The nation in brief

Wednesday, December 26, 2012

— QUOTE OF THE DAY

“He was equipped to go to war, kill

innocent people.” Police Chief Gerald Pickering of Webster, N.Y., on the ex-con who lured two firefighters to their deaths in a blaze of gunfire Article, 1A Disruption besets Netflix in Americas

SAN FRANCISCO - Netflix Inc., the world’s biggest video-streaming service, said access to its movies and television shows was restored after a disruption caused by Amazon Web Services storage and computing system.

Many customers in the Americas weren’t able to access content online on Monday from about 2:30 p.m.

CST until late Christmas Eve, according to Joris Evers, a spokesman for Netflix.

The blockage was caused by problems with Amazon Web Services, a business hosted on the Internet that’s separate from the online retail store, he said.

Subscription and on-demand services are becoming an important source of revenue for Netflix, which first offered DVD rentals by mail. Streaming services made up 70 percent of sales in the third quarter.

Amazon, which rents data storage and computing resources to other businesses and organizations, said disruptions that affected its services had been resolved, according to Tera Randall, a spokesman for Seattle-based Amazon.

Streaming services in Europe weren’t affected, Netflix said.

Avalanche kills snowboarding man

TRUCKEE, Calif. - A 49-year-old California man died Monday after being buried in an avalanche while snowboarding at a Sierra ski resort, one of several avalanche-related emergencies in the Lake Tahoe area after recent storms dumped up to 3 feet of fresh snow.

Donner Ski Ranch, about 90 miles northeast of Sacramento, closed as rescue teams began their search.

The Nevada County sheriff’s office identified the man as Steven Mark Anderson of Hirschdale, an unincorporated community outside Truckee.

A search dog found the man’s body about 1:30 p.m.

under 2 to 3 feet of snow at the base of the avalanche.

Anderson was believed to be the only person caught in the slide, Lade said.

Tennessee puts I-69 plans on hold

MEMPHIS - Construction on the Tennessee segment of Interstate 69 has been put on hold until the federal government provides more money for the project, state officials said.

The Tennessee Department of Transportation has made no official announcement about the delay, but department spokesman B.J. Doughty recently told The Commercial Appeal that “the commissioner has made it very clear that until there is some kind of [federal] promise on I-69, we can’t continue making investments because we can’t build it all ourselves.”

Front Section, Pages 4 on 12/26/2012