Snow and sleet pounded a large swath of the U.S. East Coast on Saturday, coating roads with ice and causing hundreds of crashes. Thousands of people lost power and forecasters warned of blizzard-like conditions from Virginia to parts of the Northeast. Police investigated several fatal crashes as potentially storm-related, but some of the South’s biggest cities — Atlanta, Charlotte and Raleigh — appeared to avoid the worst of the storm. Authorities praised residents for learning the lessons of past storms that resulted in icy gridlock, where thousands of people were stranded along the interstates. But officials warned that bitter cold would keep roads treacherous well after the snow and sleet stopped. “If I tell you anything it would be stay home,” North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper said. “Do not go out and drive on the roads unless you absolutely have to.” The storm lingered in northeastern North Carolina and southeastern Virginia, where blizzard conditions were reported. The weather was believed to be responsible for a 20-vehicle pileup on a Connecticut highway, although initial reports indicated there were no serious injuries. A National Weather Service map showed the snowfall seemed to follow the Interstate 85 corridor through the state, with locations along and north of the highway receiving snow, and areas to the south getting rain and sleet. Burlington and Roxboro in central North Carolina received 8 inches or more of snow. Preliminary figures from the National Weather Service in Greer, South Carolina, showed snowfall totals reached up to 10 inches in at least seven locations, including Greensboro and High Point, Lewisville in Forsyth County, and Lenoir and Rhodhiss in Caldwell County. Several inches fell in southeast Virginia, where a blizzard warning was issued for the cities along the coast. North Carolina reported more than 250 crashes. Virginia State Police said they responded to 325 crashes and 322 disabled vehicles across the state between midnight and noon on Saturday. Hundreds of crashes were reported in Tennessee starting Friday. Parts of three interstates in Mississippi have turned into parking lot as motorists were stuck when the roads became too icy to negotiate. Hundreds of flights were canceled, from Atlanta to airports farther north. At least two deaths are being blamed on the weather. In Kentucky, a man was killed when his pickup truck went off a snow-slickened Kentucky road Thursday. In Georgia, a 20-year-old Georgia State University student was killed after his SUV crashed on Interstate 75 in Monroe County. Motorist deaths in North Carolina and Maryland as the storm blew in were being investigated to see if they were caused by the weather. Power outages had grown to about 25,000 in North Carolina alone, according to a news release from the governor. By sunset on Saturday, the number had dwindled to just below 2,400. In Cornelius, north of Charlotte, Matt Thomas said he used a ruler to measure nearly 6 inches of snow and sleet that had piled up on the back of his pickup truck. He planned to spend the weekend enjoying the snow and watching television. A plow passed through his neighborhood, but the road still looked slippery. “The sleet started first, so there’s definitely a layer of ice under the snow,” he said by phone. “I’m staying home.” The unpredictable storm left some areas with much different outcomes

Protesters are preparing to assemble in more than 30 cities to lash out at the FBI for obtaining a court order that requires Apple to make it easier to unlock an encrypted iPhone used by a gunman in December’s mass shootings in Southern California. The protests organized by the Internet rights group Fight for the Future are scheduled to occur Tuesday outside Apple stores in the U.S., the U.K., Hong Kong and Germany. The U.S. protests will be in cities scattered across more than 20 states, including in New York, Chicago, San Francisco and Washington, where protesters plan to express their discontent outside the FBI’s headquarters. The gatherings will come a week after the FBI went to court to force Apple to weaken the security built into most iPhones to help a terrorism investigation in San Bernardino, California. The FBI wants Apple to remove a feature that erases the information stored on an iPhone after 10 unsuccessful attempts to enter a password, preventing unauthorized users from accessing the device. The iPhone that the FBI is trying to examine was used by Syed Farook, who along with his wife killed 14 people in December. Apple is fighting the court order issued in the case, arguing that the special software sought by the FBI could be used to break into millions of other iPhones. The FBI contends Apple is exaggerating the security risks of complying with the court order in a marketing ploy aimed at selling more iPhones. Fight for the Future believes Apple’s concerns are warranted and is hoping the protests will persuade the Obama administration to take a stand against the way the FBI is trying to break into Farook’s iPhone, said Evan Greer, the group’s campaign director. The White House so far has stood behind the FBI in its battle with Apple Inc. (AP)

