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houses, flooded neighborhoods, sand-strewn streets and a still-burning fire along the state's battered coastline. Parts of the New Jersey shore's famed boardwalks were missing.
• Obama pledged to those affected by the storm that "we are here for you and we will not forget."
• Obama also traveled to Louisiana in early September after the Gulf Coast was hit by Hurricane Isaac.
• ___

• NEW YORK (AP) -- Americans get too many calories from soda. But what about alcohol? It turns out adults get almost as many empty calories from booze as from soft drinks, a government study found.
• Soda and other sweetened drinks -- the focus of obesity-fighting public health campaigns -- are the source of about 6 percent of the calories adults consume, on average. Alcoholic beverages account for about 5 percent, the new study found.
• "We've been focusing on sugar-sweetened beverages. This is something new," said Cynthia Ogden, one of the study's authors. She's an epidemiologist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention which released its findings Thursday.
• The government researchers say the findings deserve attention because, like soda, alcohol contains few nutrients but plenty of calories.
• The study is based on interviews with more than 11,000 U.S. adults from 2007 through 2010. Participants were asked extensive questions about what they ate and drank over the previous 24 hours.
• ___

• DENVER (AP) -- It's settled. Pot, at least certain amounts of it, will soon be legal under state laws in Washington and Colorado. Now, officials in both states are trying to figure out how to keep stoned drivers off the road.
• Colorado's measure doesn't make any changes to the state's driving-under-the-influence laws, leaving lawmakers and police to worry about its effect on road safety.
• "We're going to have more impaired drivers," warned John Jackson, police chief

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