide Muslim Brotherhood, said he was sending a high-level delegation to Gaza on Friday in a show of support for the fellow Islamists there.

Both Israel and Hamas had largely observed an informal truce over the last four years, marred by occasional flare-ups. In recent days, however, border tensions escalated, then exploded into major violence Wednesday when Israel assassinated Hamas' secretive military chief, Ahmed Jabari, with a missile strike on his car.

Jabari led Hamas' 2007 takeover of the territory, turning small squads of Hamas gunmen into a fighting force and supervising Gaza's fledgling arms industry, including rocket production. He was long No. 1 on Israel's most-wanted list, particularly for his role in capturing Israeli Sgt. Gilad Schalit and holding him for more than five years.

On Thursday, Hamas gunmen fired machine guns in the air as frenzied mourners carried Jabari's body, wrapped in a white burial shroud, through the streets of Gaza City on a wooden stretcher. At the cemetery, young men surged toward the corpse, trying to touch Jabari's face before he was lowered into the grave in a chaotic scene.

Hamas' top leaders have dropped out of sight since the assassination, but it was not clear if they would be targets. The Hamas prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, said in a televised speech Thursday that the group "will not forget and not forgive" the killing of Jabari.

Late Thursday, Hamas security said an Israeli navy vessel fired toward a building about 50 yards (meters) from Haniyeh's house, where a generator supplies electricity for the prime minister and his neighbors in Shati, a beach-front refugee camp in Gaza City. It was not clear if Haniyeh was home at the time.

In Israel, a rocket hit a four-story apartment building in the southern town of Kiryat Malachi on Thursday, killing two men and a pregnant woman. A 4-year-old boy and two babies were wounded in the attack.

Many Gazans stayed indoors and streets were largely empty, though there was no sense of widespread panic. Some said Hamas should take revenge, even at the price of further Israeli retaliation.

"If Israel strikes us, we have to strike back," said Ahmed Barakat, a 33-year-old laborer from Gaza City attending the Jabari funeral. "An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth."

In Jerusalem, thousands of mourners attended the funeral of Mira Scharf, a 26-year-old mother of three who was killed in Thursday's rocket strike in Israel. Israeli media said she was pregnant and had recently returned to Israel from New Delhi to give birth.

In central Tel Aviv, Adrian Cisser, a 35-year-old electrician, was in a bicycle shop when an air raid siren went off.

"People on the street started running," he said. "The public shelter nearby was locked so we just stayed in the shop, and two minutes after it started we heard this big bang."

Cisser said he had gotten a preliminary call from the army and expects to be called up for reserve duty next week.

In the southern Tel Aviv suburb of Rishon Lezion, where a Hamas rocket landed in an empty field, a siren sent people rushing for shelter.

"There is panic in our house and we can hear shouts from the street," a resident who gave her first name, Lital, told the Israeli news site YNet. "Children were running away, trying to find shelter. It was very stressful. I am shaken up."

From Israel's perspective, Hamas escalated the fighting with a pair of attacks in recent days, an explosion in a tunnel along the Israeli border and a missile attack on an Israeli military jeep that seriously wounded four soldiers.

An Israeli ground offensive could be costly to both sides. In the last Gaza war, Israel devastated large areas of the territory, setting back Hamas' fighting capabilities but also paying the price of increasing diplomatic isolation because of the high civilian casualty toll.

The current round of fighting is reminiscent of the first days of Israel's three-week offensive against Hamas that began in December 2008. At the time, Israel also caught Hamas off-guard with a barrage of missile strikes and threatened to follow up with a ground offensive.

However, much has also changed since then.

Israel has improved its missile defense systems, but is facing a more heavily armed Hamas.

Netanyahu, who has clashed even with his allies over the deadlock in Mideast peace efforts, appears to have less diplomatic leeway than his predecessor, Ehud Olmert, making a protracted military offensive harder to sustain.

The White House came out in support of Israel on Thursday, with spokesman Jay Carney saying there is "no justification" for rocket fire from Gaza and urging militants to stop "cowardly acts."

However, the regional constellation has changed dramatically since the last Gaza war. Hamas has emerged from its political isolation as its parent movement, the region-wide Muslim Brotherhood, rose to power in several countries in the wake of last year's Arab Spring uprisings, particularly in Egypt.

