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At least 3 killed after small plane hits home in Fla.

A scene of a plane crash in Palm Coast, Florida, Jan. 4, 2013. / CBS/WKMG/Flagler Live

PALM COAST, Fla. Authorities say at least three people are dead after a small plane crashed into a house while trying to land at a central Florida airport.

The Florida Highway Patrol confirmed the deaths Friday afternoon.

The Federal Aviation Administration says the pilot reported mechanical problems shortly after 2 p.m. Friday. The Beechcraft BE35, which had three people onboard, had been heading to Downtown Island Airport in Knoxville, Tenn., but diverted to the Flagler County Airport. FAA officials didn't immediately know where the plane took off.

The Flagler County Sheriff's Office reports that the plane hit a Palm Coast home just east of the airport a few minutes after the pilot's call. The house caught fire and the home's owner was taken to a nearby hospital in stable condition.

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Obama Poised to Name New Defense, Treasury Chiefs

With the "fiscal cliff" crisis behind him, President Obama is poised to name two new key players to his cabinet, with at least one announcement expected early next week.

The announcement of who will replace outgoing Defense Secretary Leon Panetta could come as soon as Monday, sources told ABC News.

Meanwhile, the president is also eyeing a replacement for outgoing Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, the longest-serving member of Obama's first-term economic team and one-time lead negotiator for the administration in the "fiscal cliff" talks.

Former Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel is a leading candidate to head the Department of Defense, while current chief of staff Jack Lew is the likely nominee for the top role at Treasury.

Geithner plans to depart his post "around the inauguration" Jan. 20, a Treasury spokesperson said Thursday, putting the department in transition just as the administration confronts the next "cliffs" over the automatic spending cuts and nation's debt limit.

During an appearance on ABC's "This Week" in April, Geithner said the next Treasury secretary would need to be someone who is "willing to tell [Obama] the truth and, you know, help him do the tough things you need to do."

Lew, a former two-time Office of Management and Budget director and trusted Obama confidant who has held the chief of staff role since early 2012, is the front-runner for the job.

Meanwhile, Sen. John Kerry -- Obama's nominee to replace outgoing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton -- has begun making more regular appearances at the U.S. State Department before his expected confirmation later this month.

Brendan Hoffman/Getty Images

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His Senate hearings are set to begin shortly after Obama's inauguration, sources say. The administration still expects Clinton to testify about the Sept. 11 Benghazi, Libya, attacks before Kerry is confirmed.

But it is the potential nomination of Republican Hagel that has caused the most stir.

Critics from across the political spectrum have taken aim at the former senator from Nebraska's record toward Israel and what some have called a lack of experience necessary to lead the sprawling Pentagon bureaucracy or its operations. The controversy has set the stage for what would be a contentious confirmation process.

"A lot of Republicans and Democrats are very concerned about Chuck Hagel's position on Iran sanctions, his views toward Israel, Hamas and Hezbollah, and that there is wide and deep concern about his policies," Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told "Fox News Sunday."

He would not say whether Republicans felt so strongly as to expect a filibuster of the nomination.

"I can tell you there would be very little Republican support for his nomination," Graham said. "At the end of the day, they will be very few votes."

Still, Hagel, 66, a former businessman and decorated veteran who served in the Vietnam War, has won praise and admiration from current and former diplomats for his work on Obama's Intelligence Advisory Board and Panetta's Policy Advisory Board.

"Hagel is a statesman, and America has few of them," former U.S. ambassador to Iraq and Afghanistan Ryan Crocker wrote in a "Wall Street Journal" editorial this week.

"He knows the leaders of the world and their issues. At a time when bipartisanship is hard to find in Washington, he personifies it. Above all, he has an unbending focus on U.S. national security, from his service in Vietnam decades ago to his current position on the Intelligence Advisory Council," he said.

Obama defended Hagel in an interview last week, calling him a "patriot" who has done "extraordinary work" in public service, although he said he still had not made a final decision on who would head the Pentagon.

Other potential nominees for the DOD job include Michele Flournoy, former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy and a senior Obama campaign adviser for national security, and Ashton Carter, the current deputy secretary of defense.

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Why U.S. lives under the shadow of 'W'

Julian Zelizer says former President George W. Bush's key tax and homeland security policies survive in the age of Obama

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Julian Zelizer: For all the criticism Bush got, two key policies have survived


• He says fiscal cliff pact perpetuates nearly all of Bush's tax cuts


• Obama administration has largely followed Bush's homeland security policy, he says


• Zelizer: By squeezing revenues, Bush tax cuts will put pressure on spending

Editor's note: Julian Zelizer is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University. He is the author of "Jimmy Carter" and of "Governing America."

