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5 topics for Obama’s year-end news conference

People line up to take the bus outside the Capitolio in Havana, Cuba, Thursday, Dec. 18, 2014. How does one end almost 54 years of hostility toward a next-door neighbor? That’s about to become clear as the Obama administration and the communist government of Raul Castro move to normalize more than a half-century of bitter animosity between the United States and Cuba. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
People line up to take the bus outside the Capitolio in Havana, Cuba, Thursday, Dec. 18, 2014. How does one end almost 54 years of hostility toward a next-door neighbor? That’s about to become clear as the Obama administration and the communist government of Raul Castro move to normalize more than a half-century of bitter animosity between the United States and Cuba. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa) People line up to take the bus outside the Capitolio in Havana, Cuba, Thursday, Dec. 18, 2014. How does one end almost 54 years of hostility toward a next-door neighbor? That’s about to become clear as the Obama administration and the communist government of Raul Castro move to normalize more than a half-century of bitter animosity between the United States and Cuba. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

By Associated Press 4 min read

WASHINGTON (AP) – Before President Barack Obama jets off to Hawaii for his annual Christmas vacation, he will carry out a White House ritual: the year-end news conference.

Obama’s sixth year in office was a difficult one. His faced foreign policy crises in the Middle East and Eastern Europe, lost Democratic control of the Senate and saw his approval rating plummet.

Yet the president ends 2014 on an upbeat note. In the weeks since the election, he’s wielded his executive powers on immigration, climate change, and U.S. policy toward Cuba.

Five topics Obama may be asked about when he takes questions Friday afternoon:

1. CUBA: The president on Thursday announced a diplomatic opening with Cuba, lifting certain travel and economic restrictions. A broader, 50-year-old economic embargo on Cuba remains in place and can only be lifted by Congress. The historic deal with Havana was negotiated as part of Cuba’s release of American Alan Gross, who had been imprisoned in Cuba for five years. The deal also involved a spy swap. Cuba released a Cuban who had been in prison for nearly 20 years for spying for the United States. The U.S. in turn released three Cubans convicted of spying.