On Thursday, the Egyptian president ordered his prime minister, Hesham Kandil, to lead a senior delegation to Gaza on Friday in a show of support for Hamas. Morsi has called Israel's campaign against Hamas "unacceptable" and has recalled Egypt's ambassador to Israel in protest.

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Associated Press writers Ariel David in Tel Aviv and Ian Deitch in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

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Clinton-Lewinsky 'spinners' resurface

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - It's a case of déjà vu in D.C.: some of the same high-profile, high-priced handlers who played supporting roles in the scandal over President Bill Clinton's affair with intern Monica Lewinsky have re-emerged in the sex scandal that has toppled one U.S. national security chief and threatens another.

It is unclear what will be the roles of the expensive legal and crisis-management talent drawn into the uproar over the relationships between former CIA director David Petraeus and Marine General John Allen and two female acquaintances. Neither Republicans nor Democrats in Congress appear to have an appetite for another year-long Monica-style media spectacle.

The latest scandal began with an FBI investigation into cyber-harassment, and indications so far are that ultimately the inquiry will produce no criminal charges.

Nonetheless, both women at the center of attention - Petraeus biographer and former mistress Paula Broadwell and Tampa socialite Jill Kelley, the woman to whom Broadwell is alleged to have sent suspected harassing emails - have turned for advice to veteran Washington lawyers and spin doctors with connections to the Lewinsky brouhaha.

On Monday, a source close to the Kelley family said that two Washington-based players in the Lewinsky scandal, trial lawyer Abbe Lowell and public relations adviser Judy Smith, were working for Kelley.

A day later, a Washington law firm which represented Lewinsky herself confirmed that one of its partners, Robert F. Muse, was representing Broadwell. The three advisors either were unavailable for comment or declined to comment.

It is not known whether Petraeus or Allen, who is the top U.S. military commander in Afghanistan, have retained attorneys.

 

A complaint by Kelley to the FBI about the harassing emails sparked an investigation that implicated Petraeus in a career-ending affair with Broadwell.

It also embroiled Kelley herself in the uproar over her still-murky relationship with Allen.

Kelley's lawyer, Lowell, who an insider said she had known for years, served as pro-Clinton Democratic Party chief counsel on a House impeachment inquiry. Recently he won a partial acquittal and partial mistrial for John Edwards, a former Democratic U.S. senator and vice presidential candidate who had been indicted for misusing undeclared campaign funds to support his mistress.

During the Clinton sex scandal, Smith, a one-time press aide to President George H.W. Bush, served as Lewinsky's spokeswoman. Smith also represented NFL quarterback Michael Vick, who was charged and convicted in a dogfighting cruelty case.

Smith also is a model for the main character in the ABC-TV drama "Scandal," a prime-time series in which ace spin-doctor Olivia Pope, along with a team of spies and ex-convicts, not only manages to sort out or cover up sex and spy scandals but also carries on a secret affair with a fictional U.S. president.

Muse's senior partner, Jacob Stein, and another prominent criminal lawyer from a different firm, Plato Cacheris, represented Lewinsky personally in a criminal investigation of Clinton by special prosecutor Kenneth Starr and a congressional inquiry which led to Clinton's impeachment by the House of Representatives but subsequent acquittal by the Senate. Muse himself did not represent Lewinsky, according to Cacheris.

Starr and a substantial special prosecution team pursued Clinton during the Lewinsky scandal. Starr turned his evidence over to the Republican-controlled House, which in a nationally televised broadcast impeached Clinton for high crimes and misdemeanors.

But Republicans could not muster the two-thirds majority in the Senate needed to remove Clinton from office. Republicans later were punished at the polls for what many of them conceded was a perceived overzealousness in pursuing Clinton.

CONGRESS WARY OF SPECTACLE

Lewinsky's lawyers were critical in helping her negotiate a legal thicket that included dealing with Starr's criminal investigators and the impeachment inquiry launched by Congress; she testified in both investigations. Lewinsky was also besieged for months by the media; eventually her team arranged decorous interviews with U.S. and British television networks.

Mindful of how the Lewinsky scandal played out, officials familiar with the views of both senior Democrats and Republicans in Congress say that congressional leaders are keen to avoid turning the scandal into a public extravaganza, even though there remain many unanswered questions.

