QUOTE OF THE DAY “There is much work that we must do.Are we afraid, or are we truly committed to the work that must be done?” Bernice King, at an Atlanta ceremony honoring her father, Martin Luther King Jr.
Article, this page Feed-plant explosion kills 2 in Nebraska
OMAHA, Neb. - An explosion that brought down part of an animal feed processing plant in Omaha, Neb., on Monday morning killed two people and seriously injured 10 others, authorities said.
The search for bodies in the crippled International Nutrition plant progressed slowly Monday and had to be suspended in the evening. Omaha Police Lt. Darci Tierney said all 38 of the workers who were in the building at the time had been accounted for, so the death toll wasn’t expected to grow.
Through much of the day, authorities declined to say how many died while they sorted out what happened. In total, officials said two died, 10 were hospitalized and seven were hurt but refused treatment. The other 19 workers escaped.
Authorities said late Monday that Keith Everett, 53, of Omaha, was one of the victims. The other victim’s name hasn’t been released.
Authorities don’t know what caused the blast, but Omaha Interim Fire Chief Bernie Kanger noted that there were no hazardous chemicals at the three-story plant.
More frigid air rolling south into U.S.
MILWAUKEE - Another band of arctic air began creeping into the northern U.S. on Monday, bringing a wave of frigid temperatures that could linger for most of the week across the upper Midwest and New England.
Temperatures plunged below zero in North Dakota and northern Minnesota on Monday morning. The cold front was expected to sweep south into Iowa and as far east as Maine by tonight and remain entrenched through Thursday.
The bitter blast will lead to a swath of subzero temperatures, with highs in the single digits and wind chills of minus 20 or colder, said Paul Collar, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.
“It’s not to the extent of the last outbreak but it’s still bitterly cold,” he said, referring to the recent polar vortex that sent temperatures plunging well below zero across much of the country and was blamed for at least a dozen deaths.
Some areas across the U.S.-Canada border could see nighttime lows in the negative double digits in the next few days, he said.
The wind chill is a calculation that describes the combined effect of the wind and cold temperatures on exposed skin.
Mom, two kids dead; father is suspect
NEW YORK - Police on Monday were looking for a man wanted after the stabbing deaths of his two young daughters and their mother in their home.
The bodies of 1-year-old Yaslin Mejia and 2-year-old Daniela Mejia and their mother, 21-year-old Deisy Garcia, were discovered in a bedroom of their Queens apartment by other household members on Sunday night. They had been stabbed multiple times in their chests.
The girls’ father, 28-year-old Miguel Mejia-Ramos, is considered a suspect in the case, police said.
Members of Garcia’s nearby church said she and her daughters were from Guatemala. They described her as a devoted mother who often danced at the church. They said they were surprised when she didn’t show up for service on Sunday.
Paramedics were called to the apartment, located over a pharmacy in the Jamaica section, about 7 p.m. Sunday.
Study: Kept plans won’t strain market
WASHINGTON - Plans to allow people to keep their individual health-insurance policies, even if they don’t meet the requirements of the health-care law, are unlikely to threaten the short-term viability of the new health-insurance marketplace, according to a new Rand Corp. study.
The study, released today, examines the effect of President Barack Obama’s decision in November to allow consumers to keep those plans.
The study predicts that the president’s actions will have only minimal effect on enrollment and premiums in 2015, increasing premiums by 1 percent.
“We figured that enrollment would go down about 4 percent, or about a half a million, for 2015,” said Evan Saltzman, the study’s lead author and a project associate at Rand, a nonprofit research organization.
Researchers used an economic model based on data about how people make insurance decisions and how firms decide to offer health coverage to employees and their families. The model predicted that people eligible for federal subsidies would tend to seek insurance on the marketplace in much larger numbers, even if they had the option of renewing their noncompliant plans.
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Front Section, Pages 3 on 01/21/2014