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Sarah and Yael Levintin raised their wine glasses to the sky and toasted the Iron Dome system that had just been deployed outside Israel's commercial center.

The two sisters decided to leave their apartment Friday evening after two rockets fired into the Tel Aviv area were successfully intercepted by the system.

"We had stayed home all day because we didn't want to take the chance that, you know, we'd be away from the bomb shelter," said Yael Levintin. "We aren't used to war. I guess we are kinda babies about it."

Enlarge Uriel Sinai/Getty Images

Israeli civilians run for cover during a rocket attack launched from from Gaza on Saturday in Tel Aviv, Israel.

It's the sort of juxtaposition that often arises at this time of year: novel adaptations arriving in droves at movie theaters, hunting for Oscar nominations.

J.R.R. Tolkien's fantastical The Hobbit and Yann Martel's lifeboat adventure Life of Pi are coming soon, and this week Leo Tolstoy's romantic tragedy Anna Karenina goes head to head with Matthew Quick's romantic comedy Silver Linings Playbook.

Quick's novel centers on Pat, a bipolar guy sprung by his mom from a mental institution before he's quite ready, who has a theory that his life is a movie written and produced by God. In David O. Russell's film, God gets left out of the mix. But Pat, played by Bradley Cooper, still has plenty of theories.

"This is what I believe to be true," he says at one point. "You have to do everything you can, you have to work your hardest, and if you stay positive you have a shot at a silver lining."

Silver linings, of course, come with clouds, and Pat has plenty scudding through his life: He is living with his folks because his wife, with whom he's determined to reconnect, got a restraining order against him. And he's a chip off the old block: His bookmaking dad (Robert De Niro) is obsessive-compulsive, especially when it comes to the Philadelphia Eagles.

And against the advice of his therapist (the stellar Anupam Kher), Pat is not taking his medication — a point that provides a conversation-starter when he meets Tiffany, a recent widow who's just as fragile (and formerly medicated) as he is.

Enlarge The Weinstein Company

Bradley Cooper stars as a bipolar high school teacher in Silver Linings Playbook.

David Petraeus' resignation from the CIA further complicated the debate over the September attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya.

Petraeus, a key figure in the events, stepped down as director after admitting to an extramarital affair. But members of Congress were so anxious to hear from him that they brought Petraeus back to Capitol Hill Friday to get his version of the Benghazi story.

President Obama's critics say there's lots about Benghazi that reflect poorly on his administration, but this week they focused on comments by United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice on TV talk shows, five days after the attack.

While the closed hearings have answered some questions, the flurry of concerns is far from settled.

What Ambassador Rice Said

In interviews, Rice said the attack began as a "spontaneous" demonstration prompted by anger over an anti-Muslim video and that "extremists" only joined later. Four Americans were killed, including the U.S. ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens.

Some Republicans are so outraged by Rice's failure to blame al-Qaida that they said this week they'll block her from becoming secretary of state, if Obama nominates her. That angered the president, who in a news conference Wednesday vigorously defended Rice's TV comments.

"She made an appearance at the request of the White House in which she gave her best understanding of the intelligence that had been provided to her," he said.

So the White House sent Rice out on those Sunday shows, and Rice was given talking points. But the explanation she gave has since changed.

Intelligence officials now say the Benghazi attack was not spontaneous, and they think an al-Qaida offshoot was behind it.

The discrepancy in the accounts raised a number of questions this week: Did Rice, at the behest of the White House, deliberately downplay the Benghazi attack?

Who approved the talking points that guided her comments? If it was Petraeus, was it only because he knew he was under an FBI investigation and was hoping to stay out of trouble with the White House?

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Fresh off his re-election, a politically fortified President Obama summoned the top four congressional leaders to the White House Friday for the first of what could be many rounds of talks for a deal to avert fiscal calamity.

The meeting was part of the opening moves to keep the nation from sailing over the so-called fiscal cliff — those across-the-board tax hikes and deep spending cuts set to kick in at year's end.

In welcoming the quartet of lawmakers, Obama struck a conciliatory note.

"Our challenge is to make sure that we are able to cooperate together, work together, find some common ground, make some tough compromises, build some consensus to do the people's business," he said.

But any deal reached to prevent the fiscal plunge may prove a hard sell on Capitol Hill.

Revenue's 'On The Table'

The president had already made clear at his news conference Wednesday that he has one bottom line as this high-stakes bargaining begins.

"What I have told leaders privately as well as publicly is that we cannot afford to extend the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy," he said.

Obama took that same stance two years ago, but ultimately relented. This time, backed by a renewed mandate and polls that support his position, he says that won't happen.

And House Speaker John Boehner, who scotched a revenue-raising deal with the president last year, emerged from Friday's meeting on a very different note.

"To show our seriousness, we've put revenue on the table, as long as it's accompanied by significant spending cuts," he said.

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