As she’s working the counter at a hole-in-the-wall hot dog stand named Rosie’s in upstate South Carolina, Tracy Hooker isn’t interested in debating the merits of Donald Trump’s proposal to temporarily block Muslims from coming into the United States. She knows some people think it’s bigoted. That others argue it’s impractical, legally dubious or both. And that every other Republican running for president has, in some way or another, rejected the idea that the plan is even worth talking about. That’s why she says Trump is “my guy.” He’s the only one who gets it. “Think about it. You don’t know what you’ve got here. You’ve got no clue,” she said of the Muslim tourists, immigrants and refugees Trump wants to temporarily bar from coming to the U.S. “You don’t know if they like us. You don’t know if they hate us,” said Hooker, 47, of Greer, South Carolina. “You don’t know why they’re here.” To Hooker and the dozens of Trump supporters interviewed in the past week by The Associated Press in the first-to-vote states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, the near universal condemnation of the billionaire’s plan is simply baffling. They hear U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan say, “This is not conservatism,” and British Prime Minister David Cameron call it, “Quite simply wrong.” They listen to the secretary general of the United Nations call Trump’s plan “xenophobic” and an “appeal to hate.” And, they say, they marvel at how naïve all the critics sound. In the wake of the attacks in Paris and shootings in San Bernardino, they say only Trump is taking on what they believe is a clear and present danger to America and its citizens. “When you’re in war, you have to take steps that are not American to protect yourself and defend the country,” said Margaret Shontz, of Cedar Falls, Iowa, as she arrived at a Trump campaign stop in Des Moines on Friday. Trump’s call to bar Muslims from coming to America is “awesome.” “Very needed,” she said. “Very necessary.” ___ By their own description, Trump supporters are frustrated and angry about the direction of the nation. They fret over the fate of the economy, feel betrayed by the nation’s immigration policy and worry America has lost its way on the world stage. In interviews with AP, they argued Trump’s plan for Muslims who want to come to the U.S. is a bold proposal that regular politicians are too timid to make. They feel the criticism that comes from those same politicians is rooted in the weakness Trump promises to sweep away. Iowa’s Dale Witmer, 90, a registered Republican and Word War II veteran who likes Trump and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, embraced the Muslim ban as a “great idea.” While he has concerns about Trump’s unfiltered style, he praises him for talking about things he says others are thinking but afraid to say themselves. “I’d like to go back (to) when I was younger in the 50s and 60s, when the country was a little better. It was America then. I’m starting to worry we’re starting to lose identity in this country, I do believe,” Witmer said. He added he was taken aback by the backlash: “I don’t know how to comprehend that.” Many of Trump’s supporters called the reaction

For decades, seasonal allergy sufferers had two therapy options to ease the misery of hay fever. They could swallow pills or squirt nasal sprays every day for brief reprieves from the sneezing and itchy eyes. Or they could get allergy shots for years to gradually reduce their immune system’s over-reaction. Now patients can try another type of therapy to train their immune system, new once-a-day tablets that dissolve quickly under the tongue and steadily raise tolerance to grass or ragweed pollen, much like the shots. “It’s been several decades since the last big breakthrough,” Cleveland Clinic allergy specialist Dr. Rachel Szekely said. The downside: The pills must be started a few months before the grass or ragweed pollen season. That means it’s too late for people with grass allergies, but the time is now for ragweed allergy sufferers. The Food and Drug Administration in April approved two tablets from Merck, Grastek for grass pollen and Ragwitek for ragweed, plus a grass pollen tablet called Oralair from Stallergenes. The tablets could become popular with people who dislike pills that can make them drowsy or don’t provide enough relief. They’ll likely appeal even more to patients with severe allergies who fear needles or can’t make frequent trips to the allergist, key reasons that only about 5 percent of U.S. patients who would benefit from allergy shots get them. Meanwhile, new treatments for other types of allergies, including to peanuts and eggs, are in various stages of testing and could turn out to be big advances. Drugmaker Merck & Co. has a tablet for house dust mite allergies in final patient testing that could hit the market in two or three years, and it’s considering other therapies. France’s Stallergenes SA is testing a tablet for birch tree allergies and, with partner Shionogi & Co. Ltd. in Japan, tablets for allergies to dust