USA TODAY's David Jackson gives us a little preview of the new budget proposal that President Obama will be rolling out this morning:

Among other things, the budget forecasts a whopping $1.75 trillion deficit and would increase taxes on the wealthy and cut Medicare to allow for spending $634 billion  as a "down payment" on universal health care.

Of course, Congress actually writes the budget each year and can either embrace the president's draft, take chunks of it, or reject it outright and start from scratch. But at minimum, the proposal is valuable in that it lays out the priorities of the president for the coming year.

Obama will officially unveil the proposal at 9:30 a.m. ET.

Update at 9:13 a.m. ET: Jackson weighs in with these thoughts from administration officials on the $3.7 trillion budget:

Over time, the budget deficit will make it harder for our economy to
grow and create jobs. That's why the President's budget for fiscal year 2010 puts
us on the path to cut the deficit he inherited on January 20, 2009 in
half by the end of his first term. The deficit this Administration
inherited was $1.3 trillion or 9.2% of GDP. By 2013, the end of
the President's first term, the Budget cuts the deficit to $533
billion-or 3.0% of GDP. Most of the savings will come from
winding down the war in Iraq; increased revenue from those making more
than $250,000 a year; and savings from making government work more
efficiently and eliminating programs that do not work.

New jobless claims have jumped to 667,000, up from 631,000 last week, the Associated Press reports.

The news agency says the number of people receiving unemployment insurance for more than one week also increased more than expected to 5.1 million.

That’s the fifth straight week that jobless benefit rolls have hit a record-high, the AP reports.

Good morning. It's Thursday

Where's mine? Many front pages focus on what the new stimulus package means for individual states. The Courier-Journal, right, of Louisville writes that Kentucky will get around $3 billion for health care, education and construction and reports that Gov. Steve Bashear, a Democrat, cautions that it needs to be spent in a "strategic, focused way." The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that $339 million has already hit the state's bank account for its Medicaid program, but Gov. Sonny Perdue, a Republican, hints he may not take all of it because it could mean the state would have to raise business taxes to keep the unemployment program at stimulus levels once the federal money runs out. Likewise, Texas is mulling how to handle its $555 million. The Austin American-Statesman says Texas politicians are weighing whether to expand unemployment benefits to more people in order to get the money. The Charlotte Observer reports that Charlotte-Mecklenburg school officials worry that their slice of the stimulus money may not arrive in time to avoid laying off 1,200 teacher, principals and other workers.

General Motors posts a $9.6B loss in the fourth quarter, the Associated Press reports. The AP says GM, which has received $13.4 billion in federal loans, burned through $6.2B of cash while seeking government loans.

GM's executives are in Washington Thursday to talk to the Obama administration about the company’s request for up to $30 billion, the AP says.

Coming Thursday:

• President Obama releases his budget for the next fiscal year.

• Economic reports: weekly jobless claims, and January figures for durable goods and new-home sales. Also, General Motors reports quarterly earnings.

•  Paul Volcker, chairman of the president's Economic Advisory Board, will appear at a Joint Economic Committee hearing on "strategies for restoring the economy and creating a functioning credit system."

• Other congressional hearings: The proposed Ticketmaster/Live Nation merger (House Judiciary subcommittee); Internal Revenue Service help for taxpayers (House Ways and Means Committee); reducing energy consumption in buildings ( Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee).

• The Grand Canyon marks its 90th year as a national park.

It’s been just a little over a month since former President George W. Bush moved out of the White House and back home to Texas, and already some people don’t recognize him.

The former commander in chief popped up this morning at an elementary school in Dallas, sticking his head into classrooms here and there, The Morning News reports.

In one room, Bush asked: "Hey, kids, do you know who I am?"

The young ones all gasped. Then one answered, "George Washington!"

POTUS #43 did not miss a beat. “That’s right!” he said. "George Washington Bush!"

(This item reported by USA TODAY's Melanie Eversley.)

Nadya Vessey lost both legs below the knees from a medical condition when she was a child. Now, with the help of the Oscar-winning visual-effects wizards of Lord of the Rings fame, the New Zealand woman is swimming — and looking — just like a mermaid.

As The Dominion Post reports (hat tip to Cnet news), Weta Workshop created the prosthetic tail from wetsuit fabric and plastic molds, covering it in a digitally printed sock with hand-painted mermaid scales.

"A prosthetic is a prosthetic, and your body has to be comfortable with it and you have to mentally make it part of yourself," said Vessey, who has been swimming in a pool and Auckland Harbor.

"It was absolutely amazing," said costumer Lee Williams. "It's beautiful to watch Nadya swim and to see that dream come true and to be a part of that. I feel quite blessed."

(Photo by Steve Unwin, The Dominion Post.)

With the clock ticking on the Guantanamo Bay prison, some jailers have increased abuse of detainees, a lawyer tells Reuters. The Pentagon confirmed 14 instances of abuse.

"It's 'hey, let's have our fun while we can'," said Ahmed Ghappour, who helped secure the release this week of Binyam Mohamed, a British resident who was detained more than four years without trial or charge.

Ghappour, who spoke to many guards, said the abuse began after President Obama's election and has risen sharply since his inauguration. He said it did not seem to be a reaction to Obama's election, Reuters writes, but rather a realization that there was little time remaining before the last 241 detainees, all Muslim, are released. Obama plans to close the prison camp within the year.

"According to my clients, there has been a ramping up in abuse since President Obama was inaugurated," said Ghappour, a British-American lawyer with Reprieve, a legal charity that represents 31 detainees. "If one was to use one's imagination, (one) could say that these traumatized, and for lack of a better word barbaric, guards were just basically trying to get their kicks in right now for fear that they won't be able to later."

He cited beatings, the dislocation of limbs, spraying of pepper spray into closed cells, applying pepper spray to toilet paper and over-force-feeding detainees who are on hunger strike.

Ghappour stressed the mistreatment was undertaken by frustrated U.S. army and navy jailers and did not appear to be directed from above.

The Pentagon reported it had substantiated 14 of 20 reported instances of abuse ranging from "gestures, comments, disrespect" to "preemptive use of pepper spray," said Adm. Patrick Walsh, who conducted a recent review of conditions at Guantanamo. In general, the report concluded, prisoners were being treated in compliance with the Geneva Conventions.

"We heard allegations of abuse," he said Monday, when asked if detainees had reported torture. "And what we did at that point was to go back and investigate the allegation... What we found is that there were in some cases substantiated evidence where guards had misconduct, I think that would be the best way to put it."

Ghappour told Reuters he had spoken to army guards who, unsolicited, had described the pleasure they took in abusing prisoners, whether interrupting prayer or physical mistreatment. He said they appeared unconcerned about potential repercussions. He also saw evidence of guards pulling identity numbers off their uniforms or switching them once they were on duty in order to make it more difficult for them to be identified.

(Nov. 18, 2008, photo,shows a detainee peering through his hands from inside his cell at the Camp Echo detention facility at the U.S. Naval Base at in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Photo by Brennan Linsley, AP.)

A military jury has acquitted a veteran U.S. special forces soldier of killing an unarmed Afghan man and then cutting off one of his ears.

Jurors at Fort Bragg, N.C., deliberated four hours before clearing Master Sgt. Joseph D. Newell, 39, of Tecumseh, Mich., who was charged with premeditated murder and mutilating a dead body. He could have been imprisoned for life.

The man he shot had been detained after a vehicle stop outside Hyderabad, Afghanistan, last March 5. Checking the man's cell phone, Newell, with the 2nd Battalion, 3rd Special Forces Group, found a picture of a Russian machine gun commonly used by Taliban forces.

Newell testified he shot the man twice after he lunged at him, but the prosecution said eye-witness accounts proved the man did not constitute a threat and that he did not lunge at Newell.

Stocks swam underwater today, breaking the surface just briefly for a late gulp of air before diving in the final minutes of trading. Housing and banking were the lead weights.

Yesterday's gains were a distant shore. The S&P; 500, the Dow Jones and the Nasdaq all lost 1%, while the Russell 2000 measure of small-cap stocks slid almost 2.7%.

