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Saturday, 7 December 2013

U.S. war veteran released by North Korea returns home...

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - An 85-year-old Korean War veteran held for more than a month by North Korea as a war criminal arrived in San Francisco on Saturday to be reunited with his family

North Korea detained Merrill E. Newman for crimes it accused him of committing during the conflict six decades ago as a member of the U.S. special forces. He was released for humanitarian reasons after he apologized, the country's state news agency said.
Newman flew to China, where he boarded an 11-and-a-half-hour flight home. His United Airlines airlines flight landed at about 9 a.m.
Accompanied by half a dozen police officers, Newman looked to be in good health and held his wife's hand before walking up to a podium to briefly address the press at the airport's arrivals hall.
"I'm delighted ... it's been a great homecoming," a smiling Newman told reporters. "I'm tired, but I'm ready to be with my family."
He was visiting North Korea, one of the world's most isolated and unpredictable states, as a tourist when he was pulled off an Air Koryo flight in Pyongyang minutes before it was due to depart for Beijing on October 26.
A senior Obama administration official said the Swedish embassy in Pyongyang had been "heroic" in its efforts to get to see Newman but he suggested it was ultimately a mystery why the North Koreans chose to release him.
"Who knows? We can only speculate," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The official added that "all efforts are now on (Kenneth) Bae," referring to another U.S. citizen being detained by North Korea since November 2012.
Bae, a Korean American who worked as a Christian missionary, was convicted by North Korea in May of crimes against the state. He has been serving a 15-year hard-labor sentence.
U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, who is visiting South Korea, spoke with Newman after his release.
"It's a positive thing they have done, but they have Mr. Bae, who has no reason being held in the North and should be released immediately and we are going to continue to demand his release as well," Biden said.
Separately, a State Department spokeswoman declined comment on Newman's well-being and treatment in North Korea, referring such questions to his family.
Asked by reporters in San Francisco how the food was during his detention, Newman replied, "healthy," but he declined to answer other questions about his stay.
Asked if he would return to North Korea, he said: "Probably not."
Newman served during the 1950-53 Korean War and worked with Korean anti-Communist guerrillas fighting behind the lines against the socialist North.
The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), as the country is officially called, has called him a war criminal.
"He masterminded espionage and subversive activities against the DPRK and in this course he was involved in killings of service personnel of the Korean People's Army and innocent civilians," North Korea's official KCNA news agency has said.
KCNA said Newman was released "taking into consideration his admittance of the act committed by him on the basis of his wrong understanding, apology made by him for it, his sincere repentance of it and his advanced age and health condition".
The United States quickly welcomed North Korea's decision to release Newman and called on Pyongyang to pardon Bae.
In Pasadena, California, Newman's son, Jeffrey, said his father was "in excellent spirits and eager to be reunited with his family."
"This is a great moment for us as a family and it will be even better when we are able to see him in a few hours," Jeffrey Newman said, reading from a prepared statement. "After Merrill comes home and has a chance to get some well-deserved rest, we will have more to say about his unusual and difficult journey."
(Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard and Michael Martina in Beijing, and Arshad Mohammed in Washington; Writing by Dina Kyriakidou; editing by Gunna Dickson)

Gene therapy scores big wins against blood cancers...

In one of the biggest advances against leukemia and other blood cancers in many years, doctors are reporting unprecedented success by using gene therapy to transform patients' blood cells into soldiers that seek and destroy cancer.

