(NECN: Brian Burnell, Hartford, Conn.) - As President Obama prepares to address a joint session of Congress and the nation with his State of the Union speech tomorrow, there is already reaction to some of what the President will propose. Mr. Obama will call for a three-year freeze on discretionary federal spending. What does that mean?
Spending on the military, veterans, homeland security and international affairs would be exempt. The freeze would cut the deficit by 250-billion dollars over 10 years. President Obama's Republican rival in the last election says we need to do it.
WASHINGTON (AP) - The State Department says the number of U.S. fatalities in the Jan. 12 earthquake in Haiti is nearing 100.
State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley told reporters Tuesday that confirmed U.S. deaths now number 60, and another 37 Americans were killed but their identities have not yet been officially established.
Crowley said the department has yet to account for about 4,000 U.S. citizens who have been the subject of inquiries by family members or others since the quake.
(Copyright 2010 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
(NECN/ABC) - The winter of 2010 is going hard on millions of people. Heavy weather is making for heavy going across the middle of the country.
A powerful blast of winter weather has been pounding much of the nation.
In Southern Minnesota: whiteout conditions and closed interstates.
National guardsmen rescued stranded drivers caught off guard.
The weather was just as bad in Western Iowa: a blustery storm which began
Sunday brought heavy snow and fierce winds.
Interstate 35 was littered with spinouts. The blizzard has been blamed for at least five deaths.
WASHINGTON (AP) - The White House says President Barack Obama intends to announce a new plan to respond faster and better to bioterrorism attacks and public heath threats.
A White House spokesman said Obama will direct government leaders to rethink plans for medical countermeasures so that quick, reliable and affordable antidotes will be available during a public health emergency.
Obama will announce the plan in his State of the Union address to the nation Wednesday evening.
In November, the Obama administration rolled out a plan to
BRANCHBURG, N.J. (AP) - Authorities in central New Jersey have seized a cache of weapons and ammunition including rifles, a grenade launcher and a night vision scope from the motel room of a Virginia man.
Somerset County Prosecutor Wayne Forrest says Lloyd R. Woodson, a 43-year-old from Reston, Va., also had maps of a U.S. military facility and a town in another state.
He was arrested in Branchburg early Monday by officers responding to a report of a suspicious person. The FBI says Woodson has no known terrorism links.
(NECN/ABC) - Americans from coast to coast are coping with destructive storms, that caused flooding, wind damage, power outages, and in the upper Midwest, some of the worst winter weather of the season.
But it was in North Carolina where the storm turned deadly.
Fierce winds in Gastonia, North Carolina, turned a routine drive into a deadly collision with a fallen tree.
The tree smashed a 72-year-old woman's Cadillac, killing her.
FREMONT, Ohio (AP) - Authorities say three boys have died after falling through ice on the Sandusky River in north-central Ohio.
The boys were last seen playing Sunday afternoon outside a home in Rice Township a few blocks from the river. Authorities received a call just before 1:30 p.m. that the boys had fallen through the ice.
Sandusky County Sheriff Kyle Overmyer says divers found the boys in the river and they were taken to local hospitals, where they were pronounced dead.
Overmyer has identified the boys as 8-year-old Jay'Den
HOUSTON (AP) - Robert Mosbacher Sr., a Houston oil multimillionaire who served as U.S. Commerce secretary under his close friend, President George H.W. Bush, has died at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. He was 82.
Mosbacher died after a yearlong battle with pancreatic cancer, family spokesman Jim McGrath.
The Texan was a powerful Republican fundraiser who served at the top echelons of Bush's presidential campaigns and most recently served as a general campaign chairman for 2008 GOP presidential nominee John McCain.
MELVILLE, N.Y. (AP) - Police say all lanes of New York's Long Island Expressway have reopened a day after a fuel truck flipped and exploded on the highway, killing the driver.
The eastbound lanes of the highway that connects the suburbs to New York City remained closed overnight as workers repaved about 200 feet of road that had melted. Nassau County police spokesman Michael Toich says all lanes were reopened as of 4:40 a.m. Sunday.
The highway was closed in both directions for hours Saturday after the intense heat melted the supports for a huge road sign,
(NECN/KTNV: Las Vegas, NV) - A United Airlines flight was diverted to Denver, Colorado Saturday after a passenger tried to open an exterior door while in flight.
Officials at Denver International Airport said the incident happened on United Flight 223 traveling from Washington Dulles International Airport to Las Vegas, Nevada.
The plane landed safely in Denver just after 5 p.m. local time.
The F-B-I and Denver police were waiting at the gate for the passenger.
He was taken into custody.
