Blizzard brings much of East Coast to a standstill ADVERTISING Blizzard brings much of East Coast to a standstill NEW YORK — A blizzard with hurricane-force winds brought much of the East Coast to a standstill Saturday, dumping as much
Blizzard brings much of East Coast to a standstill
NEW YORK — A blizzard with hurricane-force winds brought much of the East Coast to a standstill Saturday, dumping as much as 3 feet of snow, stranding tens of thousands of travelers and shutting down the nation’s capital and its largest city.
After days of weather warnings, most of the 80 million people in the storm’s path heeded requests to stay home and off the roads, which were largely deserted. But more was yet to come, with dangerous conditions expected to persist until early Sunday.
In addition to snow and wind, the National Weather Service predicted up to half an inch of ice for the Carolinas and potentially serious coastal flooding for the mid-Atlantic region.
“This is going to be one of those generational events, where your parents talk about how bad it was,” Ryan Maue, a meteorologist for WeatherBell Analytics, said from Tallahassee, Florida, which also saw some flakes.
At least 12 deaths were blamed on the weather, most from traffic accidents.
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‘Sleeping on the interstate’: Hundreds stranded in Kentucky
LEXINGTON, Ky. — What was supposed to be a relaxing weekend in Tennessee for Alexx and Kate Bragg turned into a grueling night of frozen gridlock along one of the country’s busiest interstate highways.
Hundreds of drivers were stuck on I-75 overnight after a massive winter storm dumped more than a foot of snow in south central Kentucky, clogging cars and causing multiple crashes that created a 30-mile stretch of shivering passengers. By Saturday afternoon, I-75 was no longer closed, with lanes open both northbound and southbound. Traffic was moving — albeit slowly, and officials expected it to stay that way for a while. State police Trooper Lloyd Cochran said he couldn’t give a figure for number of cars or people affected by the standstill but noted that no injuries were reported.
Kate Bragg was one of the stuck motorists, spending most of the night at mile marker 59 between Livingston and Mount Vernon. She and her husband, Alexx, are from Indiana and were on their way to Tennessee for a getaway weekend when they got stuck. For hours, the only people they saw were salt truck drivers begging motorists to move over so they could exit, refuel and hopefully help clear the roads. At one point, Alexx Bragg tucked in behind a salt truck and followed it on the shoulder, only to get stuck again.
“We are worried because we are from Indiana, have no concept of where we are and no idea when to anticipate getting out,” Bragg told The Associated Press in an electronic message using Twitter.
Kentucky officials set up shelters for stranded motorists at churches and public schools along the Interstate, but the Braggs were too far away and could not make it to them.
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Bloomberg eyeing independent White House bid
NEW YORK — Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is taking early steps toward launching an independent campaign for president, seeing a potential path to the White House amid the rise of Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Bernie Sanders.
Bloomberg has retained advisers and plans to conduct a poll after the Feb. 9 New Hampshire primary to assess the state of the race and judge whether there is an opening for him to mount an independent campaign, according to three people familiar with his thinking. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about his plans, which were first reported Saturday by The New York Times.
Bloomberg has set a March deadline to decide on whether to enter the race, to ensure his access to the ballot in all 50 states.
The billionaire media executive, who served three terms as mayor of New York, is said to be concerned by Trump’s lasting hold on the Republican field and is worried about the impact of Sanders’ campaign on Hillary Clinton’s bid for the Democratic nomination.
Bloomberg’s efforts underscore the unsettled nature of the presidential race a little more than a week before the first round of primary voting. The months-long rise of Sanders and Trump has shaken up the political establishment in both parties and on Wall Street, who’ve struggled to combat their climb in primary polls.
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3 inmates held on violent crimes escape California jail
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Southern California authorities launched a frantic manhunt Saturday after three inmates charged with violent crimes, including torture and murder, escaped an Orange County jail.
