But It Feels Like: The National Weather Service says a dangerous cold front is still affecting two-thirds of the eastern US. It was 15 below overnight in Minneapolis and 17 below in Chicago. In Buffalo, the temperature dropped from 2 degrees at midnight to 5 below this morning. New York was 40 degrees yesterday afternoon and 5 degrees this morning. It hit 6 degrees in Atlanta.

  Air travel continues to be a mess. Just over 2,000 flights are cancelled today and about 3,000 are delayed. Some travellers who’ve been grounded can’t get a flight for a week. And it’s not always better on the ground. Blowing snow trapped about 500 passengers on three trains overnight outside Chicago.

The Big Game: Number one ranked Florida State came from 18 points behind to win the BCS national college football championship at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena last night. Florida took the ball with 1:19 on the clock and drove on to top Auburn 34-31. Florida’s quarterback Jameis Winston is also the winner of this year’s Heisman Trophy as college ball’s best player. He’s a freshman.

Nation: The Supreme Court yesterday stopped further gay marriages in Utah, pending disposition of the state’s appeal to the federal appeals court in Denver. Same-sex marriage had been allowed for two weeks in Utah after a federal judge struck down the state’s ban. The majority of Utah residents are members of the Mormon Church, which opposes same-sex marriage.

> Colleen LaRose, the Philadelphia woman who called herself “Jihad Jane”, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for a 2009 plot to kill a Swedish artist who drew caricatures of the Prophet Muhammed. Larose, 50, a convert to Islam, told the judge she was once obsessed with jihad. She and another woman were recruited through a jihadi website to kill Lars Vilks, who depicted Muhammed with the body of a dog.

Money Woman: The Senate confirmed Janet Yellen as chair of the Federal Reserve to replace Ben Bernanke. She’s the first woman to hold the job in the Fed’s 100-year history. Evidently, like her predecessors, she has mastered the art of talking about the economy without really saying anything.

World: An 8-year-old Afghan girl wearing a suicide vest was detained in Helmand Province shortly before she was to have carried out an attack on border police. Police say the confused and disoriented girl was urged to carry out the attack by her brother, a Taliban commander.

Chicawgo: A federal judge yesterday overturned Chicago’s long-standing ban on retail gun stores with the city limits. The judge said the city failed to convince him that banning sales by licensed dealers reduces gun violence. Chicago’s law has been a big target for the NRA, and they scored a bullseye with this one.

And Now: NBC’s Saturday Night Live has hired a black female cast member in answer to criticism that they haven’t had one for five years. Sasheer Zamata, 27, is a sketch comedian in New York. She makes her first appearance on SNL Jan. 18.  She does a good routine on casting directors who want her to sound blacker. “It’s good money so I still do it.”

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