Princeton, New Jersey (CNN) -- Somewhere in Texas, former President George W. Bush is smiling.

Although some Democrats are pleased that taxes will now go up on the wealthiest Americans, the recent deal to avert the fiscal cliff entrenches, rather than dismantles, one of Bush's signature legacies -- income tax cuts. Ninety-nine percent of American households were protected from tax increases, aside from the expiration of the reduced rate for the payroll tax.

Julian Zelizer

In the final deal, Congress and President Barack Obama agreed to preserve most of the Bush tax cuts, including exemptions on the estate tax.

When Bush started his term in 2001, many of his critics dismissed him as a lightweight, the son of a former president who won office as result of his family's political fortune and a controversial decision by the Supreme Court on the 2000 election.

But what has become clear in hindsight, regardless of what one thinks of Bush and his politics, is that his administration left behind a record that has had a huge impact on American politics, a record that will not easily be dismantled by future presidents.

The twin pillars of Bush's record were counterterrorism policies and tax cuts. During his first term, it became clear that Obama would not dismantle most of the homeland security apparatus put into place by his predecessor. Despite a campaign in 2008 that focused on flaws with the nation's response to 9/11, Obama has kept most of the counterterrorism program intact.

Opinion: The real issue is runaway spending

In some cases, the administration continues to aggressively use tactics his supporters once decried, such as relying on renditions to detain terrorist suspects who are overseas, as The Washington Post reported this week. In other areas, the administration has expanded the war on terrorism, including the broader use of drone strikes to kill terrorists.

Now come taxes and spending.

With regard to the Bush tax cuts, Obama had promised to overturn a policy that he saw as regressive. Although he always said that he would protect the middle class from tax increases, Obama criticized Bush for pushing through Congress policies that bled the federal government of needed revenue and benefited the wealthy.

In 2010, Obama agreed to temporarily extend all the tax cuts. Though many Democrats were furious, Obama concluded that he had little political chance to overturn them and he seemed to agree with Republicans that reversing them would hurt an economy limping along after a terrible recession.

Opinion: Time to toot horn for George H.W. Bush

With the fiscal cliff deal, Obama could certainly claim more victories than in 2010. Taxes for the wealthiest Americans will go up. Congress also agreed to extend unemployment compensation and continue higher payments to Medicare providers.

But beneath all the sound and fury is the fact that the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, for most Americans, are now a permanent part of the legislative landscape. (In addition, middle class Americans will breathe a sigh of relief that Congress has permanently fixed the Alternative Minimum Tax, which would have hit many of them with a provision once designed to make sure that the wealthy paid their fair share.)

As Michigan Republican Rep. Dave Camp remarked, "After more than a decade of criticizing these tax cuts, Democrats are finally joining Republicans in making them permanent." Indeed, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that the new legislation will increase the deficit by $4 trillion over the next 10 years.

The tax cuts have significant consequences on all of American policy.

Opinion: Christie drops bomb on GOP leaders

Most important, the fact that a Democratic president has now legitimated the moves of a Republican administration gives a bipartisan imprimatur to the legitimacy of the current tax rates.

Although some Republicans signed on to raising taxes for the first time in two decades, the fact is that Democrats have agreed to tax rates which, compared to much of the 20th century, are extraordinarily low. Public perception of a new status quo makes it harder for presidents to ever raise taxes on most Americans to satisfy the revenue needs for the federal government.

At the same time, the continuation of reduced taxes keeps the federal government in a fiscal straitjacket. As a result, politicians are left to focus on finding the money to pay for existing programs or making cuts wherever possible.

New innovations in federal policy that require substantial revenue are just about impossible. To be sure, there have been significant exceptions, such as the Affordable Care Act. But overall, bold policy departures that require significant amounts of general revenue are harder to come by than in the 1930s or 1960s.

Republicans thus succeed with what some have called the "starve the beast" strategy of cutting government by taking away its resources. Since the long-term deficit only becomes worse, Republicans will continue to have ample opportunity to pressure Democrats into accepting spending cuts and keep them on the defense with regards to new government programs.

Politics: Are the days of Congress 'going big' over?

With his income tax cuts enshrined, Bush can rest comfortably that much of the policy world he designed will remain intact and continue to define American politics. Obama has struggled to work within the world that Bush created, and with this legislation, even with his victories, he has demonstrated that the possibilities for change have been much more limited than he imagined when he ran in 2008 or even in 2012.

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The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Julian Zelizer.

