CHICAGO (Reuters) – President Barack Obama on Tuesday issued a federal disaster declaration for North Carolina, which has been battered by storms, tornadoes and flooding.

At least 45 people were killed across the southern United States in three days of storms last week, nearly half of them in North Carolina alone, the highest storms-related death toll in more than three years.

North Carolina Governor Bev Perdue had asked for a federal disaster declaration for 18 counties in her state.

Obama's action makes federal funding available to individuals affected by severe weather in 10 counties, and allows state and local governments to obtain funding in another eight counties.

On Tuesday, as severe storms spread to other parts of the country, the National Weather Service issued tornado warnings for southwest Missouri including Branson, and for parts of eastern Oklahoma where a tornado could be produced "at any time" as well as "hail up to baseball size."

The weather service also issued a tornado warning for northwest Arkansas.

Conditions were also favorable for tornadoes to develop in northeast Texas through parts of Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri and Illinois through Tuesday night, the National Weather Service said.

Farther north, a band of wet heavy snow was expected from northern Iowa, through southeast Minnesota, and from southeast to northeast across Wisconsin, the National Weather Service said. Up to 8 inches of snow were expected in Wisconsin.

South central North Dakota received some snow on Tuesday and the National Weather Service was forecasting wet and heavy snow for southwestern North Dakota.

Flooding is widespread in North Dakota as snow slowly melts on ground saturated from last year's rains. It is most severe in the Red River Valley, which extends into Minnesota.

In sharp contrast, drought conditions in Texas were producing wildfires moving toward more populated areas on the outskirts of the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area, officials said.

(Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis, Barbara Goldberg, Rod Nickel and David Bailey)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A jet carrying first lady Michelle Obama abandoned a landing approach outside Washington to avoid another plane in an apparent mistake by air traffic controllers, U.S. aviation officials said on Tuesday.

The Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement her government-owned Boeing 737 was approaching Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland when it was told to "go around," or to climb and attempt another approach, shortly after 5 p.m. EDT Monday.

The agency said Mrs. Obama's plane was about three miles behind an Air Force C-17 that was landing, rather than the five-mile spacing required when trailing in the wake of a much larger aircraft like the military cargo plane.

"The aircraft were never in any danger" and both planes landed safely, the FAA said.

Andrews is a military facility where Air Force One -- the presidential aircraft -- and other top level government planes are based. But the air space around it is handled by the civilian FAA, which is under fire over disclosures in recent weeks that a handful of controllers had fallen asleep on the job while working overnight shifts.

Mrs. Obama's plane was being overseen by a radar facility in Virginia when it was given the order to attempt a second landing approach to Andrews due to the apparent aircraft separation error.

The FAA said it was investigating the incident.

Suspected controller errors in 2010 hit 1,887 from 1,233 the previous year, according to the FAA. More than half were considered relatively minor, but reports in the most severe category rose to 43 from 37, FAA figures show.

(Reporting by John Crawley; editing by Todd Eastham)

DETROIT (Reuters) – A Detroit prosecutor has filed a petition in district court to stop a Florida fundamentalist Christian preacher, who recently caused riots in Afghanistan after he burned a Koran, from holding a rally outside a large Michigan mosque.

Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy said the threat of violence was too great to allow Terry Jones to hold the planned gathering on Friday near the Islamic Center of America -- the largest U.S. mosque -- in the heavily Muslim Detroit suburb of Dearborn.

A hearing on Worthy's bid to block Jones and his supporters from holding the rally at the mosque will be held on Thursday in a Dearborn court. The petition is dated April 15.

Jones, in a telephone interview with Reuters, said he will proceed with the Friday demonstration in front of the mosque regardless of what the court decides on Thursday.

"That's absolutely ridiculous to us," Jones said of the so-called "free speech zones" away from the mosque that city officials want him to use. "For one thing, I think that's totally unconstitutional."

He also said that he will not pay a "peace bond" to cover costs of police security for the demonstration, which was sent to him by Dearborn officials.

He said he has heard that the bond is as high as $100,000, but the papers he has show that it is to cover all costs of holding the demonstration.

Prosecutors argue that the planned gathering by Jones could incite a riot, citing hundreds of email death threats against the preacher.

Jones said he wants to provoke no one, but he will be packing his gun for his own protection. He will appear on Friday, he said with another man from his church and "five or six" supporters in Michigan.

"I have a .40-caliber semiautomatic and a concealed license permit, and I will be wearing that," Jones said. "There will be no provocative actions from us. We are coming in peace."

More than 20 people were killed and dozens injured when riots erupted in Afghanistan after Jones burned a Koran on March 20 inside his Gainesville, Florida, church.

Jones claims he is protesting only against radical Muslims and is not against all who practice Islam.

In a city north of Kandahar earlier this month, seven foreign U.N. staff and five Afghan protesters were killed after demonstrators overran a U.N. office.

Worthy's filing cites the deaths that followed the March 20 Koran burning.

The 58-year-old Jones, the head of a small church called the Dove World Outreach Center, drew worldwide condemnation in September over his initial plans to burn the Koran on the anniversary of the September 11, 2001, attacks.

He backed down after pleas from the U.S. government and other world officials, but then presided over a March 20 mock trial of the Koran that included a torching of the book.

Jones has called his demonstration "Stand Up America Now." Local demonstrators in Michigan plan a counter rally under the banner "Stop the Hate."

Jones plans to hold his gathering on Good Friday, the day that Christians honor the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

(Additional reporting by David Bailey. Editing by Peter Bohan)