A few patients with one type of leukemia were given this one-time, experimental therapy several years ago and some remain cancer-free today. Now, at least six research groups have treated more than 120 patients with many types of blood and bone marrow cancers, with stunning results.
"It's really exciting," said Dr. Janis Abkowitz, blood diseases chief at the University of Washington in Seattle and president of the American Society of Hematology. "You can take a cell that belongs to a patient and engineer it to be an attack cell."
In one study, all five adults and 19 of 22 children with acute lymphocytic leukemia, or ALL, had a complete remission, meaning no cancer could be found after treatment, although a few have relapsed since then.
These were gravely ill patients out of options. Some had tried multiple bone marrow transplants and up to 10 types of chemotherapy or other treatments.
Cancer was so advanced in 8-year-old Emily Whitehead of Philipsburg, Pa., that doctors said her major organs would fail within days. She was the first child given the gene therapy and shows no sign of cancer today, nearly two years later.
Results on other patients with myeloma, lymphoma and chronic lymphocytic leukemia, or CLL, will be reported at the hematology group's conference that starts Saturday in New Orleans.
Doctors say this has the potential to become the first gene therapy approved in the United States and the first for cancer worldwide. Only one gene therapy is approved in Europe, for a rare metabolic disease.
The treatment involves filtering patients' blood to remove millions of white blood cells called T-cells, altering them in the lab to contain a gene that targets cancer, and returning them to the patient in infusions over three days.
"What we are giving essentially is a living drug" — permanently altered cells that multiply in the body into an army to fight the cancer, said Dr. David Porter, a University of Pennsylvania scientist who led one study.
Several drug and biotech companies are developing these therapies. Penn has patented its method and licensed it to Switzerland-based Novartis AG. The company is building a research center on the Penn campus in Philadelphia and plans a clinical trial next year that could lead to federal approval of the treatment as soon as 2016.
Talking with the researchers, "there is a sense of making history ... a sense of doing something very unique," said Hervé Hoppenot, president of Novartis Oncology, the division leading the work.
Lee Greenberger, chief scientific officer of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, agreed.
"From our vantage point, this looks like a major advance," he said. "We are seeing powerful responses ... and time will tell how enduring these remissions turn out to be."
The group has given $15 million to various researchers testing this approach. Nearly 49,000 new cases of leukemia, 70,000 cases of non-Hodgkin lymphoma and 22,000 cases of myeloma are expected to be diagnosed in the United States in 2013.
Many patients are successfully treated with chemotherapy or bone marrow or stem cell transplants, but transplants are risky and donors can't always be found. So far, gene therapy has been tried on people who were in danger of dying because other treatments failed.
The gene therapy must be made individually for each patient, and lab costs now are about $25,000, without a profit margin. That's still less than many drugs to treat these diseases and far less than a transplant.
The treatment can cause severe flu-like symptoms and other side effects, but these have been reversible and temporary, doctors say.
Penn doctors have treated the most cases so far — 59. Of the first 14 patients with CLL, four had complete remissions, four had partial ones and the rest did not respond. However, some partial responders continue to see their cancer shrink a year after treatment.
"That's very unique to this kind of therapy" and gives hope the treatment may still purge the cancer, said Porter. Another 18 CLL patients were treated and half have responded so far.
Penn doctors also treated 27 ALL patients. All five adults and 19 of the 22 children had complete remissions, an "extraordinarily high" success rate, said Dr. Stephan Grupp at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.
Six have since relapsed, though, and doctors are pondering a second gene therapy attempt.
At the National Cancer Institute, Dr. James Kochenderfer and others have treated 11 patients with lymphoma and four with CLL, starting roughly two years ago. Six had complete remissions, six had partial ones, one has stable disease and it's too soon to tell for the rest.
Ten other patients were given gene therapy to try to kill leukemia or lymphoma remaining after bone marrow transplants. These patients got infusions of gene-treated blood cells from their transplant donors instead of using their own blood cells. One had a complete remission and three others had significant reduction of their disease.
"They've had every treatment known to man. To get any responses is really encouraging," Kochenderfer said. The cancer institute is working with a Los Angeles biotech firm, Kite Pharma Inc., on its gene therapy approach.
Researchers at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center will report on 13 patients with ALL; the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center will report about two-dozen patients with ALL or lymphoma, and Baylor University will give results on 10 patients with lymphoma or myeloma.
Patients are encouraged that relatively few have relapsed.
"We're still nervous every day because they can't tell us what's going to happen tomorrow," said Tom Whitehead, 8-year-old Emily's father.
Doug Olson, 67, a scientist for a medical device maker, shows no sign of cancer since gene therapy in September 2010 for CLL he had had since 1996.
"Within one month he was in complete remission. That was just completely unexpected," said Porter, his doctor at Penn.
Olson ran his first half-marathon in January and no longer worries about how long his remission will last.
"I decided I'm cured. I'm not going to let that hang over my head anymore," he said.

Snow, sleet, ice hit large swath of US..

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — Millions hunkered down for icy conditions expected to last through the weekend from Texas to Ohio to Tennessee as a cold snap covered much of the nation, knocking out power and making roads treacherous Saturday.

Face-stinging sleet, thick snow and blustery winds led to slick road conditions, school closures and event cancellations as the wintry blast dropped temperatures to freezing and below overnight Saturday.
A treacherous section of icy Interstate 35 about 50 miles north of Dallas has been closed intermittently for as long as five hours as tractor-trailers were unable to climb a hill and then clog the busy highway, Texas Department of Transportation spokeswoman Michelle Releford said Saturday. The backup can extend for miles.
Three traffic-related deaths were reported, one in Arlington and two in Oklahoma.
And about 117,000 customers in the Dallas area were without power Saturday morning and more than 350 departing flights from Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport had been cancelled in the morning, the airport said. About 3,330 passengers had stayed overnight in the terminals.
In California, four people died of hypothermia in the San Francisco Bay Area while the region was gripped by freezing temperatures.
Freezing rain and sleet are likely again Saturday night in Memphis, Nashville and other areas of Tennessee before the storm starts surging northeast.
"It looks like we're going to be stuck with this for one, two, maybe three days," said Memphis attorney Sam Chafetz, who was going home early to enjoy some bourbon-soaked sweet potatoes left over from Thanksgiving.
"I'm not afraid of the ice and snow, I'm afraid of the other drivers who don't know how to drive in it," Chafetz said.
Virginia officials warned residents of a major ice storm likely to take shape Sunday, resulting in power outages and hazards on the roads.
State Department of Emergency Management spokeswoman Laura Southard said the storm had the potential to be a "historic ice event."
"This forecast is very concerning to us," Southard said. "I've worked multiple disasters, but I've never worked an ice storm with a forecast like this."
The weather forced the cancellation of Sunday's Dallas Marathon, which was expected to draw 25,000 runners, some of whom had trained for months.
Meanwhile, around 7 inches of snow fell in northeast Arkansas and the Missouri boot heel, according to the National Weather Service in Memphis. Ice accumulated on trees and power lines in Memphis and the rest of West Tennessee after layers of sleet fell throughout the region Friday. The weather service says 8 to 9 inches fell in parts of southern Indiana.
The storm dumped a foot of snow and more in some areas of Illinois, with police scrambling to respond to dozens of accidents and forced scores of schools to remain closed.
Western and central Kentucky were under winter storm warnings slated to last through early Saturday. With warmer temperatures expected in eastern Kentucky, forecasters issued a flood watch into Saturday morning.
Looking ahead, the National Weather Service says a wind chill advisory is in effect for parts of northeast Arkansas and the Missouri boot heel. Forecasters say wind chill readings between zero and minus-5 degrees may occur.
Delivery delays may occur in areas where the storm caused unsafe driving and flying conditions, said Scott Fielder, a spokesman for FedEx, which has its worldwide hub in Memphis.
Ice had built up on the windshields and roofs of parked cars throughout Memphis into Saturday. Law enforcement reported an increase in traffic crashes, and scattered power outages affected more than 3,000 people, emergency and utility officials said.
Residents were told to prepare for a few days without power, prompting them to rush to stores to stock up on groceries, buy electricity generators and gas up their cars. Shelby County Mayor Mark Luttrell reminded residents to check on family and friends who are elderly, disabled or live alone.
In Nashville, organizers canceled the Christmas parade. The annual St. Jude Memphis Marathon, scheduled for Saturday, was canceled as well.
Sleet also fell in Dyer County, Tenn., where one shelter was on standby and farmers worked to protect crops and livestock.
"We're still getting a lot of sleet falling and roads are slushy and kind of slick," said James Medling, emergency management director for Dyer County.
Storms this week had already dumped 1 to 2 feet of snow in parts of Minnesota and Wisconsin and draped many communities in skin-stinging cold. The temperature in parts of North Dakota on Thursday was a few degrees below zero, but wind chill pushed it to nearly 40 below.
___
Associated Press writer Jamie Stengle contributed to this report from Dallas.

