A fiery last-lap crash at the Daytona International Speedway injured a number of spectators today, who were seen being carried away from the stands on stretchers.
A total of 28 fans were injured, with 14 transported to hospitals and 14 treated at the speedway, Dayton president Joie Chitwood III. All the drivers involved in the crash have been treated and released, Chitwood said.
ESPN reported that one of the spectators taken to the hospital was on the way to surgery with head trauma.
The 12-car crash happened moments before the end of the Nationwide race, and on the eve of the Daytona 500, one of NASCAR's biggest events.
The crash was apparently triggered when driver Regan Smith's car, which was being tailed by Brad Keselowski on his back bumper, spun to the right and shot up the track. Smith had been in the lead and said after the crash he had been trying to throw a "block."
PHOTOS: Crash at Daytona Sends Wreckage Into Stands
Rookie Kyle Larson's car slammed into the wall that separates the track from the grandstands, causing his No. 32 car to go airborne and erupt in flames.
When a haze of smoke cleared and Larson's car came to a stop, he jumped out uninjured.
His engine and one of his wheels were sitting in a walkway of the grandstand.
"I was getting pushed from behind," Larson told ESPN. "Before I could react, it was too late."
Tony Stewart pulled out the win, but in victory lane, what would have been a celebratory mood was tempered by concern for the injured fans.
"We've always known this is a dangerous sport," Stewart said. "But it's hard when the fans get caught up in it."
Repairs are under way on the fence where the crash happened and are expected to be completed before the Daytona 500 on Sunday, Chitwood said.
He told reporters NASCAR does not anticipate having to move any of their fans for the Daytona 500 and expects all seats will be filled.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told Americans on Friday "I am back and so is Japan" and vowed to get the world's third biggest economy growing again and to do more to bolster security and the rule of law in an Asia roiled by territorial disputes.
Abe had firm words for China in a policy speech to a top Washington think-tank, but also tempered his remarks by saying he had no desire to escalate a row over islets in the East China Sea that Tokyo controls and Beijing claims.
"No nation should make any miscalculation about firmness of our resolve. No one should ever doubt the robustness of the Japan-U.S. alliance," he told the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
"At the same time, I have absolutely no intention to climb up the escalation ladder," Abe said in a speech in English.
After meeting U.S. President Barack Obama on his first trip to Washington since taking office in December in a rare comeback to Japan's top job, he said he told Obama that Tokyo would handle the islands issue "in a calm manner."
"We will continue to do so and we have always done so," he said through a translator, while sitting next to Obama in the White House Oval Office.
Tension surged in 2012, raising fears of an unintended military incident near the islands, known as the Senkaku in Japan and the Diaoyu in China. Washington says the islets fall under a U.S.-Japan security pact, but it is eager to avoid a clash in the region.
Abe said he and Obama "agreed that we have to work together to maintain the freedom of the seas and also that we would have to create a region which is governed based not on force but based on an international law."
Abe, whose troubled first term ended after just one year when he abruptly quit in 2007, has vowed to revive Japan's economy with a mix of hyper-easy monetary policy, big spending, and structural reform. The hawkish leader is also boosting Japan's defense spending for the first time in 11 years.
"Japan is not, and will never be, a tier-two country," Abe said in his speech. "So today ... I make a pledge. I will bring back a strong Japan, strong enough to do even more good for the betterment of the world."
'ABENOMICS' TO BOOST TRADE
The Japanese leader stressed that his "Abenomics" recipe would be good for the United States, China and other trading partners.
"Soon, Japan will export more, but it will import more as well," Abe said in the speech. "The U.S. will be the first to benefit, followed by China, India, Indonesia and so on."
The United States and Japan agreed language during Abe's visit that could set the stage for Tokyo to join negotiations soon on a U.S.-led regional free trade agreement known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
In a carefully worded statement following the meeting between Obama and Abe, the two countries reaffirmed that "all goods would be subject to negotiations if Japan joins the talks with the United States and 10 other countries.
At the same time, the statement envisions a possible outcome where the United States could maintain tariffs on Japanese automobiles and Japan could still protect its rice sector.
