Obama, Palestinian leader meet as peace deadline nears

A deadline fast approaching, President Obama is seeking to ease the logjam in elusive Mideast peace talks and keep Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas from walking away, despite few signs that either Palestinians or Israelis are prepared to budge on key sticking points.

Obama’s White House meeting with the longtime Palestinian leader Monday marks a renewed foray into a diplomatic minefield that the president has mostly left up to his secretary of state, John Kerry. While Kerry remains deeply involved, his attention is split among multiple undertakings in the Middle East — not to mention a crisis in Ukraine that’s consumed Obama’s national security team.