If there are no public congressional hearings or a criminal prosecution, it is unclear what Broadwell's and Kelley's legal and public relations teams would do, apart from trying to manage news coverage and the hordes of paparazzi and TV cameramen now outside their clients' homes.

Lewinsky's lawyer, Cacheris, told Reuters that from what he could see, at this point Broadwell and Kelley do not know if there will be any charges against them. "These people are getting lawyers to ensure there is no criminal case," he added.

But Eric Dezenhall, a Washington crisis management expert, said some clients did not understand that there was a limit to how much even the most skilled lawyer and public relations specialist could do.

"You have to be very selective in the cases you take because you're going to end up with some very disgruntled clients," Dezenhall said.

(Editing by Warren Strobel and Paul Simao)

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Who's who in the Petraeus scandal

What started out as a leisurely stroll through the Philadelphia Museum of Art on Nov. 11 with his girlfriend, quickly turned into quite a surreal experience for Max Galuppo, 20, of Bloomsbury, N.J. Galuppo, a Temple University student, found his doppelganger in a 16th century...

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Probe shows federal power to access email

WASHINGTON (AP) — Your emails are not nearly as private as you think.

The downfall of CIA Director David Petraeus demonstrates how easy it is for federal law enforcement agents to examine emails and computer records if they believe a crime was committed. With subpoenas and warrants, the FBI and other investigating agencies routinely gain access to electronic inboxes and information about email accounts offered by Google, Yahoo and other Internet providers.

"The government can't just wander through your emails just because they'd like to know what you're thinking or doing," said Stewart Baker, a former assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security and now in private law practice. "But if the government is investigating a crime, it has a lot of authority to review people's emails."

Under the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act, federal authorities need only a subpoena approved by a federal prosecutor — not a judge — to obtain electronic messages that are six months old or older. To get more recent communications, a warrant from a judge is required. This is a higher standard that requires proof of probable cause that a crime is being committed.

Public interest groups are pressing Congress for the law to be updated because it was written a quarter-century ago when most emails were deleted after a few months because the cost of storing them indefinitely was prohibitive. Now, "cloud computing" services provide huge amounts of inexpensive storage capacity. Other technological advances, such as mobile phones, have dramatically increased the amount of communications that are kept in electronic warehouses and can be reviewed by law enforcement authorities carrying a subpoena.

"Technology has evolved in a way that makes the content of more communications available to law enforcement without judicial authorization, and at a very low level of suspicion," said Greg Nojeim, a senior counsel at the Center for Democracy & Technology.

The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Patrick Leahy, has proposed changing the law to require a warrant for all Internet communications regardless of their age. But law enforcement officials have resisted because they said it would undercut their ability to catch criminals.

A subpoena is usually sufficient to require Internet companies to reveal names and any other information that they have that would identify the owner of a particular email account. Google, which operates the widely used Gmail service, complied with more than 90 percent of the nearly 12,300 requests it received in 2011 from the U.S. government for data about its users, according to figures from the company.

Even if a Gmail account is created with a fictitious name, there are other ways to track down the user. Logs of when messages are sent reveal the Internet address the user used to log onto the account. Matching times and dates with locations allow investigators to piece together the chain.

A Gmail account figured prominently in the FBI investigation that led to Petraeus' stunning resignation last week as the nation's spy chief. Petraeus, a retired Army general, stepped down after he confessed to an extramarital affair with Paula Broadwell, an Army Reserve officer and his biographer.

The inquiry began earlier this year after Jill Kelley, a Florida woman who was friends with Petraeus and his wife, Holly, began receiving harassing emails. Kelley is a Tampa socialite. That is where the military's Central Command and Special Operations Command are located.

Petraeus served as commander at Central Command from 2008 to 2010.

FBI agents eventually determined that the email trail led to Broadwell, according to two federal law enforcement officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the sources were not authorized to speak about the matter on the record. As they looked further, the FBI agents came across a private Gmail account that used an alias name. On further investigation, the account turned out to be Petraeus's.

The contents of several of the exchanges between Petraeus and Broadwell suggested they were having an affair, according to the officials. Investigators determined that no security breach had occurred, but continued their investigation into whether Petraeus had any role in the harassing emails that Broadwell had sent to Kelley, which was a criminal investigation.

Petraeus and Broadwell apparently used a trick, known to terrorists and teen-agers alike, to conceal their email traffic.

