CNN 2009-11-23

Hello, I am Fredricka Whitfield. Here are the top stories we are following for you right now.

US Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell is blasting what he calls the Democrats 1' arrogant 2 approach to health care reform. The Senate passed a procedural measure to proceed with debate just last night. Appearing on CNN's State of the Union today, McConnell said the Democrats' proposed health care overhaul 3 is not what the American people want.

Well, we don't often ignore the wishes of the American people. They are literally 4 screaming, many of them, telling us, please don't pass this. Don't pass this bill. If the majority is hell-bent on ignoring the wishes of the American people, they have 60 votes in the Senate. You would think that they might be able to do this. But I believe there are a number of Democratic Senators who do care what the American people think, and are not interested in this sort of arrogant approach. Everybody should, sort of, shut up and sit down, get out of the way. We know what's best for you. We are here in for the American people. They don't want us to pass it.

Students at the University of California Santa Cruz have ended their three-day occupation of the administration building. They left on their own after campus police warned them if they didn't, they'll be arrested. The students were protesting a 32% tuition hike. Demonstrations 5 were also held at other UC campuses throughout the past week.

And people in northwestern England are cleaning after a massive flooding. Government forecasters say more than a foot of rain fell in a 24-hour period in some areas. More than one thousand homes were actually flooded and hundreds of people were actually rescued.

Stormy weather is forecast for parts of the US as well while millions of people are traveling for the Thanksgiving Holiday. Here's CNN meteorologist Bonnie Schneider.

Thanks, Fred. For those of you that will be traveling for today, we do have some trouble spots to tell you about and basically they are in two corners of the country, the northwest and the southeast. In the northwest, we will be watching for snowy conditions up into the cascade 6. And wet, windy weather as well affecting cities like Seattle and Portland. And then down in the southeast, watch out for rain along the Gulf 7 Coast, specifically, into Louisiana, parts of Georgia, Florida, all looking at a wet and windy conditions for those of you that are hitting the roads a little bit earlier. But on Wednesday, the busiest travel day of the year, everything changes. We start talking about cold weather, and even the threat for snow. That's right. Wind and snow for the Great Lake possibly on Wednesday, wind-rain mix. And that will definitely affect travel conditions for cities like Minneapolis, Chicago, Detroit and Cleveland. Elsewhere across the country on Wednesday, we will be looking at warm conditions in the southwest, mild temperatures in the southeast and a chance for rain down in South Florida.