Giant Alien Planet Discovered in Most Distant Orbit Ever Seen..

An artist's conception of a young planet in a distant orbit around its host star. The star still …

An enormous alien planet — one that is 11 times more massive than Jupiter — was discovered in the most distant orbit yet found around a single parent star.

The newfound exoplanet, dubbed HD 106906 b, dwarfs any planetary body in the solar system, and circles its star at a distance that is 650 times the average distance between the Earth and the sun. The existence of such a massive and distantly orbiting planet raises new questions about how these bizarre worlds are formed, the researchers said.
"This system is especially fascinating because no model of either planet or star formation fully explains what we see," study lead researcher Vanessa Bailey, a fifth-year graduate student in the University of Arizona's department of astronomy, said in a statement. [The Strangest Alien Planets (Gallery)]
In the most commonly accepted theories of planet formation, it is thought that planets that orbit close to their parent star, such as Earth, began as small, asteroid-type bodies that clumped together in the primordial disk of gas and dust around the burgeoning star. Yet, this process operates too slowly to explain how giant planets form far away from their star, the researcher said.
Alternative hypotheses have suggested that distant giant planets may form in ways similar to mini binary star systems, Bailey said.
"A binary star system can be formed when two adjacent clumps of gas collapse more or less independently to form stars, and these stars are close enough to each other to exert a mutual gravitation attraction and bind them together in an orbit," she explained.
In the HD 106906 system, the star and planet may have collapsed independently, but the materials that clumped together to form the planet were insufficient for it to grow large enough to ignite into a new star, Bailey said.
But, there are still problems with this scenario. For one, difference between the masses of two stars in a binary system is typically no more than a ratio of 10 to 1.
"In our case, the mass ratio is more than 100-to-1," Bailey said. "This extreme mass ratio is not predicted from binary star formation theories — just like planet formation theory predicts that we cannot form planets so far from the host star."
Researchers are also keen to study the new planet, because leftover material from when the planet and star formed can still be detected.
"Systems like this one, where we have additional information about the environment in which the planet resides, have the potential to help us disentangle the various formation models," Bailey said. "Future observations of the planet's orbital motion and the primary star's debris disk may help answer that question."

The planet HD 106906 b is only 13 million years old, and is still glowing from the residual heat from its formation," the researchers said. By comparison, Earth formed 4.5 billion years ago, which makes it roughly 350 times older than the newfound exoplanet.
The planet was found using a thermal infrared camera mounted on the Magellan telescope in the Atacama Desert in Chile. The researchers used data from the Hubble Space Telescope to confirm their discovery.
The study, which has been accepted for publication in a future issue of The Astrophysical Journal Letters, could lead to a better understanding of distantly orbiting exoplanets.
"Every new directly detected planet pushes our understanding of how and where planets can form," study co-investigator Tiffany Meshkat, a graduate student at Leiden Observatory in the Netherlands, said in a statement. "Discoveries like HD 106906 b provide us with a deeper understanding of the diversity of other planetary systems."

US tourist and Korean War vet arrives home...

85 year-old retired U.S. veteran, Merrill E. Newman, who was detained for over a month in North Korea, smiles after reuniting with his wife, Alicia upon arrival at San Francisco International Airport December 7, 2013. Newman was deported after being detained over his role in special forces operations in the Korean War six decades ago. (REUTERS/Stephen Lam)

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — An 85-year-old U.S. veteran of the Korean War who was detained for several weeks in North Korea arrived home Saturday in California.

