A closed-door White House meeting between President Barack Obama and top congressional leaders concluded Friday with Republicans reaffirming that they will accept some taxes, as the president is calling for, to resolve the so-called “fiscal cliff.”

“We are prepared to put revenue on the table, provided we fix the real problem,” said Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, echoing a stance House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has also articulated.

McConnell was suggesting some spending cuts, particularly in Medicare and Medicaid, should also be included in a deficit reduction agreement for Republicans to sign onto it.

President Obama has not yet committed to such cuts, and many Democrats strongly oppose them.

But the tax comments are most significant. A combination of more than $500 billion in spending cuts and tax hikes will go into effect starting on Jan 1., unless Congress and the White House reach an agreement.

Obama, arguing he now has a mandate from voters after winning reelection during a campaign in which he pledged to raise taxes on the wealthy, has said he will allow taxes to go up for all Americans unless Republicans agree to tax hikes for family income above $250,000 a year.

Boehner and now McConnell, breaking from the traditional ironclad opposition to tax increases by Republicans, are saying they will consider tax hikes on the wealthy. But they have not yet spelled out what specific measures they would favor.

Obama has said he wants to increase the top two tax rates on income to 36 and 39 percent, up from 33 and 35 percent under current law. Republicans oppose this idea.

http://thegrio.com/2012/11/16/optimism-expresed-by-obama-congressional-leaders-on-resolving-fiscal-cliff/

DETROIT—The Mayor’s Office and the Michigan Department of Treasury have reached an agreement on reform requirements that must be met in order for the City to receive final installments of bond salefunds the State is holding in escrow.

Mayor Dave Bing and State Treasurer Andy Dillon announced on Thursday an agreement that mandates several reforms, including the hiring of a turnaround firm to advise the city on savings and efficiencies and the implementation of a detailed reform program. The reform goals outlined in the agreement must be achieved before the cash-strapped city can receive $30 million held in escrow.

State officials have urged the City to move faster on financial reforms to prevent the city from running out of cash by the end of the year.

The reform deal between Bing and Dillon must be approved by the city council by Tuesday. If the council approves the reforms outlined in the agreement, theState will release $10 million to the city this month.

The city will get another $20 million on December 14 if the city draws up a series of contracts forrestructuring, audits and other actions.

In a meeting last month, Bing and Dillion urged the council to support the reforms in order to receive the $30 million.

In the Oct. 22 meeting, council members said they would not obstruct the agreement.

Council President Charles Pugh said he appreciatedBing's gesture to reach out and communicate directly with the council. "I love the new olive branch. We are willing participants in the reforms," he said.

The council will discuss, in a closed session, if the consent agreement between the City and the State still applies after the repeal of Michigan’s emergency manager law, Public Act 4.

Under the consent agreement the State and City formed Detroit’s Financial Advisory Board in place of an emergency manager. The agreement gave the state more oversight of city operations and allowedthe mayor to break collective bargaining agreements with unions in order to save money.

The Michigan Finance Authority sold $129 million in Detroit bonds in August and has already released most of those funds to the City. But the State’s treasury department held back $30 million of the bond sale revenue as leverage to push forward Detroitreforms.

"The funds from the bond proceeds were never intended to fund the status quo in Detroit, but rather aid with its government reforms," Dillon said in a statement Thursday. "While some progress has been made in the city since the signing of the Financial Stability Agreement in June, it is moving slower than what all parties would have anticipated. There is still much work to be done."

Bing said the agreement is one that gets everyone on board to move the city out of its ongoing financial crisis.

"The milestone agreement reached between the State and my administration enables all of the key stakeholders to be on the same page as it relates to the progress of the city's restructuring plan," Bing said.

City officials project that the city will have a negative cash flow by the end of the year if the state does not release the $30 million withheld. 

Hostess is closing after a workers strike that began Nov. 9. On Friday the company's CEO issued a statement that the company known for making Twinkies, Ding Dongs, and Wonder Bread will liquidate everything and stop operations, CNN reported Nov. 16.

"We deeply regret the necessity of today's decision, but we do not have the financial resources to weather an extended nationwide strike," CEO Gregory Rayburn said in a statement.

The Hostess strike had a 5 p.m. deadline of ending Thursday, but that timeline wasn't met. Now the company will file a motion in U.S. Bankruptcy Court and sell off all its assets. That means 33 factories, 565 distribution centers, and 18,500 workers losing their jobs.