Here's what some money magicians told the AP:

"We're seeing a lot of nervousness, and that's breeding volatility," said Anthony Conroy of BNY ConvergEx Group. "We're definitely in a bottoming process of the market, but it's not coming as quickly as some people would like."

"We're not going to go from bear to bull in one day," said Scott Fullman of WJB Capital Group. But the "perception of risk appears to be abating a bit."

"There have been plenty of attempts, but I don't see anything earthshattering that is going to ignite this market," said Jim Herrick, director of equity trading at Baird & Co.

Read more from The Wall Street Journal, MarketWatch and the Financial Times.

Here is newly released video of a gunman inside the Hotel Trident in Mumbai during a terrorist attack in November that left 179 people dead.

The security camera footage shows armed militants stalking the hallways of the hotel. In one sequence a gunman shoots at what appears to be the hotel's empty reception desk, Reuters reports.

Last week we reported that Amnesty International said it was "shocked" by remarks from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that appeared to de-emphasize human rights in relations between Washington and Beijing.

Clinton, who was traveling in Asia, had said global economic crisis and climate change would top the agenda with China. As for issues such as Taiwan and Tibet, Clinton said they would be on the agenda, "But we pretty much know what they are going to say."

Now, the Associated Press reports that the State Department, in its annual report on human rights, finds that Beijing's rights record "remained poor and worsened in some areas."

The report, being released on Wednesday, accuses China of stepping up severe repression of minorities in Tibet, as well as increasing its detention and harassment of dissidents, the AP says.

Update at 1:38 p.m. ET: Here is the full report covering a number of countries. Here is the section on China.

An emergency worker walks past the engine of a crashed Turkish Airlines passenger plane at Amsterdam's Schiphol airport. Nine people died in the accident.

(Photo by Paul Vreeker, Reuters)

President Obama has picked Gary Locke, former governor of the state of Washington, as candidate for Commerce secretary.

It was Obama's third pick for the post. Two earlier nominees withdrew their names.

USA TODAY's Joan Biskupic reports that the Supreme Court has unanimously ruled that governments can decide what to display in a public park without running afoul of the First Amendment.

The ruling reverses a lower court ruling that had required Pleasant Grove City, Utah, to place a small religious group's granite marker in a local park that already displays a Ten Commandments marker.

The suit had been filed by the Salt Lake City-based Summom Summum, which had argued that a city can't allow some private displays in its public park and reject others.

(2005 photo by Stuart Johnson, Deseret Morning News)

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is not admitting she did anything wrong, but has agreed to reimburse the state almost $7,000 related to nine trips taken by her children, The Alaska Daily News reports.

The payment settles an ethics complaint filed in October.

The trips in question include one she took with daughter Bristol to a conference in New York City and another to an Iron Dog snow machine race in which her husband, Todd, competed, The Daily News reports.

In a written statement, the 2008 Republican vice-presidential candidate said while she is obligated to meet with Alaskans across the state, "I am blessed to have a large and loving family, and the discharge of my duties should not prevent me from spending time with them."

Palin's lawyer, Thomas Van Flein, told reporters that she had been "exonerated" of all wrongdoing regarding the complaint and that there are "no ethics violation," the newspaper writes.

Anchorage lawyer Tim Petumenos, who was hired by the state Personnel Board to investigate the ethics complaint, said that "to be exonerated suggests a hearing on the merits and a conclusion."

"That was not what happened here," he says, according to the newspaper. Petumenos said Palin agreed not to contest certain charges and he agreed not to file a formal accusation or take the case to a hearing.

Update at 11 a.m. ET: The Alaska Daily News offers a link to a full copy of the settlement agreement.

(Photo by Al Grillo, AP)

A southern Pennsylvania borough has lifted a ban on a morning crossing guard wearing "crazy hats" while on duty, The Evening Sun of Hanover reports.

The newspaper says the Littlestown borough council took less than 15 minutes Tuesday to rescind a ban that had forced Larry Douthwaite from wearing his wild and crazy headgear mornings at North Queen and East Myrtle Streets. Douthwaite, a local pastor, has worked the beat in offbeat garb for the past 15 years, the newspaper writes.