One of the law enforcement officials said they did not transmit all of their communications as emails from one's inbox to the other's inbox. Rather, they composed some emails in a Gmail account and instead of transmitting them, left them in a draft folder or in an electronic "dropbox." Then the other person could log onto the same account and read the draft emails there. This avoids creating an email trail which is easier to trace. It's a technique that al-Qaida terrorists began using several years ago and teen-agers in many countries have since adopted.

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Associated Press writer Pete Yost contributed to this report.

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FBI probe of Petraeus began with 'suspicious emails'

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The FBI investigation that led to the discovery of CIA Director David Petraeus' affair with author Paula Broadwell was sparked by "suspicious emails" that initially did not contain any connection to Petraeus, U.S. law enforcement and security officials told Reuters on Saturday.

But the CIA director's name unexpectedly turned up in the course of the investigation, two officials and two other sources briefed on the matter said.

It was "an issue with two women and they stumbled across the affair with Petraeus," a U.S. government security source said.

The Washington Post reported on Saturday that the FBI probe was triggered when Broadwell sent threatening emails to an unidentified woman close to the CIA director.

The woman went to the FBI, which traced the threats to Broadwell and then uncovered explicit emails between Petraeus and Broadwell, the Post said.

Attempts by Reuters and other news media to reach Broadwell, an Army reserve offer and author of a biography of Petraeus, have not been successful.

The FBI and CIA declined comment on Saturday.

Many questions in the case remain unanswered publicly, including the identity of the second woman; the precise nature of the emails that launched the FBI investigation; and whether U.S. security was compromised in any way.

Nor is it clear why the FBI waited until Election Day to tell U.S. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, who oversees the CIA and other intelligence agencies, about its investigation involving Petraeus.

The CIA director announced his resignation suddenly on Friday, acknowledging an extramarital affair and saying he showed "extremely poor judgment.

The developments likely ended the public career of one of the United States' most highly regarded generals, who was credited with helping pull Iraq out of civil war and led U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, new details emerged on Saturday about developments in the final days leading to Petraeus' departure from atop the CIA.

Clapper was notified by the FBI on Tuesday evening about 5 p.m. - just as returns in the U.S. presidential election were about to come in - about "the situation involving Director Petraeus," a senior intelligence official said. Clapper and Petraeus then spoke that evening and the following morning.

WHITE HOUSE NOTIFIED WEDNESDAY

"Director Clapper, as a friend and a colleague and a fellow general officer, advised Director Petraeus that he should do the right thing and he should step down," the official said.

Clapper is a retired Air Force lieutenant general; Petraeus served nearly four decades in the U.S. Army.

On Wednesday, Clapper notified the National Security Council at the White House that Petraeus was considering resigning and President Barack Obama should be informed, the official said.

U.S. law enforcement and intelligence officials agreed to discuss the Petraeus matter only on condition of anonymity because of the issue's sensitivity and because it is the subject of a law enforcement investigation.

Once Petraeus' name turned up in the investigation, the importance of the FBI inquiry was immediately escalated, as investigators became concerned the CIA chief somehow might have been compromised, the law enforcement official said.

However, the official and two sources briefed on the matter said no evidence has turned up suggesting Petraeus had become vulnerable to espionage or blackmail. At this point, it appears unlikely that anyone will be charged with a crime as a result of the investigation, the official said.

The FBI investigation began fairly recently - months ago rather than years ago, when Petraeus would still have been in uniform as one of the U.S. Army's top field commanders, the official said.

Representative Peter King, Republican chairman of the House of Representatives' Homeland Security Committee, said in an interview on MSNBC the FBI was "investigating or monitoring ... the director of the CIA for four or five months."

Several officials briefed on the matter said senior officials at the Pentagon, CIA and Congress knew nothing of the FBI's investigation of Petraeus until Thursday afternoon at the earliest, and some key officials were not briefed on the details until Friday.

There is no evidence at this time that anyone at the White House had knowledge of the situation involving Petraeus prior to the U.S. presidential election on Tuesday, which saw Obama elected to a second four-year term.

Another U.S. government security source said it was not until Friday afternoon that some members of the House and Senate intelligence oversight committees were notified about Petraeus' resignation by Clapper's office.

The congressional committees were told that it was a personal issue that Petraeus had to discuss with his wife. When pressed, a representative of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said it involved another woman.

