Were very excited to get a visit from the five young people on bus 52 who have been on the bus for a year collecting Inspiring Stories. Their trip wraps up this afternoon. The chef who taught americans to cook tellian style. Shes here to reveal her own mamas favorite family dishes. She has this incredible life story. Her family escaped communism. Shes making a chocolate Bread Pudding and theres rum in it. But first our top story this morning. Jobs. The economy and the rocky negotiations to avoid that fiscal cliff. Lets start with the good news the slowly improving unemployment numbers. In november the nation added 146,000 jobs and the Unemployment Rate dipped to 7. 7 , the lowest in nearly four years. So whats behind this improvement and what impact could it have on the overall economy and the fiscal cliff talks . We have some answers with the chief Investment Analyst at charles swhaub. Were you surprised by these numbers . The Payroll Survey which is where we get the jobs created is generally a Large Company survey. So it may not pick up where the jobs were lost from the hurricane. The problem too is although the headline was positive the prior couple of months were revised down by a similar amount. I would say the report in general was about a neutral. Also the fact the one employment rate dropped to 7. 4 had a lot to do with fact people gave up looking for work. Thats the rub. The headline is good. A big part of that reason is that over 300,000 people dropped out of the workforce. The biggest growth in jobs seem to doinl retail sector. Is that significant . Were having a pretty decent Holiday Season and its seasonally normal to see the kind of boost in retail and hospitality, things at the Holiday Season. I wouldnt necessarily make anything of that other than thats typically what you see. What do you make of the Consumer Confidence numbers that came out after the jobs report yesterday and show things are at least in the consumers point of view not improving as much. Theres a variety of Consumer Confidence measures. The one that came out yesterday were weaker. Several others were stronger. Ive been surprised theres a decent amount of resiliency. It has to do with the fact that gasoline prices are down and home prices are up and those two things track Consumer Confidence. The job numbers, though we pretty much have been stuck in a rut with 150,000 job growth foreclose to two years now. Whats it going to take us to actually accelerate past that . I think we have to get past some of the uncertainty. Im tired of talking about the fiscal cliff. I think some of that uncertainty has held back hiring and we have to get past that. Because if youre a business an you dont know what the rules of the game are, most businesses will tell you i dont even care what the level of regulation is or what the tax rate is i just need to know what the Playing Field is. Its that uncertainty thats Holding Things back. We have to take that probably into early next year before you lift that uncertainty. Thanks so much. Now to the president and the congress and the fiscal cliff. The combination of automatic tax hikes and deep federal spending cuts due to kick in january 1st. Thats 24 days away. Just over three weeks from now but so far negotiations to find a way around it well theyve gone nowhere. Well talk about that with a former chief of staff to president bill clinton and adviser to president obama and a founder and chairman of the center for American Progress which is a washington think tank and he joins us now from our washington bureau. John great to have you this morning. Good morning. Are we going over this cliff, john . I think i certainly hope not and i think that people there are low level talks again and i think that the president and the speaker need to engage with each other to try to avoid that. But what we need to do for the long run is really to get on a path towards greater fiscal discipline but do it in a way that keeps momentum behind the economy right now, keeps jobs growing. After today or yesterdays job report the worst thing we can do is to go over the fiscal cliff and put the economy back into a recession. So im optimistic but its going to take some hard bargaining and some work and i think the most important thing the president has put on the table is that there needs to be a balanced plan and there needs to be more revenue coming from the people at the top of the economy. John, were hearing a lot of the same kind of tone that we heard before of course. It sounds very familiar. Do you think they are actually making any progress here and if this comes down to a one on one, essentially, between the president and the speaker, is that a good thing . Well, you know i think if theres progress being made its hard to find which room its being made in because basically both sides are still kind of reiterating their points. I think if the republicans agree with the American People which is that lets extend the middle class tax cuts on 98 of americans i think things can fall quickly into place. The president is willing to make some further reductions particularly in the socalled mandatory programs including health care and i think that we can see a rapid progression and that will take some bargaining i think between leadership on democratic and republican side but particularly between the president and the speaker. John a lot of the public debate has focused on this tax issue. Spend is part of the ultimate package. You call for 1. 8 trillion in spending cuts and your plan is not subtracting from Social Security or medicare to get there so i wonder what are you subtracting from outside of defense . Well, let me correct you. We put forward an overall plan that meets the simpsonbowles revenue targets but also has serious spending constraints including 385 billion in Health Care Savings primarily medicare thats through more competition and better delivery of services under medicare but we do call for substantial savings in medicare as part of an overall 4. 