Yemeni President Agrees to Resign

Yemen’s president has agreed to a deal with opposition leaders that will usher him out of office by the end of the year—instead of by his previous 2013 deadline. A government official said, without elaborating, that the sides had reached “common ground” on a deal. Opposition leaders say Ali Abdullah Saleh has “agreed to determine the series of steps he will take to leave power,” while ensuring his son didn’t inherit his post, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Saleh struck the deal with the Joint Meeting Party, a coalition of several opposition groups, but one protest leader says the people in the streets won’t settle for anything less than Saleh’s immediate departure. Saleh wasn't just making nice with protesters yesterday, either; he also called the White House to apologize for any “misunderstandings” that may have arisen when he called the protests a US-Israeli plot. (More Ali Abdullah Saleh stories.)