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DiDonato a luminous Mary Stuart at Met

NEW YORK (AP) — The Metropolitan Opera may have pretty much turned opening night over to the glamorous Anna Netrebko, but New Year's Eve belongs to a very different diva — Joyce DiDonato.

Last year the Kansas-born mezzo-soprano headlined a starry lineup in the baroque pastiche "The Enchanted Island." On Monday night she brought a gala audience to its feet with a luminous performance in the title role of Donizetti's "Maria Stuarda."

Never before performed at the Met, this second opera in the composer's so-called "Three Queens" trilogy portrays the lethal conflict between Mary, deposed queen of Scotland, and Queen Elizabeth I of England.

From the moment she makes her entrance in the second scene, singing of her joy in strolling outside her prison in Fotheringay Castle, DiDonato rivets attention. She imbues every syllable with a concentrated eloquence that makes her compact voice seem larger than it is. She displays seemingly effortless command of coloratura embellishments throughout a wide vocal range. And she is equally impressive in fiery outbursts and in hushed, long-held phrases — like the ones she spun out as she sang through the chorus in the final scene.

The opera's dramatic heart is a confrontation between the two queens that never took place in history but that figures in the Friedrich Schiller play on which the libretto is based. Mary at first abases herself in hope of winning a pardon; then, as Elizabeth hurls insults, her pride reasserts itself and she seals her doom by denouncing her rival as "figlia impura di Bolena" ("impure daughter of Anne Boleyn") and "vil bastarda" ("vile bastard").

DiDonato was impressive in this scene when she sang the role for the first time last spring in Houston, but her performance Monday night was even better — more confident and more filled with vocal and dramatic shadings. There was a wonderful touch when, after she had spent her fury, she allowed herself a beatific smile, as if to convey: "There! I said it and I'm glad!"

Of course, it takes two to stage a confrontation, and DiDonato's partner at the Met is Elza van den Heever, a South African soprano making her debut. She has a voice that's impressive in many respects, with a large and vibrant upper register. But she tended to fade out in the lower part of her range, where much of Elizabeth's music lies.

More damagingly, she was victimized by a quirk of David McVicar's production that has Elizabeth lurching awkwardly about the stage for much of the evening, as if thrown off balance by John Macfarlane's elaborate period costumes. Perhaps this bizarre gait is intended to contrast with Mary's immaculate poise, but it mainly proves distracting.

The opening scene in Elizabeth's palace is garishly staged, with what look like red rafters hanging down from the ceiling and gratuitous acrobats in devil costumes, but once past this, matters improve. For the scene outside Fotheringay, Macfarlane fills the stage with spindly trees barren of leaves and provides a painted backdrop that evokes a cloudy landscape. The final tableau is also striking: Mary, shorn of her long hair and wearing a simple red dress, climbs a staircase with her back to the audience to meet her executioner and the chopping block.

Though the two queens dominate the opera, there are some other characters, and they are all in extremely good hands. Having the elegant tenor Matthew Polenzani take on the thankless role of the ineffectual Leicester is luxury casting indeed. Bass Matthew Rose is warmly sympathetic as Mary's confessor, Talbot; baritone Joshua Hopkins sings with robust tone as her nemesis, Cecil; and mezzo Maria Zifchak lends her customary strong support as Mary's attendant, Anna.

Maurizio Benini conducts a lithe and lively performance of the score, even if he can't quite disguise the fact that the second half of the opera is decidedly anti-climactic.

There are seven more performances, including a matinee on Saturday, Jan. 19, that will be broadcast live in HD to movie theaters around the world.

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Clinton receiving blood thinners to dissolve clot

WASHINGTON (AP) — Doctors treating Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton for a blood clot in her head said blood thinners are being used to dissolve the clot and they are confident she will make a full recovery.

Clinton didn't suffer a stroke or neurological damage from the clot that formed after she suffered a concussion during a fainting spell at her home in early December, doctors said in a statement Monday.

Clinton, 65, was admitted to New York-Presbyterian Hospital on Sunday when the clot turned up on a follow-up exam on the concussion, Clinton spokesman Phillipe Reines said.

The clot is located in the vein in the space between the brain and the skull behind the right ear. She will be released once the medication dose for the blood thinners has been established, the doctors said.

In their statement, Dr. Lisa Bardack of the Mount Kisco Medical Group and Dr. Gigi El-Bayoumi of George Washington University said Clinton was making excellent progress and was in good spirits.