In September Hostess signed a contract with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters in exchange for cutting workers wages and benefits by eight percent. Members of the their second largest union in the bakery rejected the agreement and went on strike. The threat of Hostess closing over their strike wasn't enough to bring them back.

CNN reported that it's possible popular Hostess brands could be picked up by the highest bidder in the liquidation -- meaning Twinkies and other delicious treats could just be attached to a different brand name.

http://www.examiner.com/article/hostess-closing-after-workers-strike-ceo-issues-statement

DETROIT (WWJ) - Beloved Detroit Weatherman and WWJ Newsradio 950′s own Sonny Eliot has died at age 91.

Eliot died peacefully at his Farmington Hills home with family members and loved ones by his side.

His family made the notification on Friday morning.

Eliot was born Marvin Schlossberg on December 5, 1920 on Hastings Street in Detroit, the city he adored — and the city adored Eliot and his wife Annette, right back.

Eliot’s parents owned a hardware store and when times got tough, Eliot remembered with great fondness the mustard sandwiches and ketchup soup his mother and sister would make him.

Eliot said it was his mother who gave him the nickname “Sonny” and in the post-depression tough times, also gave him his legendary sense of humor Detroiters have missed since Eliot’s retirement in 2010.

Eliot’s college education at Wayne State University was interrupted by World War II, where he served as a B-24 pilot. A plane Eliot was flying was shot down during a bombing mission over Germany and he was captured. He spent 18 months in the Stalagluft I prison camp before being freed by the Russians when the war ended. While in captivity, he lifted the morale of the other prisoners by staging original skits and revues.

After returning home from the war, Eliot earned a B.A. in English and an M.A. in mass communications at WSU. Then, Eliot’s Broadcast career took off on the radio and on television, where one of his favorite shows was “At The Zoo.”

The year was 1962. “The zoo opened for the very first time early in the year and our program director said ‘Hey, that would be good. You look like you belong in a cage, you get out there and do a special on the zoo,’” Eliot said in 2006.

The show was such a hit, Channel 4 made it a weekly habit. “It lasted for 17 years until Post-Newsweek came in and they had people who didn’t know what was going on in Detroit,” Eliot said.

But Eliot knew what was going on in Detroit, since he was one of the few broadcasters in the country who was on the same radio station, WWJ Newsradio 950, non-stop for more than 60 years.

Interview: Sonny Eliot on 50 Years in Broadcasting

Throughout his career, Eliot earned a number of awards and honors including the Sloan Award for his traffic safety tips, citations by the American Legion and American Meteorological Society, The Toastmaster International Award and the Michigan Association of Broadcasters Excellence Award for Broadcast Personality in 1998. He was inducted into the Michigan Association of Broadcasters (MAB) Hall of Fame in 2002 and the Michigan Journalism Hall of Fame in 2005.

Eliot is most famously known for his legendary weather reports, which were as much of a comedic performance as they were informational.

Unlike any other in the country, Eliot’s weathercasts were a mixture of fast-paced humor, bits of far-out philosophy, one liners, improbable analogies and similes, and, not to be overlooked, easy-to-understand weather forecasts.

Sonny Forecasts Chilly Weather (@WWJ’s THAW Radiothon)

Jack Lessenberry, head of the journalism department at Wayne State University and a longtime friend of Sonny’s, said he was definitely unique.

“He was one of a kind, I don’t think there was anybody else like him in the country. And in Michigan when he was doing the weather on Channel 4, which he did for decades, he had a 50 percent share. I don’t know of anybody who had a 50 percent share, with half of all the tv sets in Detroit were tuned in to watch Sonny Eliot do his kind of unique, funny, cornball delivery. Some people loved it and some people hated it, but everybody watched him,” said Lessenberry.

Don Swindell was one of Eliot’s close friends and co-workers, even though the two only met in 2002.

“I felt like I’d known him my whole life. He was on in my living room since I was probably 3-years-old. But Sonny was a truely gentle person, a very, very brilliant person. And even in his old age, he was talking about projects he wanted to do in the future,” said Swindell.

And Detroiters have very fond memories of Eliot, too. Several people called the WWJ Listener Comment Line at 248-455-7230 to share their thoughts:

– “He was just the best. How can you not remember while it’s deer season, where we’re from Enga-ringa-dinga-dine?”

