WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama plans to make year-end remarks and take questions from reporters as Congress wraps up a busy post-election session.

The news conference was scheduled for 11:15 a.m. Hawaii time. After that, Obama plans to fly to  Hawaii for the holidays and would likely arrive sometime late tonight or early tomorrow morning.

A news conference would give Obama an opportunity to take something of a victory lap after signing a landmark bill that repealed the ban on gays openly serving in the armed forces. Obama also cut a successful deal with Republicans on taxes, and he is on the cusp of winning Senate ratification of a nuclear arms treaty with Russia.