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the closure.
• "We have serious concerns over the safety of Turkish trucks regarding their entry and return from Syria," Caglayan said, noting that there had already been a 87 percent drop in trucks traveling to Syria this year.
• Turkey was an ally of neighboring Syria before the uprising against authoritarian President Bashar Assad began 16 months ago. But it has turned into a harsh critic and its territory along the of the 566-mile (911-kilometer) border is used as a staging ground for the rebel army as well as a haven for thousands of refugees fleeing violence that activists say has killed 19,000 people so far.
• Northern Syria, especially the province of Idlib, has been a steady scene of heavy fighting between Syrian forces and the rebels and large swathes of the countryside are under rebel control. Rebels, for their part, generally move their weapons and material over the border through clandestine smuggler routes.
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• WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Senate is bracing for a tax-cut showdown that is all about Democrats and Republicans showing voters their differences over taxing the well-off while accusing each other of threatening to shove the government over a fiscal cliff.
• Senators planned to vote Wednesday on a $250 billion Democratic bill that would extend expiring tax cuts next year for all but the highest earners. Democrats will

need 60 votes to advance the proposal, which they do not have.
• It seemed unlikely that senators also would vote on a rival GOP plan that includes the best-off Americans in the tax reductions, a measure that was destined to lose.
• House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, was ready to push legislation through his chamber next week that closely mirrors the Senate GOP measure. Republicans there introduced their bill on Tuesday, accompanied by another measure designed to speed work next year on legislation overhauling the entire tax code.
• The clash in the Senate underscored how little the partisan tax-cutting duel had to do with actually passing a law this year. If anything, it highlighted how entrenched both parties' views were.
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