The Gettysburg Times says borough manager Linda Hess issued the order two weeks ago for safety reasons, arguing that silly hats are a potential distraction. She wanted Douthwaite, who has 103 unique hats, to wear a black-and-white uniform cap issued by the borough while on duty.

Although Councilman Kevin Clark joined in the unanimous vote, The Evening Sun says, he cautioned that residents, including one who showed up in a large, red-and-white mushroom-shaped hat, must "consider the realm of possibilities" that allowing that sort of free expression could result in something offensive under the guise of freedom.

Douthwaite did not attend the meeting, but earlier told The Evening Sun that if the ban is lifted, he's picked out an Egyptian Pharaoh hat to don on his first day back on duty.

(Photo by James Robinson, The Evening Sun, AP)

Good morning. It's Wednesday.

The speech: President Obama's address to Congress dominates front pages big and small with banner headlines ranging from "We Will Recover" to "We Hope He's Right." The Washington Post, right, notes that Obama was "striking an optimistic tone that has been absent from his speeches in recent weeks." The Wall Street Journal says the president "tried to put a hard stop to what he portrayed as a ruinous decade and to assure listeners that with shared sacrifice and a new sense of responsibility, Americans can emerge stronger than ever." The St. Petersburg Times reports that the speech was "dizzying in its range" but notes that Obama "kept returning to the point that America needs to invest if it hopes to enjoy good times again." The Los Angeles Times writes that the speech "was aimed at two crucial audiences: consumers and Wall Street." The Boston Globe says Obama got positive feedback among many lawmakers, but adds that the president "still faces a reluctant and energized GOP minority, which has emerged from two devastating elections to form a determined and unified front against Obama's economic agenda."

Wednesday's outlook:

• President Obama will nominate former Washington Gov. Gary Locke to be commerce secretary. Third time a charm?

• Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke gives an encore presentation, this time before the House Financial Services Committee.

• Economic reports: January existing-home sales, plus weekly petroleum inventories.

• The big wigs of Big Oil appear before the House Natural Resources Committee to plead their case for offshore drilling. Other congressional hearings: television in the digital era (Senate Judiciary Committee); the future of the Homeland Security Department, featuring Secretary Janet Napolitano (House Homeland Security Committee); national service and volunteerism (House Education and Labor Committee); copyright licensing and possible updates to cable and satellite TV licenses (House Judiciary Committee).

• The 2008 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices will be released by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

• The Senate Armed Services receives a closed briefing on Afghanistan and Pakistan.

• Stevie Wonder will be at the White House to receive the Gershwin Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Library of Congress.

(Stevie Wonder performing Monday at the Library of Congress. Photo by Haraz N. Ghanbari, AP.)

More gloom in the dead-tree-media forest.

The parent company of the San Francisco Chronicle is threatening to sell or close the daily paper if it cannot "quickly" achieve savings to stop "major losses" since 2001. They topped $50 million last year, and a repeat is expected this year.

The Hearst Corp. said the cost savings would include "significant" cuts to both union and non-union staff, according to a report from Hearst Newspapers. The company offered no specifics.

Hearst said it wants to begin negotiations with the Chronicle's two biggest unions.

"Survival is the outcome we all want to achieve. But without specific changes we are seeking across the entire Chronicle organization, we will have no choice but to quickly seek a buyer for the Chronicle, and, should a buyer not be found, to shut down the newspaper," Frank A. Bennack, Jr., Hearst vice chairman and chief executive, and Steven R. Swartz, president of Hearst Newspapers, said in a joint statement.

President Obama is an hour away from addressing Congress and the nation, but the White House has released excerpts from his speech.

He will say that after "critical debates and difficult decisions were put off for some other time," the "day of reckoning has arrived" for Americans and it's time to take charge.

Read the excerpts over at The Oval, which will be live-blogging the event.

Mimi Hall and David Jackson of USA TODAY also are covering.

