Storm grounds flights, ices roads

Cleveland

Storm grounds flights, ices roads

A winter storm blasted large swaths of the Midwest and Northeast with snow and freezing rain Saturday, grounding flights and stranding vehicles along icy roads.

More than half of the morning flights at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport were canceled or delayed, and 10 inches of snow at Chicago O'Hare International Airport forced the cancellation of about 100 flights, Chicago's Streets and Sanitation Department reported.

Freezing rain in Indiana caused five salt trucks to slide into ditches Saturday as they worked to de-ice roads. Tow trucks stopped responding to accidents because they were sliding off icy roads when they tried to pull vehicles from ditches, The Star Press of Muncie reported.

Cleveland

Doctor returns for murder trial

A doctor accused of poisoning his wife with cyanide returned to Ohio from the Mediterranean island of Cyprus to face murder charges.

Federal and local authorities escorted Yazeed Essa, 39, to Cleveland's Cuyahoga County Jail on Friday. He faces one charge of aggravated murder in the 2005 death of his wife, Rosemarie.

A coroner determined she lost consciousness and crashed while driving after being given a cyanide pill. Essa, a former Akron General Hospital doctor, disappeared in March 2006.

Bullhead City, Ariz.

Gas bill endangers "eternal" flame

An "eternal" flame at Bullhead City's new veterans memorial park that lasted until city officials received a $961 gas bill has been re-lit — for now — after complaints by veterans groups.

The Medal of Honor Memorial at the Arizona Veterans Memorial Park along the Colorado River was lit on Veterans Day in November. When the bill arrived in late December, city officials were stunned.

The fate of the flame remains uncertain.

New York

2 brothers killed in house fire

A fast-moving fire that engulfed one house on Staten Island and damaged five others killed two brothers and injured nine firefighters early Saturday, the authorities said.

The blaze began about 4:30 a.m. inside a two-story house. It quickly swept through the home, with the brothers inside, and damaged five other attached homes on the block, working with such ferocity that about 200 firefighters were summoned to contain it.

The men, both in their 20s lived with their parents at the address.

Seattle Times news services