1 trillion deal as put forward by simpsonbowles. John podesta, thank you. On the list much issues the u. S. Supreme court has taken on in recent years few are as contentious as the one the justices agreed on friday to consider same sex marriage. In a cbs news poll last month just over half of americans, 51 said same sex marriage should be legal. 41 said it should not. Joining us is Susan Goldberg a professor at the Columbia University law school. Good morning. How important is what the Supreme Court has decided to do . This is enormously important. As the country is moving more and more to embracing the question, same sex couples right to marry the question is what does the law say about it and this is what the Supreme Court will tell us by the end of june. They are looking at two cases here. What are the specifics of those cases and what do you think they are going to be looking for within each . There are two cases, one involves a widow in new york who was faced with more than 300,000 tax bill because the government refused to recognize her marriage to her same sex partner. And the question there is whether the federal defensive marriage act which blocks the United States government from recognizing marriages of same sex couples will stand, will it continue or will marriage discrimination by the government federal government come to an end . The other case involves a california law, which bans marriage recognition for same sex couples. It took away marriage rights from same sex couples and the question in that case is what will happen in california and perhaps what will happen in other states throughout the United States. What does it mean if that ban is upheld . If its upheld in california same sex couples will not be getting married in california and it means that theres a question then about what will happen with marriage rights for same sex couples in the rest of the country. Of course any state can allow same sex couples to marry and many do but the question is whether the law will require that. If the law makes it into the Supreme Court, which you say theres actually some question of whether this is actually going to follow through, what will the outcome mean for the country . Well this is an enormous american question, where are we headed with marriage for same sex couples and really more broadly where are we head with civil rights and equality. If the Supreme Court strikes down the defensive marriage act and strikes down the ban in california on same sex couples marriages it will mean we move to a more equal place. If it reaches a different conclusion well see what happens. What are the arguments. The argument against marriage rights for same sex couples is generally that marriage historically traditionally has been Something Limited to different sex couples. The Supreme Court has found in a long time held tradition alone is not enough to justify discrimination. On the other side the real point is marriage when were talking about marriage recognized by the state as opposed toby a church or synagogue or religious institution, marriage by the state is about a civil right. In those cases government discrimination shouldnt be coming into play. Do we know at this point do we have any sense how the Supreme Court might line up on this . Its hard to say. My view is despite what a lot of people seem to say this is increasingly a nonpartisan issue. Now what exactly the Supreme Court will do we cant know but i have to think given the Supreme Courts history both on gay rights cases and on some civil rights cases generally were moving towards equality and an end towards discrimination. Thank you. Next we turn to london where it seems a joke phone call this week to the hospital of where the duchess of cambridge was conva lessing has gone wrong. Charlie dagata is outside of the hospital. Reporter good morning. Much different feeling here at the hospital. A couple of days ago when catherine left looking happy and relieved now the hospital staff is reeling from this shocked death of one of the nurses who was on duty while catherine was here. She had the bad fortune of picking up the phone and wleefg it was the queen in the early hours of tuesday morning. Hello there. Could i please speak to kate my granddaughter. Yes. Reporter thats all jacintha saldanha did. She answered the phone and transferred the call to another nurse. Three days later the 46yearold mother of two apparently took her own life. It will take an autopsy to confirm how and an investigation to figure out why. The australian dee jays responsible for the prank call had built a reputation for pushing the boundaries of tastes and and decency. Now they have been silenced pulled off the air indefinitely. They reportedly gone into hiding and they vanished from their twitter. Their boss said they were shattered by news of the nurses death and they have been offered counselling. They are deeply shocked at this time. Weve agreed that they not comment about the circumstances. Hospital officials said there was never any pressure put on jacintha saldanha for putting that phone call through. She was not reprimanded, disciplined or suspended. The hospital had been supporting her through this very difficult time. She was a first class nurse who cared diligently for hundreds of patients during her time with us happen everyone is shocked by the loss of a much loved and valued colleague. Reporter the palace never complained to the hospital about the prank phone call. After learning about the nurses death Prince William and catherine said they were deeply saddened. One