(Writing by Warren Strobel; Additional reporting by Doug Palmer and Matt Spetalnick; Editing by Todd Eastham)

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Was Petraeus affair linked to lax Libya response?

CIA Director David Petraeus abruptly resigned Friday, citing an extramarital affair and the need to sort out the “personal and professional issues” involved.

The former commander of forces in Iraq and Afghanistan had built a stellar and nearly unassailable reputation – but mounting criticism of the Central Intelligence Agency’s response to the Benghazi, Libya, terrorist attack in September was beginning to tarnish that reputation.

Word of Mr. Petraeus’s resignation sent ripples of stunned surprise through both the intelligence and military communities, raising questions that revolved around how long the affair had been going on and how an officer known for his rigorous self-discipline – and attention to his reputation within the media — could have made such a lapse in judgment.

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In a letter of resignation accepted by the White House, Petraeus said he had been married 37 years but had exercised “very poor judgment” in choosing to enter into an extramarital affair.

Petraeus, who was widely celebrated as a military commander and even occasionally mentioned as a potential presidential candidate, was sworn in as head of the CIA in September 2011 – and had kept a low profile since. Now speculation is sure to proliferate over whether that low profile resulted from Petraeus focusing on America’s intelligence gathering or on personal matters.

In particular, members of Congress and other officials demanding answers about the Benghazi attack on the US consulate that resulted in the deaths of four Americans – including the US ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stephens, and two CIA agents – will want to know if there was any link between Petraeus’s extramarital activities and what has been increasingly criticized as the CIA’s weak performance on the night of the Benghazi attack.

More broadly, the reason for Petraeus’s departure will raise questions about any compromising of US covert operations and intelligence. The potential for blackmail of intelligence officers is always a concern about the spy corps, but the involvement of the nation’s top spy in an extramarital affair takes the concern to a new level.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has been probing Petraeus and the potential security risks posed by his affair, CNN reported late Friday afternoon.

In the weeks since the Benghazi attack, officials have leaked information, including how Petraeus kept information on the CIA’s role in Benghazi so private that even Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was left to call Petraeus as the attack unfolded to try to get intelligence information from him.

Last week, CIA officials revealed that in fact, the intelligence agency’s operations in Benghazi dwarfed diplomatic operations at the consulate and that the CIA maintained what was described as an “annex,” about a mile from the diplomatic mission.

State Department officials have said there was an informal understanding that the annex and its agents would come to the assistance of the consulate (which had private contractors providing security) if a need arose. CIA officials insist their agents responded to the consulate’s distress calls within a half-hour.

In a statement released Friday afternoon, President Obama praised Petraeus for his “extraordinary service” to the country, adding, “By any measure, through his lifetime of service, David Petraeus has made our country safer and stronger.”

In a statement, Sen. John McCain (R) of Arizona highlighted Petraeus’s role in Iraq, saying that his “inspirational leadership and his genius were directly responsible – after years of failure – for the success of the surge in Iraq.”

But Petraeus’s success in Iraq and Afghanistan was a result to a certain extent of his focus on a counterinsurgency strategy that involved large numbers of troops fighting the enemy by incorporating nation-building into the battle. When Mr. Obama named Petraeus to head the CIA, it was widely interpreted as the president’s signal that he intended to wind down America’s wars and shift from a counterinsurgency strategy to counterterrorism.

Obama did not cite Petraeus’s reason for resigning but did say, “Going forward, my thoughts and prayers are with Dave and Holly Petraeus, who has done so much to help military families through her own work. I wish them the very best at this difficult time.”

Mrs. Petraeus is the assistant director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, where she supports veterans and troops facing difficulties as a result of the financial crisis.

Obama initially tried to convince Petraeus not to resign, according to some souces. “I am told that President Obama tried to talk Petraeus out of resigning, but Petraeus took the samurai route and insisted that he had done a dishonorable thing and now had to try to balance it by doing the honorable thing and stepping down as CIA director,” Tom Ricks reports in his blog “The Best Defense.”

Such a move is in keeping with the military culture in which Petraeus rose to the rank of four-star general.

Under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, adultery is a punishable offense for soldiers if the conduct is shown to be detrimental “to good order and discipline in the armed forces or was of a nature to bring discredit upon the armed forces.”

Obama said that Michael Morell, deputy director of the CIA, would take over as acting director. Mr. Morell served briefly as acting director after Leon Panetta left the agency last year to become Defense secretary.

