AP - A powerful winter storm that covered parts of Colorado with up to 6 feet of snow crept east across the Plains Saturday, knocking out electricity to thousands in Nebraska as the blanket of heavy, wet precipitation downed power lines and made travel treacherous.

AP - Romans bewildered by their city's first big snowfall in 26 years used government-issued shovels to clear sidewalks, and kitchen utensils to clear windshields Saturday.

AP - Afghan officials say they are hopeful that the country's largest airport will reopen after being closed due to heavy snowfall.

Reuters - Nine Romanian children were taken into care after a baby died in an unheated house, joining at least 189 others killed by a Siberian front which strengthened its hold over Eastern Europe on Friday and spread further west.

AP - Bosnia used helicopters on Sunday to evacuate the sick and deliver food to thousands of people left stranded by its heaviest snowfall ever, while Pope Benedict XVI donned an overcoat to bless the few pilgrims who braved Rome's unusually cold weather to visit St. Peter's Square.

AP - After being battered by flooding last year, farmers across the Northeast and Midwest can at least be thankful that a relatively warm and largely snowless winter has made it easier to get started healing their rutted and debris-strewn lands.

Reuters - Halfway through what might turn out to be the second mildest U.S. winter on record, major parts of the nation's economy are feeling the impact, for better or worse.

AP - Eight months after a tornado laid waste to much of this city, Joplin is wrestling with an emotional question: Should the community market its devastated neighborhoods to tourists?

AP - Survivors still haunted by memories of last year's tornado outbreak that killed 250 in Alabama are writing checks, donating diapers and standing over hot grills to help victims of the latest twisters to pummel the state.