Senator Daniel Inouye, a Democrat from Hawaii, died on Monday afternoon at age 88. Inouye had been hospitalized since early in December with respiratory problems, and died from respiratory complications. According to his Senate staff, his last word was “Aloha.” Inouye had served in the Senate for 50 years, since 1963, and was the longest-serving senator at the time of his death. Inouye was also the second longest-serving senator in U.S. history, after Robert Byrd. Inouye lost his right arm in World War II, and was later awarded the Bronze Star Medal of Honor.

There may finally be an end in sight. President Obama made a counteroffer to avert the fiscal cliff Monday, introducing a proposal that could mean the White House and House Speaker John Boehner are close to reaching a deal. Obama’s new offer now proposes raising tax rates on incomes above $400,000, up from $250,000 in earlier offers. The $2.4 trillion proposal is equally split between revenue and spending cuts, and meets “a dollar-to-dollar demand that Boehner has placed on the scope of the final package,” sources tell Politico. Boehner and Obama reportedly met Monday at the White House, in their third conversation in the past five days to discuss the looming fiscal cliff.

Sometimes, sadly, it takes a tragedy to unite a nation. In the days following the heart-wrenching Newtown shootings, support has poured into the small Connecticut village from all across the country. One anonymous donor from North Carolina donated 26 Christmas trees—one for each victim—to line the streets around the local firehouse. Shipments of toys and food have been steadily flowing into the town, while donors from away as California and even Pakistan have sent money to the community. One fund has already generated $45,000, while another has grossed $75,000 for the Sandy Hook Elementary PTA. Meanwhile, a local church has been hosting 10 golden retrievers to comfort the community’s grieving children.

Numerous stories of courageous heroes rising to the occasion during Friday’s shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary have emerged, and Gene Rosen now joins their ranks. The 69-year-old Newtown man lived near the school, and was driving away when he noticed six small children sitting in a semicircle at the end of his driveway, supervised by a bus driver. The six students had just escaped the classroom where their teacher, Victoria Soto, had been shot and killed. Rosen took them into his home, fed them juice, and gave them stuffed animals to play with while he frantically tried to contact their parents to let them know their children were safe.

A satellite launched by a defiant North Korea only three days ago appears to be dead, according to a U.S.-based astrophysicist who monitors spaceflights. The satellite—which is looking down on Earth and airing patriotic songs—is no longer giving off a signal. Jonathan McDowell of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics disagrees with the theory that it's dead. "It's definitely up there and it's whizzing around," he said, "but it's just not feeling very well." State-run media in North Korea have yet to make an announcement about the satellite's dysfunction.

A Connecticut State police spokesman said Monday that Adam Lanza had “no connection” to the school where 26 people died on Friday. It was not immediately clear whether that statement contradicted earlier reports that Lanza had attended the school as a child. Spokesman Lt. J. Paul Vance said that officers “did seize significant evidence” at the home where Adam Lanza lived with his mother. Vance also confirmed reports that two people wounded in the shooting had survived. “We have to do everything it takes to uncover every bit of evidence,” Vance said.

Several top news organizations are being stuck with the bill—and they’re not happy about it. A letter signed by numerous top news editors leaked Monday, in which they dispute expenses being billed to their reporters by the Romney campaign. “Recent invoices from your campaign have raised serious questions about the charges you have forwarded to us for travel with Mitt Romney,” the letter says. Editors from The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, USA Today, Financial Times, AFP, Yahoo, and Buzzfeed have all signed the letter. Egregious charges include $745 for a vice presidential debate viewing party and $812 for a meal and a hold.

Egypt's opposition has planned the next round of protests—set to occur Tuesday—as Islamists claim victory in the first round of voting on a new draft constitution. The country has been roiled by unrest as political factions face off over two weekends of ballot casting to decide on the document. The National Salvation Front, which opposes the constitution, called on Egyptians to take to the streets to “defend their freedoms, prevent fraud, and reject the draft constitution.” Meanwhile, President Mohamed Morsi has said the constitution is essential for charting a course for the country.

In the days following the Newtown school shooting, two Fox News higher-ups were on very different pages. Rupert Murdoch, CEO of News Corp., which owns Fox News, quickly took to Twitter to call for stricter gun control, imploring for “some bold leadership action” from the president. At the same time, David Clark, the executive producer in charge of Fox’s weekend coverage, instructed his producers not to allow and gun-control talk on air, even as the national conversation turned to gun control and producers begged for exemptions. The decision spotlights the “growing chasm between Rupert Murdoch and [Fox News president] Roger Ailes,” who is reportedly a gun enthusiast, says New York magazine.

