Obama's Speech to Congress Will be Unofficial State of the Union

President Barack Obama will address a joint session of Congress Tuesday night in what will serve as a State of the Union in his first year in office. Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal has been chosen to give the Republican response.

A month after taking office, Obama is scheduled to speak before lawmakers at 9:00 pm ET. He will "speak to the nation about our urgent national priorities," he said last Saturday in his weekly address.

For President Barack Obama, it's a chance to take a deep breath and paint a big picture after a first month of gargantuan economic proposals, legislative accomplishments and Cabinet missteps.

The President will focus on the state of the country's economy, fiscal responsibility, and his plans to confront and solve short- and long-term economic challenges. Although it is not the State of the Union speech, it is the first time that President Barack Obama appears before a joint session of Congress since he took office five weeks ago.

President Barack Obama on Tuesday told Japan's politically weakened prime minister he would nurture an already rock-solid alliance with Tokyo and called the relationship the "cornerstone of security in East Asia."

U.S. film actor George Clooney says he has urged the Obama administration to step up U.S. efforts to solve the humanitarian crisis in the Sudanese region of Darfur.

The letter to President Obama came from a woman in Arizona whose husband lost his job. He was able to find work, but the new gig came with one-third the pay; the family is struggling to make their mortgage payments.

Though he began his presidency with the second highest approval rating in the Gallup Poll's history of tracking the statistic, Barack Obama's numbers have dropped back to merely average, driven by Republicans who are growing increasingly unhappy with the president's policies.