Deep Freeze: It’s 5 degrees in Green Bay, Wisc., where the Packers meet the 49ers on Lambeau Field this afternoon. Bone crunching. The lowest temperatures in almost 20 years are spreading into the Northern and Central US today, bringing wind chills as much a 60 below zero. One meteorologist called it a “polar vortex”. It’s 11 below in Minneapolis and 21 in Chicago with snow and wind. The national low,  minus 36 in Crane Lake, Minn. It’s 32 in New York, but the freeze will be there by Tuesday.

Skid Row: A Delta Connection jet from Toronto this morning skidded on an icy JFK taxiway into a snowbank. No one was injured, but all flights were suspended until runways and taxiways were salted, sanded and made safe.

Nation: NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo is set to loosen the rules to allow limited use of Medical marijuana in his state. His executive action would allow 20 hospitals across New York to prescribe marijuana for patients with cancer, glaucoma or other serious conditions approved by the health department. It’s a significant change in a state with some of the strictest enforcement of marijuana laws. > A single engine Piper Aircraft landed on New York’s Major Deegan Expressway yesterday after having engine trouble. The plane was returning to Connecticut after flying around the Statue of Liberty. A pothole crew noticed the plane was in distress and cleared a stretch of the expressway for the landing. No one was injured, but the plane’s landing gear collapsed.

World: A South Sudanese general has been killed in an ambush outside the contested town of Bor. At least 1,000 people have been killed between government troops and rebels. The first face-to-face peace talks are scheduled for today.

Mystery: The burned body of a prominent Hasidic New York real estate developer was found in a dumpster outside a Long Island gas station. Menachem Stark, 39, was kidnapped late Thursday night after a struggle in an alley outside his office. He was taken by two men in a Dodge Caravan. Stark was known in his community as a generous and public-minded man who often carried a lot of cash. But court records also show that Stark and his partner were sued several times for stiffing lenders, once for defaulting on a $29 million loan.

Publisher Hits Pothole!: The Washington Post appears to have broken the story that its new owner, Jeff Bezos, suffered a kidney stone on vacation in the Galapagos Islands and was airlifted out by an Ecuadorian navy helicopter. Bezos, the founder of Amazon.com … and did we say he owns the hometown newspaper in the nation’s capital? … Bezos was reported by the Post to have been flown to a neighboring island where he linked with his private jet and went home for medical treatment.

Icebound: A US icebreaker is on the way to help two ships frozen in Antarctic ice. The Chinese icebreaker Xue Long that helped remove stranded passengers from a stuck Russian research vessel, is now frozen itself. The Xue Long was the first ship to try to help the Russian Akademik Shokalskiy before French and Australian ships joined in. The French and Australians couldn’t break through and left. Now the Chinese, like the Russians, are sticking around for a while.

-30-