Clinton's complication "certainly isn't the most common thing to happen after a concussion" and is one of the few types of blood clots in the skull or head that are treated with blood thinners, said Dr. Larry Goldstein, a neurologist who is director of Duke University's stroke center. He is not involved in Clinton's care.

The area where Clinton's clot developed is "a drainage channel, the equivalent of a big vein inside the skull. It's how the blood gets back to the heart," Goldstein said.

Blood thinners usually are enough to treat the clot and it should have no long-term consequences if her doctors are saying she has suffered no neurological damage from it, Goldstein said.

Clinton returned to the U.S. from a trip to Europe, then fell ill with a stomach virus in early December that left her severely dehydrated and forced her to cancel a trip to North Africa and the Middle East. Until then, she had canceled only two scheduled overseas trips, one to Europe after breaking her elbow in June 2009 and one to Asia after the February 2010 earthquake in Haiti.

Her condition worsened when she fainted, fell and suffered a concussion while at home alone in mid-December as she recovered from the virus. It was announced Dec. 13.

This isn't the first time Clinton has suffered a blood clot. In 1998, midway through her husband's second term as president, Clinton was in New York fundraising for the midterm elections when a swollen right foot led her doctor to diagnose a clot in her knee requiring immediate treatment.

Clinton had planned to step down as secretary of state at the beginning of President Barack Obama's second term. Whether she will return to work before she resigns remained a question.

Democrats are privately if not publicly speculating: How might her illness affect a decision about running for president in 2016?

After decades in politics, Clinton says she plans to spend the next year resting. She has long insisted she had no intention of mounting a second campaign for the White House four years from now. But the door is not entirely closed, and she would almost certainly emerge as the Democrat to beat if she decided to give in to calls by Democratic fans and run again.

Her age — and thereby health — would probably be a factor under consideration, given that Clinton would be 69 when sworn in, if she were elected in 2016. That might become even more of an issue in the early jockeying for 2016 if what started as a bad stomach bug becomes a prolonged, public bout with more serious infirmity.

Not that Democrats are willing to talk openly about the political implications of a long illness, choosing to keep any discussions about her condition behind closed doors. Publicly, Democrats reject the notion that a blood clot could hinder her political prospects.

"Some of those concerns could be borderline sexist," said Basil Smikle, a Democratic strategist who worked for Clinton when she was a senator. "Dick Cheney had significant heart problems when he was vice president, and people joked about it. He took the time he needed to get better, and it wasn't a problem."

It isn't uncommon for presidential candidates' health — and age — to be an issue. Both in 2000 and 2008, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., had to rebut concerns he was too old to be commander in chief or that his skin cancer could resurface.

Two decades after Clinton became the first lady, signs of her popularity — and her political strength — are ubiquitous.

Obama had barely declared victory in November when Democrats started zealously plugging Clinton as their strongest White House contender four years from now, should she choose to take that leap.

"Wouldn't that be exciting?" House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi declared in December. "I hope she goes. Why wouldn't she?"

Even Republicans concede that were she to run, Clinton would be a force to be reckoned with.

"Trying to win that will be truly the Super Bowl," Newt Gingrich, the former House Speaker and 2012 GOP presidential candidate, said in December. "The Republican Party today is incapable of competing at that level."

Americans admire Clinton more than any other woman in the world, according to a Gallup poll released Monday — the 17th time in 20 years that Clinton has claimed that title. And a recent ABC News/Washington Post poll found that 57 percent of Americans would support Clinton as a candidate for president in 2016, with just 37 percent opposed. Websites have already cropped up hawking "Clinton 2016" mugs and tote bags.

Beyond talk of future politics, Clinton's three-week absence from the State Department has raised eyebrows among some conservative commentators who questioned the seriousness of her ailment after she canceled planned Dec. 20 testimony before Congress on the deadly attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya.

Clinton had been due to discuss with lawmakers a scathing report she had commissioned on the attack. It found serious failures of leadership and management in two State Department bureaus were to blame for insufficient security at the facility. Clinton took responsibility for the incident before the report was released, but she was not blamed. Four officials cited in the report have either resigned or been reassigned.

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Associated Press writer Ken Thomas in Washington and AP Chief Medical Writer Marilynn Marchione in Milwaukee contributed to this report.

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Senate passes 'fiscal cliff' deal, House up next

With 2013 just over two hours old, the Senate voted 89-8 on Tuesday to
approve a last-minute deal to avert income tax hikes on all but the
richest Americans and stall painful spending cuts as part of a
hard-fought compromise to avoid the economically toxic “fiscal cliff.”