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New US Congress faces broader fiscal battles

WASHINGTON: The 113th US Congress, featuring dozens of new faces in the House and Senate, convened Thursday fresh from the year-end "fiscal cliff" fiasco, as lawmakers cast a wary eye towards the tough budget battles ahead.

Twelve freshman senators and 82 newly-elected congressmen took the oath of office, with President Barack Obama's Democrats enjoying modest gains in both chambers.

But the balance of power remains divided on Capitol Hill: Democrats control the Senate, while Republicans hold sway in the House of Representatives, where John Boehner kept his job as speaker.

There was little expectation that he would lose the leadership role, but Republican infighting over backing a fiscal cliff deal that hikes taxes on the wealthy triggered speculation about Boehner's hold on the gavel.

Lawmakers burned the midnight oil in the waning days of the 112th Congress hammering out a deal to prevent US$500 billion in tax increases and spending cuts from kicking in on January 1 -- and possibly tipping the US economy back into recession.

But larger budget battles are on the horizon, particularly over US borrowing, an extension of the government's 2013 budget, and the now-looming spending reductions set to hit the Pentagon as well as most domestic programs.

The Senate's Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell welcomed the new members, and offered warm words to Senator Mark Kirk, who returned Thursday after spending most of 2012 recovering from a stroke.

But McConnell quickly turned to what he called "the transcendent challenge of our time."

The out-of-control federal debt, McConnell said, is "so huge it threatens to permanently alter (our) economy," he told the Senate.

McConnell acknowledged his last-gasp deal forged with Vice President Joe Biden was an "imperfect" one that went against Republican no-new-taxes orthodoxy.

But with the battle over taxes behind them -- the deal raises rates for individuals earning over US$400,000 and on couples earning more than US$450,000 -- McConnell was already eyeing the looming bout over spending and the debt ceiling.

"It's time to face up to the fact that our nation is in grave fiscal danger, and that it has everything to do with spending," he said, throwing down the gauntlet to Obama.

"The president knows as well as I do what needs to be done. He can either engage now to significantly cut government spending or force a crisis later," McConnell added. "It's his call."

Obama left Washington to resume his Hawaii vacation hours after the "fiscal cliff" deal was approved by Congress late on New Year's Day, and signed the legislation Wednesday by auto-pen.

But Biden was on hand to swear in the new senators, including five women, bringing to a record 20 the number of female senators, as well as Tim Scott, the first black Republican in the Senate since 1979.

"Enjoy it," Biden told the newcomers, adding that he missed the chamber where he served for 36 years.

"The best time I ever had in my life was serving here," he told AFP off the Senate floor.

Asked about the trio of looming fiscal fights, Biden expressed confidence that the White House and lawmakers would overcome their differences.

"We've always had the battles, and we get through," he said.

The Biden-McConnell deal largely averted a financial crunch that had global repercussions, but the International Monetary Fund, rating agencies and analysts have warned that the critical problem of deficits and debt still hang over the US economy.

Financial markets cooled Thursday over the last-minute agreement, in contrast to the initial stocks surge which had greeted the deal Wednesday.

The hard-fought agreement, seen as a political victory for Obama, raised taxes on the very rich and delayed the threat of US$109 billion in automatic spending cuts for two months.

The respite will prove temporary: aside from clashes on spending cuts, there are worries over lifting the debt ceiling -- also at the end of February.

Analysts say the country could see a repeat of the 2011 row that saw Washington's credit rating downgraded for the first time.

Nancy Pelosi, re-elected to her role as House Democratic leader, took a conciliatory tone.

"I hope with all my heart that we find common ground," she told the chamber.

Boehner called for a fresh start after the startlingly unproductive record of the 112th Congress, reminding lawmakers to resist the pull of special interests and "follow the fixed star of a more perfect union."

But he turned swiftly to the "peril" of America's US$16 trillion debt, saying it is "draining free enterprise and weakening the ship of state."

- AFP/jc

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Boehner chokes up during speech

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FTC: Google does not violate antitrust laws

Google hasn't violated any antitrust laws, the Federal Trade Commission announced Thursday, but it has agreed to make some changes in how it treats its rivals as part of a settlement to end the 19-month investigation into its business practices.

The FTC's investigation focused on allegations that Google has been abusing its dominance in Internet search. Google's rivals say the company has been highlighting its own services on its influential results page while burying the links to competing sites.

Google Inc. has fiercely defended its right to recommend the websites that it believes are the most relevant.

The FTC said it voted unanimously to close the investigation on whether Google's algorithm unfairly favored itself because there was no evidence that Google violated antitrust laws.