The inmates were last seen at 5 a.m. Friday at the Orange County Central Men’s Jail in Santa Ana, about 40 miles southeast of Los Angeles. They could have escaped any time between then and late Friday night, Lt. Jeff Hallock, a spokesman with the Orange County Sheriff’s Department, said Saturday.
Hallock said investigators believe they know how the three men escaped the 900-inmate jail, but for now, he wouldn’t release those details. He said it’s the first escape from the facility in at least the past 20 years and could be the first-ever breakout from the jail.
The inmates include 20-year-old Jonathan Tieu, who had been held on a $1 million bond since October 2013 on charges of murder, attempted murder and shooting at an inhabited dwelling. His case is believed to be gang-related.
Hossein Nayeri, 37, had been held without bond since September 2014 on charges of kidnapping, torture, aggravated mayhem and burglary. Nayeri and three other men are accused of kidnapping a California marijuana dispensary owner in 2012. They drove the dispensary owner to a desert spot where they believed he had hidden money and then cut off his penis, authorities said.
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Lead pipes lurk in older neighborhoods across the nation
TOLEDO, Ohio — Lead pipes like the ones that led to contamination of the tap water in Flint, Michigan, carry water into millions of older homes across the U.S. every day, a legacy of an era before scientists realized the severe long-term health consequences of exposure to the heavy metal.
Replacing these buried pipes would be costly in many cases, so chemicals often are added to prevent the plumbing from corroding and leaching lead and other dangerous metals into the drinking water. That’s a step authorities in Flint failed to take, for reasons that are being investigated.
Some researchers question whether chemical treatment and routine testing for lead in the water are enough, arguing that the only way to remove the threat is to replace the pipes.
Utility operators say what happened in Flint — a largely poor and predominantly black city of about 100,000 people that was once an automobile manufacturing powerhouse — is unlikely to be repeated, pointing to a series of mistakes at every level of government.
The city began drawing drinking water from the Flint River, and state environmental regulators failed to make sure the corrosive water was treated to prevent leaching from old pipes. The result: Flint children have been found with high blood levels of lead that could cause lifelong health problems, and parents and others are furious at public officials.
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Police charge 17-year old in Canada after 4 shot dead
TORONTO — Police on Saturday charged a 17-year-old boy with four counts of first-degree murder and seven counts of attempted murder in a mass shooting at a school and home in a remote aboriginal community in western Canada, officials said.
Police said the male suspect can’t be named under Canada’s Youth Criminal Justice Act. Royal Canadian Mounted Police Supt. Grant St. Germaine said nine people were shot in the school, two fatally — a teacher and a teacher’s aide. He said seven people wounded in Friday’s shooting at the school are hospitalized.
Police said two brothers, 17-year-old Dayne Fountaine and 13-year-old Drayden, were shot dead in a home before the gunman headed to the grade 7-12 La Loche Community School. Police responded to a call of shots fired at the school shortly after the lunch hour.
Royal Canadian Mounted Police Commanding Officer Brenda Butterworth-Carr said when officers arrived at the school they saw the front door had been shot open. They entered the school, spotted the suspect and gave chase before apprehending himl. He is due in court next week.
Police said they were not aware of a motive and declined to say what type of gun was used.
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Armed group plans event to renounce federal land policy
BURNS, Ore. — The leader of an armed group occupying a national wildlife refuge in Oregon plans to have a ceremony Saturday for ranchers to renounce federal ownership of public land and tear up their federal grazing contracts.
Midday on Saturday, a small counter-protest gathered on an overlook about five miles from the refuge, chanting for the group to go home.
Kieran Seckling with the Center for Biological Diversity said the leaders of the armed group want to “stage another occupancy like this and to terrorize those towns the same way they have terrorized burns. There’s no town in the west that wants to be the next Burns.”
About 40 people gathered for the counter-protest around 1 p.m. in bitter wind and sleet.
Katie Fite from Boise, Idaho, called the occupiers bullies and said their action could give rise to other hate-filled efforts to take over public lands.
