Well, of course, we wish you a very happy New Year and a very warm welcome as we kick off 2013 on CNN student news. My name is Carl Azuz, we're glad you're joining us, we hope your year is off to a good start.

One question we had going into the break was will Congress and president Obama find a way to avoid the fiscal cliff? When we put this show together last night, we still had that question. What came to be known is the fiscal cliff was really a series of automatic tax increases and government spending cuts that were scheduled to take effect at the start of the year. The reason, U.S government has too much debt, now the president and the Congress could have avoided that fiscal cliff by coming up with a compromise, a different plan to reduce the debt. But as of yesterday, still no agreement.

There are two main ways to reduce debt, cut down on spending and or raise taxes. One big sticky point was whom to raise taxes on, and by how much. The president want families making more than $250,000 a year to pay more in taxes. He said they could afford, critics said the economy is too weak to raise taxes on anyone. The Senate came up with a bipartisan compromise to raise taxes, but only on families making more than $450,000 a year. The plan would be a temporary fix, it would last for two months, and it would delay any cuts of government spending. The thing is the compromise also has to pass the U.S House of Representatives, and it wasn't sure yesterday if it would do that. CNN.com has your latest updates.

See if you can ID me? I was born in Chicago in 1947, in 1992, my husband was elected president and in the year 2000, I was elected to U.S senate, I'm the only former first lady to have served there in the presidential cabinet.

I'm Hillary Clinton, the current U.S Secretary of State.

Secretary Clinton spent New Year's Day in the hospital after getting a blood clot in her head. Doctor said she is on blood thinners to dissolve the clot and they expect she'll be OK. This is the latest over a few health issues she had. Clinton cauthgt a stomach virus in December which made her dehydrated. She fainted because of that which gave her a concussion. This blood clot was a result of that concussion. Clinton had to stay home for most of December, she did not testify as scheduled about September's deadly terrorist attack on a U.S building in Benghazi, Libya. Dr.Sanjay Gupta explores what's next in her recovery.

It is a blood vessel that actually drains blood away from the brain, it's called the cerebral vein, I want you show you here, we know that in Secretary Clinton's case, it's actually on the right side of her head, somewhere in this area, it's called the right transverse sinus. Let me show you in this model here, I'll show you that left side just for sake of demonstration here, if I remove the hemisphere of the brain here, you can actually see where the veins are, you see that blue area, right in there. That is an area that it's actually draining blood away from the brain, and one of these veins in this area, that's where that clot actually has occurred. Most likely, due to a combination of the head trauma that she had a few weeks ago, in addition to the fact that she has had a problem with blood clots in the past dating back to 1998. We heard from her doctors, they said she is on blood thinners, they say she is awake, she is talking. Most importantly, there's no evidence of stroke or neurological damage. My guess is that they are going to continue monitor her at least for another couple of days in the hospital. And probably get another scan at some point to make sure that clot is in fact dissolved, as a result of those blood thinner medications. As we get more details, we'll certainly bring it into the air. Back to you for now.

Thank you Dr.Gupta. For a while, our Secretary Clinton has been planning to step down from her position. Once a new nominee is confirmed by the Senate, the president's choice for the job is this man, senator John Kerry. You might heard that name before, he ran for president and lost to incumbent president George W.Bush in 2004. On December 21st, president Obama nominated Kerry for U.S Secretary of State. He's done extensive traveling and met with international officials on behalf of the Obama administration. But as many of you have already learned, Kerry's nomination doesn't necessarily mean he'll get the job. The Senate will have the final say as part of the advice and consent it gives the president.