Last month, Starbucks introduced a $1 bottomless cup of coffee to boost sales. Yesterday, a former motel turned java hut topped that offer in a bid to stimulate the local Maine economy.

The Grand View Topless Coffee Shop, in tiny Vassalboro, held its grand opening. Obey the signs:

“Over 18 only.”

“No cameras, no touching, cash only.”

Waitron Susie Wiley, 23, has worked in coffee shops since she was a teen. She took a job at the Grand View because it is "something different."

She feel exploited?

“No, I love it. I find it very empowering, not degrading,” she told the Kennebec Journal this morning, adding that customers had been “completely respectful.”

“We’ve had men, women, couples — all walks of life,” she said.

Brothers Dick and Rene Brochu (ages 60 and 59) came over from Augusta today to check out the coffee after hearing about the joint from friends.

"I really hope it works," Dick Brochu said. "It's different. I kind of like it. If you don't like it, I say don't come in, stay away."

No reviews about the coffee.

The town's planning board unanimously approved the coffee shop last month.

"I say, bring the money in," resident Kevin Goodrich said. "People need jobs and it's a good place to go. The economy's not very good right now, so why not do it?"

Down the road in Connecticut, dueling Hartford Courant columnists kick around the topless issue from male and female perspectives.

As The Washington Post writes, Don't women have enough to worry about?

In the largest study of its kind, British researchers deliver the bad news that women who have just one alcoholic drink a day raise their chances of developing cancer, mostly in their breasts.

"That's the take-home message," study leader Naomi E. Allen of the University of Oxford told the Post. "If you are regularly drinking even one drink per day, that's increasing your risk for cancer." The study is in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

The Associated Press offers this context: Each extra drink per day increased the risk of breast, rectal and liver cancer. ... The type of alcohol — wine, beer or liquor — didn't matter. ... Also, moderate drinkers actually had a lower risk of thyroid cancer, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and renal cell cancer. ...

Let's pick up the Post article, which notes that this latest research may be sending mixed signals to women:

Understandably, the study might leave many women scratching their heads -- and perhaps needing a drink more than ever -- given all the talk about red wine being something akin to a fountain of youth.

"I thought drinking wine was good for you," said Mirella Romansini, 27, of Chevy Chase, outside Paul's liquor store in Northwest Washington. "Now they are saying it increases your risk for cancer? Yes, I would say I'm surprised."

Romansini is hardly alone. At least half of U.S. women drink sometimes, and even the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, the government's official bible on what we should be putting into our mouths, say alcohol can have "beneficial" effects, allowing women up to one drink a day (men get two, of course).

Confused? It turns out the guidelines were never intended to recommend that anyone drink for their health. Yes, it's true that studies have indicated that moderate drinking might cut the risk of heart disease and other ailments. And researchers have identified a substance in red wine (remember resveratrol?) that could offer a host of benefits.

But officials have long worried about sending the wrong message, giving people who should never drink -- young people, pregnant women, those prone to alcoholism -- permission to abuse alcohol. As a result, they have long tried to walk a fine line between acknowledging the possible benefits of alcohol without encouraging people to start drinking or to abuse it. The guidelines were intended to set an upper limit on what might be safe, not a recommended daily dose.

"It's a level of consumption that is generally has been found in scientific studies to be associated with a relatively low risk of harms," said Robert D. Brewer of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "But low risk does not mean no risk."

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke's big dose of Xanax settled investors' nerves, wiping out yesterday's angst-driven sell-off and ending a six-day losing streak.

The broad-gauge S&P; 500 soared 4% to close at 773; the Dow Jones average regained 3.3%, finishing at 7,350; the Nasdaq climbed 3.9% to 1,443; and the Russell 2000 small-cap index shot up 4.5%, ending the day at 412.

Will Dr. Bernanke's tonic last? Will it provide enough oomph? Or were the gains a short-term placebo, the result of bargain hunting, a dead-cat bounce?

"There’s overwhelming value in this market. If there’s any kind of momentum in the market, people want to jump on board," Randy Bateman, chief investment officer of the asset management unit of Huntington Bancshares, told Bloomberg.

