Rape Victim in India Dies
MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN ANCHOR: You're in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Martin Savidge, in today for Fredricka Whitfield. Very glad to be with you. All right. In three days, America will go off that fiscal cliff, unless these folks right here prevent it. They are in control of whether your taxes go up come New Year's Day. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, House Speaker John Boehner, and House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi: all four met at the White House yesterday afternoon with the president and vice president. Here's where things stand right now. The Senate leaders are meeting, aiming to avoid tax hikes, and they may vote on a deal Sunday or perhaps on Monday. Jessica Yellin is our chief White House correspondent. Lisa Desjardins is on Capitol Hill. The president used his bully pulpit to reinforce the idea that senators need to get busy. So let's listen.</s>BARACK OBAMA, (D) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The American people are watching what we do here. Obviously, their patience is already thin. This is deja vu all over again. America wonders why it is that in this town for some reason, you can't get stuff done in an organized timetable, why everything always has to wait till the last minute. Well, we're now at the last minute. And the American people are not going to have any patience for a politically self-inflicted wound to our economy. Not right now.</s>SAVIDGE: So Jessica, you were in the room for the president's remarks. On a scale of one to 10, let's measure the anger perhaps that was emanating from the president right now with Congress waiting until this last-minute deal. How angry is he?</s>JESSICA YELLIN, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, he definitely was using the bully pulpit to pressure Congress to get something done this weekend. I'd say he seemed frustrated, but I definitely have seen him more frustrated. And today he wasn't totally out of patience. And today, Martin, he said that he believes "we may be able to reach an agreement." That's what he believes that can pass both houses in time. That's in addition to the fact that yesterday, he said he's moderately optimistic. So there's still a window of hope, and it seems that window just opened a bit more yesterday after the meeting among all those leaders. The president is at the White House today working. His negotiators folks are on standby ready to be in touch with people on Capitol Hill, but they're waiting for any word of any kind of breakthrough up there, and that's where a lot of the focus is today to see if that deal can be hatched between the Senate minority leader and majority leader, Martin. Lisa, well, we've seen both Speaker Boehner and Senator McConnell at the capitol today. But we haven't heard anything from any of the players. So what's happening right now?</s>LISA DESJARDINS, CNN RADIO CAPITOL HILL CORRESPONDENT: Believe me, we've been asking. We've been trying to get any sort of detail about anything we can. I actually think that this sort of silence that weigh hear from the players right now may be a good thing. I think it's an indication democratic sources told us yesterday if there's a deal going back and forth that's possible, they may be motivated to not talk to the press because they're going to want to try and give that deal a chance. That may be what's happening right now. Of course, we don't know. I think right now, no news might be good news. We know Senator McConnell's been in his office for more than hour now working with his staff. Senator Reid is not here yet. It does seem like the Republicans are perhaps either working with other Republicans or working out the details of this possible deal. I think we're in the real working hours right now and perhaps the less said by these major players at least for the moment, the better.</s>SAVIDGE: Yes, well, let's hope that's the case. Jessica, both sides still seem to be always from what they want and everyone seems to be saying no one is going to get 100 percent of what they want, right?</s>YELLIN: It's a compromise. Everybody knows that at this point. I know the staffs of the two leaders are in touch and contacting each other trying to get closer. I can tell you what Democrats want is, as you know and the president has made clear, a tax increase for people who make households that make $250,000 and more, an extension of unemployment benefits that affects some 2 million Americans or so, a delay in those massive spending cuts that Congress put into a package a year ago, increase in the estate tax. Now, what do Republicans want ideally to be included? They'd like to limit the tax increase for high earners, place that threshold somewhere other than $250,000, avoid the estate tax increase, no delay in those spending cuts, and figure out an agreement to pay for the extension of unemployment benefits. No guarantee either side's going to get all or any of what they want. What they're trying to do now is probably whittle out middle ground and see if they can get there.</s>SAVIDGE: Lisa, let me ask you this. We've seen a number of the key players, heard from others. But there's someone noticeably absent and that is speaker John Boehner. Where is he? And has he been benched sort of in this process?</s>DESJARDINS: He was here at the capitol this morning. Our producer on Capitol Hill reports he was meeting with his chief of staff. We don't know what they were talking about. He was here at the capitol. Only he and Senator McConnell have been here today. You know, I think the situation is such that after Speaker Boehner lost that vote, and there he is walking in from earlier in the week, after Speaker Boehner lost that vote in his own caucus in the House, it was clear and he even said as much, that the Senate needed to act. That's for a couple of reasons. One, the Senate has that 60-vote threshold to get anything through. And conservatives in the House want some cover. They don't want to pass something and have it run into trouble in the Senate because they would be sticking their neck out to some degree especially those conservatives or Republicans worried about a tea party challenge next time around. So for a lot of reasons, everything has to start in the Senate. That's why we're seeing a lot less of Speaker Boehner. But I think what's interesting in the capitol today martin, in the last few minutes we've seen the sun come out. This place is full of tourists. That kind of concern about the average American is getting these leaders to the table.