The country had already technically tumbled over the cliff by the time the gavel came down on the vote at 2:07 a.m.. The House of Representatives was not due to return to work to take up the measure until midday on Tuesday. But with financial markets closed for New Year's Day, quick action by lawmakers would likely limit the economic damage.

The lopsided margin belied anxiety on both sides about the deal, which emerged from barely two days of talks between Vice President Joe Biden and Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. Among the “no” votes: Republican Senator Marco Rubio, widely thought to have his eye on the 2016 presidential race.

In remarks just before the vote, McConnell repeatedly called the agreement “imperfect” but said it beat allowing income tax rates rise across the board.

“I know I can speak for my entire conference when I say we don’t think taxes should be going up on anyone, but we all knew that if we did nothing they’d be going up on everyone today,” he said. “We weren’t going to let that happen.”

“Our most important priority was to protect middle-class families. This legislation does that,” Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said. But Reid cautioned that “passing this agreement does not mean negotiations halt. Far from it.”

Compromises on tax rates

Under the compromise arrangement, taxes would rise on income above $400,000 for individuals and $450,000 for households, while exemptions and deductions the wealthiest Americans use to reduce their tax bill would face new limits. The accord would also raise the taxes paid on large inheritances from 35% to 40% for estates over $5 million. And it would extend by one year unemployment benefits for some two million Americans. It would also prevent cuts in payments to doctors who treat Medicare patients and spare tens of millions of Americans who otherwise would have been hit with the Alternative Minimum Tax.

The middle class will still see its taxes go up: The final deal did not include an extension of the payroll tax holiday. And the overall package will deepen the deficit by hundreds of billions of dollars by extending the overwhelming majority of the Bush tax cuts. Many Democrats had opposed those measures in 2001 and 2003. Obama agreed to extend them in 2010.

Efforts to modify the first installment of $1.2 trillion in cuts to domestic and defense programs over 10 years -- the other portion of the “fiscal cliff,” known as sequestration -- had proved a sticking point late in the game. Democrats had sought a year-long freeze but ultimately caved to Republican pressure and signed on to just a two-month delay while broader deficit-reduction talks continue.

Debt-limit battle looms

That would put the next major battle over spending cuts right around the time that the White House and its Republican foes are battling it out over whether to raise the country's debt limit. Republicans have vowed to push for more spending cuts, equivalent to the amount of new borrowing. Obama has vowed not to negotiate as he did in 2011, when a bruising fight threatened the first-ever default on America's obligations and resulted in the first-ever downgrade of the country's credit rating. Biden sent that message to Democrats in Congress, two senators said.

Experts had warned that the fiscal cliff's tax increases and spending cuts, taken together, could plunge the still-fragile economy into a new recession.

Biden, evidently in good spirits after playing a central role in crafting the deal, said little on his way into or out of a roughly one hour and 45 minute meeting behind closed doors with Senate Democrats. "Happy New Year," he said on the way in. Asked on the way out what his chief selling point had been, the vice president reportedly replied: "Me."

Biden's intervention; hurdles in the House

Hours earlier, a Democratic Senate aide told Yahoo News that "the White House and Republicans have a deal," while a source familiar with the negotiations said President Barack Obama had discussed the compromise with Reid and Democratic House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and "they both signed off."

But the House’s Republican leaders, including Speaker John Boehner, hinted in an unusual joint statement that they might amend anything that clears the Senate – a step that could kill the deal.

“Decisions about whether the House will seek to accept or promptly amend the measure will not be made until House members -- and the American people -- have been able to review the legislation,” they said.

Biden, a 36-year Senate veteran, worked out the agreement with McConnell after talks between Obama and Boehner collapsed and a similar effort between McConnell and Reid followed suit shortly thereafter. With the deal mostly done, Obama made a final push at the White House.

“Today, it appears that an agreement to prevent this New Year's tax hike is within sight, but it's not done,” Obama said in hastily announced midday remarks at the White House. “There are still issues left to resolve, but we're hopeful that Congress can get it done – but it’s not done.”

"One thing we can count on with respect to this Congress is that if there is even one second left before you have to do what you’re supposed to do, they will use that last second," he said.

Obama’s remarks – by turns scolding, triumphant, and mocking of Congress – came after talks between McConnell and Biden appeared to seal the breakthrough deal.

“I can report that we’ve reached an agreement on all of the tax issues,” McConnell said on the Senate floor moments later. “We are very, very close to an agreement.”