newspaper reported catherine broke down in tears when she found out. Thanks charlie. Lets get more on the understandably shocked reaction. Robert jobson has covered the royals 30 years. He joins us now from our london bureau. Good morning. Good morning. To start with have you ever seen a royal story like this . No never in 20 years ive never come across anything as tragic as this. That such an incident could happen after what was a joke that went too far. Even Prince Charles only a couple of days ago was johannesburging it himself. Nobody was taking it that seriously. The impact upon this lady was too much for her to cope. We dont know the full circumstances surrounding what actually happened to her. So sad to read this headline yesterday morning. This nurse, i mean you have been in the british media for some time now. To what degree do you think she felt pressure from the British Press . I didnt think there was an awful lot of blame or pressure on this nurse whatsoever. A lot of people felt particularly she just put the call through it was a prank. Nobody was thinking about that. They were thinking more about Catherine Daytona have an impact upon her. So in that respect i dont think anyone understood how this happened or this extreme course of action that fold and well have to wait until the inquest is over to find out exactly what was going on and whether there were other things going on in her life that may have had something to do with this. We still dont know. This isnt the first time that australian Radio Station had a prank backfire on them is it . No. One of their other dee jays was involved in a phone call an interview to a 14yearold girl that was seen as unacceptable. This must be said all of this was prererecord and passed through the boss at the Radio Station and the lawyers too. A lot of people are vilifying these two dee jays nobody could foreseen this. A lot of people found it quite funny at the time and then the shock has come afterwards because its such an extreme action. Absolutely. Now to what degree is the royal family going to probably try to keep catherine more in secrecy with her pregnancy. It was quite significant she left very quickly from the hospital. Shes at Kensington Palace where theres all the medical treatment she requires. Being at Kensington Palace you cant have banks of provers outside. They cant have the same degree of pressure. I think she will be kept away from the public spotlight. She must be devastated by what happened. It cast as shadow of what essentially is a wonderful news about the royal baby. Thank you. Now to egypt where theres been no let up in the furious administrate demonstrations against president Mohamed Morsi and his push to consolidate power. Allen pizzey is in cairo this morning with the latest on the confrontation. Good morning alan. Reporter good morning. As you can see behind me the streets are relatively quiet. The modus operandi is to protest all night and then rest during the day. President morsi issued an appeal for his opposition to come together with him to engaging dialogue and try to resolve this issue but that didnt happen. The opposition refused to come. Meanwhile the army actually called for the protesters to sit down and have a little bit of dialogue. That was welcomed by the Muslim Brotherhood. The army last night did not intervene significantly when protesters, opposition protesters breached the barricades behind me in front of the president ial palace. They sat back and let the proifrts shout and holler and spray paint and pulled back again. The Muslim Brotherhood has kept its protesters away from the opposition thats in the wake of at least seven dead and more than 700 injured. Nobody wants to see any more of that. This is turning into a confrontation twins lammists who support the government and the secular opposition. Now there have been some other attempts to try to cool the situation. President morsi did suggest he might actually postpone the referendum which is due from a week from today on a new constitution but that hasnt done much to satisfy the opposition and a sign that nobody thinks this is over the army right now erecting more barricades to keep the protesters back from the president ial palace just in case they try to storm it again tonight. Anthony. Allen pizzey in cairo. Thanks. The south korean rapper is apologizing to americans. The internet sensation whose gangnam style videos are the most watched ever on video. In 2004 he took part in concerts protesting the u. S. Invasion of iraq. And he rapped about killing yankees who tortured iraqis. He now says he regrets any pain he caused. Hes scheduled to perform at a Charity Event later this month. It will be attended by the first family. Its about 20 minutes after the hour. Heres our first check of the weather. Hi there. Thank you so much. Its been pretty active across the northeast and more so across the west. We had some record snowfall and rainfall across the higher elevations. Lets take a closer look. As you see highlighted in white from duluth to helena were looking at snowfall totals anywhere from six to 12 inches. You add on top of that the arctic blast were talking blizzard like conditions not driving conditions. So stay off the roads. Thats at that look at your national forecast. Heres a closer look at your weather for your weekend. Thank you so much. Well send it back over to you. It is the piano at the center of the most romantic scene in arguably the most romantic movie of all time. Its going up for auction on friday. Its sams piano, one of them at least from casablanca. As jim axelrod reports there is no ordinary movie prop. Reporter no matter how much time goes by the song from the 1942 american classic casablanca still endures. And even though Humphrey Bogart and Ingr