The White House is considering providing more aid to the Syrian rebels as casualties amass in their ongoing civil war. “I’m sure we will do more in the weeks ahead,” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told a conference Thursday. “If this were a straightforward challenge I think we would all have reached a conclusion and have unified behind exactly what we are going to do, and how to do it.” The U.S. has not yet joined Britain, France, and others in recognizing the newly formed Syrian National Coalition, but privately officials say a decision is imminent.

As the United States inches closer to the fiscal cliff, Republican House Speaker John Boehner appears to be standing his ground. The Wall Street Journal reports Boehner rejected the first fiscal cliff deal offer from President Obama in a meeting with Democratic Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner Thursday. The proposal reportedly called for a $1.6 trillion tax increase, a $50 billion stimulus program, and new executive power to raise the federal debt limit without congressional approval. Boehner rejected the deal, adding he was "disappointed." While he's reluctant to budge on tax rates, Boehner blames the standoff on the opposition party. “Democrats have yet to get serious about spending cuts,” he said.

As protests continue to rage throughout Egypt in response to President Morsi’s power grab, the assembly tasked with drafting the country’s new Constitution has voted to cap presidential terms at two four-year stints—quite a change for a country ruled by Hosni Mubarak for 30 years. The Constitution still must be put to a public referendum. The announcement is unlikely to quell protests in the country: Egypt’s opposition groups reaffirmed Thursday that they will continue demonstrating against the president.

The United Nations General Assembly voted to recognize Palestine as a nonmember state Thursday, in a move that strengthens the government of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. The vote tally was 138 yeas to 9 nays with 41 countries abstaining. The United States certainly seemed in the nay camp, with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton calling the vote "unfortunate and counterproductive," and Ambassador Rice arguing the vote does not establish Palestinian statehood, and places "further obstacles in the path of peace." 

Thousands of workers will be without retirement perks, but 19 Hostess executives will be taking bonuses from a pool of $1.75 million after a federal bankruptcy judge approved the union-opposed plan Thursday. The executives will be overseeing the company’s liquidation, which is “significantly beyond the type of jobs that [they] were doing at the start of this case,” according to the judge. On the bright side, 3,000 other employees will be getting paid beyond their salaries, and Hostess CEO Greg Rayburn declined a bonus for himself.

Lawyers for former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn denied reports that he will settle a civil lawsuit with the hotel housekeeper who accused him rape last year. French media reported Friday that Strauss-Kahn and Nafissatou Diallo settled out of court for $6 million, although Strauss-Kahn's lawyers said they had only "discussed a resolution." Criminal charges against the French powerhouse were dropped last year, with both sides seeking damages in subsequent civil suits, and a court date had been set for sometime next week. Strauss-Kahn is also being investigated for his alleged participation in an organized prostitution ring, an allegation he denies.

A focus on global health seems to be a trait Mrs. Clinton shares with her do-gooder husband. On Thursday, Hillary Clinton unveiled a new "blueprint" guide to wiping out the AIDS virus globally, and aiming for "an AIDS-free generation." The President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief will focus on improving treatment and prevention worldwide. The secretary of state applauded a massive decrease in AIDS-related deaths (25 percent in six years), an increase in U.S.-funded anti-retroviral drug treatments, and a huge drop in HIV infections in developing countries. "We can reach a point where virtually no children are born with the virus," she said.

The world will have to wait until Friday morning to learn who the lucky winners of the $587 million Powerball Jackpot are. Though the names of the lucky ticket holders haven’t been officially released yet, a few details have emerged. There were two winning tickets sold, one from a Trex Mart convenience store in Dearborn, Mo., and another in Arizona. The winner in Missouri only bought $10 worth of tickets and waited until Thursday morning to check the numbers. “Well it’s just a shock,” said the Missouri winner’s mother. “My daughter-in-law came down this morning and she said she was so nervous, she said she didn’t even look at it last night.”

The most scrutinized lunch of the year is being digested as we speak. Former presidential rivals Barack Obama and Mitt Romney dined together Thursday afternoon for a conversation focused on “America’s leadership in the world and the importance of maintaining that leadership in the future." Right. It was Romney’s first trip to the White House since the election, and here are all the deets, gurl! Romney arrived in a black SUV just after 12:30 p.m. wearing a gray suit and blue-striped tie. They ate turkey chili and Southwestern grilled chicken salad. Romney congratulated Obama on his success, but Obama did not discuss any opportunities in his administration. When he left, Romney promised to keep in touch. Besties.

Who says violence never helps solve anything? Halle Berry and her ex-boyfriend Gabriel Aubry have finally come to “an amicable agreement,” according to the actress’s attorney. The announcement comes a week after Berry’s fiancé, Olivier Martinez, got into a fistfight on Thanksgiving with Aubry. Both Martinez and Aubry have taken legal action against each other since the fight, which apparently centered around the custody battle of Berry and Aubry’s daughter, Nahla. Attorneys for both reached the agreement in a private session in L.A.