The Kentucky Republican later briefed Republicans on the details of the deal. Lawmakers emerged from that closed-door session offered hopeful appraisals that, after clearing a few last-minute hurdles, they could vote on New Year’s Eve or with 2013 just hours old.

“Tonight, I hope,” Republican Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee told reporters. “It may be at 1, 2, 3, 4 in the morning. Oh, I guess that’s technically tomorrow.”

Reckoning with the 'sequester'

Republican Senators said negotiators were still working on a way to forestall two months of the “sequester” spending cuts, about $20 billion worth. And some expressed disquiet that the tentative compromise ran high on tax increases and low on spending cuts -- while warning that failure to act, triggering some $600 billion in income tax increases on all Americans who pay it and draconian spending cuts, was the worse option.

McConnell earlier had called for a vote on the tax component of the deal.

“Let me be clear: We’ll continue to work on finding smarter ways to cut spending, but let’s not let that hold up protecting Americans from the tax hike,” McConnell urged. “Let’s pass the tax relief portion now. Let’s take what’s been agreed to and get moving.”

House passage was not a sure thing: Both the AFL-CIO labor union and the conservative Heritage Action organization argued against the package.

The breakthrough came after McConnell announced Sunday that he had started to negotiate with Biden in a bid to "jump-start" stalled talks to avoid the fiscal cliff.

Under their tentative deal, the top tax rate on household income above $450,000 would rise from 35 percent to 39.6 percent -- where it was under Bill Clinton, before the reductions enacted under George W. Bush in 2001 and 2003.

Some congressional liberals had expressed objections to extending tax cuts above the $250,000 income threshold Obama cited throughout the 2012 campaign. Democrats were huddling in private as well to work out whether they could support the arrangement.

Obama responds to critics

Possibly with balking progressives in mind, Obama trumpeted victories dear to the left of his party. "The potential agreement that’s being talked about would not only make sure the taxes don’t go up on middle-class families, it also would extend tax credits for families with children. It would extend our tuition tax credit that’s helped millions of families pay for college. It would extend tax credits for clean energy companies that are creating jobs and reducing our dependence on foreign oil. It would extend unemployment insurance to 2 million Americans who are out there still actively looking for a job."

Obama said he had hoped for "a larger agreement, a bigger deal, a grand bargain," to stem the tide of red ink swamping the country’s finances – but shelved that goal.

"With this Congress, that was obviously a little too much to hope for at this time," he said. "It may be we can do it in stages. We’re going to solve this problem instead in several steps."

The president also looked ahead to his next budgetary battle with Republicans, warning that “any future deficit agreement” will have to couple spending cuts with tax increases. He expressed a willingness to reduce spending on popular programs like Medicare, but said entitlement reform would have to go hand in hand with new tax revenues.

“If Republicans think that I will finish the job of deficit reduction through spending cuts alone … then they’ve another thing coming,” Obama said defiantly. “That’s not how it’s going to work.”

“If we’re serious about deficit reduction and debt reduction, then it’s going to have to be a matter of shared sacrifice. At least as long as I’m president. And I’m going to be president for the next four years, I hope,” he said.

The other “no” votes were: Michael Bennet (D-Col.), Tom Carper (D-Del.), Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), Mike Lee (R-Utah), Rand Paul (R-Ken.), and Richard Shelby (R-Ala.). Republicans Jim DeMint of South Carolina and Mark Kirk of Illinois as well as Democrat Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey did not vote.

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Asian nations giving enthusiastic welcome to 2013

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Fiscal cliff? Recession? Not in Asia, where the first countries to see 2013 are enthusiastically welcoming the new year.

Increasingly democratic Myanmar is having a public countdown for the first time. Jakarta plans a huge street party befitting Indonesia's powering economy.

In Sydney, eager revelers camped Sunday night on the shores of the harbor to get the best vantage points as 1.5 million were expected to gather to watch the fireworks show centered on the Sydney Harbor Bridge.

The shores were packed when an eight-minute preliminary show for young children exploded over the harbor three hours before the main event in Sydney and as the clock struck midnight in Samoa and other South Pacific islands to the east, ushering in the new year there.

In Hong Kong, this year's 12.5 million Hong Kong dollar ($1.6 million) fireworks display is billed by organizers as the biggest ever in the southern Chinese city. Police expected as many as 100,000 people to watch, local news reports said.

The buoyant economies of the Asia-Pacific are prepared to party with renewed optimism despite the so-called fiscal cliff threatening to reverberate globally from the United States and the tattered economies of Europe.

