WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama and Speaker of the House of Representatives John Boehner, locked in a stalemate over the “fiscal cliff,” spoke by telephone this afternoon, a Boehner spokesman said.

The spokesman offered no additional information, but the conversation marked the first time in a week that the two key figures talked to each other in the drive for a bipartisan deal.

(Writing by Tom Ferraro and Steve Holland, editing by Stacey JOyce)