美国有线新闻 CNN 2012-12-28（打印版）

Today is December 21st. It is the first official day of winter, but the weather was not looking at the calendar, the season’s first blizzard hit the Midwestern U.S. Early this week, it was headed and expected to move into New England today. Tens of thousands of people lost power. This storm also made driving pretty dangerous, as you might expect in some areas. Nearly 100 accidents were reportedly by late Wednesday morning, including a 30-car pileup on one Iowa highway. An officer said the snow is blowing around so badly, the drivers could only see about five feet in front of their cars. Blizzard warnings were up yesterday in Iowa, also in parts of Nebraska, Missouri, Minnesota, Illinois and Wisconsin. Parts of Wisconsin had already seen up to seven inches of snow by yesterday morning. Predictions said another foot could be on the way.

And you’ve heard us talk a lot about the fiscal cliff, it’s a serious of automatic government spending cuts and tax increases that’s scheduled to take place at the beginning of the year. Now, President Obama and Congress can avoid this cliff by coming up with a compromise, a plan to lower the country’s debt. The president and Republican leaders have both offered some proposals on how to do this, but when we made the show Thursday evening, there wasn’t a deal. The member of the House and Senate said they’d stay in Washington to keep working on it, the deadline for a deal is January 1st, so make sure to check out cnn.com over the break for all the latest details.

美国有线新闻 CNN 2012-12-28（在线收听）