Northeast | featured news

Parts of New England were expected to hit the low 50s Tuesday, which could be considered balmy to some who braved the freak October snowstorm that dropped more than 2 feet of snow in some places over the weekend.

At least 2.3 million people across the Northeast found themselves without electricity after an unusual autumn storm dumped record amounts of snow. More than 2.3 million customers from Pennsylvania through New England had no electricity, according to reports, as the region was lashed by surprisingly high winds and snowdrifts. In Manhattan, tree branches snapped under the weight of wet snow, piling up along 5th Avenue and toppling across and obstructing the walkways of Central Park.

Nearly 100,000 people were ordered to flee the rising Susquehanna River on Thursday as the remnants of Tropical Storm Lee dumped more rain across the Northeast, socking areas still recovering from Hurricane Irene and closing major highways at the morning rush. At Binghamton, N.Y., the wide river broke a flood record and flowed over retaining walls downtown. Interstate 88 was closed and emergency responders scrambled to evacuate holdouts who didn’t heed warnings to leave neighborhoods.

So Sarah Palin is taking a field trip. The former Alaskan governor has a coach bus painted with images of purple mountain majesties and the U.S. constitution, which she plans to use to make stops in historic Northeast sites familiar to grade-school civics classes. Along the way, she plans to remind Americans that they are “one nation under God,” to appreciate the country’s “diverse cultures,” and to “discover the ties that bind Americans.”

Spring can't seem to upstage winter in the Northeast and parts of the nation's midsection, as a far-reaching storm on Wednesday brought up to a foot of snow to areas from the Dakotas to upstate New York....

Joshua Snowcroft has lived through some intense winter weather in the decade he's lived in Vermont. But this winter -- which offered an encore Monday in the form of up to 30 inches of snow -- takes the cake.

A fierce storm is raking northern New England and upstate New York with heavy rain, coating other areas in ice and dumping as much on 30 inches of snow on the winter-weary region.

A colossal winter storm stretching from New Mexico to Maine hit the agricultural heartland of the United States with snow and freezing rain on Tuesday, and experts said the worst was still to come as it moved northeast.

The Northeast dug out of yet another winter storm on Thursday that pummeled the region with between six and 19 inches of snow overnight.

New U.S. claims for unemployment benefits rose more than expected last week as harsh weather conditions in some parts of the country kept workers at home and caused a backlog in the processing of claims, a government report showed on Thursday.