Petraeus was set to testify Thursday at a closed-door session of the Senate Intelligence Committee on the Benghazi attack, but it was unclear if his resignation would alter that schedule.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D) of California, the Intelligence Committee chair, told NBC News that Petraeus’s personal mistake should not have led to his resignation.

“I would have stood up for him,” she said. “I wanted him to continue. He was good, he loved the work, and he had a command of intelligence issues second to none.”

Obama, after winning reelection Tuesday, was already expected to make some changes in his national security team for a second term, but early speculation had been that Petraeus would stay on at the CIA. Now the job of spy chief will be added to the new-team mix.

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Boehner: Raising tax rates 'unacceptable'

Raising tax rates is "unacceptable" to House Speaker John Boehner as he prepares to open negotiations on the looming "fiscal cliff" with the president and congressional Democrats, he told "World News" anchor Diane Sawyer today in an exclusive interview.

"Raising tax rates is unacceptable," Boehner, R-Ohio, said in his first broadcast interview since the election Tuesday.

"Frankly, it couldn't even pass the House. I'm not sure it could pass the Senate."

That stance could set up a real showdown with the White House given that the president has said he would veto any deal that does not allow tax cuts for the rich to expire. But the speaker said that Republicans would put new tax revenue on the table as leaders work toward a deal.

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"I would do that if the president was serious about solving our spending problem and trying to secure our entitlement programs," Boehner said. "If you're increasing taxes on small-business people, it's the wrong approach."

Nevertheless, Boehner added that he is at least willing to listen to the president's proposals, even if they clash with his party's principles.

"Of course, we'll talk about it. We talk about all kinds of things we may disagree on," Boehner said. "I'm the most reasonable, responsible person here in Washington. The president knows it. He knows that he and I can work together. The election's over. Now it's time to get to work."

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The fiscal cliff is a mix of tax increases and spending cuts set to take effect at the end of the year that could sink the economy back into recession. Boehner told Sawyer he imagines that negotiations on a bipartisan deal will begin soon, although he did not reveal whether any talks had already been scheduled.

Still, he said he hoped the framework of a deal could be completed by the end of the year in order to direct the next Congress to work out the details.

"The American people elected new representatives," he said. "They're the ones who ought to be the ones to do this.

"There are things that we can do in the lame duck to avert the fiscal crisis, but we want to do this the right way. We don't want to rush through this in the next two to three weeks. And what do you get? You can't rewrite the tax code in the next two or three weeks. And, so, there's a lot of possibilities in terms of how we proceed, and I'm confident that we can."

Boehner also said he welcomes back Rep. Paul Ryan, whose profile has exploded since he was chosen by Mitt Romney as the vice presidential nominee. Ryan won re-election to his House seat in Wisconsin at the same time he lost the vice presidency, but Boehner demurred when asked whether his place on the presidential ticket would increase his leadership profile.

"Because he ran for the vice presidency, is he the leader of the Republican party now?" Sawyer asked.

"Oh, I wouldn't think so. Paul Ryan's a policy wonk," Boehner said. "He's involved in the cause of trying to bring us pro-growth economic agendas for America and making sure that we're doing this in a fiscally responsible way.

"I'm glad that Paul Ryan's coming back to the Congress. I would expect he would continue as chairman of the Budget Committee," he said.

"Probably nobody in the Congress knows more about pro-growth economic policies other than Paul Ryan. I don't think there's many people in the Congress who understand the entitlement crisis that we're facing more than Paul Ryan. I think he'll be an important voice in this discussion and in this debate."

Boehner also said that once he saw that Mitt Romney would lose the race for the White House, he went to sleep at about 11:15 p.m. on election night with the realization that he would wake up to divided government, but still "slept like a baby."

"I may not like the five cards that have been dealt to me, but those are the cards I've got in my hand, and my job on behalf of the American people is to find a way to vote with my Democratic colleagues and a Democratic president to solve America's problems," he said. "If there was one mandate that came out of the election, it was find a way to work together to address our problems."

Sawyer asked the speaker whether Romney should take responsibility for those election results, but Boehner said he is proud of his campaign.

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How did America become so polarized?

WASHINGTON (AP) — The election laid bare a dual — and dueling — nation, politically speaking, jaggedly split down the middle on the presidency and torn over much else. It seems you can please only half of the people nearly all of the time.

