New information from Web analytics firm Experian Hitwise suggests Instagram has recovered nicely from a seemingly disastrous privacy policy uproar last month.
For the 15 days since December 18, Instagram.com received more than 41.7 million total U.S. visits, an increase of 18 percent compared with the 15 days prior to the controversial proposed policy changes. The data was provided to CNET by Experian Marketing Services on request.
"The holidays see a spike in traffic as people are sharing more pictures than perhaps normal," Experian Marketing Services spokesman Matt Tatham told CNET, adding that the data doesn't include mobile traffic.
Facebook declined to provide official data or comment on this story.
Instagram members were alarmed in mid December when the Facebook-owned property announced it would include new language in its terms of service. The ambiguous language additions led many to believe that Instagram would be allowed to sell members' photos without their permission and without payment. The proposed changes set off a ruckus so loud that many users, influential celebrities included, said they'd be deleting their accounts.
Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom responded by assuring members that their photos would not be sold, and he apologized for the confusion. The offending language has since been removed -- with Instagram reverting to its 2010 terms of service just before the holiday season kicked in -- but the damage was done, according to a widely circulated New York Post article claiming an Instagram exodus was in effect. That story cited third-party data from AppData -- which tracks Instagram users who log on through Facebook -- that showed a decline of close to 25 percent of the app's daily active users. An Instagram representative told CNET that the data was inaccurate.
If Instagram's Web traffic is any indicator, the photo-sharing app is weathering its privacy storm quite nicely, likely with the holidays to thank for its buoyancy. The 18 percent uptick in Web traffic is not reflective of user growth or indicative of any changes on mobile; it may represent nothing more than normal holiday fluctuations in sharing behaviors. Still, the 41.7 million visits Instagram accrued during the past 15 days speak to the continued relevance and growing footprint of a service that many turn to for sharing their most intimate moments.
ABIDJAN, Ivory CoastA crowd stampeded after leaving a New Year's fireworks show early Tuesday in Ivory Coast's main city, killing 61 people — many of them children and teenagers — and injuring more than 200, rescue workers said.
Thousands had gathered at the Felix Houphouet Boigny Stadium in Abidjan's Plateau district to see the fireworks. It was only the second New Year's Eve fireworks display since peace returned to this West African nation after a bloody upheaval over presidential elections put the nation on the brink of civil war and turned this city into a battle zone.
With 2013 showing greater promise, people were in the mood to celebrate on New Year's Eve. Families brought children and they watched the rockets burst in the nighttime sky. But only an hour into the new year, as the crowds poured onto the Boulevard de la Republic after the show, something caused a stampede, said Col. Issa Sako of the fire department rescue team. How so many deaths occurred on the broad boulevard and how the tragedy started is likely to be the subject of an investigation.
Many of the younger ones in the crowd went down, trampled underfoot. Most of those killed were between 8 and 15 years old
"The flood of people leaving the stadium became a stampede which led to the deaths of more than 60 and injured more than 200," Sako told Ivory Coast state TV.
Desperate parents went to the city morgue, the hospital and to the stadium to try to find missing children. Mamadou Sanogo was searching for his 9-year-old son, Sayed.
"I have just seen all the bodies, but I cannot find my son," said a tearful Sanogo. "I don't know what to do."
State TV showed a woman sobbing in the back of an ambulance; another was bent over on the side of the street, apparently in pain; and another, barely conscious and wearing only a bra on her upper body, was hoisted by rescuers. There were also scenes of small children being treated in a hospital. One boy grimaced in pain and a girl with colored braids in her hair lay under a blanket with one hand bandaged. The death toll could rise, officials said.
After the sun came up, soldiers were patrolling the site that was littered with victims' clothes, shoes, torn sandals and other belongings. President Alassane Ouattara and his wife Dominique visited some of the injured in the hospital. Mrs. Ouattara leaned over one child who was on a bed in a crowded hospital ward and tried to console the youngster. The president pledged that the government would pay for their treatment, his office said.
The government organized the fireworks to celebrate Ivory Coast's peace, after several months of political violence in early 2011 following disputed elections.
This is not Ivory Coast's first stadium tragedy. In 2009, 22 people died and over 130 were injured in a stampede at a World Cup qualifying match at the Houphouet Boigny Stadium, prompting FIFA, soccer's global governing body, to impose a fine of tens of thousands of dollars on Ivory Coast's soccer federation. The stadium, which officially holds 35,000, was overcrowded at the time of the disaster.