– “He would tell us the temperature on the tip of the Keweenaw Peninsula and then take the Keweenaw Peninsula off of the top of the state of Michigan, and hold it in his hand and squeeze it and it would squeak like a dog toy.”

– “Gosh, we remember Sonny Eliot when he would tell us that the sun would exact-adact-adact-adactly set. May his soul rest in peace.”

– “Sonny Eliot was an icon and there’s no way he can ever be replaced.”

– “He was an all-around great guy. He was funny, witty, smart and could make you smile without even trying.”

– “All my life for oh, 50 years or longer, watching him on TV was the best part of the day.”

– “I’d go to the Red Wings game with my sons and we’d stop at The Lindell AC and you could always find Sonny at the end of the bar.”

– “I loved him and I’m going to miss him. He was great for Detroit and Detroit was great for Sonny Eliot.”

http://detroit.cbslocal.com/2012/11/16/beloved-detroit-weatherman-sonny-eliot-dies/
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Calvin Johnson doesn’t want to categorize the next three Lions games as “must win” contests.

However, he doesn’t mind putting the upcoming stretch in the “love to win” division.

During his weekly chat with Stoney, Bill and Sara, the Lions wide out stopped short of saying Detroit is desperate to win its upcoming contests with Green Bay, Houston and Indianapolis.

But No. 81 admitted there is a burning desire to claim all three of the team’s looming matchups, especially considering all of them are at home.

“I would love to have these three wins, especially where we are this time of the season,” Johnson said. “We definitely need to come out with a good quarter this quarter of the season. Definitely need to get some dubs.”

At this point, a strong third quarter of the season is not just desirable, but necessary.

With a 4-5 record, another loss would all but eliminate the Lions from playoff contention – or at the very least would force the team to win out the rest of the season.

While the team is taking things on a weekly basis, Megatron couldn’t help but admit the team is thinking about what it has to do in order to extend its season.

“We come into every week thinking about just that week and not down the road,” Johnson said. “But at the same time, it can creep into your mind that the playoffs are looming with every game.”

It will be an uphill battle if the Lions want to accomplish their goals. The next three games are against some of the best opponents a team could find right now, as the Packers (6-3), Texans (8-1) and Colts (6-3) all rank in the top-10 of overall records.

It does help, however, that Johnson is coming off the best two games he’s had all season – including a 12-catch, 207-yard performance against the Vikings on Sunday.

It also helps that Megatron won’t have to face two of the Packers’ best defenders in defensive back Charles Woodson and linebacker Clay Matthews.

Johnson admitted that losing those two players is a blow for Green Bay.

“C Wood is playing the safety now,” Johnson said. “He’s the quarterback of that defense. He does a heck of a job out there. He’s a Hall of Fame-like player. Then Matthews, at the same time, he’s having a hell of a year.”

Another player who is having quite the year – although blooming late – is none other than Johnson. But as an emerging superstar, he’s dealing with a target on his back – and worse.

It appeared during Sunday’s loss that Minnesota players may have been doing a bit of head hunting, so to speak. Johnson downplayed the severity of the situation, but even he wasn’t so sure all of the blows he took were intended to be clean.

“Originally, I didn’t think [they were headhunting],” Johnson said. “From seeing some of the hits, I took some shots to the head. The second one across the middle down there by the goal line [when] I caught the ball up the middle, that wasn’t necessary. [It was] launching with your head. I caught that big one over the middle – you really couldn’t see it, maybe – but I caught a little bit into the back of the head on that one, too.

“I’m not going to call it dirty, but it could be seen as that.”

CJ did an admirable job playing through the adversity on Sunday, but it should come as no surprise. It’s something he’s been asked to do all year.

For Johnson, it’s quite simple: take what the defense gives you.

“Really just taking advantage of the opportunities given,” Johnson said. “That’s kind of how you have to be; that’s kind of how you have to approach things. You never know how many opportunities you’re going to get when teams shift that safety over your head with that coverage. So I’m just trying to be opportunistic this year.”

http://detroit.cbslocal.com/2012/11/15/calvin-johnson-doesnt-think-next-three-games-are-must-win/

Senator Chris Coons (D-DE) and Rep. George Miller (D-CA) have both proposed legislation aimed at shortening long lines on Election Day.