"Recognizing that both countries have bilateral trade sensitivities, such as certain agricultural products for Japan and certain manufactured products for the United States, the two governments confirm that, as the final outcome will be determined during the negotiations, it is not required to make a prior commitment to unilaterally eliminate all tariffs upon joining the TPP negotiations," the statement said.
Abe repeated that Japan would not provide any aid for North Korea unless it abandoned its nuclear and missile programs and released Japanese citizens abducted decades ago to help train spies.
Pyongyang admitted in 2002 that its agents had kidnapped 13 Japanese in the 1970s and 1980s. Five have been sent home, but Japan wants better information about eight who Pyongyang says are dead and others Tokyo believes were also kidnapped.
Abe also said he hoped to have a meeting with new Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who takes over as president next month, and would dispatch Finance Minister Taro Aso to attend the inauguration of incoming South Korean President Park Geun-hye next week.
(Additional reporting by Jeff Mason and Doug Palmer; Editing by David Brunnstrom and Paul Simao)
LOS ANGELES - At least six tanks containing radioactive waste in the US state of Washington are leaking, the state said Friday, urging more federal help to clean up a site used to make Cold War-era bombs.
Washington governor Jay Inslee said that the extent of the leaks at the Hanford site -- which first produced fuel for nuclear bombs in World War II and closed down 25 years ago -- was "disturbing."
"There is no immediate or near-term health risk associated with these newly discovered leaks, which are more than five miles from the Columbia River," he said, after meeting US Energy Secretary Steven Chu in Washington DC.
"But nonetheless this is disturbing news for all Washingtonians," he said.
He noted that Chu, the outgoing US energy secretary, told him a week ago that only one tank was leaking, but admitted "his department did not adequately analyze data it had that would have shown the other tanks that are leaking."
"This certainly raises serious questions about the integrity of all 149 single-shell tanks with radioactive liquid and sludge at Hanford.
"I believe we need a new system for removing waste from these aging tanks, and was heartened to hear that the Department of Energy is looking at options for accelerating that process."
The Hanford nuclear site, 300km southeast of Seattle, was used to produce plutonium for the bomb that brought an end to World War II.
Output grew after 1945 to meet the challenges of the Cold War, but the last reactor closed down in 1987. Its website says: "Weapons production processes left solid and liquid wastes that posed a risk to the local environment."
Millions of gallons of leftover waste is contained in 177 tanks at the site, according to the Department of Energy, which in 1989 agreed a deal with Washington state authorities to clean up the Hanford site.
Governor Inslee urged federal authorities to act quickly to ensure that looming US budget constraints do not jeopardize extra measures for the nuclear waste site.
"Secretary Chu has a long-standing personal commitment to the clean-up of Hanford. He has assured me he will do all he can to address the issue of the leaking tanks," he said.
But he added: "Frankly, the state Department of Ecology is not convinced that current storage is adequate to meet legal and regulatory requirements.
"With potential sequestration and federal budget cuts looming, we need to be sure the federal government maintains its commitment and legal obligation to the clean-up of Hanford."
A Department of Energy spokesman, Lindsey Geisler, confirmed that "there are six tanks at the Hanford site...including the one announced last week, that show declining levels of fluid."
"There is no immediate public health risk. The Department is working with the State of Washington and other key stakeholders to address the issues associated with these tanks," he added.
Details of exactly what kind of waste was involved were not immediately available.
A spokeswoman for governor Inslee, Jaime Smith, said: "It's nuclear waste. Different tanks have slightly different kinds of waste that they're holding. We're not clear yet on exactly what has been leaking for how long."
Washington state authorities hoped for more information about the leaking tanks soon, the spokeswoman told AFP.
"The Department of Energy has committed to try and get us more information pretty quickly, hopefully within the next week or so. So we should have more information soon," she said.
In response to a court ruling today in favor of hedge fund manager David Einhorn, Apple has yanked a proxy proposal that would eliminate its ability to issue "blank check" preferred stock without investor approval.
Apple issued a statement concerning the ruling by U.S. District Judge Richard Sullivan, who granted Einhorn's bid to block next week's shareholder vote on the proposal:
"We are disappointed with the court's ruling. Proposal #2 is part of our efforts to further enhance corporate governance and serve our shareholders' best interests. Unfortunately, due to today's decision, shareholders will not be able to vote on Proposal #2 at our annual meeting next week."
