Maryland: Boy dies after falling through thin ice on lake

Two boys fell through ice on a partially frozen man-made lake Sunday evening, and one of the boys died.

Sam Wilkinson, 8, was submerged in the lake about an hour. Police spokesman Barry Neeb said the second boy, 10-year-old Nicholas McLoota, was pulled from the lake quickly by firefighters and taken to a hospital.

Nicholas, who was in the water about three minutes, was in critical condition late Sunday, police said.

The boys were chasing a ball across the ice when they fell through, police Sgt. Regina Custer said. The 100-foot-wide lake ranges in depth from six to 20 feet.

“If you or I looked at it, we wouldn’t dream of going on it,” Neeb said. “Some of the edges were still unfrozen. But kids look at it and think they can make it.”

Florida: Astronauts set fires for research on soot

Space shuttle Columbia’s astronauts set small fires inside their orbiting laboratory Sunday in a scientific study of soot.

The flames were contained in a chamber inside an even bigger chamber, and there was no danger of fire breaking out.

Astronauts Kalpana Chawla, an American who was born in India, and Ilan Ramon, the first Israeli in space, used a hot wire igniter and jet burner to produce flames up to 2 inches long. They collected some of the soot for analysis back on Earth.

Scientists want to better understand the production of soot, a pollutant that can lead to lung disease. They turned to space in order to eliminate the rising of hot air — the so-called buoyancy effect — and to slow the reactions inside flames for easier study.

In other work Sunday — day three of the 16-day, round-the-clock research mission — the astronauts took more camera images of the Mediterranean and Atlantic in hopes of observing dust plumes. They also donated blood.

Tennessee: Last Union widow of Civil War dies

Gertrude Janeway, the last widow of a Union veteran from the Civil War, has died in the three-room log cabin in Blaine where she lived most of her life. She was 93.

Bedridden for years, she died on Friday, more than six decades after the passing of the man she called the love of her life, John Janeway, who married her when he was 81 and she was barely 18.

She was to be buried today near her husband’s slender military tombstone at tiny New Corinth Church cemetery.

An honorary member of the Daughters of Union Veterans of the Civil War, Mrs. Janeway was the last recognized Union widow. She received a $70 check each month from the Veterans Administration.

Still alive is Confederate widow Alberta Martin, 95, of Elba, Ala.

Michigan: Winds close bridge, cause 31-car pileup

Winds gusting to 59 miles per hour closed the bridge linking Upper and Lower Michigan for several hours Sunday, and at least 30 cars piled up nearby in whiteout conditions, state police say.

Several people were taken to a hospital, but none of the injuries was life-threatening, state police Sgt. Michael Powell said.

About 1 p.m., whiteout conditions caused a 19-car pileup on southbound Interstate 75 in St. Ignace, just north of the bridge, Powell said. Minutes later, about a dozen other cars collided nearby.

The Mackinac Bridge over the Straits of Mackinac is the only land link between Michigan’s Lower and Upper Peninsulas.

Later Sunday, heavy snow and winds gusting to 28 mph were blamed for several accidents and forced the closing of a 30-mile stretch of a highway northwest of the bridge in Chippewa County.