ALASKA
Snow piles higher, higher in Anchorage
ANCHORAGE — The snow is already piled so high that drivers cannot see around corners. Homeowners are getting worried their roofs can't handle the load. And snow-removal crews are running up the overtime hours.
In one of the strangest winters across America in many years, Alaska's biggest city has gotten more snow — more than 74 inches so far — than it normally receives in an entire winter (68 inches). And there are still four more months of snowy weather ahead. The Anchorage snowfall record is 132.5 inches, set in the winter of 1955-56.
FLORIDA
Escaped con caught at famed raceway
DAYTONA BEACH — An escaped prisoner who evaded a manhunt across the Southeast by stealing three vehicles, including singer Crystal Gayle's tour bus, has been arrested, authorities said.
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Christopher Daniel Gay, 32, was arrested around 11 p.m. Friday at the Daytona International Speedway where he had been watching a race, said Lt. Patrick Myers, spokesman for the Daytona Beach Police.
Gay escaped from a prisoner transport van last Sunday near Hardeeville, S.C., police said. Police said his motive for fleeing was to see his terminally ill mother; it was unclear whether he ever did so.
MONTANA
Dead tot in tank
KALISPELL — The body of 3-year-old Loic J.M. Rogers was found in a septic tank less than 10 feet from the house where he was reported missing, Flathead County Sheriff Mike Meehan said Saturday.
An autopsy showed that he boy drowned, Meehan said.
It was unclear how the boy got into the septic tank, and the manhole-sized lid was closed. Meehan said investigators do not believe he could have climbed into the tank and put the lid back on himself, but declined to speculate how Loic may have gotten inside.
WISCONSIN
Cell phones used to get help in brawl
MILWAUKEE — School brawls have gone high tech, with students using cell phones to call in reinforcements — in one case requiring police and pepper spray to break up a fight that swelled to about 20 family members on school grounds.
The fracas earlier this month, in which six students and three adults were arrested, was the latest in a surge of cell phone-related fights and prompted Wisconsin's largest school district to ban cell phones in its 217 schools beginning Monday.
CALIFORNIA
Bankruptcy threat to trees to be fought
SACRAMENTO — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's administration pledged to fight any attempt to ease protections for old coastal redwoods that could be threatened by a timber company's bankruptcy filing.
Pacific Lumber Co., a subsidiary of Houston-based Maxxam Corp., sought bankruptcy protection in Texas earlier this month, saying it could no longer make a profit because of logging restrictions on its 200,000 acres of timberlands in Humboldt County.
The Scotia-based company blamed state water regulations, separate from the logging rules it agreed to in 1999 as part of a "habitat conservation plan" to protect endangered species.
Pacific Lumber accepted the state's 50-year conservation plan as part of an agreement to sell 7,400 acres of old-growth redwoods to the state and federal governments for $480 million. That land is now the Headwaters Forest Reserve.