Greenlight Capital, a hedge fund run by the famed short seller Einhorn, sued Apple on February 7, asserting that the company needed to distribute preferred stock to current shareholders and that Apple had balked at the idea when it was first discussed. Einhorn argues that issuing high-yielding preferred shares to existing shareholders would allow Apple to share the value on the balance sheet but still hold a large amount of cash.
Apple's latest proxy statement, which details items up for a vote at its February 27 shareholder meeting, had included a proposal that would eliminate such preferred stock. Einhorn's suit sought an injunction to prevent Apple from bundling that provision with several other items. Rather, he wanted each item to be voted on separately.
YAKIMA, Wash. Six underground tanks that hold a brew of radioactive and toxic waste at the nation's most contaminated nuclear site are leaking, federal and state officials said Friday.
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee said the leaking material poses no immediate risk to public safety or the environment because it would take a while — perhaps years — to reach groundwater.
But the leaking tanks raise new concerns about delays for emptying them and strike another blow to federal efforts to clean up south-central Washington's Hanford nuclear reservation, where successes often are overshadowed by delays, budget overruns and technological challenges.
Department of Energy spokeswoman Lindsey Geisler said there was no immediate health risk and said federal officials would work with Washington state to address the matter.
Washington state Gov. Jay Inslee, right, is joined by Maia Bellon, director of the Department of Ecology, at a news conference to discuss a tank leak at Hanford Nuclear Reservation, on Friday, Feb. 15, 2013, in Olympia, Wash.
/ AP Photo/Rachel La Corte
State officials just last week announced that one of Hanford's 177 underground tanks was leaking 150 to 300 gallons a year, posing a risk to groundwater and rivers. So far, nearby monitoring wells haven't detected higher radioactivity levels.
Inslee traveled to Washington, D.C., this week to discuss the problem with federal officials. He said Friday that he learned in meetings that six tanks are leaking waste.
"We received very disturbing news today," the governor said. "I think that we are going to have a course of new action and that will be vigorously pursued in the next several weeks."
The federal government built the Hanford facility at the height of World War II as part of the Manhattan Project to build the atomic bomb. The remote site produced plutonium for the bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, and continued supporting the nation's nuclear weapons arsenal for years.
Today, it is the most contaminated nuclear site in the country, still surrounded by sagebrush but with Washington's Tri-Cities of Richland, Kennewick and Pasco several miles downriver.
Hanford's tanks hold some 53 million gallons of highly radioactive waste — enough to fill dozens of Olympic-size swimming pools — and many of those tanks are known to have leaked in the past. An estimated 1 million gallons of radioactive liquid already leaked there.
The tanks also are long past their intended 20-year life span — raising concerns that even more tanks could be leaking — though they were believed to have been stabilized in 2005.
Inslee said the falling waste levels in the six tanks were missed because only a narrow band of measurements was evaluated, rather than a wider band that would have shown the levels changing over time.
"It's like if you're trying to determine if climate change is happening, only looking at the data for today," he said. "Perhaps human error, the protocol did not call for it. But that's not the most important thing at the moment. The important thing now is to find and address the leakers."
There are legal, moral and ethical considerations to cleaning up the Hanford site at the national level, Inslee said, adding that he will continue to insist that the Energy Department completely clean up the site.
He also stressed the state would impose a "zero-tolerance" policy on radioactive waste leaking into the soil.
Cleanup is expected to last decades and cost billions of dollars.
The federal government already spends $2 billion each year on Hanford cleanup — one-third of its entire budget for nuclear cleanup nationally. The Energy Department has said it expects funding levels to remain the same for the foreseeable future, but a new Energy Department report released this week includes annual budgets of as much as $3.5 billion during some years of the cleanup effort.
Much of that money goes toward construction of a plant to convert the underground waste into glasslike logs for safe, secure storage. The plant, last estimated at more than $12.3 billion, is billions of dollars over budget and behind schedule. It isn't expected to being operating until at least 2019.
Given those delays, the federal government will have to show that there is adequate storage for the waste in the meantime, Inslee said.
"We are not convinced of this," he said. "There will be a robust exchange of information in the coming weeks to get to the bottom of this."
Inslee and Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber have championed building additional tanks to ensure safe storage of the waste until the plant is completed. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said earlier this week that he shares their concerns about the integrity of the tanks but he wants more scientific information to determine it's the correct way to spend scarce money.
Tom Carpenter of Hanford Challenge, a Hanford watchdog group, said Friday it's disappointing that the Energy Department is not further along on the waste treatment plant and that there aren't new tanks to transfer waste into.
"None of these tanks would be acceptable for use today. They are all beyond their design life. None of them should be in service," he said. "And yet, they're holding two-thirds of the nation's high-level nuclear waste."
Wyden noted the nation's most contaminated nuclear site — and the challenges associated with ridding it of its toxic legacy — will be a subject of upcoming hearings and a higher priority in Washington, D.C.
Accused murderer Jodi Arias believes she should be punished, but hopes she will not be sentenced to death, two of her closest friends told ABC News in an exclusive interview.
Ann Campbell and Donavan Bering have been a constant presence for Arias wth at least one of them sitting in the Phoenix, Ariz., courtroom along with Arias' family for almost every day of her murder trial. They befriended Arias after she first arrived in jail and believe in her innocence.
Arias admits killing her ex-boyfriend Travis Alexander and lying for nearly two years about it, but insists she killed Alexander in self defense. She could face the death penalty if convicted of murder.
Jodi Arias Testimony: Prosecution's Cross-Examination Watch Video
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Jodi Arias Doesn't Remember Stabbing Ex-Boyfriend Watch Video
Nevertheless, she is aware of the seriousness of her lies and deceitful behavior.
The women told ABC News that they understand that Arias needs to be punished and Arias understands that too.
"She does know that, you know, she does need to pay for the crime," Campbell said. "But I don't want her to die, and I know that she has so much to give back."
Catching Up on the Trial? Check Out ABC News' Jodi Arias Trial Coverage
The lies that Arias admits she told to police and her family have been devastating to her, Bering said.
""She said to me, 'I wish I didn't have to have lied. That destroyed me,'" Donovan said earlier this week. "Because now when it's so important for her to be believed, she has that doubt. But as she told me on the phone yesterday, she goes, 'I have nothing to lose.' So all she can do is go out there and tell the truth."
During Arias' nine days on the stand she has described in detail the oral, anal and phone sex that she and Alexander allegedly engaged in, despite being Mormons and trying to practice chastity. She also spelled out in excruciating detail what she claimed was Alexander's growing demands for sex, loyalty and subservience along with an increasingly violent temper.
Besides her two friends, Arias' mother and sometimes her father have been sitting in the front row of the courtroom during the testimony. It's been humiliating, Bering said.
"She's horrified. There's not one ounce of her life that's not out there, that's not open to the public. She's ashamed," she said.
GAO, Mali (Reuters) - French and Malian troops fought Islamists on the streets of Gao and a car bomb exploded in Kidal on Thursday, as fighting showed little sign of abating weeks before France plans to start withdrawing some forces.
Reuters reporters in Gao in the country's desert north said French and Malian forces fired at the mayor's office with heavy machineguns after Islamists were reported to have infiltrated the Niger River town during a night of explosions and gunfire.
French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told a news conference in Brussels that Gao was back under control after clashes earlier in the day.
"Malian troops supported by French soldiers killed five jihadists and the situation is back to normal," he said.
In Kidal, a remote far north town where the French are hunting Islamists, residents said a car bomb killed two. A French defense ministry source reported no French casualties.
French troops dispatched to root out rebels with links to al Qaeda swiftly retook northern towns last month. But they now risk being bogged down in a guerrilla conflict as they try to help Mali's weak army counter bombings and raids.
"There was an infiltration by Islamists overnight and there is shooting all over the place," Sadou Harouna Diallo, Gao's mayor, told Reuters by telephone earlier in the day, saying he was not in his office at the time.
Gao is a French hub for operations in the Kidal region, about 300 km (190 miles) northeast, where many Islamist leaders are thought to have retreated and foreign hostages may be held.
"They are black and two were disguised as women," a Malian soldier in Gao who gave his name only as Sergeant Assak told Reuters during a pause in heavy gunfire around Independence Square.