According to reports, Bobbi Kristina Brown, the daughter of Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown, has broken up with her alleged fiancé Nick Gordon, her adopted brother. The publicly affectionate couple never officially confirmed their engagement, but now a series of tweets from the two sibling-lovers insinuate that the relationship is over. The news comes just days after Brown was involved in a car accident outside her Georgia apartment.

The Commerce Department on Thursday said that U.S. gross domestic product grew 2.7 percent in the third quarter—a 35 percent jump from its previous estimate. Annualized GDP growth in the second quarter was 1.3 percent. The added growth came largely from federal government spending, homebuilding, and larger business inventories, while state and local spending cuts were a drag on GDP growth.

They’re McMad and they’re not going to take it anymore. Fast-food workers from restaurants across New York City walked off the job Thursday, marking the beginning of an extremely rare strike against the nearly union-free industry. Employees from McDonald’s, Burger King, Domino’s, Taco Bell, Wendy’s, and Papa John’s all participated, with workers from the Golden Arches making up the most of the activists. This is considered the first salvo in an effort to unionize workers in the industry, typified by low wages, limited hours, and high turnover. Civil rights groups, religious leaders, and a labor union organized the walk out.

Could President Obama be moving toward closing Guantánamo Bay after all? A new government report shows that the 166 prisoners currently held in the prison could be absorbed by facilities inside the United States. There are already 373 convicted terrorists currently being held in the U.S. “As far as I know, there hasn’t been a single security problem reported in any of these cases,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who commissioned the study, said. “This fact outweighs not only the high cost of maintaining Guantánamo—which costs more than $114 million a year—but also provides the same degree of security without the criticism of operating a military prison in an isolated location.”

Realizing it is always the first step. Former CIA director David Petraeus admitted that he “screwed up royally,” according to a newly-released letter to an old army friend. Petraeus stepped down earlier this month after admitting to an extramarital affair—a confession that set off a media frenzy surrounding the woman he had affair with, Paula Broadwell, and a suspected third woman, Jill Kelley, whose emails with Petraeus’s successor at NATO are also under scrutiny. “I paid the price (appropriately) and I sought to do the right thing at the end of the day,” Petraeus wrote in the Nov. 20^th hand-written letter. Petraeus also indicated that he will stay in his marriage with wife Holly, writing “Team Petreaus will survive though [I] have obviously created an enormous difficulty for us.”

Bangladeshi authorities on Wednesday arrested three factory owners for a fire over the weekend that killed over 100 people. The supervisors are charged with stopping workers from leaving and blocking the exits. The owner of the factory, Delwar Hossain, took responsibility for the fire, telling the Daily Star newspaper on Thursday that “nobody told me that there was no emergency exit, which could be made accessible from the outside. Nobody even advised me to install one like that, apart from the existing ones.” Thousands of garment workers marched in Dhaka, demanding higher safety standards.

The White House is considering intervening more in Syria to help remove President Bashar al-Assad from power, government officials told The New York Times on Thursday. Already likely to come next week is a decision over whether NATO should deploy surface-to-air missiles to Turkey, although a State Department spokeswoman said the Patriot missile system should not be used beyond the Turkish border. While the White House has been mulling action for months, the administration had been hesitant to act before the election—and recent victories by rebel forces have caused them to reconsider. But the situation is seen as far more complex than Libya, and some officials worry the risks—both in American lives and the possibility of creating a broader conflict—could be too great.

A United Nations tribunal on Thursday cleared former Kosovan Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj of war crimes against Serb, Albanian, and Roma citizens in 1998. Haradinaj served as prime minister of Kosovo for only 100 days in 2004-05 before stepping down to for his first trial at The Hague. He had been accused with two of his lieutenants—who were also cleared—of trying to establish control by the Kosovo Liberation Army in western Kosovo through detention camps, where ethnic Serbs and Albanian collaborator were allegedly tortured and killed. Fireworks and cheering crowds in Pristina, Kosovo’s capital and largest city, greeted the news, and analysts say Haradinaj is likely to continue his political career.

Get ready to collect a cool $579.9 million. Powerball officials said early Thursday that two tickets matched all six winning numbers of 5, 16, 22, 23, 29 and the Powerball of 6. The tickets were sold in Arizona and Missouri. Arizona officials said they didn’t know yet whether the tickets were sold to an individual or a group, but they said they will announce where the ticket was sold on Thursday. The last-minute lotto-frenzy inched the drawing up to $579.9 million on Wednesday—the second largest payout in U.S. history. On Wednesday, tickets were selling at 130,000 per minute.

Egyptian leaders said on Wednesday that they are finishing the Constitution faster than expected after the crisis brought on by President Mohamed Morsi, who announced plans last week against all legal opposition to his power until the Constitution is complete. Morsi said he had issued the decree because he learned that the Supreme Constitutional Court—with judges appointed by former President Hosni Mubarak—was ready to strike down the current Assembly. But Morsi’s decree set off days of protests, with hundreds of thousands taking to Tahrir Square—the site of the 2011 uprising—on Tuesday. If the constitution is completed, it could moot the whole conflict—although it still will have been approved without the opposition.

