The times. (Gainesville, Ga.) 1972-current, December 10, 2018, Image 4

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The times., December 10, 2018, Image 4

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Newspaper Page Text4A Monday, December 10, 2018 The Times, Gainesville, Georgia | gainesvilletimes.com NATION South faces wintry mess: Snow, sleet, freezing rain CHUCK BURTON I Associated Press A snow-covered car is parked outside a home in Greensboro, N.C., Sunday, Dec. 9. A massive storm brought snow, sleet, and freezing rain across a wide swath of the South on Sunday - causing dangerously icy roads, immobilizing snowfalls and power losses. Associated Press CHARLOTTE, N.C. — A mas sive storm brought snow, sleet, and freezing rain across a wide swath of the South on Sunday — causing dangerously icy roads, immobiliz ing snowfalls and power losses to hundreds of thousands of people. Accidents on snow-covered interstates caused major delays, hundreds of flights were canceled and drivers in North Carolina and Virginia got stuck in snow or lost control on icy patches. Meanwhile, kids and the young at heart took advantage of the early winter snow with snowball fights, sledding and snowmen. Police in North Carolina and Virginia said they’d responded to hundreds of snow-related traffic accidents as of Sunday afternoon. North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper strongly urged residents to stay off the roads Sunday, asking drivers not to put lives of first respond ers needlessly at risk. Cooper said emergency crews, including the National Guard, worked overnight to clear traffic accidents on major roadways. One tractor trailer ran off a road and into a river, Cooper said. “Stay put if you can,” Cooper said. “Wrap a few presents, deco rate the tree, watch some football.” Governors and local officials in several states declared emergen cies ahead of the storm crossing several Southern states, which hit portions of North Carolina and Vir ginia particularly hard. Officials warned residents to pre pare emergency kits and stay off roads in impacted areas. Schools districts in North Carolina and Vir ginia announced they’ll be closed Monday. “Virginians should take all nec essary precautions to ensure they are prepared for winter weather storm impacts,” said Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam. The National Weather Service said a “prolonged period of snow” began late Saturday and would last until Monday in the region, with the heaviest snow expected in north west North Carolina and southern Virginia. Some areas of North Caro lina and Virginia saw more than a foot (30 centimeters) of snow by Sunday afternoon. More than 300,000 power out ages were reported across the region with the majority of those — about 240,000 — in North Carolina, according to poweroutage.us. Parts of Alabama, Georgia, South Caro lina, Tennessee and Virginia also saw outages. Charlotte Douglas International Airport, the sixth busiest airport in the country, said American Air lines reduced its operations, with more than 1,000 flights canceled on Sunday. American Airlines also issued a travel alert for nine airports throughout the Carolinas, Tennes see, and Virginia, meaning passen gers may be able to change travel plans without a fee. Travelers were advised to check their flight status before heading to the airport. Cancellations were reported on flights from as far as the Midwest. Wis. legislature may limit incoming governor’s power Associated Press i STEVE APPS I Associated Press Democratic challenger Tony Evers, left, and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, a Republican, shake hands during gubernatorial debate in Madison, Wis., Oct. 19. MADISON, Wis. — Wisconsin’s Democratic Gov.-elect Tony Evers said Sunday he’s not optimis tic that outgoing governor Scott Walker will veto bills approved by the Republi can-dominated Legislature that would limit the new governor’s power. Speaking on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Evers said he talked by telephone with Walker recently and appealed to him to veto the legislation, but that Walker was noncommittal. Evers, who will be sworn in Jan. 7 after narrowly defeating the two-term Republican last month, said Wisconsin voters did not elect him to fight over administrative powers with the GOP legislative major ity. He said the lame-duck legislation approved by law makers after an all-night ses sion last week “gets us off to a bad start. And I think that’s a mistake.” “But we’ll continue work ing to get the people of Wis consin to convince Scott Walker to think about his legacy and make sure that he vetoes this language,” Evers said. Walker has indicated that he generally supports the legislation though his office late last week said only that he was reviewing it. Walker has six days after the bills are delivered to him to either sign them into law, allow them to become law without his signature or veto them. He may also be able to line-item veto por tions of them, depending on how they are drafted and whether they spend money. If Walker signs the bills, lawmakers can decide when the state can withdraw from lawsuits, and Evers would have to request permission to adjust programs that are run jointly with the federal governor, such as Medic aid. The GOP measures also would empower legislators, not new Democratic Attor ney General Josh Kaul, to decide whether to withdraw Wisconsin from a lawsuit challenging the Affordable Care act. The bills also could make it harder for Evers to renegotiate a $3 billion subsidy spearheaded by Walker for a Foxconn Tech nology Group manufactur ing facility in southeastern Wisconsin. In neighboring Michigan, where a Democrat also won the governor’s office this year, Republicans are con sidering proposals to strip campaign-finance oversight from the new Democratic secretary of state. Lawmak ers also want to have author ity to intervene in lawsuits, with a Democrat poised to take control of the attorney general’s office. Evers said Sunday that if Walker had won in Wis consin, “we wouldn’t be sit ting here talking about this today.” The incoming gov ernor said the GOP moves are “directly related” to a Democrat’s win. Though Evers has said he might have to sue unless Walker vetoes the legisla tion, he said