The central US was digging out from a massive winter storm on Friday, while east coast residents were preparing for a whopper set to strike over the weekend.
The weakened storm was nonetheless still packing a punch, snarling traffic and canceling hundreds of flights as it hovered over the Great Lakes region.
A United Airlines plane slid off a runway in Cleveland on Friday morning, but officials said nobody was hurt.
The National Weather Service said that parts of New England could get more than 30cm of snow yesterday and today, adding to the huge drifts caused by two other storms that struck in the past couple weeks.
The southern end of that system is expected to bring major thunderstorms and possible flooding in Florida.
Meanwhile, ski resorts in the northern Rockies and Cascades were looking forward to a third system expected to dump 30cm to 120cm of snow in the mountains.
The first storm began on Wednesday, hindering travel and dumping snow, sleet and freezing rain in 18 states from South Dakota to Pennsylvania in the north and all the way down to Texas to Arkansas in the south.
Kansas was the hardest hit, with nearly 60cm of snow in some areas, making roads impassable and shuttering schools, businesses and government offices.
The governor of Missouri declared a state of emergency after the state received a mix of more than 30cm of snow in some areas along with freezing rain in others.
Hundreds of accidents were reported from Colorado to Arkansas as blinding snow and freezing rain created treacherous conditions. Only two fatalities were reported — in Nebraska and Oklahoma — on Wednesday.
One person was killed when high winds knocked down trees and damaged homes in east Texas on Thursday, the National Weather Service said in a storm report.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not