Merrill Newman landed in San Francisco on a flight from Beijing.
Newman was detained in late October at the end of a 10-day trip to North Korea, a visit that came six decades after he oversaw a group of South Korean wartime guerrillas during the 1950-53 war.
Last month, Newman read from an awkwardly worded alleged confession that apologized for, among other things, killing North Koreans during the war. Analysts questioned whether the statement was coerced, and former South Korean guerrillas who had worked with Newman and fought behind enemy lines during the war disputed some of the details.
North Korea cited Newman's age and medical condition in allowing him to leave the country.
Earlier Saturday, a smiling Newman told reporters in Beijing that he felt good and was glad to be on his way home.
"And I appreciate the tolerance the (North Korean) government has given to me to be on my way," he said after arriving at the airport in Beijing from Pyongyang, adding that he looked forward to seeing his wife.
Newman's detention highlighted the extreme sensitivity with which Pyongyang views the war, which ended without a formal peace treaty, leaving the Korean Peninsula still technically in a state of war. The conflict is a regular focus of North Korean propaganda and media, which accuse Pyongyang's wartime enemies Washington and Seoul of carrying on the fighting by continuing to push for the North's overthrow.
The televised statement read last month by Newman said he was attempting to meet surviving guerrilla fighters he had trained during the conflict so he could reconnect them with their wartime colleagues living in South Korea, and that he had criticized the North during his recent trip.
Members of the former South Korean guerrilla group said in an interview last week with The Associated Press that Newman was their adviser. Some have expressed surprise that Newman would take the risk of visiting North Korea given his association with their group, which is still remembered with keen hatred in the North. Others were amazed Pyongyang still considered Newman a threat.
Newman's son, Jeffrey, said he spoke briefly with his father from Beijing and that he was "in excellent spirits and eager to be reunited with his family."
"As you can imagine this has been a very difficult ordeal for us as a family, and particularly for him," he said in a statement read outside his home in Pasadena Friday night, adding that they will say more about this unusual journey after Newman has rested.
Newman's release comes as U.S. Vice President Joe Biden visit to the region brought him to Seoul. Biden said Saturday that he welcomed the release and said he talked by phone with Newman in Beijing, offering him a ride home on Air Force Two.

Pearl Harbor ceremony marks bombing anniversary...

PEARL HARBOR, Hawaii (AP) — About 2,500 gathered at Pearl Harbor on Saturday to remember those killed in the 1941 Japanese attack that launched the U.S. into World War II.

The crowd observed a moment of silence at 7:55 a.m., the minute the bombing began 72 years ago.
A vintage World War II-era airplane — a 1944 North American SNJ-5B — flew overhead to break the silence. The Hawaii Air National Guard has used its fighter jets and helicopters to perform the flyover for many years, but federal budget cuts prevented it from participating this year.
About 50 survivors returned to Pearl Harbor for the ceremony.
"I come back to be with my comrades — meet the ones who are still alive, and we're going fast," said Delton Walling, who was assigned to the USS Pennsylvania at the time of the attack.
The Navy and National Park Service co-hosted the ceremony, which was open to the public. Their theme for the event, "Sound the Alarm," explores how Americans answered a call to duty in the wake of the attack.
The current U.S. Pacific Fleet commander, Adm. Harry B. Harris Jr., said the U.S. remembers the warning from those who survived.
"We remember Pearl Harbor, we are vigilant, and we are ready to fight tonight and win," Harris said. "Not only are we poised to respond to the first notes of the alarm bell, we are also doing everything possible to keep those alarms from sounding in the first place."
Former U.S. Sen. Max Cleland of Georgia will deliver the keynote address.
The Vietnam War veteran is currently secretary of the American Battle Monuments Commission, which is responsible for managing overseas cemeteries for fallen American troops.

Later in the day, Pearl Harbor survivors will join military and government officials in a parade through Waikiki.

Friday, 6 December 2013

Icy Storm Slams Southwest, Shuts Down North Texas..

VIDEO: A dangerous mix of sub-zero temperatures sleet and freezing rain stretch from Texas to Minnesota.

Freezing rain and stinging winds slammed the Southwest Friday and made a strangely blank landscape out of normally sun-drenched North Texas: mostly empty highways covered in a sometimes impassable frost, closed schools and businesses, and millions of residents hunkered down for icy conditions expected to last through the weekend.

Earlier this week, many in Texas were basking in spring-like temperatures that hit the 80s. But by Thursday, Texas was facing the same wintry blast that has slammed much of the U.S., bringing frigid temperatures, ice and snow.

The weather forced the cancellation of Sunday's Dallas Marathon, which was expected to draw 25,000 runners, some of whom had trained for months. A quarter of a million customers in North Texas were left without power, and many businesses told employees to stay home to avoid the slick roads.

Rob Yates, 44, of the Dallas suburb of Rowlett, had trained for four months to participate in the half-marathon Sunday — his first time competing at that distance. His wife and three children were going to attend the race to volunteer and cheer him on, he said.

Now, "I'll probably be catching up on some work," Yates said, laughing.

Yates spent Friday at home with his children, who were outside pulling off icicles and wishing more snow had fallen. But Yates, originally from near Manchester, England, said he stayed inside with his wife.

"It's kind of unusual weather for Dallas, so they're just having fun with it," Yates said. "Me and my wife — adults are not particularly impressed with it."

Friday's storm stretched from South Texas, where anxious residents bagged outdoor plants to protect them from the cold, through the Midwest and Ohio Valley and up into northern New England and the Canadian Maritimes.