Six Malian military pickups were deployed in the square and opened fire on the mayor's office with the heavy machineguns. Two injured soldiers were taken away in an ambulance.
French troops in armored vehicles later joined the battle as it spilled out into the warren of sandy streets, where, two weeks ago, they also fought for hours against Islamists who had infiltrated the town via the nearby river.
Helicopters clattered over the mayor's office, while a nearby local government office and petrol station was on fire.
A Gao resident said he heard an explosion and then saw a Malian military vehicle on fire in a nearby street.
Paris has said it plans to start withdrawing some of its 4,000 troops from Mali next month. But rebels have fought back against Mali's weak and divided army, and African forces due to take over the French role are not yet in place.
Islamists abandoned the main towns they held but French and Malian forces have said there are pockets of Islamist resistance across the north, which is about the size of France.
CAR BOMB
Residents reported a bomb in the east of Kidal on Thursday.
"It was a car bomb that exploded in a garage," said one resident who went to the scene but asked not to be named.
"The driver and another man were killed. Two other people were injured," he added.
A French defense ministry official confirmed there had been a car bomb but said it did not appear that French troops, based at the town's airport, had been targeted.
Earlier this week, a French soldier was killed in heavy fighting north of Kidal, where French and Chadian troops are hunting Islamists in the Adrar des Ifoghas mountains, which border Algeria.
Operations there are further complicated by the presence of separatist Tuareg rebels, whose rebellion triggered the fighting in northern Mali last year but were sidelined by the better-armed Islamists.
Having dispatched its forces to prevent an Islamist advance south in January, Paris is eager not to become bogged down in a long-term conflict in Mali. But their Malian and African allies have urged French troops not to pull out too soon.
(Additional reporting by Emanuel Braun in Gao, Adama Diarra in Bamako, David Lewis and John Irish in Dakar and Adrian Croft in Brussels; Writing by David Lewis; Editing by Jason Webb and Roger Atwood)
ROME: Italy was poised to hold its most important elections in a generation starting on Sunday, as financial markets warned an unclear outcome could plunge the eurozone's third economy back into crisis.
Italians will cast their ballots as they grapple with the longest recession in two decades and several rounds of austerity cuts that have caused deep resentment and could favour a low turnout and a high number of protest votes.
The most likely outcome is a centre-left government led by Democratic Party leader Pier Luigi Bersani, a cigar-chomping former communist with a down-to-earth manner who now espouses broadly pro-market economic views.
But the result is by no means certain and whether Bersani will be able to form a stable coalition is in doubt. Some fear there may have to be another election within months after a reform of a maddeningly complex electoral law.
With everything at stake, the campaign has been remarkably underwhelming, with few rallies and a lot of back-and-forth in television interviews that have provided little or no detail on sometimes extravagant programme promises.
A case in point was Silvio Berlusconi's promise to refund Italians an unpopular property tax levied by Prime Minister Mario Monti's government in a letter that prompted some to queue up to claim their money back immediately.
European capitals and foreign investors will be watching closely as a return to Italy's free-wheeling public finances could spell disaster for the eurozone.
"We believe that a risk exists that after the February 24-25 elections there may be a loss of momentum on important reforms to improve Italian growth prospects," Standard & Poor's ratings agency said in a report this week.
London-based Capital Economics warned that even with a stable governing majority "huge underlying economic problems suggest that it may only be a matter of time before concerns about the public finances begin to build again."
"And a hung parliament might plunge Italy and the eurozone back into crisis rather sooner," the independent economic research company said this week.
Polls open at 0700 GMT on Sunday and close at 1900 GMT. A second day of voting on Monday begins at 0600 GMT and ends at 1400 GMT, after which preliminary results will begin to trickle through late Monday and into Tuesday.
Wild card
The wild card in the election will be Beppe Grillo, a tousle-haired former comedian whose mix of invective and idealism appeals to protest voters fed up with corrupt politicians. He has spoken to packed squares across Italy.
Bersani has said he will follow the course set by Monti, a former high-flying European commissioner roped in to replace the scandal-tainted Berlusconi who was forced to step down in November 2011.