“Given that we’ve had a significant sell-off, it’s usually followed by a recovery,” added Alan Gayle, a senior investment strategist at RidgeWorth Capital Management. “We still have a lot more work to do to establish a solid base for the equity market.”

The AP talked to a portfolio manager who echoed Gayle's caution, and still doesn't see the bottom of Wall Street's well.

"The underlying fundamentals just aren't there to support anything that's sustainable right now," said Rich Hughes, co-president of Portfolio Management Consultants. "We haven't seen the capitulation that you'd want to see before you'd get thoroughly enthused."

What's your take on the markets, OD readers?

AP is reporting that New Orleans police say several people have been shot along a Mardi Gras parade route, and two suspects are in custody.

Police spokesman Bob Young says the gunfire erupted about 1:40 p.m. today during a truck float parade. Authorities don’t believe the injuries are life threatening.

The victims were taken to local hospitals. No other information was immediately available.

Update at 4:18 p.m. ET: An infant and four other people were wounded when gunmen opened fire on St. Charles Avenue, near the Garden District. The infant was grazed by a bullet, and none of the other injuries is serious, officials said.

Two suspects were arrested and three guns recovered.

The Times-Picayune has the story and a photo.

The Colorado Springs city council is scheduled to vote Tuesday on a proposal to charge hikers up Pikes Peak as much as $500 per person if they are not injured and call 911 for a ride down, The Colorado Springs Gazette reports.

The idea comes from Pikes Peak Highway officials who are fed up with hauling tired hikers down the 14,115-foot mountain.

"Some of the people just say, ‘I want to get to the top of this mountain,' and they don't realize they have to get back down," highway manager Jack Glavan tells the newspaper. The U.S. Forest Service owns the land, but the city runs the toll road, The Gazette says.

The $500 fee reflects the cost of summoning employees after hours to drive 19 miles up the mountain, often in bad weather. If they have to plow through snow or call more people, the fee could get higher under the plan, the paper says.

(2006 photo by Ed Andrieski, AP)

The House has approved a bill to ban the transport of monkeys and apes, including chimpanzees, across state lines for the purpose of selling them as pets, the Associated Press reports.

Last week, a woman in Connecticut was critically mauled by a 200-pound chimpanzee that was kept as a pet by the woman’s friend.

Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., sponsor of the bill, has been pushing the legislation for more than a year, but said last week's attack "shows what can happen when primates are treated like pets rather than a wild animal.”

Twenty states and the District of Columbia already have laws banning primates as pets, the AP says.

The bill goes now goes to the Senate.

(Photo by Lili Strauss, AP)

War-orphaned children sit in cardboard boxes at the Kizito orphanage in Bunia in northeastern Congo on Tuesday.

(Photo by Finbarr O'Reilly, Reuters)

A roadside bomb killed four U.S. troops in Afghanistan on Tuesday in the deadliest single attack on international forces this year, the Associated Press reports.

The troops were killed in southern Afghanistan when their vehicle hit a bomb, the U.S. military said. An Afghan civilian also died in the explosion, the AP says.

USA TODAY's Alan Levin tells us that the air traffic controller who tried to help a crippled US Airways jet that ditched into the Hudson River says he is still haunted by how close the watery landing came to tragedy.

Patrick Harten tells a House Aviation Subcommittee hearing Tuesday that he was "in shock" when the flight dropped off his radar after striking a flock of birds last month.

"I was sure the plane had gone down," he says.

Levin says it is the first time Harten has told his side of the story of the "Miracle on the Hudson" in which all 155 passengers and crew were rescued.

Harten says he was "hyper-focused" during the emergency as he tried to find a safe place to land the Airbus A320 and coordinate the emergency with other controllers.

"But when it was over, it hit me hard," he says. "It felt like hours before I learned about the heroic water landing...Even after I learned the truth, I could not shake the image of tragedy in my mind. Every time I saw the survivors on the television, I imagined grieving widows."

(Harten and the crew of the US Airways plane get a standing ovation at a congressional hearing. Photo by Mark Wilson, Getty Images)