In North Texas, agencies and residents haven't forgotten the disastrous week before the Super Bowl two years ago, when an inadequate response to a snowstorm crippled the region and left visitors stranded on impassable highways.

People in the Dallas area raided grocery shelves and home improvement stores Thursday in advance of what one store manager joked was the Black Friday of bad weather — "Ice Friday." Most people appeared to heed warnings Friday to stay inside.

Bundled up against the elements, Matthew Johnson was one of the few people braving the cold Friday.

"We're going to walk the dog and have fun outside, I guess," said Johnson, standing near his home in the Dallas suburb of Richardson.

The weather led to more than 1,000 cancelations at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, one of the nation's busiest airports and a key hub for Fort Worth-based American Airlines. Many travelers were stuck waiting — and hoping for another flight. Those arriving in North Texas were having trouble finding cabs as many drivers stayed home. Dallas-area light rail trains were not running.

"I don't let things like this stop me," said Dayo Bankale, a taxi driver at the airport Friday. "I'm not scared."

Rosibel Gutierrez Artavia, shivering in a light sweater as she waited for a taxi, had traveled from Alajuela, Costa Rica, to suburban Fort Worth to see family. Relatives called her before she left Costa Rica to warn her to pack warm. But she got the call when she was already at the airport.

"I did not come prepared with snow clothes," Artavia said in Spanish.

But she was thankful the weather didn't prevent her from boarding a flight that got her from Houston to North Texas and close to her family.

Johannesburg celebrates the life of Nelson Mandela – Exclusively for Yahoo..

Large crowds gather outside former South African President Nelson Mandela home on Vilakazi Street in Soweto and at his home in Houghton to celebrate his life on December 6, 2013. The Father of the Nation, Nelson Mandela, passed away late on the evening of December 5, 2013 at his home at the age of 95 after complications from a recurring lung infection.

President Obama lights National Christmas Tree..

Obama, acknowledging the rainy weather, asked for an abbreviated countdown before flipping on the lights. He said, quote: "We're going to start at 5; since it's little wet we shouldn't start at 10."
As soon as the tree burst into multi-colors, singing diva Aretha Franklin took to the stage to sing a spirited version of "Joy to the World."
Joining Obama for the 91st annual tree-lighting ceremony were first lady Michelle Obama, daughters Sasha and Malia, and mother-in-law Marian Robinson.

'Worst ice storm' in years wallops Texas, much of the Midwest...

DALLAS — Tens of thousands of people remained without power here late Friday after a massive winter storm blanketed North Texas in a thick coat of freezing rain and sleet.
Police pleaded with motorists to stay off frozen freeways. Ice on power lines forced public transportation officials to suspend the region’s light rail service.
Dallas’ woes are part of a severe cold snap stretching more than a 1,000 miles from the southern Plains to New England.
“This will be the worst ice storm for the United States since January 2009 and will affect many of the same areas as that storm,” said Jesse Ferrell, weather expert and storm chaser for AccuWeather.com.
The National Weather Service issued ice and winter storm advisories for more than a dozen states. Oklahoma, Arkansas and Tennessee — where thousands are also without power — have already declared states of emergency. Treacherous driving conditions were blamed for several deaths across the country, according to The Associated Press.
Government forecasters warned of possible prolonged power outages in some areas from Central Texas to the Lower Ohio Valley.
While the precipitation had moved out of North Texas by Friday afternoon, the weather service painted a frigid picture as the storm rumbles east:

As the upper-level forcing associated with the arctic front pushes eastward this evening and tomorrow, the threat of wintry precipitation will shift eastward from the Mid-south into the Appalachians, northern Mid-Atlantic and southern New England as the night progresses. Additional ice accumulations of less than a quarter of an inch are expected from extreme northern Mississippi northeastward to southern New England through early Saturday. Behind the band of freezing rain, snow is expected to accumulate 1 to 5 inches from across the central Appalachians through central New England through tonight.

Jeff Masters, a meteorologist at Weather Underground, wrote that the arctic air “will bring temperatures 10 to 40 degrees below average to more than 80 percent of the contiguous U.S. on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.”
[Related: From frozen Vegas to the frigid Midwest, residents commiserate]
The winter weather crippled airports as well. Thousands of flights were canceled across the country. American Airlines, headquartered in Dallas-Fort Worth, called off nearly 1,000 flights.
In North Texas where temperatures are not expected to get above freezing until possibly Sunday afternoon, the storm dumped 1 to 3 inches of sleet late Thursday and early Friday. Freezing rain snapped tree branches and crusted power lines in ice.
Customers and power companies were using social media to report and respond to outages.

In Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas, reserve power line crews were being called in from other states to try and restore heat to homes.
In Richardson, north of Dallas, Amanda Fancher said she was roused out of bed at 4 a.m. Friday when a 35-year-old hackberry tree came crashing down in her front yard. The impact set off the alarm on a car parked nearby.
“It was a really big tree,” Fancher told Yahoo News. “It's crazy that it didn't land on anything. The whole tree is covered in ice.”
The hardest-hit areas could see more of the same by Saturday when a second storm system, which is already bringing snow to parts of California, Oregon and Nevada, pushes east across the Plains and into the Midwest.
The frigid forecast was unwelcome news to some 25,000 runners who had planned to participate in Sunday's Dallas Marathon. Race officials called off the event early Friday afternoon.
“We regret that the race will not go on as planned, but are confident this decision is in the best interest of our runners, volunteers, spectators and the general public,” the organizers wrote on their website.