But Bersani will come under immediate pressure to row back on austerity and do more to create jobs in an economy where an already record-high unemployment rate of 11.2 per cent masks far higher joblessness among women and young people.
A Bersani victory is far from a sure thing mainly because of the rapid rise in the polls of Berlusconi, the irrepressible 76-year-old billionaire tycoon who is still in the game even after 20 tumultuous years in Italian politics.
This is the sixth election campaign for Berlusconi, who has been prime minister three times, has survived multiple court cases, sex scandals and diplomatic gaffes.
One recent poll said he was within 2.5 points of catching up with Bersani.
Berlusconi has pursued a populist campaign, intimating that Italy's current social misery can be blamed on a "hegemonic" Germany imposing austerity.
The president of the European Parliament, who was once invited to play the role of a Nazi camp guard by Berlusconi during a speech when he was still prime minister, has warned Italians not to vote for the flamboyant tycoon.
"Berlusconi has already sent Italy into a tailspin with irresponsible government action and personal capers," Martin Schulz told German tabloid Bild, adding that Italy should not lose its new found confidence in Europe.
Several polls indicate that Bersani may score only a half-victory by managing to secure a stable majority in the lower house of parliament, the Chamber of Deputies, but failing to get one in the upper house, the Senate.
That would give Monti, a somewhat staid economics professor who is running as head of an eclectic centrist grouping, a crucial role as a coalition partner and could bring him back into a government with a ministerial posting.
An average of the most recent polls, which cannot be published in the two weeks leading up to the election, would give Bersani 34 per cent, Berlusconi 30 per cent, Grillo 17 per cent and Monti between 10 and 12 per cent of the vote.
Coming after the last polls were made public, Pope Benedict XVI's resignation could boost the church-going Monti and stop Berlusconi as it has drawn away the media attention that the showman tycoon has often relied on.
The run-up to the vote has also been marked by a succession of high-profile corruption inquiries against politicians and business leaders in a period similar to one in the early 1990s that brought down an entire political class.
Monti has said that the storm of scandals marks "the end of an era".
Memolane, a social media aggregator that promised trips down memory lane, announced today it is shutting down immediately and will delete users' account content tomorrow.
Launched in 2010, the Web app extracted each moment users shared on popular social-networking services such as Facebook, Last.fm, Twitter, Foursquare, and others and combined them into one visual timeline. Posts/comments/tweets/etc. were organized by their respective dates and posted as memos under each date.
The San Francisco-based company had raised $2.5 million in venture capital but announced today in a company blog post that it is joining another company that it did not identify that would "utilize the Memolane features in an expanded way, adding more value to all the great memories captured on social media."
Our goal was to make it exciting to relive great adventures with friends. We are proud that we could bring joy to people's lives by sending out daily emails with fun memories from the past. As well, it has been a thrill to share in the excitement when one of our fans rediscovers a precious moment that was once lost.
It wasn't immediately clear if Memolane had been acquired by another company, and if so, who that company might be. But Memolane said the "merger" means that all accounts and their contents would be deleted Friday but noted that the content would still be available at users' original social media sources.
The company also suggested users try formerly competing services offered by Timehop and Jolicloud.
CNET has contacted Memolane for more information and will update this report when we learn more.
ST. LOUIS Powdery snow, up to a foot and a half in some places, bombarded much of the nation's midsection Thursday, impeding travel and shutting down airports, schools and state legislatures.
The widespread winter storm system swirled to the north and east Thursday night, its snow, sleet and freezing rain prompting winter storm warnings in Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri and Illinois.
Corey Mead, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service's Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla., said the winter storm would be centered in the upper Midwest by Friday morning.
"Even across Kansas, the snowfall rates should continue to taper off through the evening," Mead said.
Chris Suchan, chief meteorologist at CBS affiliate KCTV Kansas City, told "CBS Evening News" anchor Scott Pelley Thursday that the worst is over with. "This morning we had widespread thundersnow from Levenworth, Kansas [and] Overland Park to Warrensburg, Missouri," Suchan said. "Snowfall rates of 2 to 3 inches per hour brought this area to its knees with our motoristsbridges were closed for a while.
