Falcons put end to Brees' TD streak

The Atlanta Falcons couldn't do anything offensively.

Not to worry. The defense left Drew Brees with egg on his face.

Brees threw five interceptions for the first time in his career and, rubbing salt in the wound, the Falcons also ended his NFL-record streak of touchdown passes. The result was a 23-13 victory Thursday night that pushed Atlanta to the brink of a division championship and might have finished off the Saints' fading playoff hopes.

The Falcons (11-1) built an early 17-0 lead, then struggled to move the ball. They finished with 283 yards, by far the lowest total allowed this season by a Saints defense that was on pace to give up the most yards in NFL history.

But William Moore had two interceptions, and Thomas DeCoud, Sean Weatherspoon and Jonathan Babineaux had one pick apiece. Another by Corey Peters didn't count because of a penalty.

''That's the first time that's ever happened to me, so that's extremely disappointing,'' Brees said. ''I pride myself on being a good decision-maker and not someone who will be a detriment to the game.''

The Falcons will clinch the NFC South with a month to go if Tampa Bay loses at Denver on Sunday. The Saints (5-7) need to win out to have any chance, and even that might not be enough to get the defending division champs back to the playoffs.

''It looks pretty bleak right now,'' interim coach Joe Vitt said.

Brees had thrown a touchdown pass in 54 consecutive games, breaking Johnny Unitas' long-standing record earlier this season. There was an apparent scoring pass to Darren Sproles late in the first half, but it was nullified by a penalty.

''I didn't realize that until we walked off the field,'' Falcons coach Mike Smith said. ''That's an unbelievable streak. Drew Brees is an outstanding quarterback. The way the defense played tonight speaks volumes. The guys had gone out there and thrown touchdown after touchdown game after game after game.''

After Sproles' TD was wiped off the board, Brees made another huge mistake with New Orleans inside the Atlanta 10, allowing the clock to run out in the first half without at least attempting a field goal.

Four days earlier, Brees had two passes picked off and returned for touchdowns in a loss to San Francisco.

This one was even worse. He finished 28 of 50 for 341 yards but had a rating of just 37.6, the third-lowest off his career.

''I feel we have one of the best secondaries in the NFL,'' Falcons cornerback Dunta Robinson said, ''and I think we came out and showed that.''

When the Saints arrived in Atlanta, their bus was pelted by eggs at the airport, epitomizing the long rivalry between the teams. New Orleans had dominated in recent years, winning four in a row and 11 of 13.

This time, Michael Turner scored on Atlanta's opening possession, Tony Gonzalez hauled in a touchdown pass from Matt Ryan, and Matt Bryant booted three field goals, including a 55-yarder.

The defense did the rest.

''We got the monkey off our back,'' DeCoud said.

After winning so many close games, the Falcons started this one as if they were intent on routing the only team to beat them this season. New Orleans knocked off Atlanta 31-27 at the Superdome on Nov. 11, the bright spot in a tumultuous year that was marred by a bounty scandal and a season-long suspension for coach Sean Payton.

Ryan completed a pass on the first play from scrimmage before turning it over to a running game that has struggled most of the season. Turner burst around right end for a 35-yard gain. Jacquizz Rodgers broke off two straight 14-yard gains. Finally, it was Turner going in standing from 3 yards out, giving Atlanta a quick 7-0 lead.

That was Turner's 58th touchdown in five seasons with the Falcons, breaking the team record he had shared with Terance Mathis.

Atlanta struck again in the opening minute of the second period. Julio Jones hauled in an 18-yard throw from Ryan, setting up a 17-yard touchdown pass to Gonzalez in the back of the end zone. He beat former teammate Curtis Lofton; maybe as a sign of respect, Gonzo just flipped the ball over the crossbar instead of his customary basketball dunk.

Brees' second interception, this one a sloppy pass behind running Chris Ivory that deflected into the arms of Weatherspoon, set up Bryant's 45-yard field goal for a 17-0 lead.

Then, suddenly, the game completely changed.

For the rest of the second quarter and most of the third, the Saints totally dominated. Mark Ingram scored on a 1-yard run, capping an 11-play, 80-yard drive, and New Orleans should have tacked on more points at the end of the half. Brees made a rookie-like mistake with 12 seconds remaining, dumping a pass over the middle to Sproles with no timeouts. He was wrapped up at the Atlanta 3 and the clock ran out before the Saints could spike the ball.

''Honestly, I thought we had more time than we did,'' Brees said. ''The last time I remember, we had 17 seconds. ... But it was down to 7 when I looked up after the completion. That wasn't enough time to get the spike. That's on me.''

