That was president Obama on Monday talking about Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. There are concerns that al-Assad's government forces might use chemical weapons like poison gas in its fight against rebels in Syria's ongoing civil war. Syrian officials say the government doesn't have any plans to use these kinds of weapons. The fighting in Syria thoug, is not letting up, you can see some of the damage here in the Syrian city of Aleppo. Reports say more than 42,000 Syrians have been killed since the civil war started 21 months ago.

 

This picture was taken from the International Space Station, the giant white spiral, that's a typhoon. It's the same kind of storm as a hurricane, this one is called Bohpa and it's huge. At 1:00 on Monday, it was a super typhoon, the same size and speed as a category 5 hurricane. Yesterday, it hit the Philippines, this is some of what it left behind. Massive flooding, landslides, homes destroyed, more than 2 dozens people were killed and more than 50,000 thousand have been affected by the typhoon. A lot of communities in Bopha's path weren't prepared for it. Before the typhoon hit, government agencies tried to get people out of the way and get relief supplies and emergency crews in place to help out afterward.

 

Less than 4 weeks to go, and still no deal in D.C. Yes, we're talking about the "Fiscal Cliff", the series of automatic government spending cuts and tax increases that will take place on January 1th if president Obama and Congress can't agree ways to cut the nation's debt. We don't have a deal, we do have a proposal. Two of them, in fact. President Obama offered his plan last week, Republican leaders rejected it. Republicans offered a counterplan this week, the preisdent rejected it. There are some ideas that both sides are agree on, but the two big sticking points are government spending and tax rates for Americans who make more than 250,000 dollars a year. So right now, we have proposals but no agreement.