Americans retained the fractious balance of power in re-electing President Barack Obama, a Republican House and a Democratic Senate, altogether serving as guarantors of the gridlock that voters say they despise. Slender percentages separated winner and loser from battleground to battleground, and people in exit polls said yea and nay in roughly equal measure to some of the big issues of the day.

Democracy doesn't care if you win big, only that you win. Tuesday was a day of decision as firmly as if Obama had run away with the race. Democrats are ebullient and, after a campaign notable for its raw smackdowns, words of conciliation are coming from leaders on both sides, starting with the plea from defeated Republican rival Mitt Romney that his crestfallen supporters pray for the president.

But after the most ideologically polarized election in years, Obama's assertion Wednesday morning that America is "more than a collection of red states and blue states" was more of an aspiration than a snapshot of where the country stands.

"It's going to take a while for this thing to heal," said Ron Bella, 59, a Cincinnati lawyer who lives in Alexandria, Ky. He is relieved Obama won, but some of his co-workers are in a "sour mood" about it.

"They feel like the vast majority of the country wanted Romney, and the East and the West coasts wanted Obama," he said. "I'm not sure exactly why that is, but there just seems to be such hatred for Obama out there."

Compromise was a popular notion in the hours after Obama's victory and an unavoidable one, given the reality of divided government. But the familiar contours of partisan Washington were also in evidence, especially the notion that compromise means you do things my way.

As Democratic Rep. Steve Israel of New York put it, "If you refuse to compromise, we are going to beat you." Israel, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said the election showed "if you are an extremist tea party Republican, you are going to lose."

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said pointedly that Republicans will meet Obama halfway "to the extent he wants to move to the political center" and propose solutions "that actually have a chance of passing."

In New York's bustling Times Square, hope, skepticism and the usual polarities were all to be found when people talked about the president. "He may not have done a great job in my mind but I kinda trust him," said Jerry Shul. "I have faith he will get with the Republicans and get something done."

A less-flattering George Dallemand called this "a moment of truth" for the country. "I guess we have to wish for the best now, but I still think he is socialism."

In Miami, Karen Fitzgerald, 55, wore a black dress and said she was in mourning over Romney's defeat.

"It's an upsetting day," she said. But she took some comfort from her Democratic friends on Facebook, who have stopped chiding the other side in their posts. "Now they're all saying we need to work together and be united," she said. "Maybe we can."

In Springfield, Ohio, an "elated" Frank Hocker, 67, hoped Republicans would get the message to get out of Obama's way. "There was a backlash," he said. "For this obstructionist House and those tea party people, I hope they learned their lesson. I hope they learned their lesson: Don't stop the progress of this country."

In Chicago, Obama supporter Scherita Parrish, 56, predicted the president will reach out to Republicans but may not get much back.

"But the people have spoken," she said. "They need to lick their wounds, get on with it and start working with the president."

Unity is a challenge not just for Obama but for the Republicans, who won less than 30 percent of the growing Hispanic vote and not even one in 10 black voters. Obama built a strong Electoral College majority, if only a narrow advantage in the popular vote, despite losing every age group of non-Hispanic white voters.

Surveys of voters found Obama's health care law to be as divisive as ever, with just under 50 percent wanting it repealed in whole or part, and 44 percent liking it as is or wanting more of it.

But democracy doesn't care about exit polls, either, and the election almost certainly means Republicans can forget about trying to roll it back now.

In reaffirming divided government, though, Americans all but ensured colossal fights are ahead over the shape of government and Obama's agenda. He is out to break a wall of Republican opposition to tax increases on the wealthy — a move that about half the voters in exit polls thought was a good idea. And extraordinarily difficult negotiations are imminent as the president and Congress try to make a deal to avoid the "fiscal cliff" — steep spending cuts and a variety of tax increases in January.

In the end, voters split about equally on whether Obama or Romney would be better at handling the economy.

Then again, they were divided down the middle on whether Obama or his predecessor, George W. Bush, deserves most of the blame for the economy's problems.

So it goes in the 50-50 nation, give or take.

___

Associated Press writers Christine Armario in Miami, Michael Tarm in Chicago, David Martin in New York, Amanda Myers in Cincinnati and Ann Sanner in Columbus, Ohio, contributed to this report.

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