But New Orleans got the ball to start the second half, and Brees went back to work. This time, he made a couple of nifty moves to avoid sacks, completing six passes on an 83-yard drive consuming 15 plays and more than 6 1/2 minutes. But the Falcons held again, forcing Garrett Hartley to boot a 21-yard field goal that cut it to 17-10.

Hartley connected again from much farther out on the Saints' next possession, a 52-yarder that brought New Orleans even closer.

The Falcons, meanwhile, failed to pick up a first down on five straight possessions, a stretch in which the Saints had a 289-30 lead in total yards and a staggering 18 first downs.

NFL fans are a special breed, and they bring their own brand of craziness on game day.

But the Atlanta defense kept coming through when it counted.

Late in the third, Brees rolled to his right and threw over the middle. Moore stepped in front of the receiver and returned it to the New Orleans 16. Ryan connected on first-down throws to Gonzalez and Roddy White to set up Bryant for a 29-yarder that extended the lead back to a touchdown.

Lindsay Lohan is 'victim' despite criminal charges, lawyer says

Lindsay Lohan, who faced charges both in New York and Santa Monica this week, is an innocent victim, one of her attorneys said.

Lohan was charged Thursday with three misdemeanors for allegedly lying to Santa Monica police in connection with a June traffic accident on Pacific Coast Highway.

The charges came hours after the “Mean Girls” and “The Parent Trap” actress was arrested in New York on suspicion of third-degree assault, a misdemeanor, after she allegedly punched a woman in the face at Club Avenue in Manhattan’s fashionable meatpacking district.

Her attorney in that case denied the actress did anything wrong.

"Once again, Lindsay Lohan is a victim of someone trying to capture their 15 minutes of fame," her New York attorney, Mark Heller, said in a statement obtained by the Associated Press. "From my initial investigation, I am completely confident that this case will be concluded favorably and that Lindsay will be totally exonerated."

Santa Monica prosecutors weighed charges against Lohan for weeks after police said they found evidence that she lied when she said she was not behind the wheel of a Porsche that collided with a dump truck.

Santa Monica Police Sgt. Richard Lewis told The Times earlier this month that the department's investigation had determined that Lohan was driving the Porsche, contradicting statements the actress made to law enforcement officers after the crash. She was charged Thursday with obstructing an investigation, giving false information to an officer and reckless driving.

The charges related to the Santa Monica case mean an automatic revocation of her 2011 probation in connection with a conviction for shoplifting from a Venice jewelry store.

Lohan has already been sent to jail several times for violating the terms of her probation. But she eventually complied with the rules set down by L.A. County Superior Court Judge Stephanie Sautner.

More recently, the 26-year-old actress has been spending time in New York, where she has beenpart of several law enforcement investigations. In September, the actress claimed she was choked by a political aide in a New York hotel room. Charges against the man were dropped.

She was then the subject of an investigation when she was accused of clipping a man with her car outside another Manhattan nightclub. No charges were filed in that case.

In October, police were called to a reported domestic disturbance at Lohan's mother's home in Mineola, N.Y., after she had been arguing with her mother. The incident did not result in any arrests or prosecutions.

Thursday’s incident occurred inside Club Avenue. Police said Lohan was sitting inside a black SUV when officers arrived and arrested her about 4 a.m.

Lohan was not injured and the alleged victim, whose injuries were not disclosed, refused medical treatment at the scene, officials said.

Egyptian parliament passes draft constitution despite protests

The constituent assembly tasked with drafting Egypt's post-revolution constitution has passed the document as the country continues to reel from a decree that gave extraordinary powers to the president, the Muslim Brotherhood's Mohamed Morsi.

The assembly, hit by walkouts from minority groups and liberal voices opposed to Islamist domination, worked through the night after the absent members were replaced and voting commenced on the document article by article.

The draft had been criticised for its ambiguous language on human rights, minority rights and freedom of expression, as well as its concentration on enshrining sharia law as the basis for legislature. It also protects army privileges that revolutionary forces want rescinded, including the ability to try civilians in military courts.

The draft must now be put to a nationwide referendum within 30 days. Morsi said the vote would be held "soon".

The Islamist-dominated assembly that has been working on the constitution for months raced to pass it, voting article by article on the draft's more than 230 articles for more than 16 hours. Of the 85 members in attendance, there was not a single Christian and only four women.

Articles that were passed included one prohibiting the insult or slander of any person, which could prove troublesome for free speech. However, the rights of expression, the press and belief were included and passed. The right of religious practice was also included, but extended only to Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

Article 36 included an 11th-hour addition of the word "torture" in the article regarding treatment of detainees. Initially the article had stipulated that detainees should be treated "with respect" and not "humiliated".

