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Week In The News: Budget Deal, Mourning Mandela And An Execution In North Korea

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A budget deal, an execution in North Korea and the world mourns Mandela. Our weekly news roundtable goes behind the headlines.

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and Senate Budget Committee Chairwoman Patty Murray, D-Wash., announce a tentative agreement between Republican and Democratic negotiators on a government spending plan, at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, Dec. 10, 2013. (AP)
House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and Senate Budget Committee Chairwoman Patty Murray, D-Wash., announce a tentative agreement between Republican and Democratic negotiators on a government spending plan, at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, Dec. 10, 2013. (AP)

The sound we’ll remember from this week is probably the roar of that huge stadium full of mourners sending off Nelson Mandela.  Or the choir remembering the massacred children of Sandy Hook.  The news that turns our heads this week is sharp.  From North Korea, with an execution at the top.  From Syria, where the West’s non-jihadi opposition is in big trouble.  From Yemen, a wedding party taken out by a US drone.  We’ve got a budget deal in Congress, John Boehner growling at the Tea Party, Pope Francis as Person of the Year. This hour On Point: Our weekly news roundtable goes behind the headlines.
-- Tom Ashbrook

Guests

Nancy Cordes, Congressional correspondent for CBS News. (@nancycordes)

Michael Hirsh, chief correspondent for the National Journal. (@michaelphirsh)

Jack Beatty, On Point news analyst.

From Tom's Reading List

National Journal: Behind the 'Volcker Rule': The Mutt-and-Jeff Team That Tackled Wall Street -- "The Volcker Rule was, in fact, in grave danger of being loopholed to death right up until its adoption this week. And in the end it was largely one regulator, more than any other, stood firm against those efforts and managed to avert the worst of the watering down: Gary Gensler, the outgoing chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. As diminutive in stature as Volcker is towering, Gensler was the Jeff to Volcker's Mutt, an essential part of a de facto team."

Washington Post: Sebelius: Enrollment up with improving HealthCare.gov; review of problems launched — "The administration announced Wednesday that about 365,000 Americans chose health plans during the first two months of the federal and state insurance marketplaces, bringing the total to more than triple the meager enrollment from October. A report accompanying the announcement showed that the number of people who collectively signed up for coverage in the 14 states running their own insurance exchanges continued to outpace the total enrollment from the three dozen states relying on the federal marketplace."

Reuters: U.S. schools look to guards, technology a year after Sandy Hook — "Schools are aiming to stop gun scares and killings, such as the shooting deaths of three students at an Ohio high school in February 2012, the wounding of two students at a California high school in January 2013 and a potential mass shooting at a Georgia elementary school in August that was averted when a school bookkeeper talked the gunman into laying down his AK-47 assault rifle. The number of school resource officers or law enforcement officers assigned to schools has risen to levels not seen since the aftermath of the 1999 Columbine High School 'massacre' in Colorado, in which 13 people were shot to death, said Maurice Canady, executive director of the National Association of School Resource Officers."

This program aired on December 13, 2013.

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