"Although some evidence suggested that Google was trying to eliminate competition, Google's primary reason for changing the look and feel of its search results to highlight its own products was to improve the user experience," FTC chairman Jon Leibowitz said to reporters Thursday.

Google was also investigated for abusing patent protection against competitors like Apple. As part of the settlement, Google is agreeing to license patents deemed to be "essential" for rival mobile devices such as Apple Inc.'s iPhone and iPad, regulators said.

Regulators say Google is also promising that upon request, it will exclude snippets copied from other websites in its summaries of key information, even though the company had insisted the practice is legal under the fair-use provisions of U.S. copyright law.

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Senate Panel Probes Bin Laden Movie Torture Scenes

The Senate Intelligence Committee has launched a new probe to determine how much the CIA may have influenced the portrayal of torture scenes shown in "Zero Dark Thirty," the Hollywood dramatization of the decade-long hunt for Osama bin Laden.

The probe, as first reported by Reuters and confirmed to ABC News by a spokesperson for the committee's chairman, will attempt to answer two questions: Did the CIA give filmmakers "inappropriate" access to secret material and was the CIA responsible for the perceived suggestion that harsh interrogation techniques aided the hunt for America's most wanted man?

Brian Weiss, a spokesperson for Committee Chairman Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D.-Calf.), told ABC News the committee sent a letter to acting CIA Director Michael Morell in late December requesting information about the filmmaker's contact with the CIA. A representative for the spy agency confirmed it had received the letter.

"As we've said before, we take very seriously our responsibility to keep our oversight committees informed and value our relationship with Congress," another CIA spokesperson said, declining to comment further.

The movie features multiple scenes in which American interrogators oversee or take part in harsh techniques including simulated drowning, violent beating, and force feeding of alleged al Qaeda operatives or associates. Directed by Oscar-winner Kathryn Bigelow and hailed by critics since its limited release last month, "Zero Dark Thirty" has also become a lightning rod for the ongoing debate over the role torture may have played in the ultimately successful hunt for bin Laden.

In mid-December, Feinstein joined Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D.-Mich.) and former Presidential candidate John McCain (R.-Ariz.) in sending a letter to Sony, the film's distributor, to express their "deep disappointment" with the movie.

"We believe this film is grossly inaccurate and misleading in its suggestion that torture resulted in information that led to the location of [Osama bin Laden]," the letter says. "We have reviewed CIA records and know that this is incorrect."

In his book "The Finish," "Black Hawk Down" author Mark Bowden wrote that enhanced interrogation appeared to play a significant role in corroborating the identity of an al Qaeda courier who years later led U.S. officials to bin Laden.

In a rare public statement just two weeks ago, CIA Director Morell directly addressed questions about the movie on the CIA's website, saying it was "not a realistic portrayal of the facts" but said some information did come from detainees subjected to enhanced interrogation., CIA Director Morell directly addressed questions about the movie on the CIA's website on Dec. 21, saying it was "not a realistic portrayal of the facts" but said some information did come from detainees subjected to enhanced interrogation.

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Time to rebrand in Lincoln's image?

Wade Henderson thinks the modern Republican Party should look to Abraham Lincoln for some inspiration.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Wade Henderson: January 1 is 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation


• He says GOP should look to Lincoln, a canny politician who led moral fight on civil rights


• He says GOP has history of civil rights support that it has largely abandoned in recent years


• Henderson: In 2012, election minority voters unimpressed; GOP should return to roots

Editor's note: Wade Henderson is the president and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights and The Leadership Conference Education Fund.

(CNN) -- On January 1, the nation will commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, which legally freed slaves in the secessionist Southern states. Meanwhile, thousands of theaters will still be presenting the film "Lincoln," portraying the soon-to-be-martyred president's efforts in January 1865 to persuade the House of Representatives to pass the 13th Amendment, outlawing slavery throughout the nation.

Coming at a time when many Republicans are seeking to rebrand their party, these commemorations of the first Republican president raise this question: Why not refashion the Grand Old Party in the image of the Great Emancipator?

Steven Spielberg's historical drama, as well as the biography upon which it is based, Doris Kearns Goodwin's "Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln," both remind today's Americans that Lincoln was not only a moral leader but also a practical politician. The political identity that Lincoln forged for the fledgling Republican Party -- uniting the nation while defending individual rights -- was a winning formula for half a century, with the GOP winning 11 of 13 presidential elections from 1860 through 1908.

Wade Henderson

Moreover, support for civil rights persisted in the party throughout the last century. Among the Republican presidents of the 20th century, Theodore Roosevelt famously hosted Booker T. Washington at the White House. Dwight Eisenhower ordered federal troops to Little Rock, Arkansas, to enforce school desegregation. Richard Nixon expanded affirmative action. And George H. W. Bush signed the Americans with Disabilities Act into law.