A year later, two people were killed and 30 wounded in a stampede at a municipal stadium during a reggae concert in Bouake, the country's second-largest city. The concert was organized in the city, held by rebels at the time, to promote peace and reconciliation.
Ivory Coast is the world's largest cocoa producer, growing more than 37 percent of the world's annual crop of cocoa beans, which are used to make chocolate.
Top House Republicans today opposed a bipartisan compromise that passed the Senate in the wee hours of New Year's Day to avert the "fiscal cliff," amid concerns about the cost of spending and extending tax cuts in the plan.
If House Republicans tweak the legislation, as they seem likely to do, there's no clear path for its return to the Senate before a new Congress is sworn in Thursday.
GOP leaders emerged from a morning conference meeting disenchanted by the legislative package devised by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Vice President Biden early this morning, with several insisting they cannot vote on it as it now stands.
"I do not support the bill," House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., said as he left the meeting. "We're looking for the best path forward. No decisions have been made yet."
It's almost certain that Republicans will attempt to amend the bill in order to win over the support of more conservatives.
House Speaker John Boehner refused to comment on the meeting, but his spokesman said "the lack of spending cuts in the Senate bill was a universal concern amongst members in today's meeting."
"Conversations with members will continue throughout the afternoon on the path forward," Brendan Buck said in a statement.
As lawmakers wrestled with the legislation, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that the bill's added spending combined with the cost of extending tax cuts for those making under $400,000 would actually add $3.9 trillion to the deficit over the next 10 years. The Joint Committee on Taxation reached a similar conclusion.
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The impasse once again raised the specter of sweeping tax hikes on all Americans and deep spending cuts' taking effect later this week.
"This is all about time, and it's about time that we brought this to the floor," House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said after emerging from a meeting with Democrats.
"It was a bill that was passed in the U.S. senate 89-8. Tell me when you've had that on a measure as controversial as this?" she said of the overwhelming vote.
Pelosi could not say, however, whether the measure had the backing of most House Democrats. "Our members are making their decisions now," she said.
Biden, who brokered the deal with McConnell, joined Democrats for a midday meeting on Capitol Hill seeking to shore up support for the plan.
While Congress technically missed the midnight Dec. 31 deadline to avert the so-called cliff, both sides have expressed eagerness to enact a post-facto fix before Americans go back to work and the stock market opens Wednesday.
"This may take a little while but, honestly, I would argue we should vote on it today," said Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., who sits on the Budget Committee. "We know the essential details and I think putting this thing to bed before the markets is important.
"We ought to take this deal right now and we'll live to fight another day, and it is coming very soon on the spending front."
The Senate passed legislation shortly after 2 a.m. that would extend current tax rates on 98 percent of Americans, raise taxes on the wealthiest earners and delay by two months the pending automatic spending cuts to defense and domestic programs, known as the "sequester."
The measure passed by an overwhelming majority vote of 89-8, boosting the prospects that enough House members would follow suit to make it law.
If the House amends the bill, however, the fragile compromise could get shattered. The Senate would need to reconvene to consider the changes.
A Senate Democratic leadership aide told ABC News, "we did our work, and McConnell's office said they were confident of House passage. All bets are off if they amend our bill."
Meanwhile, most Senators have already returned home, dismissed early this morning by Majority Leader Sen. Harry Reid.
"I've said all along our most important priority is protecting middle-class Americans, this legislation does that," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said early this morning prior to the vote.
ABIDJAN (Reuters) - At least 61 people were crushed to death in a stampede after a New Year's Eve fireworks display at a stadium in Ivory Coast's main city Abidjan early on Tuesday, officials said.
Witnesses said police had tried to control crowds around the Felix Houphouet-Boigny Stadium following the celebrations, triggering a panic in which scores were trampled.
"The estimate we can give right now is 49 people hospitalized ... and 61 people dead," said the chief of staff of Abidjan's fire department Issa Sacko.
Crying women searched for missing family members outside the stadium on Tuesday morning. The area was covered in patches of dried blood and abandoned shoes.
"My two children came here yesterday. I told them not to come but they didn't listen. They came when I was sleeping. What will I do?" said Assetou Toure, a cleaner.