"The Muslim Brotherhood can succeed in passing this constitution despite the opposition but in so doing they are likely to poison the country's political atmosphere for years to come and my assumption is that the constitution, if passed, will not survive beyond Brotherhood rule," said Elijah Zarwan, a Cairo-based fellow at the European Council for Foreign Relations.

Egypt has been plunged into a constitutional crisis since a self-issued decree by Morsi gave him sweeping powers and immunity from judicial challenges. The decree also granted the constituent assembly immunity from legal challenges, which were already under way and expected to be decided in December.

Morsi's extraordinary powers will remain in effect until a constitution is passed and a parliament is elected, and while the decree gave the assembly a two-month extension on its work, the decision to finalise and vote on the document within two days has led to criticism that the job is being rushed to temper the outcry.

Morsi was due to address the nation later today, calling for unity and support for his decree, which he insists is merely a temporary measure to ensure that the constituent assembly can continue its work without threat of dissolution by the Egyptian courts.

If the constitution is rejected at referendum, it is then returned to the same assembly for redrafting and Morsi will keep his powers.

And that might be Morsi's play, according to Zarwan, who said that people might be more willing to accept the constitution in order to put an end to the decree. "For a lot of people they'll say, 'Let's just get on with it.'"

G.O.P. Balks at White House Plan on Fiscal Crisis

Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner presented the House speaker, John A. Boehner, a detailed proposal on Thursday to avert the year-end fiscal crisis with $1.6 trillion in tax increases over 10 years, $50 billion in immediate stimulus spending, home mortgage refinancing and a permanent end to Congressional control over statutory borrowing limits.

The proposal, loaded with Democratic priorities and short on detailed spending cuts, met strong Republican resistance. In exchange for locking in the $1.6 trillion in added revenues, President Obama embraced the goal of finding $400 billion in savings from Medicare and other social programs to be worked out next year, with no guarantees.

He did propose some upfront cuts in programs like farm price supports, but did not specify an amount or any details. And senior Republican aides familiar with the offer said those initial spending cuts might be outweighed by spending increases, including at least $50 billion in infrastructure spending, mortgage relief, an extension of unemployment insurance and a deferral of automatic cuts to physician reimbursements under Medicare.

“The Democrats have yet to get serious about real spending cuts,” Mr. Boehner said after the meeting. “No substantive progress has been made in the talks between the White House and the House over the last two weeks.”

Amy Brundage, a White House spokeswoman, said: “Right now, the only thing preventing us from reaching a deal that averts the fiscal cliff and avoids a tax hike on 98 percent of Americans is the refusal of Congressional Republicans to ask the very wealthiest individuals to pay higher tax rates. The president has already signed into law over $1 trillion in spending cuts and we remain willing to do tough things to compromise, and it’s time for Republicans in Washington to join the chorus of other voices — from the business community to middle-class Americans across the country — who support a balanced approach that asks more from the wealthiest Americans.”

Beneath the outward shows of frustration and rancor, Democrats said a deal could still be reached before hundreds of billions of dollars in automatic tax increases and spending cuts go into effect, threatening the fragile economy. Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, pointed to conservative Republicans who have suggested that the House quickly pass Democratic legislation in the Senate extending the expiring tax cuts for income below $250,000.

“All you have to do is just listen to what’s happening out there and you realize there is progress,” he said.

But publicly, the leaders of neither side were giving an inch. And Republican aides said the details of the White House proposal pointed to a re-elected president who believes he can bully Congress.

“They took a step backward, moving away from consensus and significantly closer to the cliff,” said Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader.

The president’s proposal does stick to the broad framework of the deal Mr. Boehner wants: an upfront deficit-reduction “down payment” that would serve to cancel the automatic tax increases and spending cuts while still signaling seriousness on the deficit, followed by a second stage in which Congress would work next year on overhauling the tax code and social programs to secure more deficit reduction.

But the details show how far the president is ready to push House Republicans. The upfront tax increases in the proposal go beyond what Senate Democrats were able to pass earlier this year. Tax rates would go up for higher-income earners, as in the Senate bill, but Mr. Obama wants their dividends to be taxed as ordinary income, something the Senate did not approve. He also wants the estate tax to be levied at 45 percent on inheritances over $3.5 million, a step several Democratic senators balked at. The Senate bill made no changes to the estate tax, which currently taxes inheritances over $5 million at 35 percent. On Jan. 1, the estate tax is scheduled to rise to 55 percent beginning with inheritances exceeding $1 million.

