Last year Americans hit the road 112 million times after drinking too much.

That statistic, just released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is nothing to be proud about. But it's worth noting that the number of alcohol-impaired driving episodes has declined 30 percent since peaking at 161 million in 2006.

Some 4 million adults in the U.S. drove while impaired by alcohol last year, the CDC estimates. That works out to about 479 episodes for every 1,000 adults.

"Now is not my time," New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie just said at a news conference in Trenton — ruling out a run for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination.

"New Jersey, whether you like it or not, you're stuck with me," Christie added.

Update at 1:10 p.m. ET. More From Christie:

The governor said he did consider making a bid. He had been asked to run by many people, Christie said, and "felt an obligation to earnestly consider their advice."

Nearly 18 months after a disastrous oil spill killed wildlife and endangered the futures of fishermen and resort businesses along the Gulf of Mexico, the federal government announces it will regulate not only the operators of offshore oil rigs, but the contractors who own and work on them, as well.

The shift in enforcement is one of several changes announced in the past 24 hours, as federal regulators seek to ensure the Gulf spill catastrophe does not recur.

Poor Will’s Almanack for the Fourth Week of Early Fall.

The last week of Early Fall is the week the first slate-gray junco arrives for winter.  Goldenrod is seeding now, pods of the eastern burning bush are open, hawthorn berries redden, wild grapes are purple, and the tree line that seemed so deep in summer just days ago is suddenly poised to break into its final glory of the year.

The state says drug dealers around Ohio are developing new sources for prescription painkillers by buying them from senior citizens, sometimes as the patients leave pharmacies.

The report by the Ohio Substance Abuse Monitoring Network also blames the state's continuing rise of heroin use on addicts switching from prescription painkillers, which are more expensive and harder to obtain.

Orman Hall, director of the Ohio Department of Alcohol and Drug Addiction Services, says once people become addicted to painkillers it's almost inevitable they'll switch to heroin.

Ohioans can cast an early ballot for the Nov. 8 election starting Tuesday. 

Voters this fall will decide whether the state should toss out a law governing public employee unions that was passed this spring. The measure limits the collective bargaining abilities of more than 350,000 teachers, nurses, firefighters, police and other public workers around the state.

Another question facing voters is whether the state's constitution should be amended to prohibit governments from requiring Ohioans to buy health insurance.

Sometimes the solution to a new problem is right in front of you – or, in the case of one community in Newfoundland, right under their feet. That's where residents, who partnered with paleontologists, discovered that fossils could serve as engines for tourism — and scientific research — in an area that had hit tough times.

The Justice Department is focusing new attention on the decade-old murder of a federal prosecutor in Seattle.

Tom Wales was killed in his home in 2001, one month to the day after Sept. 11. The case remains unsolved.

But a new public information campaign is designed to bring in new leads.

The Murder

On an overcast fall morning, Amy Wales returns to the home she grew up in on Seattle's Queen Anne Hill.

"The cherry tree in front of the house — I remember when my father planted it. It was so small," she says.

The trial of the Nigerian man who authorities say tried to set off a bomb hidden in his underwear as a jetliner prepared to land in Detroit on Christmas Day 2009 began with some drama today in Detroit.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab declared as jury selection got underway that "Anwar is alive" — a reference to American-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who was killed on Friday by a U.S. drone strike in Yemen.

Federal Reserve policymakers expect "a somewhat slower pace of economic growth over coming quarters" than they had been forecasting just four months ago, Chairman Ben Bernanke told Congress this hour.

There has been, he added in a statement prepared for the Joint Economic Committee, a "deterioration in the economic outlook over the summer."