mites and Japanese cedar pollen. Britain’s Circassia Ltd. has a cat allergy treatment in final testing and six others in earlier testing. A handful of companies also are looking at possible new ways to administer immunotherapy, including drops under the tongue, capsules and skin patches, said Fort Lauderdale, Florida, allergist Dr. Linda Cox, former president of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology. The new tablets are not right for everyone, particularly patients with allergies to multiple substances, Szekely cautioned. That was the case with one of her patients, 10-year-old Samantha Marshall of Mentor, Ohio, who has been getting allergy shots since last fall. “She’s not loving them,” said her mother, Rachel, who recently asked Szekely about switching to the tablets. Szekely explained that shots are more effective because Rachel is also allergic to weeds and dust mites, and the shots she receives are a customized mix of extracts to all those substances. The tablets are also pricey: Merck, based in Whitehouse Station, New Jersey, is charging about $8.25 per daily tablet and Stallergenes about $10. Insurers are expected to cover most of the cost, as they usually do with allergy shots. Those generally cost only $15 to $25 per visit without insurance, because they’re given by a nurse. Allergy tablets are less likely to trigger a dangerous allergic reaction than shots, which have been used for a century, Cox said. In Merck’s testing, about 5 percent of patients experienced

This month’s glitch-filled rollout of the health insurance marketplaces created by federal law is a business opportunity for brokers and agents, but regulators warn that it also opened the door for those who would seek to line their pockets by misleading consumers. New Hampshire’s insurance commissioner sent a cease-and-desist letter last week to an Arizona company he accused of building a website to mislead health care shoppers into thinking it was the official marketplace. The site was taken down Friday. Regulators in Washington state and Pennsylvania also have told agents to change websites that seemed likely to convince consumers they were connecting to government-run sites. Connecticut’s insurance department warned agents and brokers this summer that it will take action against agents who mislead consumers or design sites to replicate the state-run exchange. An organization run by the top insurance regulators in each state recently issued an alert on the potential for scams related to the marketplaces. The National Association of Insurance Commissioners advised consumers that bogus sites have been spotted and warned people to beware of unsolicited calls by people claiming they need personal information to help them enroll in insurance. Not all insurance agents are licensed to sell insurance on the exchanges, and buying a policy from one of them could leave consumers without the tax subsidies that make the health insurance affordable. Consumers who seek an insurance professional’s help are urged to make sure they know who they’re dealing with. “We all need to be on the lookout right now. We don’t want consumers to get confused,” said Jessica Waltman of the National Association of Health Underwriters, a trade association representing agents and brokers. Susan Johnson, the Northwest regional director for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, said while some brokers are passionate about helping, others are seeking to take advantage. In one such case, a state-licensed broker in suburban Seattle bought the domain name washingtonhealthplanfinder.org and built a website with fewer computer glitches than the state’s new health insurance marketplace, wahealthplanfinder.org. The brokerage’s site told customers: “Welcome to the Exchange!” in big print until the state insurance commissioner asked for changes to avoid confusion. “You don’t want to go to the wrong portal,” Johnson said. The insurance broker, Jeff Lindstrom, said he thought he was being creative when he bought 40-50 domain names to bring in new customers. He said he is not trying to confuse the public. Lindstrom’s toll free phone number was also very close to the official call center number, said Stephanie Marquis, a spokeswoman for Washington’s insurance commissioner. In New Hampshire, newhampshirehealthexchange.com offered free price quotes on insurance, but it wasn’t affiliated with the state or the federal government, which is running New Hampshire’s official online market. The site was taken down days after the state sent a cease-and-desist letter. “It put itself forward as offering health insurance through the exchange, and consumers are naturally misled by that into thinking it’s the government site,” said Deputy Insurance Commissioner Alex Feldvebel. The insurance department took action after getting a complaint from a small business owner who called a phone number on the misleading site. “He called and ended up talkng to someone who said, ‘Unless you make a choice today, the price is going to go up,’” Feldvebel said. A man who