Administration negotiators also want the initial stage to include an extension of the payroll tax cut or an equivalent policy aimed at working-class families, an extension of a business tax credit for investments, and the extension of a number of other expiring business tax credits, like the one on research and development.

To ensure that there are no more crises like the debt ceiling impasse last year, Mr. Geithner proposed permanently ending Congressional purview over the federal borrowing limit, Republican aides said. He said that Congress could be allowed to pass a resolution blocking an increase in the debt limit, but that the president would be able to veto that resolution. Congress could block a higher borrowing limit only if two-thirds of lawmakers overrode the veto.

In total, Mr. Geithner presented the package as a $4 trillion reduction in future deficits, but that too was disputed. The figure includes cuts to domestic programs agreed to last year that the White House put at $1.2 trillion but that Republicans say is about $300 billion less. And it counts savings from ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, even though no one has proposed maintaining war spending over the next decade at the current rate.

“Listen, this is not a game,” Mr. Boehner said. “Jobs are on the line. The American economy is on the line. And this is a moment for adult leadership.”

Senate Democratic leaders left their meeting with Mr. Geithner ecstatic. If the Republicans want additional spending cuts in that down payment, the onus is on them to put them on the table, said Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader.

Will Palestinian leadership keep the ball rolling toward statehood?

The day after the UN vote on recognizing Palestine as a nonmember observer state, the leadership of the PLO/Palestinian Authority will discover that it's easier to convince a few more European states to vote "yes" than it is to meet the high expectations it has created around this move and convince its own public that it's capable of changing its modus operandi.

To keep the "yes" vote from being a merely symbolic gesture, a temporary boost for outmoded political organizations and the hedonist elites that comprise them, will require vast internal changes that are hard to envision. The PLO claims it is preparing plans for the day after, both to exploit the opportunities created by its new UN status and to cope with possible sanctions by Israel and its allies. But this too, will have to be seen to be believed.

Until very recently, it seemed many Palestinians didn't believe their leadership would stand up to the threats and pressure of those whom Hanan Ashrawi terms Israel's "proxies": America, Canada and Britain. For almost 20 years, this leadership has explained repeated concessions and capitulations to Israel as stemming from such pressure.

But as the day of the vote neared, it seemed that the excitement of those behind the move was finally beginning to percolate downward. For a moment, it seemed as if the PLO had stopped thinking like a ruling organization bent on preserving the status quo and was once again thinking like a national liberation organization capable of imagining change and effecting it through the balance of international forces. The conclusion that the leadership was standing up to the heavy American pressure above all aroused cautious admiration for it. For years, PA President Mahmoud Abbas put his trust in the American government, but even he has finally been compelled to admit that he bet on the wrong horse.

The PLO and Fatah, its principal component, are promising that the day after the vote, they will embark on reconciliation talks to form a national unity government with Hamas. The ground has already been prepared. During a discussion at Bir Zeit University on Tuesday, Dr. Sabri Saidam, a member of Fatah's Revolutionary Council, said that after New York, Abbas would go to Gaza. In Gaza, the ruling Hamas party allowed Fatah members to demonstrate, and expressions of mutual hostility have vanished from the media.

Still, the PLO and Fatah are exaggerating when they say Hamas supports the UN vote. Listening to Hamas' various spokesmen leads to the conclusion that this is more non-opposition than support, and that it is purely tactical.It remains to be seen what will happen when the move fails to produce immediate positive results, and how that will affect relations within the unity government, if it is ever established.

To the countries whose votes they sought, the PLO and Fatah presented the UN bid as part of their overall ethos of nonviolent struggle, which emphasizes diplomacy and international law. But as the Bir Zeit discussion made clear, most of the public doesn't draw the same distinction between armed and unarmed struggle. Saidam didn't join the other speakers who said that every form of struggle is legitimate. But he also didn't say what one of his Fatah colleagues told Haaretz: that the public must be convinced that military victories are reversible, and the next round could end in defeat, whereas a diplomatic-political victory at the UN is irreversible and will open up new options.

So what will happen if and when the diplomatic achievement isn't accompanied by surprising new moves on the part of other countries, who won't protect the Palestinians against the continued Israeli occupation? The popular struggles in various West Bank villages, which have been presented as the proper alternative to armed struggle, haven't taken off into a mass movement. Consumerism and the false sense of normalcy created by the PA's policy of "building state institutions," along with the emerging middle class' desire for comfort, stability and the status quo, have gained more traction. Will a united leadership be capable of leading this public into a frontal, popular confrontation with whatever Israel is preparing?