Celebrations were planned around the world, with hundreds of thousands expected to fill Times Square in New York City to watch the drop of a Waterford crystal-studded ball.

One day after dancing in the snow to celebrate the first anniversary of leader Kim Jong Un's ascension to supreme commander, North Koreans were preparing to mark the arrival of the new year, marked as "Juche 102" on North Korean calendars. Juche means self-reliance, the North Korean ideology of independence promoted by national founder Kim Il Sung, who was born 102 years ago. His grandson now rules North Korea.

In New Delhi, the festive mood was marred by the death Saturday of a young rape victim.

Hotels, clubs and residents' associations in the Indian capital decided to cancel planned festivities and asked people to light candles to express their solidarity with the victim whose plight sparked public rallies for women's safety.

"Let there be no New Year celebrations across the country. It will be a major tribute to the departed soul," said Praveen Khandelwal, secretary-general of the Confederation of All India Traders, an umbrella group of operators of shops and businesses across the country.

In a field in Myanmar's largest city, Yangon, workers were testing a giant digital countdown screen with the backdrop of the revered Shwedagon pagoda.

Arranged by local Forever Media group and Index Creative Village, a Thai event organizer, the celebration is the first public New Year countdown in Myanmar, a country ruled for almost five decades by military regimes that discouraged or banned big public gatherings.

"We are planning this public New Year event because we want residents of Yangon to enjoy the public countdown like in other countries," said Win Thura Hlaing, managing director of Forever Blossom company, a subsidiary of Forever Media.

With live music performances by celebrities, light shows, food stalls, fireworks and other activities, the countdown is expected to draw 50,000 people, Win Thura Hlaing said.

Jakarta's street party centers on a 7-kilometer (4-mile) main thoroughfare closed to all traffic from nightfall until after midnight. Workers erected 16 large stages along the normally car-clogged, eight-lane highway through the heart of the city. Indonesia's booming economy is a rare bright spot amid global gloom and is bringing prosperity — or the hope of it — to Indonesians.

Spirits in the capital have been further raised by the election of a new, populist governor who is pledging to tackle the city's massive infrastructure problems.

In Sydney, Lord Mayor Clover Moore said about 1.5 million spectators were expected to line the harbor to watch the 6.6 million Australian dollar ($6.9 million) fireworks display, while another 2 million Australians among a population of 22 million would watch on television.

"This is really putting Australia on the map in terms of welcoming people to the new year," Moore told reporters before the event.

Thousands lined the harbor shore in festive crowds under a blue summer sky by late afternoon, their number undiminished by Australian government warnings that the Washington deadlock on the U.S. debt crisis was partly to blame for a slowing Australian economy.

Australian pop singer Kylie Minogue was hosting the event.

Florida tourist Melissa Sjostedt was among the thousands gathered near a southern pylon of the bridge. She said seeing the fireworks would fulfill an ambition that began a decade ago when she read about them in National Geographic magazine.

"Ever since that, I've always wanted to see this for real, live, in person," she said.

New Yorker Mathieu Herman said he had flown to Australia specifically for the New Year celebrations on the harbor.

"I saw it last year on TV and it looked fabulous. I said to myself it's something I've just got to do," Herman said.

Despite a somber mood in the Philippines due to devastation from a recent typhoon, a key problem for authorities remained how to prevent revelers from setting off huge illegal firecrackers — including some nicknamed "Goodbye Philippines" and "Bin Laden" — that maim and injure hundreds of Filipinos each year, including many children.

A government scare tactic involving doctors displaying brutal-looking scalpels used for amputations for firecracker victims has not fully worked in the past so health officials came up with a novel idea: Go Gangnam style.

A government health official, Eric Tayag, donned the splashy outfit of South Korean star PSY and danced to his Youtube hit "Gangnam Style" video while preaching against the use of illegal firecrackers on TV, in schools and in public arenas.

"The campaign has become viral," Tayag said. "We've asked kids and adults to stay away from big firecrackers and just dance the Gangnam and they're doing it."

Hong Kong feng shui master Raymond Lo predicted 2013 would be less turbulent than 2012 because the Chinese New Year in February will usher in the year of the snake, bringing an end to the year of the dragon, which was associated with water. Water is one of the five elements in feng shui theory, the Chinese practice of arranging objects and choosing dates to improve luck.

"Water is fear. So that's why we have had so much turbulence especially in the winter months," such as doomsday prophecies, school shootings and concerns about the fiscal cliff, said Lo.

