A busy day is ahead on Capitol Hill as President Obama pleads his case for the stimulus package to Senate and House Republicans. Vice President Joe Biden will also be on the Hill for the swearing in of New York’s newest senator, Kirsten Gillibrand. Capitol News Connection’s Todd Zwillich tells us what we should expect from the President and Vice-President's tag-team.

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How much good will President Obama’s stimulus plan do for the states that are hurting the most? An analysis by the investigative journalists at ProPublica has found that much of the transportation and infrastructure spending won’t go to areas with the highest unemployment rates. In fact, states with higher unemployment rates would get far less money per capita for than states with lower unemployment rates. ProPublica’s Michael Grabell and The Takeaway’s Andrea Bernstein are here to discuss the implications.

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While politicians on Capitol Hill debate how far the government should go in bailing out America's banking system, some economists are taking another look at how Sweden dealt with a similar banking crisis in 1992. Justin Fox, Time Magazine's business and economics columnist joins us from Davos, Switzerland to discuss why Sweden nationalized its banking system in the 1990s and whether a similar effort would work in the United States today.

The 1980s were an era of heavy rock and hard drugs. The drug of choice? Cocaine. At the time, public health experts predicted a coming generation of "crack babies" — a wave of children who were mentally and physically disabled after having been exposed to crack in the womb. But scientists are finding that despite the rampant drug use, the predicted generation of children never appeared. We are joined by Susan Okie, a New York Times reporter, who has been reporting on this story.

Read Susan Okie's article, The Epidemic That Wasn't in today's New York Times.

The world's first permanent war crimes court heard their first opening arguments yesterday. The accused is Congolese warlord Thomas Lubanga who pleaded not guilty to war crimes for his recruitment of thousands of children into warfare. The Takeaway talks to Anthony Dworkin, Executive Director of the Crimes of War Project, about what we can expect from this trial and this new court.

In the latest indication of plummeting corporate confidence, companies in almost every industry from construction to pharmaceuticals have announced massive job cuts worldwide. The Takeaway talks to Jim Ellis, assistant managing editor at Business Week for a preview of what's to come.

The President will meet with Republican House and Senate members today in the hopes of selling them on his stimulus package. GOP party leaders have so far been unswayed. One of the lawmakers meeting with President Obama today is Jason Chaffetz, the Republican Representative for the 3rd Congressional district in Utah. He joins us to explain his take on the president's proposal.

The Republican National Committee begins its winter meeting today and by the end of the week they will have elected a new chairman. The race for the chairmanship has just started to heat up and there are no shortage of contenders for the job. Politico reporter Alex Burns joins us from Washington, D.C. for a look at the horse race. Or is that an elephant race?

Last night, the Senate voted to delay the nationwide transition from analog to digital television, opting to push it back from February 17th until June 12th. But reporter Tekla Perry says timing is not the issue: technology is. Perry, a senior editor at the trade publication "IEEE Spectrum," explains that it'll take millions of Americans more than a delay, a government coupon, and $40 box to give their TV a digital upgrade. She joins the show to offer advice on how to make the transition without missing Sweeps week.

For more, read IEEE Spectrum's blog posts Will A Delayed Analog TV Shutdown Fix the Transition? Not Likely and CES 2009: Analog TV Shutdown: Get on with it already!

One of President Obama's first acts in office was to begin the process of closing the United States military prison at Guantanamo Bay and work to either release or bring to trial the 245 detainees there. But in Afghanistan, 600 prisoners from the war on terror await the Obama Administration in a cavernous, makeshift American prison at the Bagram military base north of Kabul. Eric Schmitt of the New York Times joins us to discuss the fate of these prisoners.

For more, read Eric Schmitt's article, Afghan Prison Poses Problem in Overhaul of Detainee Policy in today's New York Times.

It's been less than a week and President Obama has already reversed several Bush Administration policies. Monday it was the environment's turn. The President called for the EPA to consider allowing California and other states to impose stricter emissions standards for cars than the federal government, a measure blocked by the previous White House. How will the auto industry, already hanging on by a thread, cope with more stringent environmental requirements? Bloomberg News reporter John Hughes joins Adaora and Katherine with his analysis.

President Obama gave his first televised interview last night, but his audience was far from home. Instead, Obama chose to speak to the residents of the Middle East via the Dubai-based television network Al Arabiya. He did his best to show that Americans are not the enemy and pledged to extend a hand to the Muslim world. For the reaction to this interview we turn to BBC Correspondent Jon Leyne in Tehran, Iran.

Watch the President's interview on Al Arabiya: