President Obama Set To Hold Year-End News Conference

When Obama lands in Southern California before heading to Hawaii for his annual Christmas vacation he will encounter a group of families still burying their dead. The visit was slotted into Obama’s West Coast fundraising tour.

The San Bernardino massacre, carried out by Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife Tashfeen Malik, also left 22 people injured. Both pledged allegiance to Islamic State.

Obama will seek to put the finishing touches on legacy items like his plan to curb USA carbon emissions and the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, while trying to made headway on criminal justice reforms, the officials told reporters on Thursday.

The White House says Obama will hold his traditional year-end news conference on Friday afternoon.

Still, the White House is pushing back on the notion Obama will be a “lame duck” in his a year ago in office.

The repeal of the decades-old crude oil export ban was considered a major win for Republicans, who at the same time, did not score certain provisions that conservatives had demanded. The White House has called on Congress to enact what it calls a “no-fly, no-buy” law that would prohibit weapons sales to anyone on the federal government’s no-fly list. The White House is considering acting to expand gun background checks without congressional approval.

A new account of heroism emerged in the weeks following the San Bernardino mass shooting after a police seargant who was in the lead vehicle during the suspect pursuit spoke out.

Godoy said she didn’t know what her family was hoping to hear from Obama.