"But the good news is that the coming year of the snake is the first time that fire has come back since 2007. Fire actually is the opposite to water, fire is happiness. So therefore the year of the snake is a much more optimistic year. So you can see signs of economic recovery now," he added.

"The positive thing is that people are very optimistic, therefore it will have a very strong drive on the economic recovery. We expect the stock market will do well, the property market will do well," Lo said.

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Associated Press writers Aye Aye Win in Yangon, Myanmar; Jean Lee in Pyongyang, North Korea; Chris Brummitt in Jakarta, Indonesia; Kelvin Chan in Hong Kong; Ashok Sharma in New Delhi; and Jim Gomez in Manila, Philippines, contributed to this report.

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Kanye West, Kim Kardashian expecting 1st child

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) — A kid for Kimye: Kanye West and Kim Kardashian are expecting their first child.

The rapper announced at a concert Sunday night that his girlfriend is pregnant. He told the crowd of more than 5,000 at Revel Resort's Ovation Hall in song form: "Now you having my baby."

The crowd roared. And so did people on the Internet.

The news instantly went viral on Twitter and Facebook, with thousands posting and commenting on the expecting couple.

Most of the Kardashian clan also tweeted about the news, including Kim's sisters and mother. Kourtney Kardashian wrote: "Another angel to welcome to our family. Overwhelmed with excitement!"

West, 35, also told concertgoers to congratulate his "baby mom" and that this was the "most amazing thing."

Representatives for West and Kardashian, 32, didn't immediately respond to emails about the pregnancy.

The rapper and reality TV star went public in March.

Kardashian married NBA player Kris Humphries in August 2011 and their divorce is not finalized.

West's Sunday night show was his third consecutive performance at Revel. He took the stage for nearly two hours, performing hits like "Good Life," ''Jesus Walks" and "Clique" in an all-white ensemble with two band mates.

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AP Writer Bianca Roach contributed to this report.

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Kenya hospital imprisons new mothers with no money

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The director of the Pumwani Maternity Hospital, located in a hardscrabble neighborhood of downtown Nairobi, freely acknowledges what he's accused of: detaining mothers who can't pay their bills. Lazarus Omondi says it's the only way he can keep his medical center running.

Two mothers who live in a mud-wall and tin-roof slum a short walk from the maternity hospital, which is affiliated with the Nairobi City Council, told The Associated Press that Pumwani wouldn't let them leave after delivering their babies. The bills the mothers couldn't afford were $60 and $160. Guards would beat mothers with sticks who tried to leave without paying, one of the women said.

Now, a New York-based group has filed a lawsuit on the women's behalf in hopes of forcing Pumwani to stop the practice, a practice Omondi is candid about.

"We hold you and squeeze you until we get what we can get. We must be self-sufficient," Omondi said in an interview in his hospital office. "The hospital must get money to pay electricity, to pay water. We must pay our doctors and our workers."

"They stay there until they pay. They must pay," he said of the 350 mothers who give birth each week on average. "If you don't pay the hospital will collapse."

The Center for Reproductive Rights, which filed the suit this month in the High Court of Kenya, says detaining women for not paying is illegal. Pumwani is associated with the Nairobi City Council, one reason it might be able to get away with such practices, and the patients are among Nairobi's poorest with hardly anyone to stand up for them.

Maimouna Awuor was an impoverished mother of four when she was to give birth to her fifth in October 2010. Like many who live in Nairobi's slums, Awuor performs odd jobs in the hopes of earning enough money to feed her kids that day. Awuor, who is named in the lawsuit, says she had saved $12 and hoped to go to a lower-cost clinic but was turned away and sent to Pumwani. After giving birth, she couldn't pay the $60 bill, and was held with what she believes was about 60 other women and their infants.

"We were sleeping three to a bed, sometimes four," she said. "They abuse you, they call you names," she said of the hospital staff.

She said saw some women tried to flee but they were beaten by the guards and turned back. While her husband worked at a faraway refugee camp, Awuor's 9-year-old daughter took care of her siblings. A friend helped feed them, she said, while the children stayed in the family's 50-square-foot shack, where rent is $18 a month. She says she was released after 20 days after Nairobi's mayor paid her bill. Politicians in Kenya in general are expected to give out money and get a budget to do so.

A second mother named in the lawsuit, Margaret Anyoso, says she was locked up in Pumwani for six days in 2010 because she could not pay her $160 bill. Her pregnancy was complicated by a punctured bladder and heavy bleeding.

"I did not see my child until the sixth day after the surgery. The hospital staff were keeping her away from me and it was only when I caused a scene that they brought her to me," said Anyoso, a vegetable seller and a single mother with five children who makes $5 on a good day.

Anyoso said she didn't have clothes for her child so she wrapped her in a blood-stained blouse. She was released after relatives paid the bill.

One woman says she was detained for nine months and was released only after going on a hunger strike. The Center for Reproductive Rights says other hospitals also detain non-paying patients.

Judy Okal, the acting Africa director for the Center for Reproductive Rights, said her group filed the lawsuit so all Kenyan women, regardless of socio-economic status, are able to receive health care without fear of imprisonment. The hospital, the attorney general, the City Council of Nairobi and two government ministries are named in the suit.

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Associated Press reporter Tom Odula contributed to this report.

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Markets calm despite looming fiscal cliff

LONDON (AP) — Markets appeared Monday to be taking in stride the prospect that U.S. politicians will fail to agree a budget deal in time to avoid automatic tax increases and spending cuts that many economists think could tilt the world's largest economy back into recession.

With just hours to go before the U.S. falls off the so-called "fiscal cliff," Republicans and Democrats remained divided over tax and spend, raising the prospect that markets will start 2013 without a clear idea of America's budget policy. The main sticking point appears to be what level of taxes are imposed on higher incomes.

Discussions in the Senate broke off Sunday night without an agreement. The Senators will return to their offices Monday to try and hammer out a deal before the deadline.

"With the gulf between both parties still wide and the desire to protect their supporters' key interests so ingrained, it is difficult to see how both sides can compromise enough to agree a deal at this point," said Rebecca O'Keeffe, head of investment at Interactive Investor.

However, it's not the first time that budget discussions in the U.S. have gone down to the wire, and investors remain confident that some sort of deal will be reached, if not Monday then in the coming days or weeks. As a result, they think that the potential damage wrought by higher taxes and spending cuts will be limited.

In addition, a backup proposal that would address only a few issues is expected to be presented by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat, if a bipartisan deal is not reached.

The prospect of counter-measures to offset the "fiscal cliff" impact helps explain why markets were fairly calm in Europe and Asia, and Wall Street was poised to open higher.

In Europe, the FTSE 100 index of leading British shares was down 0.4 percent at 5,901 but the CAC-40 in France was 0.4 percent higher at 3,633. Most European indexes are only trading for half of the day ahead of the New Year break, while others including Germany's DAX were closed.

U.S. stocks were poised for gains at the open, with Dow futures up 0.2 percent and the broader S&P 500 futures 0.4 percent higher, even though in theory, the U.S. faces around $671 billion of tax increases and spending cuts over the coming months, equivalent to the sort of fiscal tightening taking place in highly indebted Europe.

Clearly, their full imposition would hobble an economy that has shown some signs of late of a more sustainable economic recovery.

Some economists predict the tax-and-spending effects of the "fiscal cliff" could eventually throw the U.S. economy back into recession — although if the deadline passes, politicians still have a few weeks to keep the tax hikes and spending cuts at bay by repealing them retroactively once a deal is reached.

"It is likely that many of the fiscal cliff measures allow a certain amount of room within which the government can introduce measures to refrain from any tax increases," said Joshua Mahony, an analyst at Alpari.

Still, the failure to adhere to the deadline following weeks of squabbling and procrastination could be view negatively by the major credit rating agencies and weigh on investor confidence going into 2013.

"I think the market reaction to that will be very negative. This means the U.S. will never be able to bring its house in order. And the deficit will continue to accumulate," said Francis Lun, managing director of Lyncean Holdings in Hong Kong. "No meaningful reform and no solution in sight. You can throw confidence out of the window."

Earlier in Asia, the picture was fairly subdued in those markets that were open — among others, markets in Japan and South Korea were closed for the New Year's holidays.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng, trading for a half-day, closed marginally lower at 22,656.92, while mainland Chinese stocks rose after a private survey showed the country's manufacturing growth at its strongest level in 18 months in December. Australia's S&P/ASX 200 fell 0.5 percent to close at 4,648.90.

There was also a fairly calm atmosphere in other financial markets, with the euro down just 0.2 percent at $1.3191 and the price of benchmark New York crude down 11 cents at $90.69 a barrel.

____

Sampson contributed from Bangkok.

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India rape victim's body cremated in New Delhi

NEW DELHI (AP) — A young woman who died after being gang-raped and beaten on a bus in India's capital was cremated Sunday amid an outpouring of anger and grief by millions across the country demanding greater protection for women from sexual violence.

