WASHINGTON (AP) — A deadline looming, President Barack Obama will meet with congressional leaders at the White House on Friday in search of a compromise to avoid a year-end “fiscal cliff” of across-the-board tax increases and deep spending cuts.

The development capped a day of growing urgency in which Obama returned early from a Hawaiian vacation while lawmakers snarled across a partisan divide over responsibility for gridlock on key pocketbook issues. Speaker John Boehner called the House back into session for a highly unusual Sunday evening session.