Obama to Travel to San Bernardino
ALLEN: We continue here at the INTERNATIONAL DESK, live from Atlanta. Hello, I'm Natalie Allen. Here are our top stories.</s>ALLEN: The U.S. President Barack Obama is going straight to the source for a briefing about terror threats over the holidays. He's visiting the National Counterterrorism Center outside of Washington. Joe Johns is live at the White House for us. And Joe, it's certainly been a violent month for the world as far as terrorism goes.</s>JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: It has, Natalie. And to tell you the truth, this is one in a series of attempts by the White House to appear active and engaged on the issue of terrorism, the president taking a rare visit to the National Counterterrorism Center and he's going to sit down and talk with some of the officials there. And after that, he apparently is going to give some type of a statement. They don't advertise when they're talking about intelligence but we do know the director of that center on Capitol Hill testifying as recently as October, among the many things they're concerned about is the ability of terror organizations like ISIS, Al Qaeda and others to communicate outside the channels where intelligence can pick up their signals. So there's a lot to talk about there, the president trying to get out in front of this in advance of the holidays, also in advance of his long 17-day vacation trip to Hawaii -- Natalie.</s>ALLEN: And we know that before he gets to Hawaii he's going to be stopping in California. And that is in relation, this stop, to the terrorism we saw there.</s>JOHNS: That's right. He's going to San Bernardino, California, the site of the latest terror attacks in the United States, the worst since 9/11. He's going to have a private meeting, we're told, with the families of the victims and possibly a statement from him there. But it does not sound like it's going to be a big media event for public consumption. It sounds sufficiently private.</s>JOHNS: So he's going to do that. And I also have to mention that earlier this week he went over to the Pentagon to talk with his national security team and even in New York at the United Nations, the security counsel at the United Nations, the Security Council at the United Nations, the Treasury Secretary is talking to ministers of Security Counsel nations about cutting off the flow of money to ISIS. So a lot going on in this front, very concerned because Americans are concerned right now about terrorism -- Natalie.</s>ALLEN: Absolutely. We'll wait and see what the president has to say. We'll bring our viewers that. Joe Johns, for us live at the White House, thank you, Joe. Up next here on the IDESK, Cuban baseball players smuggled into the U.S. years ago are getting a celebrity welcome back home by the next generation of Cuban athletes, who may find it easier to play in the U.S. That's ahead.