Gates of Vienna News Feed 12/20/2012

Republican leaders have pulled their backup tax plan from the floor of the House, saying that they do not have enough votes to pass it. This leaves it up to President Obama and Senate Democrats to devise legislation to avert the fiscal cliff.

Meanwhile, civil servants in Greece who work for state enterprises will receive salary cuts of 25% after the new year.

In other news, pupils in a Church of England primary school may experience a shock when they return to class after the holidays. The teacher they had always known as “Mr. Upton” will have become “Miss Meadows”, the name by which he/she wishes to be addressed after his/her gender change.

To see the headlines and the articles, open the full news post.

Thanks to C. Cantoni, Insubria, Jerry Gordon, JP, Nilk, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

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Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.