Brazile: A turning point for freedom in America, 150 years later

In the U.S. Senate, such prominent Republicans as Edward Brooke of Massachusetts (the first African-American senator since Reconstruction), Jacob Javits of New York and Everett Dirksen of Illinois were strong supporters of civil rights, as were governors such as Nelson Rockefeller in New York, George Romney in Massachusetts and William Scranton in Pennsylvania.

Former California Gov. Earl Warren served as chief justice when the Supreme Court issued its decision in Brown v. Board of Education, ordering the desegregation of the nation's schools. As recently as 1996, the Republican national ticket consisted of two strong civil rights advocates, former Kansas Sen. Bob Dole and former New York Rep. Jack Kemp.

Unfortunately, by 2012, the Republican Party had veered far from its heritage as the party of Lincoln. Prominent Republicans supported statewide voter suppression laws that hit hardest at vulnerable minorities or called for the "self-deportation" of immigrants and their families.

While some Republican senatorial nominees needlessly offended women, leading moderates such as Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe and Ohio Rep. Steven LaTourette opted for retirement. In what I hope was rock bottom, 38 Senate Republicans rebuffed their former presidential nominee Bob Dole -- a wheelchair-bound war hero -- to block an international civil and human rights treaty for people with disabilities.

150 years later, myths persist about the Emancipation Proclamation

Not surprisingly, the GOP in the presidential race lost the black vote by 87 points, the Asian-American vote by 47 points, the Latino vote by 44 points and the women's vote by 11 points, according to CNN exit polls. As Republicans reflect on their path forward with minority voters and persuadable whites, there are opportunities to advance civil rights.

While the GOP has increasingly promoted diverse candidates, it has not yet begun to reflect the values of our diverse nation. Fiscally conservative officeholders can fight for civil and human rights.

Just a few years ago, Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions championed a reduction in the sentencing disparity between people charged with possession of crack and powder cocaine. These are two forms of the same drug, but crack cocaine is used more by minorities and carried much harsher punishments for possession. Working with Sessions, civil rights advocates pushed to reduce this disparity significantly -- among the greatest advances in criminal justice reform in decades.

Looking forward to the 113th Congress, there are several civil rights initiatives that would fit conservative values. They need congressional champions. Conservative lobbyist Grover Norquist and conservative strategist Richard Viguerie have called for criminal justice reforms that would reduce the number of prisoners in U.S. prisons.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has joined the civil rights coalition's call for federal initiatives to narrow the educational achievement gap between minority and white students. And more Republicans are joining Jeb Bush's support for comprehensive immigration reform that provides a pathway to citizenship for long-term, law-abiding residents.

Most importantly, the GOP must embrace one of Lincoln's most enduring legacies, the 15th Amendment, which guaranteed the right to vote regardless of race. The GOP must stop trying to suppress voters and begin to champion electoral reform that shortens lines and helps more people to vote.

Opinion: What Obama can learn from Lincoln

I don't expect another Abraham Lincoln or Frederick Douglass from the modern Republican Party -- I'll settle for a few more Jeff Sessions. When Republicans consider the consequences for their party's narrow appeal, they'll try to return to their roots.

I'm happy to help.

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The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Wade Henderson.

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Al Jazeera eyes Gore-founded TV group: report

WASHINGTON: The Qatar-owned media group Al Jazeera is in talks to buy Current TV, a struggling cable channel founded by former US vice president Al Gore, The New York Times reported Wednesday.

The deal could allow Al Jazeera broader entry into US homes, by acquiring the cable group available in around 60 million American households, the report said.

Contacted by AFP, Current Media did not immediately respond to the report.

The Times said that if the deal is completed, Al Jazeera would create a new channel instead of using its existing English-language channel Al Jazeera English.

This would tentatively be called Al Jazeera America, the report said, and produce around 60 per cent of its programming in the United States and draw the rest from Al Jazeera English.

The plan could put the broadcaster financed by the government of Qatar into closer competition with CNN and other news channels in the United States, according to The Times, which noted that Al Jazeera is offered only by a handful of US cable and satellite distributors.

Current Media, founded in 2005, operates Current TV, reaches households in Britain and the United States, and a youth-focused website Current.com, where users can submit their own content.

Founded by Gore and businessman Joel Hyatt, Current has won two Emmy Awards and other honours. It reaches 71 million households worldwide, including 60 million in the US market.

But The Times said a sale was being considered because of low ratings, with an average of just 42,000 people watching the channel last year.

- AFP/jc

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