Even Hollywood is putting its usual glitz and glamour on hold out of respect for the victims of the Newtown school shooting. Tuesday’s Los Angeles premiere of Quentino Tarantino’s heavily violent new Western, Django Unchained, was canceled by the Weinstein Company Monday night, citing the pervasive emotional distress in America following the Newtown massacre. Foregoing a splashy red-carpet premiere, Tuesday’s event will be a private screening for industry bigwigs and the cast, including Leonardo DiCaprio and Jamie Foxx. The premieres of Tom Cruise’s Jack Reacher and the comedy Parental Guidance were also scrapped in the wake of the shootings.

The National Credit Union Administration, the federal agency in charge of regulating and supervising credit unions, filed a $3.6 billion lawsuit today against JPMorgan Chase in federal court in Kansas. The NCUA alleges that Bear Stearns, the high-flying investment bank that JPMorgan bought with Federal Reserve assistance in 2008, violated federal and state laws by misrepresenting $3.6 billion worth of mortgage-backed securities it sold to four credit unions. All four of the credit unions subsequently became insolvent. The NCUA has filed similar suits against six other banks.

Police in Los Angeles arrested a man Sunday in connection with a Facebook post that threatened shootings at local schools, sources close to the investigation told the Los Angeles Times. Police were notified of the post Sunday and found multiple weapons upon arriving at the man’s residence. No further identifying information on the man has been released. On Sunday, LAPD Chief Charlie Beck announced that officers would be patrolling city schools to protect against violent threats. The increased security is in response to the shooting of 26 people at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school last week.

Two of Topeka’s finest were shot and killed Sunday after responding to a call concerning a suspicious vehicle at a grocery store, according to local authorities. The killing of the two officers, Cpl. David Gogian and Officer Jeff Atherly, is “unspeakable,” said Topeka Police Chief Ronald Miller. Both officers were shot in the head, according to Miller. Police are on the lookout for a 22-year-old suspect thought to have fired on the two officers from the suspicious vehicle. “It’s clearly beyond words,” Miller said. “It’s unspeakable almost about why this happens and why this is happening in America at this stage in our history.”

As the dreaded fiscal cliff date draws nearer, lawmakers are pushing compromises. On Friday, House Speaker John Boehner offered to push the fight over the federal debt limit off for a year, according to sources familiar with the talks. This is seen as a concession for Republicans, who planned to use the threat of default as leverage for getting more spending cuts out of Obama. Boehner is also proposing to raise taxes for millionaires, but the White House has rejected the offer, saying the amount raised is not significant enough. Either way, progress is progress and we could be inching closer to a deal.

At least 15 people died after a blast that rocked a market in Pakistan near the country’s border with Afghanistan. Twenty more were wounded, according to a a local security official. Cars and pickup trucks were damaged in the blast, according to Pakistani television broadcasts, and the attack appears to have occurred near a government official, though it is not known whether he was a target. Officials said it was not yet clear whether the attack involved a planted explosive or a suicide bomber.

It’s a caper fit for Dr. Jones. Someone appears to have mailed a diary carefully reproduced from the film series starring Harrison Ford's bullwhip-cracking archeologist to the admissions department of the University of Chicago—but no one can quite figure out who or why. The package, addressed to Henry Walton Jones Jr., contained only the replica of a journal from adventure film Raiders of the Lost Ark, but nothing else to indicate where it came from or who created it. Lucasfilm, the studio that made the movies, said it had nothing to do with the mysterious package.

Police in San Antonio have a suspect in custody after a gunman opened fire at a movie theater, wounding two people. Moviegoers took cover in the Santikos Mayan Palace 14 Theatre as the man opened fire, police said, before being stopped by a law-enforcement officer. The shooting began at a local restaurant, then continued into the theater, according to police. At one point, the suspect appears to have taken aim at a San Antonio police vehicle. The incident brought back fears of the summer shooting in Aurora, Colo., said one woman whose son works in the movie theater: “You only think the worst.”

Keep your eye on him. That’s what Adam Lanza’s mother told a former babysitter, according to a report from CBS News. The man, who now lives in California, said the disturbed child’s mother told him to “never turn my back” on the then 9- or 10-year-old Lanza. Police say that Lanza, 20, killed 26 people at a Connecticut elementary school and his mother before shooting himself Friday. A former director of security at Newtown High School, which Lanza attended, also revealed that officials feared that he “could hurt himself” and assigned him a school psychologist as a freshman.

Little Bilbo Baggins is making quite the mark on his opening weekend. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, dominated the box office this weekend, grossing a massive $84.8 million in its first three days and setting a new record for best December debut. The release crushed the previous record-holder, I Am Legend, which brought in $77.2 million during its 2007 debut. It’s good news for Hobbit lovers, but the film still has a way to go if it wants to contend with the Lord of the Rings series, which brought in hundreds of millions between its 2001-2003 releases. Skyfall was bumped out of first place and down to fourth for the weekend, but still has an astounding total gross of $951 million worldwide. Bond vs. Baggins is the type of showdown we'd like to see.