South Africa mourns Mandela, will bury him on December 15..

A woman offers flowers outside the house of former President Nelson Mandela in Johannesburg December 6, 2013. South African anti-apartheid hero Mandela died peacefully at home in Johannesburg at the age of 95 on Thursday after months fighting a lung infection, leaving his nation and the world in mourning for a man revered as a moral giant. REUTERS/Mujahid Safodien (SOUTH AFRICA - Tags: OBITUARY POLITICS SOCIETY TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY)

By Tosin Sulaiman and Peroshni Govender

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africans united in mourning for Nelson Mandela on Friday, but while some celebrated his remarkable life with dance and song, others fretted that the anti-apartheid hero's death would leave the nation vulnerable again to racial and social tensions.
President Jacob Zuma said Mandela would be buried on December 15 at his ancestral home in the Eastern Cape.
South Africans heard from Zuma late on Thursday that their first black president, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, had died peacefully at his Johannesburg home in the company of his family after a long illness.
On Friday, the country's 52 million people absorbed the news that the statesman, a global symbol of reconciliation and peaceful co-existence, had departed forever.
Zuma also announced Mandela would be honoured at a December 10 memorial service at Johannesburg's Soccer City stadium, the site of the 2010 World Cup final.
"We will spend the week mourning his passing. We will also spend it celebrating a life well lived," Zuma said.
Mandela would be laid to rest at his ancestral village of Qunu, 700 km (450 miles) south of Johannesburg, in a plot where three of his children and other close family members are buried.
Despite reassurances from public figures that Mandela's death at 95, while sorrowful, would not halt South Africa's advance from its apartheid past, there were those who expressed unease about the absence of a man famed as a peacemaker.
"It's not going to be good, hey! I think it's going to become a more racist country. People will turn on each other and chase foreigners away," said Sharon Qubeka, 28, a secretary from Tembisa township. "Mandela was the only one who kept things together."
Flags flew at half mast across the country, and trade was halted for five minutes on the Johannesburg stock exchange.
But the mood was not all sombre. Hundreds filled the streets around Mandela's home in the upmarket Johannesburg suburb of Houghton, many singing songs of tribute and dancing.
The crowd included toddlers carrying flowers, domestic workers still in uniform and businessmen in suits.
Another veteran anti-apartheid campaigner, former Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town Desmond Tutu, said that like all South Africans he was "devastated" by Mandela's death.
"Let us give him the gift of a South Africa united, one," Tutu said, holding a mass in Cape Town's St George's Cathedral.
Tributes continued to pour in for Mandela, who had been suffering for nearly a year from a recurring lung illness dating back to the 27 years he spent in apartheid jails, including the Robben Island penal colony.
U.S. President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron were among those who praised him. The White House said Obama would travel to South Africa next week to participate in memorial events.
The flags of the 193 United Nations member states along First Avenue in Manhattan, New York were lowered at 10 a.m. EST (1500 GMT) in honour of Mandela. The U.N. General Assembly observed a minute of silence.
The loss was also keenly felt across the African continent. "We are in trouble now, Africa. No one will fit Mandela's shoes," said Kenyan teacher Catherine Ochieng, 32.
Former Zambian President Kenneth Kaunda, an old ally of Mandela's in the struggle against apartheid, hailed him as "a great freedom fighter".
Mandela Timeline Graphic http://link.reuters.com/xub35v
POLITICIANS NOW "NOTHING LIKE MANDELA"
For South Africa, the death of its most loved leader comes at a time when the nation, which basked in global goodwill after apartheid ended, has been experiencing labour unrest, growing protests against poor services, poverty, crime and unemployment and corruption scandals tainting Zuma's rule.
Many saw today's South Africa - the continent's biggest economy but also one of the world's most unequal - as still distant from the "Rainbow Nation" ideal of social peace and shared prosperity that Mandela had proclaimed on his triumphant release from prison in 1990.
"I feel like I lost my father, someone who would look out for me," said Joseph Nkosi, 36, a security guard.
Referring to Mandela by his clan name, he added: "Now without Madiba I feel like I don't have a chance. The rich will get richer and simply forget about us. The poor don't matter to them. Look at our politicians, they are nothing like Madiba."
The crowd around Mandela's home in Houghton preferred to celebrate his achievement in bringing South Africans together.
For 16-year-old Michael Lowry, who has no memory of the apartheid system that ended in 1994, Mandela's legacy means he can have non-white friends.
"I hear stories that my parents tell me and I'm just shocked that such a country could exist. I couldn't imagine just going to school with just white friends," Lowry said.
Tutu tried to calm fears that the absence of the man who steered South Africa to democracy might revive some of the ghosts of apartheid.
"To suggest that South Africa might go up in flames - as some have predicted - is to discredit South Africans and Madiba's legacy," Tutu said on Thursday. "The sun will rise tomorrow, and the next day and the next ... It may not appear as bright as yesterday, but life will carry on."
MAY HURT ANC IN LONG TERM
Zuma and his ruling African National Congress face presidential and legislative elections next year which are expected to reveal discontent among voters about poverty and unemployment 20 years after the end of apartheid.
But the former liberation movement is expected to maintain its dominance in South African politics.
Mark Rosenberg, Senior Africa Analyst at the Eurasia Group, said that while Mandela's death might give the ANC a sympathy-driven boost for the next elections, it would hurt the party in the long term.
He saw Mandela's absence "sapping the party's historical legitimacy and encouraging rejection by voters who believe the ANC has failed to deliver on its economic promises and become mired in corruption".
Mandela rose from rural obscurity to challenge white minority rule - a struggle that gave the 20th century one of its most respected and loved figures. He was among the first to advocate armed resistance to apartheid in 1960, but was quick to preach reconciliation and forgiveness when the white minority began easing its grip on power 30 years later.
He was elected president in all-race elections in 1994 after helping to steer the divided country towards reconciliation and away from civil war.
Mandela was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993, an honour he shared with F.W. de Klerk, the white Afrikaner president who released him in 1990.
In 1999, Mandela handed over power to younger leaders better equipped to manage a modern economy, a rare voluntary departure from power cited as an example to African leaders.
This made him an exception on a continent with a bloody history of long-serving autocrats and violent coups.
(Additional reporting by Ed Cropley, Dave Dolan, Tiisetso Motsoeneng, Xola Potelwa and Stella Mapenzauswa in Johannesburg, Wendell Roelf in Cape Town, Lou Charbonneau and Michelle Nichols in New York, Brian Moonga in Lusaka.; Writing by Pascal Fletcher; Editing by Matthew Tostevin, David Stamp and Giles Elgood)