It’s a case that smacks of small-time corruption, with allegations of cash payoffs in parked cars. But the charges a Democratic state senator schemed to bribe his way into the GOP race for New York City mayor are playing out on a big political stage. The case has already created political quicksand for Republicans just as the mayoral race is heating up and might have a second act in Albany, where the investigation is reviving corruption as a hot-button concern after Gov. Andrew Cuomo campaigned on pledges to rout it out. “What it really does is make political corruption a much bigger issue than it has been” in the mayor’s race, while upping pressure on Cuomo and other state leaders to do more to thwart it, said Paul Moses, a Brooklyn College English professor and former journalist who specializes in writing about New York City government and politics. Good-government advocates held news conferences at both City Hall and the state Capitol Wednesday, a day after state Sen. Malcolm Smith, City Councilman Daniel Halloran, two high-ranking city Republican Party officials and the mayor and deputy mayor of suburban Spring Valley were arrested in a multi-pronged federal probe. At the heart was Smith’s yen to run for the Republican mayoral nod, despite being a Democratic member of the state Senate leadership. While that might seem odd, a number of longtime Democrats have sought waivers or switched parties over the years to try to get the Republican ballot line in the mayor’s race, rather than join a Democratic field that’s usually more crowded with experienced politicians. And while Democrats dominate voter registrations and many city offices, none has held the mayor’s seat in 20 years. Federal prosecutors said Smith arranged to pay tens of thousands of dollars to two Republican officials to get waivers allowing him to try to get on the ballot as a Republican. Halloran, a Republican, got paid to help line up the illicit deals, prosecutors allege. Through their lawyers, both lawmakers have denied the allegations. Smith is the latest in a string of state politicians who have faced corruption prosecutions in recent years, prompting Cuomo’s 2010 campaign vow to clean up Albany. Steps so far have included cutting individual grants lawmakers direct to nonprofits and pushing through a law that allows for legislators to lose their pensions for committing felonies related to their jobs. Yet on Wednesday, Cuomo wondered aloud about the persistence of the problem. “Why do people continue to do things when they know it’s wrong, it’s illegal and they’re going to get into trouble? That’s the great riddle,” he told reporters in Oswego. Smith has come under scrutiny before. In 2010, New York’s inspector general examined his and other legislative leaders’ role in giving a video slot machine contract for the Aqueduct racetrack to a consortium that was later disqualified. Investigators said Smith continued advocating for the contract award after he said he recused himself. The report was referred to federal and city prosecutors, but no one has been charged. Smith was seen as quite unlikely to get the mayoral nomination and never actually launched a campaign for it. Nonetheless, the alleged scheme has rippled through the Republican side of the race. The GOP operations in two of the city’s five boroughs are in upheaval, since

Jewish leaders in the US filed a complaint with Fox News over popular host Glenn Beck’s harsh rhetoric, which includes colorful references to the Nazi era. Beck, who maintains pro-Israel views, has slammed social justice organization and claimed they are dangerously reminiscent of communism, socialism, and fascism. He has been a vocal critic of president Obama, often invoking Nazi images to highlight his views. The popular TV personality has targeted Jewish groups, among other things accusing Jewish Funds for Justice President and CEO Simon Greer of holding a Nazi-like worldview. Later, responding to a harsh Washington post op-ed against him by Greer, Beck slammed Greer’s attitude, arguing that “This leads to death camps.” Greer’s column for the Washington Post’s “On Faith” section unsurprisingly ignited the debate once again. Political philosophy aside, Greer’s lead sentence may have been enough to set the host off: “Mr. Beck, you are a con man and America is not buying it.” In the piece, Greer argued that “government is one way by which we care for our neighbors, and my tradition tells me to care for my neighbor as I care for myself.” “Government makes our country function,” Greer wrote. “To put God first is to put humankind first, and to put humankind first is to put the common good first.” Beck disagreed. “This leads to death camps,” Beck said on May 28. “A Jew, of all people, should know that. This is exactly the kind of talk that led to the death camps in Germany — put humankind and the common good first.” Jewish leaders, believing Beck went too far, filed a complaint with Fox News’ chief executive. The letter led to a meeting with top network executives in an effort to calm the tensions. Meanwhile, Beck sent Greer a letter where he did not offer an apology, but said he took the concerns expressed by about him very seriously. (Source: Ynet)