Pennsylvania
Snow records fall around Great Lakes
A weekend storm dumped heavy snow in spots around the lower Great Lakes and helped pushed some cities to winter totals of more than 12 feet.
It was a record winter for Erie. As of Monday morning, the Lake Erie shoreline city had shoveled its way out of 144.9 inches since early October, beating the record 142.8 inches set in 1977-78. Records for Erie date from 1847, the National Weather Service said.
At the eastern end of Lake Erie, Buffalo, N.Y., got 2.2 inches overnight for an even deeper season total of 157.8 inches. That was good for only second place in the record books; in 1977-78 snowfall measured 199.4 inches.
The central New York city of Syracuse, which is bombarded with snow fueled by Lake Ontario rather than Lake Erie, was even deeper for the season. The latest storm dropped 2.5 inches by midday Monday for a season total of 189.2 inches. The record is 192.1 inches.
Washington, D.C.
Mars Polar Lander may have been located
The Pentagon's National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA) may have found NASA's Mars Polar Lander, a $165 million spacecraft lost in 1999 as it tried to land on the red planet. But both agencies termed the results inconclusive, with months of work remaining before analysts are sure.
NIMA uses advanced methods to analyze photographs from spy satellites and other sources. After the Lander disappeared, but before NASA engineers gave it up for dead, NIMA offered to help with the hunt, according to Edward Weiler, NASA's head of space science. "They kept going after we stopped."
Experts from both agencies have just begun a joint technical review. "Our analysts believe they have located it," said Jennifer Lafley of NIMA. "But everybody has to go over the evidence."
Massachusetts
Traffic stop yields murder suspects
Four men were arrested during a traffic stop and found with a bag containing hands of two murder victims, police say.
Two of the men committed the slayings and the other two were helping them find a place to dispose of the body parts, prosecutor Bill Flynn said Monday.
The victims were two men who were found dead Sunday night in a Providence, R.I., apartment. Their hands had been cut off, and one man was missing an ear, Flynn said. "It was just a gruesome, bloody scene," Flynn said.
The suspects were arrested Sunday in Somerset, when a patrolman saw beaded necklaces and air fresheners hanging from their rear-view mirror and stopped the men for having an impeded view, police said.
Defense attorneys argued the stop was illegal and said they will ask a judge to throw out the evidence.
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