Reality takes a break in stunning photography exhibit...

Panic Room (JeeYoung Lee by courtesy of OPIOM Gallery)

Saying JeeYoung Lee's artwork is unique is an incredible understatement. Lee, a recent graduate of Hongik University in Seoul, South Korea, shoots photographs of sets she created that were inspired by "her heart, her memory or her dreams." The results are as beautiful as they are bizarre and well worth a look.

Gamer (JeeYoung Lee by courtesy of OPIOM Gallery)

Lee's work is currently on display at the OPIOM Gallery in Opio, France. Fortunately you don't need to book a flight to see her work. Photography critic Choi Bong-lim says, "The chances are high that Lee Jee-young will stand as one of the most significant artists in Korean art history."

Nightscape (JeeYoung Lee by courtesy of OPIOM Gallery)

One of her works, "My Chemical Romance," inspired Bong-Iim to write, "The pattern of caution and warning with black diagonal lines against yellow is repeated, obsessive-compulsively, over the floor, walls and pipe lines; and the extreme density of the pipes and steam rising from where pipes break indicates the set of a huge machine room and yet it evokes a scene from a sci-fi or an action movie Bruce Willis might have starred in." Check that one out below.

My Chemical Romance (JeeYoung Lee by courtesy of OPIOM Gallery)

The set for all the photos is approximately 12 feet by 20 feet by 8 feet. In a written statement, the artist says, "By building the space with my personal, psychological experiences in everyday life, I try to visualize my inner world of which the meanings cannot be value-judged. My work, in essence, records my concerns and process of growing up. It narrates and dramatizes my life stories."
Want to see more of this incredible artwork? Check out the OPIOM Gallery's official site.

I'll Be Back (JeeYoung Lee by courtesy of OPIOM Gallery)

Missing New Hampshire Teen Abigail Hernandez Sent Mom Letter..

A missing New Hampshire teen sent her mother a letter that was postmarked weeks after she disappeared, authorities said today.

The letter from Abigail Hernandez, 15, was postmarked on Oct. 23 and received on Nov. 6, according to the FBI and New Hampshire Attorney General's Office.
"When we received this letter, I will tell you it was unprecedented. It gave us hope," FBI special agent Kieran Ramsey said.
Mom Pleads For Missing Daughter's Return
Investigators said they decided to come forward with the existence of the letter because they fear the teen may be in "grave" danger and could perhaps be used for sexual exploitation if she is still alive.
While it was unclear if Hernandez left willingly or was abducted, Ramsey said investigators' "worst fear" is "someone may now be coercing her."
The existence of the letter was kept private at first, Ramsey said, because they wanted to glean everything they could from it and follow every possible lead.
Ramsey declined to reveal where the letter was postmarked or any of the letter's contents. He would also not disclose why it took two weeks from the moment the letter was postmarked for it to reach Hernandez's mother.
New Hampshire Assistant Attorney General Jane Young said investigators were able to verify the letter was from the missing teen because "the tone was a tone Abi would have used."
Young said revealing the existence of the letter may result in a deluge of fakes, however, "our hope is we see another letter[from Abi]," she said.
Hernandez was last seen on the afternoon of Wednesday, Oct. 9 leaving Kennett High School in North Conway.
When her mother Zenya Hernandez came home from her nursing job that night, her daughter wasn't home.
The FBI's search for the teen -- who was last seen wearing black yoga pants and a gray sweatshirt -- has been conducted by air, over rough wooded terrain, and in the nearby Sacco River.
Hernandez's last cell phone call was tracked to a spot near Cranmore Mountain, a ski resort near the missing girl's Village Way home, on the day she disappeared.
Two months later, Young said authorities will continue to chase every lead and asked for the public's help.

"We're asking you. Look at your neighbor. Look at the grocery store. Look at your church," she said. "Is there somebody you haven't seen here before?"

U.S. draws into 'Group of Death' for 2014 World Cup..

