DENVER

Late-season snowstorm coats Colorado in white

A slow-moving storm dumped more than a foot of wet, heavy snow on Colorado on Friday, disrupting power, shutting down schools and closing highways with piles of dangerous slush.

The weather caused dozens of traffic accidents from Colorado Springs through heavily populated Denver, 60 miles away. Interstate 25 was closed at the Colorado-New Mexico line because of poor conditions on 7,834-foot-high Raton Pass. About 2,000 people lost power near Alamosa.

A day earlier, cold rain was blamed for a two-car collision that killed four people near Sterling, 125 miles northeast of Denver.

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Retail milk prices to rise

Consumers are likely to see milk prices rise, probably to record levels, because the Agriculture Department is raising the minimum price paid to farmers to a record high, dairy experts say.

The department announced Friday it is raising the new minimum price for farmers to $1.69 per gallon, a 50-cent increase. The previous record was $1.40 per gallon in February of 1999.

Larry Salathe, a senior economist for the department said the new minimum would take effect May 1.

The price increase for farmers could send the price of a gallon up to $3.40 at the grocery store, assuming that all of it will be passed on to consumers, said Ed Jesse, a dairy economist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Recalled margarine poses listeria risk

A food distribution company is recalling 450 cases of margarine-blend products sold in 13 states because they could be contaminated with listeria bacteria, the company said Friday.

Crystal Farms Refrigerated Distribution Co. Inc., of Minneapolis, issued the recall on a precautionary basis.

The recall includes Crystal Farms 60% Margarine-40% Butter, Butter Blend Margarine Quarters, with expiration dates of June 28 and July 14; and Butter Blend Margarine Solids, with an expiration of June 28.

The products were sold in retail stores in Arkansas, Iowa, Illinois, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Dakota and Wisconsin.

Customers are urged to return the products to the place of purchase for refunds.

South Dakota

Killer sentenced to life for AIM activist slaying

A man convicted of killing an American Indian activist in 1975 because she was suspected of spying for the government was sentenced Friday to life in prison.

Arlo Looking Cloud must serve at least 10 years before becoming eligible for parole. He was convicted in February in the slaying of Anna Mae Pictou Aquash on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

Prosecutors say Aquash was killed because leaders of the American Indian Movement suspected she was spying on the militant group.

Looking Cloud said he helped drive Aquash from Denver to Rapid City and eventually to the place where he says another man, John Graham, shot her.

Graham has pleaded not guilty and plans to fight extradition from Canada.

Minnesota

Mourners remember slain college student

Friends and family of Dru Sjodin gathered Friday to remember the slain University of North Dakota student.

Car antennas and the church doors were adorned with pink ribbons — Sjodin’s favorite color — as mourners arrived for the four-hour wake, held about 10 miles from Sjodin’s hometown of Pequot Lakes.

Sjodin’s body was found in a northwest Minnesota ravine last Saturday.

Mourners were offered packets of flower and vegetable seeds that said “Dru Sjodin 1981-2003” and bore a quote from Quaker philosopher Elton Trueblood: “A man has made at least a start on discovering the meaning of human life when he plants shade trees under which he knows full well he will never sit.”

Her funeral will be Saturday.

CHICAGO

Jury still deliberating in white supremacist trial

Jurors deciding the case of a white supremacist charged with trying to hire someone to kill a federal judge finished a second day of deliberations Friday without reaching a verdict.

Earlier in the day, the panel asked the trial judge to clarify what constitutes solicitation of murder, a question that goes to the heart of the most serious charges against Matthew Hale.

Hale, 32, is charged with two counts of soliciting the murder of a federal judge and three counts of obstruction of justice. He could face up to 30 years in prison if convicted.

They are to resume deliberations Monday.

Prosecutors say Hale was furious after U.S. District Judge Joan Humphrey Lefkow ordered him to stop using the name World Church of the Creator.

Oklahoma

Leg found after bombing didn’t match victims

A human leg found after the Oklahoma City bombing did not match any of the known 168 victims, the state medical examiner testified Friday.

In grisly testimony at bombing conspirator Terry Nichols’ state murder trial, Dr. Fred Jordan described the injuries suffered by bombing victims, including crushed chests and broken and severed limbs.

Nichols’ attorney Barbara Bergman pressed Jordan for details about the unidentified leg, indicating it may be important in Nichols’ defense.

Jordan said the leg, which was pulled from debris more than a month after the April 19, 1995, bombing, may have belonged to a woman but that the victim’s identity is unknown.