Sanata Zoure, a market vendor injured in the incident, said New Year's revelers going home after watching the fireworks had been stopped by police near the stadium.
"We were walking with our children and we came upon barricades, and people started falling into each other. We were trampled with our children," she said.
Another witness said police arrived to control the crowd after a mob began chasing a pickpocket.
President Alassane Ouattara called the deaths a national tragedy and said an investigation was under way to find out what happened.
"I hope that we can determine what caused this drama so that we can ensure it never happens again," he said after visiting the injured in hospital.
The country, once a stable economic hub for West Africa, is struggling to recover from a 2011 civil war in which more than 3,000 people were killed.
Ivory Coast's security forces once were among the best trained in the region, but a decade of political turmoil and the 2011 war has left them in disarray.
At least 18 people were killed in another stampede during a football match in an Abidjan stadium in 2009.
(Reporting by Loucoumane Coulibaly and Alain Amontchi; Writing by Richard Valdmanis; Editing by Michael Roddy)
KARACHI: A motorcycle bomb exploded Tuesday near the venue of a major political rally in Pakistan's largest city Karachi, killing four people and injuring 42 others, officials said.
The bombing appeared to be targeted at buses carrying supporters of the city's dominant political party, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), which organised the rally attended by thousands of people.
"The latest report we have collected from hospitals said that four people have been killed and 42 are injured," provincial health minister Saghir Ahmad told AFP, updating the earlier toll of two dead and 25 injured.
Another health official at Karachi's Abbasi Shaheed hospital confirmed the new toll.
"The bomb was planted in a motorcycle," said Asif Ijaz, a senior police official.
Imran Shokat, a police spokesman in the southern Sindh province of which Karachi is the capital, said the motorcycle was parked in a congested neighbourhood near the venue of the rally.
"Bomb disposal experts are investigating but preliminary reports said it was a remote-controlled bomb," Shokat told AFP.
Karachi, the commercial capital of Pakistan with an estimated population of 18 million, is in the grip of a long-running wave of political and sectarian violence.
Its Arabian Sea port is used by the United States and NATO to ship supplies to the war in neighbouring, landlocked Afghanistan.
(Credit: Apple Screenshot by Chris Matyszczyk/CNET)
However walled your garden, rodents still pad around, cockroaches still shuffle.
One can only, therefore, feel sympathy for Apple's new ad for the iPhone 5.
It features the mysterious and wonderful Williams sisters. They are in a dream. They are playing the dreamy Jeff Daniels at ping-pong.
And yet the ad also features the phone's "Do Not Disturb" feature, which users can switch on to silence in-coming calls, alerts, and notifications, or set up to perform such silencing during a preordained period of time. And who would want to be disturbed during such a high-level game of table tennis?
The slightly unfortunate aspect is that, as 9to5Mac glumly recognizes, there were reports overnight that this feature did actually disturb.
By not switching itself off.
The forums at MacRumors, for example, were adorned by iPhone users mystified that they had missed vital events such as, who knows, an invitation to a spontaneous brunch or a call informing them they had removed their pants in public last night.
More Technically Incorrect
The problems was reported in Spain, Australia, and even the home of all things current and disturbing, Brooklyn.
I have contacted Apple to see whether this has been noticed by the company and whether this might be mere operator error or something more disturbing.
There will be some who, excited by the slight disturbance over Apple's maps -- not to mention last year's alarm-clock stumble apparently also caused by the New Year rollover -- will be snorting that this is another example of Cupertino's imperfection.
They will sniff in jest that all these people must have been holding their iPhones wrong when they set them not to disturb.
I prefer to imagine that this is all the work of Siri.
She knew what each of these iPhone owners had been through and done on New Year's Eve.
She just wanted to offer them extra rest before reality knocked upon their foreheads and muttered: "Have you any idea what you put in your ear last night?"
LAKE FOREST, Ill. The Chicago Bears fired coach Lovie Smith on Monday after the team missed the playoffs for the fifth time in six seasons.
Smith was informed of the decision by general manager Phil Emery on the day after the Bears beat Detroit to finish 10-6 but still didn't make the playoffs.
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NFL coaches, GMs sacked in firing frenzy
Smith led the Bears to a Super Bowl, but also saw his team collapse in the second half of the past two seasons. Hired in 2004, Smith led the Bears to three division titles, two NFC title games and a 2007 Super Bowl appearance in his nine seasons. His record is 81-63, and he leaves with one year left on his contract.
The Bears scheduled a news conference Tuesday to discuss the move.
Even though Chicago closed with a win, the Bears needed a loss by Minnesota to get into the playoffs. The Vikings, though, beat Green Bay to clinch a postseason spot, leaving Chicago as the second team since the postseason expanded to 12 teams to miss out after a 7-1 start. The other was Washington in 1996.
CBS Sports NFL Insider Jason La Canfora reported Sunday that Smith's tenuous hold on his job "would be further imperiled should his team fail to get into the postseason."
But Smith, who had one year remaining on his current deal, shouldn't have any trouble finding work. League sources told La Canfora that Smith should land head-coaching interviews with other NFL teams.
Smith's record ranks third on the Bears' all-time list, behind George Halas and Mike Ditka.
The highlight of his tenure was the run to the title game that ended with a loss to the Indianapolis Colts. It was the first time two black coaches met for the championship, with Smith going against his mentor Tony Dungy.
The Bears made the playoffs just three times and posted three postseason victories under Smith. The 2010 team beat Seattle after the Seahawks won their division with a 7-9 record, but the Bears lost to Green Bay in the NFC title game at Soldier Field.
There was speculation Smith would be let go following the 2011 team's collapse, but he got one more year while general manager Jerry Angelo was fired.
Ultimately, the struggles on offense did him in.
Known for solid defenses, Smith oversaw a unit that was consistently effective and at times ranked among the league's best with stars such as Brian Urlacher, Lance Briggs and later Julius Peppers. Smith emphasized taking the ball away from the opposition, and no team did it more than the Bears with 310 during his tenure.
But on the other side, it was a different story.
Smith went through four offensive coordinators in Terry Shea, Ron Turner, Mike Martz and Mike Tice. He never could find the right formula, even as the Bears acquired stars such as quarterback Jay Cutler and receiver Brandon Marshall over the years.
The offensive line has struggled in a big way over the past few seasons after age took its toll on a group that was a strength during the 2005 and 2006 playoff seasons. The Bears were never able to replenish, spending first-round picks on Chris Williams (2008) and Gabe Carimi (2011) that did not pan out.
Williams had his contract terminated in October, ending a disappointing run, and Carimi struggled this season after missing most of his rookie year with a knee injury.
While Angelo took the fall after last season, Smith was not without blame in the personnel issues over the years. He pushed to bring in former Rams offensive lineman Orlando Pace and safety Adam Archuleta, players who succeeded in St. Louis when Smith was the defensive coordinator there but were busts with the Bears.
He had no bigger supporter than team matriarch Virginia McCaskey, but the fans seemed split on him. To some, he was a picture of calm, a coach who never lost his composure and never criticized his players in public, the anti-Ditka if you will.
History suggests fans who are clamoring for a high-profile replacement such as Bill Cowher or Jon Gruden might be disappointed. The last time the Bears went with an experienced NFL head coach was when Halas returned to the sideline in 1958.
They might, however, go with an offensive-minded coach for the first time since Mike Ditka was fired after the 1992 season, given the issues in that area.
That the Bears would be in this spot seemed unthinkable after they ripped Tennessee 51-20 on Nov. 4. They were sailing along at 7-1 and eyeing a big playoff run after collapsing the previous season, with the defense taking the ball away and scoring at an eye-opening rate to compensate for a struggling offense, but the schedule took a tougher turn.
They dropped back-to-back games to Houston and San Francisco and five of six in all before closing out with wins at Arizona and Detroit. Injuries mounted along the way, and what looked like a playoff run slipped from their grasp, just as it did after a promising start in 2011.
That year, they won seven of their first 10 only to wind up at 8-8 after a monumental collapse sparked by a season-ending injury to Cutler.
While Angelo was fired, Smith got spared and Emery took the job with a mandate to keep the coach at least one more year.
He quickly went to work retooling the roster, landing Marshall in a blockbuster trade with Miami that reunited Cutler with his favorite target in Denver.
He also added depth in other areas, bringing in Jason Campbell as the backup quarterback after Caleb Hanie failed the previous season and teaming running back Michael Bush in the backfield with Matt Forte.