United States head coach Jurgen Klinsmann described his team's World Cup draw as "the worst of the worst" after it was pooled with Germany, Portugal and Ghana in one of two "Groups of Death."
Klinsmann could scarcely believe his ill fortune after the draw was made in Bahia, Brazil, with the Americans lumped into Group G and a situation that immediately installed them as long shots to reach the last 16.
To add to his discomfort, Klinsmann's side also will have to battle a grueling travel schedule, including a visit to the Amazonian jungle city of Manaus with its extreme humidity and hostile weather environment.
"It is one of the most difficult groups of the whole draw," Klinsmann said. "It couldn't get any more difficult or any bigger but that is what the World Cup is all about.
"We are looking forward to the challenge and we don't see ourselves as any kind of outsiders. If you want to get into the top 10 or 12 teams in the world you have to beat these guys.
"We discussed before the draw that there could be some difficult schedules and we hit the worst of the worst. Every coach said, 'Anything but Manaus' and we got Manaus."
Germany is one of the strongest teams in the tournament and reached the semifinal in 2010, while Portugal will be led by Cristiano Ronaldo, currently the world's best and most dominant player.
Supposedly the weakest opponent, Ghana, eliminated the U.S. at the round of 16 stage four years ago. The Ghanaians also ended the Americans' 2006 World Cup with a victory in the teams' final group game.
"After two losses, it's about time to beat them, I guess," Klinsmann said.
The Ghana matchup will be the first for the U.S. and is scheduled for Natal on June 16. Portugal follows in Manaus six days later before group action ends against Germany in Recife on June 26.
"I kind of had a feeling in my stomach that we were going to get Germany," said Klinsmann, who starred for the West Germany national team as it won the 1990 World Cup and later led the German side to the 2006 semifinals on home soil.
The "other" Group of Death is Group B where 2010 finalists Spain and the Netherlands square off in the opening match. Host nation Brazil kicks off the tournament against Croatia in Sao Paulo on June 12.
Group A:
Brazil – Host nation is a clear favorite to win it all and was the seed no one wanted to meet.
Croatia – Shaky in qualifying and winless in World Cups since 1998; Luka Modric is a shining light.
Mexico – Fortunate to qualify after desperate CONCACAF form pushed it to the brink of elimination.
Cameroon – Lowest-ranked of the African nations after patchy form over the past year.
Group B:
Spain – Defending champion started slowly in 2010, losing to Switzerland in first game.
Netherlands – 2010 runner-up was somehow unseeded and a team nobody wanted to face.
Chile – Struggled early in qualifying but was near perfect late on and will be a real threat.
Australia – Fired coach Holger Osieck after heavy friendly defeats and comes in with little momentum.
Group C:
Colombia – Radamel Falcao heads a deep squad keen to shine after missing last three tournaments.
Greece – Not much fun to watch; defensively excellent but short on attacking firepower.
Ivory Coast – Eliminated in the Group of Death last time, Didier Drogba’s back for one last shot.
Japan – Greatly improved team more than capable of creating some shocks against bigger opponents.
Group D:
Uruguay – Reached the semis four years ago but survived a qualifying scare this time around.
Costa Rica – Qualifying success was built upon outstanding home form, struggles on the road.
England – Lacking in confidence and inspiration and comes in with its lowest expectations in decades.
Italy – Champions in 2006, awful in 2010, full of talent and believes it can go all the way.
Group E:
Switzerland – Considered the weakest seeded team but a skillful unit capable of going deep.
Ecuador – Clinched a World Cup spot for only the third time and has never gone past the last 16.
France – Scraped through with a playoff comeback, hopes to atone for humiliating 2010 campaign.
Honduras – Has reached two previous World Cups but has yet to record its first victory.
Group F:
Argentina – Lionel Messi heads a confident team looking to secure first title since 1986.
Bosnia-Herzegovina – The only newcomer in the 32-strong field, highly talented but unpredictable.
Iran – Managed just one point from three games in 2006 and failed to qualify in 2010.
Nigeria – One of the youngest squads in the tournament that should not be underestimated.
Group G:
Germany – Third in 2010 and aims to build on positive vibe created by its dominant club teams.
Ghana – Knocked out the U.S. in 2010 before being heartbreakingly denied a semifinal spot.
United States – Regarded as the strongest team in its pot after topping CONCACAF group.
Portugal – Cristiano Ronaldo single-handedly won a tense playoff but has yet to shine at World Cup.

Group H:
Belgium – Reached first World Cup since 2002 after huge improvement and a superb qualifying campaign.
Russia – Finished first in a tough qualifying group that also featured Portugal and Sweden.
Algeria – Bottom of the U.S. group in 2010 and one of the weakest teams, at least on paper.
South Korea – An easy campaign became nail-biting late on; finally booked place on goal differential.

FIFA Secretary General Jerome Valcke holds up the name of USA during the draw.

An electronic screen and buildings are seen amid heavy smog at the financial district of Pudong Shanghai..

ALY SONG 16 hours ago

An electronic screen and buildings are seen amid heavy smog at the financial district of Pudong in Shanghai December 6, 2013. China's stability-obsessed leadership has become increasingly concerned by the abysmal air quality in cities, as it plays into popular resentment over political privilege and rising inequality in the world's second-largest economy. REUTERS/Aly Song (CHINA - Tags: POLITICS ENVIRONMENT CITYSCAPE SOCIETY)