• Brian Williams will anchor “NBC Nightly News” from Boston tonight.
• “ABC World News with Diane Sawyer” will be expanded to an hour tonight. Terry Moran will anchor “Nightline” from Boston.
• Scott Pelley will anchor “CBS Evening News” from Boston.
• Shepard Smith will anchor his two Fox News Channel programs, “Studio B” and “The Fox Report,” from Boston tonight. He will be joined by Bill Hemmer, who arrived in Boston last night and anchored “America’s Newsroom” from the crime scene this morning. Rick Leventhal will also report from Boston during the network’s normal primetime programming. Molly Line and Mike Tobin are also in Boston for the network.
• On CNN, Jake Tapper and Wolf Blitzer will host their afternoon shows from Boston. Anderson Cooper is also there and will anchor “AC360″ live at 8pmET and 10pmET. In place of re-airs, Erin Burnett will be live at 11pmET and Piers Morgan live at 12amET, both from New York. Chris Cuomo, John Berman, Sanjay Gupta, Don Lemon, Brooke Baldwin, Poppy Harlow, Brian Todd, Jason Carroll, Peter Hamby, Zain Asher, Gary Tuchman, Drew Griffin, Pamela Brown and Maria Santana are also in Boston for CNN.
• Fox Business Network’s Neil Cavuto will host his 8pmET show live for the rest of the week.

So Nemo, is what we’re calling this? This storm will sound nothing like Ellen DeGeneres as a clownfish (oh wait, she was Dory). Anyway, maybe the Weather Channel can come up with more daunting names next year. Remember Snowpacalyse which hit three years this week? Also Snowmaggedon?

So, what are the networks planning? The Weather Channel had already blown out their reality shows in primetime last night with storm prep coverage. The news and business networks have reporters out in the field.

CNN is planning to be live overnight tonight and into Saturday covering the storm. Chad Myers and Jen Delgado will monitor the storm’s movement from the CNN Weather Center. Reporters and anchors including Jason Carroll, Susan Candiotti, Poppy Harlow, Ali Velshi, Ashleigh Banfield, Zain Asher, Alison Kosik, Mary Snow (appropriately), Gary Tuchman and Brian Todd will be out and about.

Brooke Baldwin anchors overnight coverage from balmy Atlanta. “This is when you know there’s a serious breaking news story,” said Baldwin during 2pmET coverage, “Look at all the pizza boxes at CNN.”

On Fox News, Anna Kooiman and Molly Lyon will report live. The storm has pushed the Saturday morning business block to the afternoon, from 2-4pmET. Kelly Wright and Jamie Colby will continue with live coverage from 10-Noon.

New Year’s Eve 2011

New Year’s Eve 2010

New Year’s Eve 2008

Anderson Cooper and Kathy Griffin are back for their sixth time co-hosting CNN’s New Year’s Eve coverage from Times Square.

“As always, I await New Year’s Eve with Kathy Griffin with grave reservations and tremendous fear, and I want to apologize in advance to anyone she may offend/assault/attempt to kiss,” said Cooper.

The last two years — NYE 2011 (although Griffin did take off her top at one point) and NYE 2010 — were relatively tame compared with some of the headline-making stunts of the previous years; like when Griffin dropped the “F” bomb on New Year’s Eve 2009 and the year before when she called out an onlooker who had been heckling her.

CNN’s live coverage begins at 10pmET from Times Square. Cooper and Griffin will be joined by correspondent Isha Sesay in Times Square, John Zarrella in Key West and Gary Tuchman in Eastport, Maine.

At 12:30amET CNN’s Brooke Baldwin at Jackson Square in New Orleans and HLN’s Susan Hendricks at the Hard Rock Cafe in Nashville will count down to midnight, Central time.

And once again, Tom Foreman will host a year-end special “All the Best, All the Worst 2012,” at 8pmET.

(Photos: Chris Ariens)

CNN will be keeping its usual primetime lineup on tonight to cover Sandy, and will be live until the worst of the storm passes, whenever that may be. Anchors Anderson Cooper and Erin Burnett will be reporting in the field tonight across primetime. CNN International will be simulcasting CNN/U.S. from 11AM-2PM and again starting at 4 PM.

The list of correspondents in the field for CNN is after the jump.

Update: HLN is blowing up its primetime lineup to provide hurricane coverage. Those details are also after the jump.
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CNN has announced a slew of assignments for network correspondents in advance of the Presidential election. The network will have anchors and reporters in every swing state, as well as some floaters that will travel to multiple states, and the correspondents embedded with the campaigns. The network is launching segments branded as “The Final Battlegrounds” starting on Monday.