Sunday that “all issues are on the table” and that he is “not making any promises one way or the other,” “I need to stand up for the people of Wisconsin,” Evers said. A Walker spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for comment Sunday. Southwestern states still haven’t agreed how to cope with drought BY KEN RITTER Associated Press LAS VEGAS — With drought entering a second decade and reservoirs con tinuing to shrink, seven Southwestern U.S. states that depend on the over taxed Colorado River for crop irrigation and drinking water had been expected to ink a crucial share-the-pain contingency plan by the end of 2018. They’re not going to make it — at least not in time for upcoming meet ings in Las Vegas involving representatives from Ari zona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming and the U.S. gov ernment, officials say. Arizona has been the holdout, with farmers, cit ies, Indian tribes and law makers in the state set to be first to feel the pinch still negotiating how to deal with water cutbacks when a shortage is declared, prob ably in 2020. “There will be cuts. We all know the clock is ticking. That’s what a lot of the diffi cult negotiations have been around,” said Kim Mitchell, Western Resource Advo cates water policy adviser and a delegate to ongoing meetings involving the Ari zona Department of Water Resources, Central Arizona Project, agricultural, indus trial and business interests, the governor, state lawmak ers and cities including Tuc son and Phoenix. In Arizona, unlike other states, a final drought con tingency plan must pass the state Legislature when it convenes in January. Federal water manag ers wanted a deal to sign at the annual Colorado River Water Users Associa tion conference beginning Wednesday in Las Vegas, and threatened earlier this year to impose unspecified measures from Washing ton if a voluntary drought contingency plan wasn’t reached. However, Bureau of Rec lamation Commissioner Brenda Burman is signal ing that the agency that controls the levers on the river is willing to wait. She is scheduled to talk to the conference on Thursday. “Reclamation remains cautiously optimistic that the parties will find a path forward,” the bureau said in a statement on Friday, “because finding a con sensus deal recognizing the risks of continuing drought and the benefits of a drought contingency plan is in each state’s best interest.” Colorado River water supports about 40 million people and millions of acres of farmland in the U.S. and Mexico. After 19 years of drought and increasing demand, federal water managers project a 52 percent chance that the river’s biggest res ervoir, Lake Mead behind Hoover Dam, will fall low enough to trigger cutbacks under agreements govern ing the system. The seven states saw this coming years ago, and used Colorado River Water Users Association meetings in December 2007 to sign a 20-year “guidelines” plan to share the burden of a shortage. Contingency agreements would update that pact, running through 2026. They call for voluntarily using less to keep more water in the system’s two main res ervoirs, lakes Powell and Mead. Lake Powell upstream from of the Grand Canyon is currently at 43 percent capacity; Lake Mead, down stream, is at 38 percent. Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming, the riv er’s Upper Basin states, aim to keep the surface of Lake Powell above a target level to continue water deliveries to irrigation districts and cities and also keep hydro electric turbines humming at Glen Canyon Dam. The Lower Basin states of California, Arizona and Nevada aim to keep Lake Mead above a shortage declaration trigger point by using less water than they’re legally entitled to. If Lake Mead falls below that level, Arizona will face a 9 percent reduction in water supply, Nevada a 3 percent cut and California up to 8 percent. Mexico’s share of river water would also be reduced. Water officials in most states — from the Southern Nevada Water Authority in Las Vegas to the Colorado River Water Conserva tion District in Glenwood Springs, Colorado — have signed off on plans in recent weeks. Newtown shooter described his anger, ‘scorn for humanity’ Associated Press HARTFORD, Conn. — Documents from the inves tigation into the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut are shedding light on the gun man’s anger, scorn for other people, and deep social iso lation in the years leading up to the shooting. The documents that a court ordered Connecti cut State Police to release include several writings by Adam Lanza, who gunned down 20 children and six educators on Dec. 14, 2012. He fatally shot his mother before driving to the school and ultimately killed himself. Lanza wrote in what appears to be an online com munication with a fellow gamer: “I incessantly have nothing other than scorn for humanity,” the Hartford Courant reported. “I have been desperate to feel any thing positive for someone for my entire life,” he wrote. The criminal investiga tion ended a year after the massacre without determin ing a motive. Thousands of pages of documents were released at the time, but in a lawsuit brought by the Courant, the Connecticut Supreme Court ruled in October that personal belongings of the shooter that had been withheld, including jour nals, also had to be made public because they were not exempt from open record laws. A report by the Con necticut child advocate said Lanza’s severe and deteriorating mental health problems, his preoccupation with violence and access to his mother’s weapons “proved a recipe for mass murder.” From the 10th grade, Lanza’s mother kept him at home, where he was sur rounded by an arsenal of firearms and spent long hours playing violent video games. His medical and school records included references to diagnoses of autism spectrum disorder, anxiety and obsessive com pulsive disorder. The newly released docu ments were seized by authorities dur ing a search of Lanza’s home. They include writings that had been described or summarized by previous investiga tive reports such as the “Big Book Of Granny,” a book describing violence against children that he wrote with another boy in the fifth grade, and a spreadsheet listing mass killings dating back to 1786. 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