“That spin hurts. It hurts my wife. It hurts my family. It hurts me. And it hurts the American people because you’re being denied solutions to our problems.”

 

Cain said he will shortly announce his choice to win the Republican nomination. He also said he is at peace with his God and his wife, and she, his wife, is at peace with him.

 

President Obama today urged Americans to pressure Congress to extend the payroll tax cut. Taxes withheld from paychecks to pay for Medicare and Social Security. The reduction is to expire at the end of the year. In his weekly address, the president said voters should tell the representatives they shouldn't come home for the holidays until they extend the tax break.

 

“We’ve set up a simple tax cut calculator on WhiteHouse.gov, so that you can see exactly what the stakes are for your family.”

 

Senator Olympia Snowe of Maine delivered the Republican address. She said the country needs to change the Constitution to require a balanced federal budget.

 

“The impending vote to amend the Constitution represents a choice between changing business as usual in Washington, or embracing the status quo that we can no longer afford.”

 

The Senate is to vote on a bill to start the process towards amending the Constitution. A similar measure failed in the House last month.

 

Activists in Syria reports at least 23 people were killed today in clashes between security forces and rebel soldiers. NPR's Deborah Amos reports from Beirut a deadly battle in northern Syria accounts for most of the casualties.

 

For the second day, army defectors and government security forces battled after rebel soldiers attacked an army intelligence center near the town of Idlib in northern Syria. The free Syrian army claimed responsibility for that attack on Friday. The mounting death toll comes as Arab League representatives need to agree on the details of a travel ban on Syrian cabinet ministers and security officers. November was the deadliest month in Syria's eight-month-long revolt with more than 900 killed during protests, according to human rights groups. And violence is rising in early December as more defectors and civilians take up arms. Deborah Amos, NPR News, Beirut.

 

Coalition officials in Afghanistan say three NATO service members were killed in a bombing today. They didn't say exactly where it occurred; only that it had happened in the eastern part of the country. The nationalities of the dead were not disclosed.

 

This is NPR News.

 

Vice President Joe Biden said today that a free political climate is essential to economic innovation. He spoke to a forum for young entrepreneurs in Istanbul, Turkey. He said that countries that try to restrain access to the Internet will find that approach is a dead end. Biden said that political system based on freedom of speech and religion is the truest shield against the sectarian strife that has afflicted the Middle East.

 

In India, survivors of the 1984 Bhopal disaster are protesting what they say was inadequate compensation for thousands of deaths and injuries. NPR's Corey Flintoff reports protesters blocked railroad tracks on the 27th anniversary of the tragedy.

 

The disaster was caused by a poisonous gas leak at the Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, India. At least 15,000 people are believed to have died as a result with thousands more injured. Union Carbide was bought out by Dow Chemical, which paid a 470-million-dollar settlement. But survivors say that was just a token amount, and that the Indian government should have held out for much more. The Indian government is currently seeking another 1.7 billion dollars. Advocates for the survivors would like to see Dow Chemical dropped as a sponsor of the 2012 Olympic Games in London. Corey Flintoff, NPR News.

 

A two-week conference on climate change is at the halfway point in Durban, South Africa. A major issue is whether to renew the Kyoto Protocol, an agreement reached in Japan in 1997. It requires 37 industrialized nations and the European Community to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by next year.

 

I'm Nora Raum, NPR News in Washington.