</s>SAVIDGE: All right, I love your optimism. Thanks very much, Lisa Desjardins and Jessica Yellin joining us from the White House. Thank you both. We'll stay in close touch and follow this. Thank you. In New York, police have a woman in custody in connection with a case of the man pushed to his death from a subway platform in that city. Police had targeted a woman who looked like this police sketch, a heavy set woman in her 20s caught on a security camera running away after that attack on Thursday. David Ariosto is live in New York with the latest developments on this, and pretty quick work here, wasn't it?</s>DAVID ARIOSTO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It seems to be. They have this woman in custody right now because that she had implicated herself, the statement we got from chief of police department spokesman Paul brown. And this is a case that certainly has rocked New York. This is the second time this has taken place within the month of December. It's something that doesn't happen all that often here in New York. And 8.5 million people in the city and many, many people take the subway. So to have something like this take place, you would think it's got the city in sort of a tizzy. This thing happened in Queens. The woman was walking back and forth. It's not clear if the one that they have in custody is indeed the woman that was seen on that security video that you showed earlier. However, this woman apparently made implicating statements regarding that push. It happened in queens like I said. It was the seven train. She was apparently walking back and forth when all of a sudden she lunged forward, pushed this man, who was then crushed to his death. Again, the second time this has happened in New York in this month.</s>SAVIDGE: And what if anything do we know, David, about statements that this woman supposedly has made where she may have implicated herself?</s>ARIOSTO: That's a good question. You know, we always have to be careful with these types of things what implication means. Whether she's somehow tied or connected to someone that she knows might have done this or whether she herself was the individual who committed this heinous act. It's really not clear. We have calls out to the nypd trying to decipher exactly what that means and get more clarification. Hopefully as the hours proceed and the investigation continues, we'll be able to bring more information to you.</s>SAVIDGE: We hope that too, David Ariosto. Thank you very much. More snow on the way to the east coast. New York, D.C. seeing some of the action today. It's been brutal weather, at least this week for the people in the Midwest, the south and along the east coast, which is almost everybody and the west coast is going to share in this, too. Bonnie Schneider will have more on which areas can expect the most snow this weekend at the half hour. Moving on, internationally now, in India the young woman gang raped on a New Delhi bus has died. She died peacefully in the Singapore hospital where she was being treated. Authorities plan to add murder charges against the six suspects under arrest in that rape. Mallika Kapur has details from New Delhi.</s>MALLIKA KAPUR, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Her identity is a secret. But the Indian public has given her a name, brave heart. And thousands of people across the country are taking to the streets to mark this courageous young girl's death.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We are speechless about what happened with the girl.</s>KAPUR: Her brutal gang rape on December 16th has shaken India and triggered an unprecedented outpouring of grief and anger, anger at the system protesters say repeatedly lets its women down. They say Delhi isn't a safe place for women.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Common people like us have come out because we feel strongly about this. We feel that we are not safe. You know, our relatives, nobody's safe in the city anymore. We don't really see the government picking up that as an issue. I mean safety is the first thing that you would assure to a citizen, right?</s>KAPUR: This isn't the first time a rape case has been reported. But many more never are, but this case has become a lightning rod in India. Dissolution with the government -- protesters say enough is enough.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The brutality of this crime and the way it has been handled kind of insensitive treatment that some of the statements that some of the politicians and some of the people have made ensure that not only me -- I mean everybody has come out to see that this is not done and we are not OK with this.</s>KAPUR: They want to see the government take concrete steps to address their concerns.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Surely, definitely. Then you know, just faster justice systems. You need to have special courts when it's not open to the public. I think that's still a provision, but you need to have more courts and better hearing and stronger systems.</s>KAPUR: It's no longer about one girl or one particular rape case. It's about India's attitude toward its women and about making sure that brave heart did not die in vain.</s>SAVIDGE: In other international news, four people are dead after a plane crashed at the international airport in Moscow. Four others injured. Eight people were on board, all of them crew members, when the plane apparently overshot the runway. From the rollercoaster Republican primary race to that infamous phrase "The 47 percent," 2012 was the year in politics, and we've got the top ten stories. And while politicians are still scrambling to reach a deal that will stop your taxes from going up, you're telling us what you think about that fiscal cliff.