“CNN is deploying its vast resources and top-notch reporters into the states that the campaigns are targeting as the election nears,” said Mark Whitaker, executive VP and managing editor of CNN Worldwide in a statement. “Our in-depth reporting and analysis will keep voters informed of the up-to-the-minute developments that will determine the outcome of this extraordinarily close presidential race.”

The correspondent assignments, after the jump.
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A Florida judge offered to recuse herself from the case of George Zimmerman because of her husband’s ties to CNN legal analyst Mark NeJame. NeJame, who’s been hired by CNN to comment on the case, was on the network earlier this afternoon just as a special hearing was about to get underway.

NeJame revealed that the Judge Jessica Recksiedler would likely recuse herself from the case. Anchor Gary Tuchman speculated that it was because “she’s young.”

Instead NeJame revealed, “her husband is my law partner.” Tuchman chuckled as NeJame explained, Judge Recksiedler is “a very ethical, very excellent lawyer and judge,” adding, “So there would not be the appearance of impropriety,” she would likely step aside.

NeJame also revealed he referred Zimmerman to his new attorney Mark O’Mara, who, as TVSpy reports has been a legal analyst on the case for Orlando CBS station WKMG. The Orlando Sentinel reports that at today’s 10-minute hearing, which was called specifically to disclose the connection, that O’Mara is worried about the ties and “he may ask her to give the case to another judge.”

Kathy Griffin & Anderson Cooper, New Years 2009

Griffin and Cooper, New Years 2011

Anderson Cooper and Kathy Griffin will again co-host CNN’s New Year’s Eve celebration from 11pmET to 12:30amET. “Get ready, America. Pull up a chair and a box of your finest wine, because you’ve never seen a New Year’s Eve show like this,” said Griffin. “Kathy Griffin scares me. I’ve said this often to CNN management directly and through my attorneys,” joked Cooper.

Last year was pretty tame compared to the year before when Griffin dropped the “F” bomb and the year before that when she heckled an onlooker. Top those, Griffin.

Isha Sesay will join Cooper and Griffin from the crowds in Times Square and Gary Tuchman will report live from Central Park for the annual Midnight Run. Correspondent John Zarrella will be live in Key West, Florida and Brooke Baldwin from Nashville, Tennessee. The show will simulcast on CNN International.

Leading up to the 11pm special, CNN presents the “Best and Worst of 2011,” an Anderson Cooper 360° special anchored by Tom Foreman.

With the devastation from Joplin, MO becoming the big story Sunday night, the network news organizations are sending some of their top anchors to the city.

“NBC Nightly News” anchor Brian Williams–whose first TV job was at KOAM in Joplin–will return to the city to anchor his evening newscast tonight. Ron Mott and Al Roker traveled to the city last night, and reported from there this morning on “Today.” Kevin Tibbles is also en route.

Joplin also has another personal co0nnection to NBC: it is the hometown of NBC senior investigative correspondent Lisa Myers.

On CBS, Harry Smith will anchor the “CBS Evening News” from there this evening, while Chris Wragge will co-anchor “The Early Show” from the city tomorrow morning.

ABC “World News” anchor Diane Sawyer will anchor from Joplin tonight, and will be joined by David Muir. “Good Morning America”‘s Josh Elliott and Sam Champion reported for the program this morning, and will also contribute to “World News.”

Cable networks are after the jump.

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The White House this morning has handed out copies of President Obama’s long-form birth certificate in an effort to, once and for all, put a rest to the question of whether or not Obama was born in the U.S. MSNBC.com is reporting Obama will make a statement about it at 9:45amET.

CNN’s AC360 has spent two nights reporting on the issue, sending correspondent Gary Tuchman to Hawaii to investigate the claims. And on Monday, Fox News anchor Shepard Smith called out the Rev. Franklin Graham for his comments on the matter, declaring: “Fox News can confirm the President of the United States is a citizen of the United States. Period”

CNN U.S. and CNN International continue simulcasting of coverage from Japan with a special two-hour edition of “Anderson Cooper 360″ tonight at 9pmET (10am Monday morning Tokyo time). Anderson Cooper, Dr. Sanjay Gupta and Soledad O’Brien who were all dispatched to Haiti during the earthquake there, will report tonight from Japan.

CNN Tokyo correspondent Kyung Lah will contribute as will correspondents Anna Coren, Stan Grant, Paula Hancocks, and Gary Tuchman.