It’s official: former NBC chief Jeff Zucker will be the president of CNN, the network confirmed on Thursday. Zucker is succeeding Jim Walton, who headed CNN Worldwide since 2003, a period in which the network faced declining ratings in the U.S. As president of CNN Worldwide, Zucker will head not only the U.S. news network, but also CNN International, HLN and CNN digital, which includes cnn.com.

There should be an independent watchdog agency to regulate the British press, Lord Justice Brian Leveson said in his highly anticipated report released on Thursday. Leveson insisted that tougher self-regulation is needed to "protect the freedom of the press" and an arbitration system should be set up to help victims. Leveson's report is the final word after his Parliament committee's investigation into press standards following the phone-hacking scandal at Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. Prime Minister David Cameron and deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg will give separate statements following the report’s release, signaling that Clegg, a Liberal Democrat, is splitting with Cameron, who has been scrutinized by the Leveson Committee due to his close ties with former News International chief Rebekah Brooks.

British Prime Minister David Cameron has been criticized after he rejected one of the prinicipal findings of the Leveson Inquiry on Thursday: the need for the creation of an independent watchdog group. Saying this statute could "infringe free speech and free press," Cameron said careful consideration has to be given to regulate the press. But many of the victims of phone hacking were angry with Cameron's response, with actor Hugh Grant tweeting that it was a "betrayal" and a lawyer for Milly Dowler's family saying the prime minister "failed his own test." Cameron himself had appointed Lord Justice Brian Leveson to investigate the relationship between politicians and the media, causing many to be puzzled by his rejection. Cameron, however, insists that he does not want to keep the status quo, but creating a new law could infringe on freedom of the press.

Mitt Romney is officially in the White House. The former Republican presidential candidate pulled up to the West Wing of the White House in a black SUV Thursday afternoon for private talks with his election opponent—their first meeting since they duked it out on the national stage. Inviting Romney to lunch was not just the president’s way of extending a post-election olive branch, it’s a bipartisan gesture that will hopefully inspire Republican cooperation on the contentious fiscal cliff. Obama’s not the only one looking to get something out of this meeting. After failing to win the White House for his party, Mitt’s ready to start rebuilding his political career.

Former president George H.W. Bush has spent the last seven days at Houston’s Methodist Hospital, where he is being treated for bronchitis and a “chronic cough,” his chief of staff, Jean Becker, said on Thursday. There were fears that the illness might turn into pneumonia, but it did not. "This is not a life-threatening illness,” Becker said. Bush will likely be released this weekend.

Some parts of Damascus have become a technological black hole, as Syrian authorities are blocking Internet and cellphone signals amid clashes between rebels and government forces. One activist living outside the country told The Guardian that landlines have also been cut in some areas and that he’s been using satellite telephones to communicate with people in Syria. This is not the first time the Syrian government has cut phone lines and Internet access in areas heavily populated by rebel forces.

Two commuter trains collided in Boston’s Back Bay region today, sending at least six to the hospital and 20 others are being medically evaluated at the scene. An MBTA spokesman said one trolley “bumped into another” shortly before noon, but that the cars remained on the track and showed no visible damage. None of the injuries were deemed life threatening, officials said, adding that they are investigating a possible cause for the collision. In 2009, an MBTA conductor was text-messaging when he rear-ended another trolley. Let’s hope this crash had nothing to do with reckless behavior behind the wheel.

Aren’t they supposed to be out of money? Hostess on Thursday asked for a judge’s approval to give top executives bonuses totaling $1.8 million. The company is arguing that the pay is needed to keep 19 corporate officers and “high-level managers” through the liquidation process, which may take up to a year. The bonuses would come in addition to their regular salaries. The company’s closure is expected to bring the loss of about 18,000 jobs. A Hostess attorney argued on Thursday that the company can no longer pay retiree benefits, which cost about $1.1 million each month. Wonder where they could get that money ...

Someone should have read her horoscope today. Mere hours after Lindsay Lohan was arrested for assault in New York City after a nightclub brawl, she's been charged in yet another case. Santa Monica police say the actress is being charged with willfully resisting, obstructing an officer, providing false information to a peace officer, and reckless driving in connection with a car crash incident in June. As for that nightclub brawl, Lohan allegedly hit a woman in the face after an argument, and was taken to a New York precinct early Thursday, where she has reportedly made no comments to police. 

So much for loyalty. Eric Hartsburg, the 30-year-old Indiana resident who got the Romney-Ryan logo tattooed on his face for $5,000, said Wednesday that he will be getting said branding removed. After the election, Hartsburg had vowed to keep the tattoo, saying he was “glad to know that I did all I could.” But Hartsburg changed his mind after hearing that Mitt Romney claimed President Obama won because of “gifts” given to constituents. Calling Romney a “sore loser,” Hartsburg said the GOP candidate is “pretty shameful as far as I’m concerned … there’s no dignity in blaming somebody else for buying votes and paying off people.”