In the light of infamously slow voting lines that plagued states like Florida and Ohio this year, Coons introduced the Louis L. Redding Fair, Accurate, Secure and Timely (FAST) Voting Act of 2012, according to the Huffington Post.

It’s modeled after President Obama’s Race to the Top education program and it will reward states with federal grants if they make voting a quicker and more efficient process.

Besides long lines at the polls, which some people waited in for up to nine hours, this election season also had shorter early-voting periods, photo ID and poll location confusion, and reports of uncounted ballots.

“[The fact that] it appears that there were tens of thousands — if not hundreds of thousands — of Americans who had their right to vote denied or compromised by having to wait in line five, six, seven hours is profoundly concerning and upsetting to me,” Coons said on Capitol Hill this morning.

He added that it’s unacceptable that Florida is still experiencing voting problems 12 years after the 2000 presidential election disaster.

Coons hasn’t set a dollar amount for the grants yet, but in order to qualify for them states would need to improve their voting process by:

Providing flexible registration opportunities, including same-day registration;
Providing early voting, at a minimum of 9 of the 10 calendar days preceding an election;
Providing absentee voting, including no-excuse absentee voting;
Providing assistance to voters who do not speak English as a primary language; and
Providing assistance to voters with disabilities, including visual impairment
Other requirements include providing voting access to military members, providing formal training for election officials, and reducing wait times at the poorest performing poll locations.

“My hope is that accountability to their own voters, their constituents, will encourage governors and electoral commissions and secretaries of state and county elected officials of both parties across the country to take responsible action to deal with the widely reported and very real voter access problems of this last election,” Coons said.

Later today, Miller introduced the Streamlining and Improving Methods at Polling Locations and Early (SIMPLE) Voting Act. The act would make voting easier for individuals by requiring states to:

Provide for a minimum of 15 days of early voting in federal elections;
Ensure that each voting precinct has sufficient poll workers, voting machines and other resources to ensure that voting lines do not exceed one hour, whether on Election Day or during periods of early voting; and
Have a contingency plan in place to resolve situations in which long lines nevertheless develop
During his victory speech in Chicago on election night, President Obama mentioned the need for change in the voting process.

He said, “Whether you voted for the first time, or waited in line for a very long time — by the way, we have to fix that.”

http://thegrio.com/2012/11/15/congress-members-propose-bills-to-combat-long-voter-lines/

Colorlines' Brentin Mock makes a sober prediction about the fate of the civil rights legislation.

... [A]ll that matters is that it's being made before Chief Justice John Roberts' Supreme Court, which has shown no sympathy, if not shown flat-out resentment, for laws they believe support racial preferences. A Section 5 challenge was before the Roberts Court in 2009, but they chose not to rule on its constitutionality then. However, Roberts in his opinion stated that Section 5 "caused Members of this Court to express serious misgivings about" its constitutionality, mainly due to the decades-old coverage formula.

Despite Section 5's anachronistic formula its application has been anything but oppressive. Covered jurisdictions can apply for a bailout -- a get out of Section 5 jail free card -- and many have been granted. The number of voting rules changes denied by the Department of Justice has been less than 1 percent of the total submitted. The past two years DOJ appeared to do a lot of blocking, but that's because an unprecedented number of voter law changes were passed in that time. Still, they cleared voter ID laws in Virginia and New Hampshire.

Journalists and voting rights advocates have made many good-spirited defenses of VRA recently, citing how Section 5 protected voters of color in Florida, Texas, Mississippi, and South Carolina from voting law changes that could have led to their disenfranchisement. My colleague Ari Berman wrote at The Nation that "only a Supreme Court wholly divorced from reality would review the record on voting rights ... and conclude that a key pillar of the law was no longer needed." 

Read Brentin Mock's entire piece at Colorlines.

http://www.theroot.com/buzz/can-voting-rights-act-survive-supreme-court-review?wpisrc=root_more_news

DEARBORN (WWJ) - Annapolis High School in Dearborn Height’s District #7 will be closed Friday after dozens of students became sick.

Officials talking to WWJ Newsradio 950 on Thursday said about 160 students reported flu-like symptoms and were sent home. The school is being thoroughly cleaned and officials are working to determine what made the students sick.

District officials said they hope to have the school reopened by Monday

http://detroit.cbslocal.com/2012/11/15/dearborn-heights-school-closed-due-to-mass-student-illness/