Play Video
The sound and fury of "thundersnow"
"Now what we're anticipating is another round for this evening, perhaps another 2 to 4 inches of snowfall, some freezing drizzle right now, and wind chills in the single digits. The storm total for us is about 8 to 12-14 inches of snowfall for Kansas City."
The system left behind impressive snow accumulations, especially in western Kansas, where 17 inches fell in Hays.
Several accidents and two deaths were blamed on icy and slushy roadways; two people died in crashes Wednesday. Most schools in Kansas and Missouri, and many in neighboring states, were closed. Legislatures shut down in Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas, Nebraska and Iowa.
National Weather Service meteorologist Scott Truett said the "thundersnow" that rumbled through Kansas and Missouri earlier Thursday was the result of an unstable air mass, much like a thunderstorm.
Chuck Carroll, center, uses a snowblower to clear the sidewalk in front of his business in downtown Salina, Kan., Feb. 21, 2013.
/ AP Photo/Salina Journal
"Instead of pouring rain, it's pouring snow," Truett said. And pouring was a sound description, with snow falling at a rate of 2 inches per hour or more in some spots.
Topeka got 3 inches of snow in one 30-minute period, leaving medical center worker Jennifer Carlock to dread the drive home.
"It came on fast," Carlock said as she shoveled around her car. "We're going to test out traction control on the way home."
Snow totals passed the foot mark in many places: Monarch Pass, Colo., had 17-and-a-half inches, the Kansas cities of Hutchinson, Macksville and Hanston all saw 14 inches, and Wichita, Kan., had 13 inches. A few places in far northern Oklahoma saw between 10 to 13-and-a-half inches of snow. Missouri's biggest snow total was 10 inches, shared by the Kansas City metropolitan area, Rockport in the northwest corner and Moberly in the central part of the state.
Transportation officials in affected states urged people to simply stay home.
"If you don't have to get out, just really, please, don't do it," Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback said.
Drivers were particularly warned away from the Kansas Turnpike, which had whiteout conditions. Interstate 70 was also snow-packed, and a 200-mile stretch was closed between Salina and Colby.
A firefighter places wheelblocks as he prepares to extinguish a vehicle fire in Lawrence, Kan., Feb. 21, 2013. The car caught on fire trying to make it up a snow covered hill.
/ AP Photo
Cases of wine and beer -- as well as bottles of scotch and whiskey -- were flying off the shelves at Ingersoll Wine and Spirits ahead of the storm's arrival in Des Moines, Iowa.
"A lot of people have been buying liquor to curl up by the fire," wine specialist Bjorn Carlson said.
NWS forecasts showed 3 to 9 inches of snow were expected in Iowa overnight, and Nebraska will see an additional 2 to 5 inches.
Heavy, blowing snow caused scores of businesses in Iowa and Nebraska to close early, including two malls in Omaha, Neb. Mardi Miller, manager of Dillard's department store in Oakview Mall, said most employees had been sent home by 4 p.m., and she believed "only two customers are in the entire store."
The storm brought some relief to a region that has been parched by the worst drought in decades.
Vance Ehmke, a wheat farmer near Healy, Kan., said the nearly foot of snow was "what we have been praying for." Climatologists say 12 inches of snow is equivalent to about 1 inch of rain, depending on the density of the snow.
"The big question is, `Is the drought broke?' " Ehmke asked.
Near Edwardsville, Ill., farmer Mike Campbell called the precipitation a blessing after a bone-dry growing season in 2012. He hopes it is a good omen for the spring.
"The corn was just a disaster," Campbell said of 2012.
In Colorado, the U.S. Forest Service planned to take advantage of the snow to burn piles of dead trees on federal land. Areas in the Texas Panhandle also had up to 8 inches of snow, and in south central Nebraska, Grand Island reported 10 inches of snow. And Arkansas saw a mix of precipitation -- a combination of hail, sleet and freezing rain in some place, 6 inches of snow in others.
Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon declared a state of emergency Thursday morning. All flights at Kansas City International Airport were canceled for Thursday night, and officials said they'd prepare to reopen Friday morning. More than 320 flights at Lambert Airport in St. Louis were canceled by Thursday afternoon. Traffic throughout the state was snarled by hundreds of accidents and vehicles in ditches.