But she’s royalty—and she’s pregnant! Kate Middleton may have been snubbed by British Olympic hero Jessica Ennis, and the entire thing was caught on video. In her first public appearance since being hospitalized, the Duchess of Cambridge was presenting a trophy to the heptathlon champion when the incident happened: Kate raised her hand for a handshake; Ennis looked away. As Twitter goes wild with outrage over the suspected snub, we’re left with one question: did David Beckham, standing next to Kate on stage, have anything to do with this?

The first two child victims of one of the worst shootings in American history will be buried Monday. The people of Newtown, Conn., remain in the first throes of grief after President Obama visited with victims’ families Sunday. “We’re just now getting ready to talk to our son about who was killed,” said Robert Licata, a father whose son escaped. Officials in the town remained undecided about when school would resume and whether students would return to Sandy Hook Elementary School, where Friday's tragic shooting took place.

Schools in Ridgefield, Conn., have been placed on lockdown after reports of a suspicious person carrying a rifle near the town’s train station. A driver on Route 7 reportedly warned police about the rifle-holding man. Students who had already arrived at the town’s Branchville Elementary School were taken to a safer area, and school buses en route have been diverted to the town’s East Ridge Middle School as a precautionary measure. Ridgefield is roughly 20 miles from Newtown, where a gunman killed 20 children and six adults at an elementary school Friday.

Joe Manchin, a pro-gun Democratic senator from West Virginia, has said its time for a “commonsense discussion” regarding guns. The lifetime member of the NRA, who has an A rating from the gun-advocacy group, said he had just come back from a family hunting trip before making his appearance on MSNBC. “I’ve never had more than three shells in a clip,” the deer-hunting Manchin said. “Sometimes you don’t need more than one shot anyway.” Manchin declined to name specific gun-control measures that should be taken, but said it is “time to move beyond rhetoric.”

Three days after a shooting rampage at an elementary school left 26 dead, Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy called for stricter gun control laws at a federal level. “Is there a law, policy, or procedure we could have had on the books that could have prevented this tragedy?” he asked. “I do.” He continued, “Do I think that Washington, D.C. needs to get its act together and enact stricter gun control laws at the federal level? You bet I do.” Molloy also announced that on Friday, Dec. 21 at 9:30 a.m. he will enact a moment of silence across the state, asking that places of worship ring 26 bells at that time, one for each victim. He asked other governors to join in the observance.

Republican officials have said South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley will name Rep. Tim Scott to replace outgoing Sen. Jim DeMint. Haley is scheduled to name her replacement choice at noon Monday from the South Carolina Statehouse. DeMint announced about two weeks ago that he would step down from his Senate post to take a job as head of the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. Scott will be the first black senator to represent South Carolina in more than 100 years.

Nine young girls were killed by a roadside bomb in eastern Afghanistan Monday, local officials told The Washington Post. Three others were wounded in the blast, and all victims were schoolchildren between the ages of 9 and 11 who were collecting firewood when the landmine exploded. It’s not yet clear whether the mine had been planted by the Taliban or was left over from Afghanistan’s war with Soviet invaders. In a separate but nearby incident in Kabul, a suicide bomber detonated a car packed with explosives outside the offices of a military base used by foreign forces in the country’s capital, killing at least one person and injuring at least 15 others.

Channing Tatum, get ready for diaper duty. The Magic Mike star and his wife Jenna Dewan-Tatum are expecting their first child, the couple’s rep confirmed exclusively to People magazine, which crowned Tatum this year’s “Sexiest Man Alive” (the least he could do in return was give them the baby scoop). Tatum recently hinted to the magazine that he and his actress wife, both 32, have had baby-fever for a while. “I’m ready; I think she’s ready,” Tatum said, adding that he’d love to have a big brood: “It’s really easy for us guys to say, ‘I want like 15 kids.’” Dewan-Tatum, Channing’s wife of three years, was spotted on the red carpet last night trying to hide her baby bump in a blue, empire-waist gown. 

New York City’s mayor has called for “immediate national action” on gun laws in the wake of the devastating Newtown school shooting. Joined by dozens of shooting survivors and victims’ relatives on Monday, the mayor criticized the White House for not taking up the issue in the days since Friday’s massacre. He added that the fiscal cliff debacle should not prevent them from making gun violence “the first order of business” that the new Congress takes up when it convenes in January. Bloomberg announced the Mayors Against Illegal Guns’ three-part legislative package: first, that it pass the Fix Gun Checks Act, which would require every gun buyer to pass a thorough background check; second, to pass an “enforceable and effective assault weapons ban”; and third, to make gun trafficking a felony. Bloomberg also urged the president to use his executive power to streamline the process of putting these laws into effect.