World/Nation
Severe weather slams southern U.S.; cars flipped, four killed
JACKSON, Miss. - Severe weather slamming the southern U.S. two days before Christmas killed at least four people, flipped cars, knocked out power to thousands and damaged several homes and businesses.
In Mississippi, Gov. Phil Bryant declared an emergency for two southeastern counties where officials say four people died in the storms and several more were injured. His office said thousands were without power Tuesday night around Columbia, which is about 80 miles southeast of Jackson.
Jones County Emergency Management director Marda Tullos said a man and woman were killed inside a mobile home in the storm's path in Laurel. About 50 miles southwest, Marion County coroner Norma Williamson tells WDAM that two people were killed in Columbia. One person was in a trailer park, another at a strip mall.
Marion General Hospital had treated about 50 patients since the severe weather swept through, said spokeswoman Millie Swann.
"The whole town of Columbia is without power," Swann said. "The hospital is running on generator (power), but was able to treat people in the ER unless they needed a higher level of care."
Swann said the hospital's emergency room has since quieted.
"Any time there's an event like this things get hectic, but health care people are used to working under pressure," she said.
Graying Cold War fugitives spawn potential Cuba-U.S. tension
HAVANA - For decades some of America's most-wanted fugitives made new lives for themselves in Cuba, marrying, having children and becoming fixtures of their modest Havana neighborhoods as their cases went mostly forgotten at home.
Granted political asylum by former President Fidel Castro, they became players in his government's outreach to American minorities and leftists, giving talks about Cuba's merits to sympathetic visitors, medical students and reporters from the U.S.
Last week's stunning reconciliation between the U.S. and Cuba has returned these graying relics of the Cold War to the headlines, transforming them into a potential source of tension in the new era of detente between the two nations.
The dozens of men and woman wanted by the U.S. range from quotidian Medicaid fraud suspects to black militants and Puerto Rican nationalists with major bounties on their heads.
Thunderstorms, wind and snow could snarl holiday travel
CHICAGO - A wintry mix of Gulf Coast thunderstorms expected to travel north, predicted snowfall in the Great Lakes and blustery conditions in the nation's midsection threatened Tuesday to snag holiday travel plans nationwide.
While snow fell in some Midwestern states Tuesday - nearly 2 feet in South Dakota's Black Hills - a strong storm system expected to drop rain along the East Coast and snow from Missouri to Michigan developed in Mississippi, Georgia and Louisiana, among other southern states. The severe storms in the South killed at least four people, damaged homes, businesses and cars, and knocked out power to thousands.
As the storms tore their way across the South, there were some delays at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport - though airport spokesman Reese McCranie said in an email he was not aware of any cancellations. He said the airport did not expect a ground stop.
Meteorologists predicted rain-into-snow for parts of the Great Lakes region, with several inches of Christmas Eve snow expected in portions of Illinois. Officials at both airport hubs in the nation's third-largest city readied for the potential of holiday delays and cancellations, particularly with more people expected to fly this year.
"I'd be nervous about the possibility of not being able to get out," said Chicago area meteorologist Charles Mott. "I would definitely make plans about possibly staying put or doing something else."
Killing of NYPD officers by fugitive highlight system issues
NEW YORK - After Ismaaiyl Brinsley shot his ex-girlfriend and posted an online death threat against police, investigators in Maryland used modern cellphone tracking technology to follow his journey to New York City in real time.
But when it came to giving the New York Police Department specifics about Brinsley, the means were markedly low-tech: a phone call and a wanted flier sent by fax.
That warning came too late, sent a mere two minutes before Brinsley walked up to a patrol car and shot two officers dead without warning.
Police on both ends said they took immediate and proper measures to try to alert officers about an armed and dangerous fugitive bent on violence against law enforcement. But the seemingly antiquated way they did it has raised questions about the potential for communication lapses to hamper urgent manhunts.
Though refusing to fault how the warning was handled, Police Commissioner William Bratton has called it "an irony" the ambush occurred a time when the NYPD has launched a $160 million program to equip each member of the 35,000-officer force with a department-issued computer tablet or smartphone to improve information-sharing.
Administration says health care sign-ups encouraging
WASHINGTON - The second sign-up season under President Barack Obama's health care law is off to a good start but there is a way to go to make it a success, administration officials said Tuesday.
Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia M. Burwell said 1.9 million new customers have picked a plan as of Dec. 19 through the federal insurance market that serves 37 states. Another 4.5 million have renewed existing coverage, with most automatically re-enrolled.
The numbers don't include states running their own insurance exchanges, including California and New York. The administration will release a full 50-state report next week, Burwell said.
"We still have a lot of work to do," she said. "But this is an encouraging start."
At her year-end news conference, Burwell dodged questions about a Supreme Court case seen as the most serious threat left to Obama's law. The case, King v. Burwell, will be argued in early March.
- The Associated Press