The Other Side of Life 24/7: U.S. Top News: Obama to focus on middle class in State of Union address

Tuesday, January 20, 2015

U.S. Top News: Obama to focus on middle class in State of Union address

Click to View in Browser

01/20/2015

Reuters Election 2012 Daily round-up of the day's top news from the campaign trail, the White House and all the politics in between

Obama to focus on middle class in State of Union address

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama will challenge the Republican-led Congress to back his tax-raising ideas for helping middle-class Americans in a State of the Union speech on Tuesday that will set up a tough debate and may impact the 2016 campaign to replace him.

Unique hurdles facing legal pot in live-and-let-live Alaska

JUNEAU, Alaska (Reuters) - Presiding over busy waterways and airspace that serve as unofficial highways of an inhospitable state twice the size of Texas, the federal government has a looming presence over Alaska and its famously live-and-let-live residents. And Uncle Sam considers marijuana illegal over every inch.

Jury selection to start in Colorado cinema massacre trial

CENTENNIAL, Co. (Reuters) - The first of some 9,000 potential jurors will report to court in Colorado on Tuesday as selection begins for the trial of James Holmes, the former neuroscience graduate student who killed 12 people in July 2012 at a midnight screening of a Batman movie.

U.S. tributes, protests mark Martin Luther King Jr. Day

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Tributes to civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. were held across the United States on Monday, with observers linking the federal holiday to a rallying cry in recent protests over police brutality: "Black lives matter."

FAA probing near miss between planes at New York airport

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Federal Aviation Administration said on Monday that it was investigating whether an air traffic control problem caused a near miss between two planes in New York over the weekend.

Two-year-old Kentucky boy killed by train while walking with dog

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (Reuters) - A two-year-old boy was struck and killed by a train on Monday while he was walking with a dog along railroad tracks in southwestern Kentucky, police said.

Pipeline expected to remain closed after oil spill in Montana

(Reuters) - A small but heavily subscribed pipeline that transports 42,000 barrels a day of crude oil from North Dakota's Bakken region is expected to remain closed on Tuesday after a weekend breach that spilled 1,200 barrels of crude into the Yellowstone River near Glendive, Montana.

Shots fired near Vice President Biden's Delaware residence

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Gun shots rang out from a passing vehicle near U.S. Vice President Joe Biden's residence in Delaware on Saturday night, but the vice president and his wife were not at home, the U.S. Secret Service said on Sunday.

Icy roads lead to crashes, five deaths in U.S. Northeast

(Reuters) - Five people were killed and others injured in crashes on icy roads in Pennsylvania and Connecticut on Sunday, authorities said.

Former 'enemy combatant' back in Qatar after release from U.S. prison

CHARLESTON, S.C. (Reuters) - A Qatari man declared an enemy combatant following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and imprisoned as an al Qaeda operative has been freed from a U.S. prison and is back in Qatar, his lawyer said on Sunday.