All those moves sent expectations soaring. The results were awfully familiar, though.
Hillary Clinton's latest health update -- cerebral venous thrombosis -- is a rare and potentially "life-threatening" condition, according to medical experts, but one from which the globe-trotting secretary of state is likely to recover from.
In an update from her doctors, Clinton's brain scans revealed a clot had formed in the right transverse venous sinus, and she was being successfully treated with anticoagulants.
"She is lucky being Hillary Clinton and had a follow-up MRI -- lucky that her team thought to do it," said Dr. Brian D. Greenwald, medical director at JFK Johnson Rehabilitation Center for Head Injuries. "It could have potentially serious complications."
The backup of blood flow could have caused a stroke or hemorrhage, according to Greenwald.
"Imagine this vein, where all the cerebral spinal fluid inside the head and spine no longer flows through this area," he said. "You get a big back up and that itself could cause a stroke. In the long-term … the venous system can't get the blood out of the brain. It's like a Lincoln Tunnel back up."
A transverse sinus thrombosis is a clot arising in one of the major veins that drains the brain. It is an uncommon but serious disorder.
Morne de Klerk/Getty Images
Hillary Clinton Has Blood Clot From Concussion Watch Video
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According to Greenwald, the clot was most likely caused by dehydration brought on by the flu, perhaps exacerbated by a concussion she recently suffered.
"The only time I have seen it happen is when people are severely dehydrated and it causes the blood to be so thick that it causes a clot in the area," said Greenwald. "It's one of the long-term effects of a viral illness."
Drs. Lisa Bardack of the Mt. Kisco Medical Group and Dr. Gigi El-Bayoumi of George Washington University discovered the clot during a routine follow-up MRI on Sunday.
"This is a clot in the vein that is situated in the space between the brain and the skull behind the right ear," they said in a statement today. "It did not result in a stroke, or neurological damage. To help dissolve this clot, her medical team began treating the secretary with blood thinners. She will be released once the medication dose has been established."
Clinton is "making excellent progress," according to her doctors. "She is in good spirits, engaging with her doctors, her family, and her staff."
Clinton, 65, was hospitalized at New York-Presbyterian Hospital Sunday. She suffered a concussion earlier this month after she hit her head when she fainted because of dehydration from a stomach virus, according to an aide.
Dehydration can also precipitate fainting, according to Dr. Neil Martin, head of neurovascular surgery at University of California, Los Angeles Medical Center.
He agreed that the condition could potentially have caused a brain hemorrhage or stroke and been fatal.
"In patients with no symptoms after many days, full recovery is the norm," said Martin. "However, some cases show extension of the thrombus or clot into other regions of the cerebral venous sinuses, and this can worsen the situation considerably -- thus the use of anticoagulants to prevent extension of the thrombus."
But, he said, anticoagulants can be a "double-edged sword." With even a tiny injury within the brain from the concussion, these medications can cause "symptomatic bleed," such as a subdural or intracerebral hemorrhage.
The clot location is not related to the nasal sinuses, but are rather large venous structures in the dura or protective membrane covering the brain, which drains blood from the brain.
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - At least 23 people were killed and 87 wounded in attacks across Iraq on Monday, police said, underlining sectarian and ethnic divisions that threaten to further destabilize the country a year after U.S. troops left.
Tensions between Shi'ite, Kurdish and Sunni factions in Iraq's power-sharing government have been on the rise this year. Militants strike almost daily and have staged at least one big attack a month.
The latest violence followed more than a week of protests against Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki by thousands of people from the minority Sunni community.
No group claimed responsibility for any of Monday's attacks, which targeted government officials, police patrols and members of both the Sunni and Shi'ite communities.
Seven people from the same Sunni family were killed by a bomb planted near their home in the town of Mussayab, south of Baghdad.
In the Shi'ite majority city of Hilla, also in the south, a parked car bomb went off near the convoy of the governor of Babil province, missing him but killing two other people, police said.
"We heard the sound of a big explosion and the windows of our office shattered. We immediately lay on the ground," said 28-year-old Mohammed Ahmed, who works at a hospital near the site of the explosion.
"After a few minutes I stood up and went to the windows to see what happened. I saw flames and people lying on the ground."
In the capital Baghdad, five people were killed by a parked car bomb targeting pilgrims before a Shi'ite religious rite this week, police and hospital sources said.
