President Obama will be delivering his State of the Union address tomorrow night at 9PM Eastern, which will be shown on major TV networks and streamed live online via YouTube.

And next Monday, January 30, the President will be fielding questions (pre-selected, of course) from average Joes “in the first completely-virtual interview from the White House.”

You can submit questions between now and January 28 at the White House YouTube channel and on Monday, the President will be participating in a Google+ Hangout. “He’ll be answering several of the most popular questions that have been submitted through YouTube, and some of the people who submitted questions will even be invited to join the President in the Hangout and take part in the live conversation,” according to the White House Blog.

The White House officially joined the Google+ social network last Friday, and has already been relatively active with updates and video posts. The Google+ “Hangout” feature lets people hold 10-person video conferences with each other, while Google’s recently announced “Hangouts On Air” allows “public figures, celebrities and other Google+ users with large followings” to broadcast Hangouts live on YouTube as they’re taking place on Google+.
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Representative Gabrielle Giffords, shot during a shooting spree in Tucson, Ariz., last year, said Sunday she will step down this week from the U.S. Congress to focus on her recovery.

“I have more work to do on my recovery, so to do what is best for Arizona I will step down this week,” Giffords said, posting the announcement on social media likeTwitter, Facebook, and YouTube.

“I’m getting better. Every day my spirit is high. I will return and we will work together for Arizona and this great country. Thank you very much,” she added.

IN PICTURES: Gabrielle Giffords

Giffords’ office said the congresswoman would submit her letter of resignation this week to House Speaker John Boehner and Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer.

Giffords, a Democrat who gained a reputation as a centrist, is serving her third term. She plans to attend President Barack Obama‘s State of the Union address to Congress on Tuesday.

Obama said Giffords represents the very best of what public service should be and that her “cheerful presence” would be missed in Washington.

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Croatia voted in favor of European Union membership in Sunday’s referendum, showing that for most Croats, membership in the economically troubled union still offers hope of economic and political progress for the Balkan nation.

With almost all the ballots counted, the electoral commission announced that 67 percent had voted in favor of joining the bloc, with about 33 percent against. The result confounded recent surveys suggesting that the referendum would be very close. But an approximate turnout of 45 percent suggests that only three in ten Croatian voters are enthusiastic enough about EU membership to have gone to the polling stations to express their support.

On the eve of the referendum, an anti-EU demonstration in Zagreb attended by activists including war veterans turned violent, as demonstrators clashed with police, leading to several arrests.

Croatia is now expected to join the EU on July 1, 2013, subject to the approval of all existing member states.

Most of Croatia’s political class and the mainstream parties have strongly backed membership, which President Ivo Josipovic has called “a turning point in our history.” Accession is expected to bring a range of benefits, including increased access to generous EU funding and improved freedom of movement and employment opportunities for Croatians within and beyond the member states.

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January 18 is a date that will live in ignorance, as Wikipedia started a 24-hour blackout of its English-language articles, joining other sites in protesting pending U.S. legislation aimed at shutting down sites that share pirated movies and other content.

Reddit.com shut down its social news service for 12 hours. Other sites made their views clear without cutting off surfers. Google blacked out the logo on its home page, directing surfers to a page where they could add their names to a petition against the bills.

Local listings site Craiglist took a middle route, changing its local home pages to a black screen directing users to an anti-legislation page. After 10 seconds, a link to the main site appears on the home page, but some surfers missed that and were fooled into thinking the whole site was blacked out.

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