The cremation took place during a private ceremony in New Delhi soon after the woman's body arrived in the capital on a special Air India flight from Singapore, where she died at a hospital Saturday after being sent for medical treatment.

The tragedy has forced India to confront the reality that sexually assaulted women are often blamed for the crime, forcing them to keep quiet and discouraging them from going to authorities for fear of exposing their families to ridicule. Police often refuse to accept complaints from rape victims, and the rare prosecutions that reach courts can drag on for years.

Security was tight, with no access to the public or media at the crematorium.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi, head of the ruling Congress party, were at the airport to receive the body and meet family members of the victim who were on the flight.

Hours after the victim died early Saturday, Indian police charged six men who had been arrested in connection with the attack with murder, adding to accusations that they beat and gang-raped the woman on a New Delhi bus on Dec. 16.

New Delhi police spokesman Rajan Bhagat said the six suspects face the death penalty if convicted, in a case that has triggered protests across India and raised questions about lax attitudes by police toward sexual crimes.

After 10 days at a hospital in New Delhi, the victim, who has not been identified, was taken Thursday to Singapore's Mount Elizabeth hospital, which specializes in multi-organ transplants, but her condition worsened, with her vital signs deteriorating.

Following her death, thousands of Indians lit candles, held prayer meetings and marched through various cities and towns, including New Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and Kolkata, on Saturday night to express their grief and demand stronger protection for women and the death penalty for rape, which is now punishable by a maximum of life imprisonment.

But even as thousands mourned the rape victim's death and in a sign of how pervasive such crimes are, police in West Bengal state were investigating another suspected gang-rape and death.

In the latest case, the family of a woman said she and her husband were attacked by six men as they returned home after working at a brick factory.

They dragged the woman into a nearby farm after pouring acid into her husband's mouth, the family said.

The woman was found dead with multiple injuries, said police officer Bhaskar Mukherjee, adding he was waiting for an autopsy report.

No charges have been laid. Another police officer, Sugata Sen, said four men had been detained for questioning.

The alleged attack is similar to the Dec. 16 case, where the woman and a male friend, who also has not been identified, were on a bus after watching a film when they were attacked by six men who raped her. The men beat the couple and inserted an iron rod into the woman's body, resulting in severe organ damage. Both were then stripped and thrown off the bus, according to police.

Dozens of protesters tried to break through a police cordon Sunday and march to the parliament building in the Indian capital, but were pushed back. The protesters, belonging to the student wing of main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, shouted anti-government slogans as they marched.

Hundreds of policemen have sealed off the high-security area, where the seat of India's government is located, in anticipation of more protests. The area is home to parliament, the president's palace, the prime minister's office and several ministries.

Gandhi assured the protesters in a statement that the rape victim's death "deepens our determination to battle the pervasive, the shameful social attitudes and mindset that allow men to rape and molest women and girls with such an impunity."

Attitudes by Indians toward rape are so entrenched that even politicians and opinion makers have often suggested that women should not go out at night or wear clothes that might be seen as provocative.

Meanwhile, a United Nations statement said U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon "offers his sincerest condolences" to the victim's family and "utterly condemns this brutal crime."

"Violence against women must never be accepted, never excused, never tolerated," the statement said. "Every girl and woman has the right to be respected, valued and protected."

Ban urged the Indian government to take steps to deter such crimes and bring perpetrators to justice, and to "strengthen critical services for rape victims," it said.

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Five-year-old finds porn on refurbished Nintendo 3DS from GameStop

Five-year-old Brandon Giles must have been excited to receive a Nintendo 3DS for Christmas — at least, he was until he turned it on. According to 9News, Giles’ father bought a refurbished 3DS from GameStop (GME) in Colorado for his son. However, when his son turned  it on and started poking around, he found nine pornographic images of two people in a bed and asked his brother to help him erase them. That’s when the father gave GameStop a call. GameStop’s response was that the images were most likely left over from its previous owner and an employee failed to properly wipe out the data on the 3DS before re-stocking it. “We have a rigorous quality control process in place to ensure that existing content is removed from all devices before they are re-sold,” GameStop said in a statement issued from its corporate office. “Out of millions of transactions each year, ones like this happen very rarely. Our number one priority is to make this right for our customer.”

[More from BGR: Samsung could face $ 15 billion fine for trying to ban iPhone, other Apple devices]

The bigger question many people are asking is, why would anyone take pornographic photos with the 3DS’s terrible low-res cameras? We may never know the answer.

This article was originally published by BGR

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