Although violence is far lower than during the sectarian slaughter of 2006-2007, about 2,000 people have been killed in Iraq this year following the withdrawal last December of U.S. troops, who led an invasion in 2003 to overthrow Sunni dictator Saddam Hussein.
SUNNIS PROTEST
Violence also hit Iraq's disputed territories, over which both the central government and the autonomous Kurdish region claim jurisdiction.
Three militants and one Kurdish guard were killed in the oil-producing, ethnically mixed city of Kirkuk, where militants driving a car packed with explosives tried to break into a Kurdish security office.
Earlier on Monday, two policemen were killed in Kirkuk when a bomb they were trying to detonate exploded prematurely. An army official and his bodyguard were also killed in a drive-by shooting in the south of the city.
Kirkuk lies at the heart of a feud between Baghdad and Kurdistan over land and oil rights, which escalated last month when both sides deployed their respective armies to the swath of territory along their contested internal boundary.
Efforts to ease the standoff stalled when President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd seen as a steadying influence, suffered a stroke and was flown abroad for medical care in December.
Maliki then detained the bodyguards of his Sunni finance minister, which ignited anti-government protests in the western province of Anbar, a Sunni stronghold on the border with Syria.
A lecturer in law at Baghdad University said the protests could help create the conditions for militant Islamist groups like al Qaeda to thrive.
"Raising tension in Anbar and other provinces with mainly Sunni populations is definitely playing into the hands of al Qaeda and other insurgent groups," Ahmed Younis said.
More than 1,000 people protested in the city of Samarra on Monday and rallies continued in Ramadi, center of the protests, and in Mosul, where about 500 people took to the streets.
In the city of Falluja, where protesters have also staged large rallies and blocked a major highway over the past week, gunmen attacked an army checkpoint, killing one soldier.
Protesters are demanding an end to what they see as the marginalization of Sunnis, who dominated the country until the U.S.-led invasion. They want Maliki to abolish anti-terrorism laws they say are used to persecute them.
On Sunday, Deputy Prime Minister Saleh al-Mutlaq, himself a Sunni, was forced to flee a protest in Ramadi when demonstrators pelted him with stones and bottles.
The civil war in neighboring Syria, where majority Sunnis are fighting to topple a ruler backed by Shi'ite Iran, is also whipping up sectarian sentiment in Iraq.
"The toppling of President Bashar al-Assad and empowerment of Sunnis (in Syria) will definitely encourage al Qaeda to regain ground," Younis said.
(Reporting by Ali al-Rubaie in Hilla, Mustafa Mahmoud and Omar Mohammed in Kirkuk, Ali Mohammed in Baquba and Ahmed Rasheed and Aseel Kami in Baghdad; Writing by Isabel Coles; Editing by Alison Williams)
WASHINGTON: The US Treasury said the country would hit its debt ceiling on Monday as expected, forcing it to take measures to keep funding the government while political leaders battle over the deficit.
The Treasury said it would adjust its handling of civil service pension fund assets to be able to keep operating under the $16.394 trillion borrowing limit without slashing federal spending, suggesting it could do this for at least two months.
"We will reach the statutory debt limit today," a Treasury official told reporters.
In an official letter to Congress, the Treasury detailed the extraordinary measures it would undertake to keep the government afloat, which would last to February 28, 2013.
The statement came as Democrats and Republicans continued to joust over measures to correct the country's deep deficit, with a last-minute deal in the works late Monday to avert the steep tax increases of the fiscal cliff.
But the deal appeared not to include any increase in the congressionally-mandated official debt ceiling, as President Barack Obama had demanded.
That left open the possibility of another showdown like that of July 2011 over how to bridge the fiscal deficit and reduce the debt load.
The brinksmanship over the ceiling last year led to Standard & Poor's cutting the US's top-level AAA credit rating for the first time in history, putting it at AA+ with a "negative" outlook.
On Friday S&P said that any deal to fix the fiscal cliff package of economy-crunching tax hikes and spending cuts would not help the country's credit rating.
In 2011, S&P said, its downgrade was rooted in "the political brinkmanship of recent months (that) highlights what we see as America's governance and policymaking becoming less stable, less effective, and less predictable".
"We believe that this characterisation still holds," it said Friday.
