Heavy overnight snowfall disrupted air travel across western Europe Friday, forcing more than 800 flight cancellations and leading to major delays in Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland.
Germany appeared the hardest hit by the snow, with more than 600 flights canceled, schools forced to close and highways clogged with traffic after scores of accidents that killed at least three people and injured dozens.
Snow also hindered flights in the neighboring Netherlands, where Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport saw more than 100 cancellations and major delays ahead of the busy Christmas holiday season, spokeswoman Mirjam Snoerwang said.
The European control agency eurocontrol said passengers at Schiphol, one of continental Europe's busiest airports, had to expect delays of up to 4 1/2 hours.
Moreover, many passengers whose flights were canceled had their misery compounded by train and bus traffic also being hit hard by the snow, stranding them in Schiphol's terminal buildings.
Dutch weather agency KNMI issued a "weather alarm" warning of heavy snowfall and lethal driving conditions in large parts of the western Netherlands as traffic jams grew around major cities of Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague.
Snow also forced the cancellation of about 100 flights in Switzerland, where Geneva's airport was closed early Friday morning, though it was open again by midmorning, and flights were also disrupted in Zurich.
In Frankfurt, continental Europe's second-biggest hub, 470 flights had been canceled by late afternoon, airport spokesman Gunnar Scheunemann said. The airport had to be closed for about an hour late Thursday, and an estimated 1,000 passengers were stranded overnight.
About 8 inches (20 centimeters) of snow blanketed the state overnight, also causing the closure of schools around Frankfurt and elsewhere in Hesse.
Munich airport, Germany's second-largest, reported 113 cancellations and major delays; Duesseldorf and Stuttgart saw more than 20 cancelations each.
Roads were clogged, and in North-Rhine Westphalia state alone authorities reported traffic jams of more than 185 kilometers (115 miles) on highways, and 251 weather-related accidents that left 19 people injured.
Officials in the southern state of Baden-Wuerttemberg said there were 108 weather-related accidents that left 17 people injured.
Two men died in a traffic accident in the southern state of Bavaria, according to authorities. The men, 54 and 44 years old, were trying to help a friend pull his car out of snow near Straubing late Thursday when they were struck by an oncoming car, police said in a statement. In Hesse state a 40-year-old woman died in a pileup on a highway near Frankfurt, police added.
A wave of snow and icy weather was also causing travel problems across Britain, with trains canceled, schools shut and cars sliding on icy roads.
One motorist in the Scottish city of Aberdeen, Kirsty McCullogh, told BBC radio it had taken her five hours to drive 4 miles.
"It's absolutely awful, the roads are sheet ice — they've not been gritted at all," she said.
Belfast International Airport was closed Friday morning because of snow, and there were delays and cancellations at other airports including Aberdeen, Birmingham and Luton.
Switzerland's main airport in Zurich also reported delays, and a total of 84 flights were canceled, spokeswoman Sonja Zoechling said. Geneva saw about 20 flight cancellations.
The Italian island of Capri, meanwhile, woke up to its first snowfall in 25 years, said Luciano Garofano, an official in the mayor's office. Street cleaners in the chic tourist destination in the Gulf of Naples doused the town's streets with boiling water to melt the ice. Snow also coated beaches on the neighboring island of Ischia, whose thermal waters attract visitors all year round.
In Denmark, the state postal service reported snow in the past weeks has caused a high number of injuries to the country's 12,000 letter carriers — including broken limbs.
PostDanmark reported 355 carriers have so far been injured since November — compared with a total of 450 during last year's entire winter, the B.T. newspaper reported.
The postal service has acknowledged that the snow may delay Christmas letters — and most importantly — parcels with presents.
Even where snow is desperately needed, too much of it proved to be a curse: The women's World Cup super-G downhill skiing event in Val d'Isere in southeastern France was called off due to too heavy snowfall overnight and Friday morning.
A massive bipartisan tax package preventing a big New Year's Day tax hike for millions of Americans is on its way to President Barack Obama for his signature Friday.
The measure would extend tax cuts for families at every income level, renew jobless benefits for the long-term unemployed and enact a new one-year cut in Social Security taxes that would benefit nearly every worker who earns a wage.
The president is expected to sign the bill Friday afternoon.
In a remarkable show of bipartisanship, the House gave final approval to the measure just before midnight Thursday, overcoming an attempt by rebellious Democrats who wanted to impose a higher estate tax than the one Obama agreed to. The vote was 277-148, with each party contributing an almost identical number of votes in favor (the Democrats, 139 and the Republicans, 138).
In a rare reach across party lines, Obama negotiated the $858 billion package with Senate Republicans. The White House then spent the past 10 days persuading congressional Democrats to go along, providing a possible blueprint for the next two years, when Republicans will control the House and hold more seats in the Senate.
"There probably is nobody on this floor who likes this bill," said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md. "The judgment is, is it better than doing nothing? Some of the business groups believe it will help. I hope they're right."
Rep. Dave Camp, R-Mich., said that with unemployment hovering just under 10 percent and the deadline for avoiding a big tax hike fast approaching, lawmakers had little choice but to support the bill.
"This is just no time to be playing games with our economy," said Camp, who will become chairman of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee in January. "The failure to block these tax increases would be a direct hit to families and small businesses."
Sweeping tax cuts enacted when George W. Bush was president are scheduled to expire Jan. 1 — a little more than two weeks away. The bill extends them for two years, placing the issue squarely in the middle of the next presidential election, in 2012.
The extended tax cuts include lower rates for the rich, the middle class and the working poor, a $1,000-per-child tax credit, tax breaks for college students and lower taxes on capital gains and dividends. The bill also extends through 2011, a series of business tax breaks designed to encourage investment that expired at the end of 2009.
Workers' Social Security taxes would be cut by nearly a third, going from 6.2 percent to 4.2 percent, for 2011. A worker making $50,000 in wages would save $1,000; one making $100,000 would save $2,000.
"This legislation is good for growth, good for jobs, good for working and middle class families, and good for businesses looking to invest and expand their work force," said Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.
Some Democrats complained that the package is too generous to the wealthy; Republicans complained that it doesn't make all the tax cuts permanent.
Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite, R-Fla., called it "a bipartisan moment of clarity."
The bill's cost, $858 billion, would be added to the deficit, a sore spot among budget hawks in both parties.
"I know that we are going to borrow every nickel in this bill," Hoyer lamented.
An opponent of the legislation, Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y., said Obama and lawmakers will face enormous election-year pressure in 2012 to extend the cuts again or make them permanent. Weiner said the Republicans turned out to be "better poker players" than Obama.
At the insistence of Republicans, the plan includes an estate tax that would allow the first $10 million of a couple's estate to pass to heirs without taxation. The balance would be subject to a 35 percent tax rate.
Many House Democrats wanted a higher estate tax, one that would allow couples to pass only $7 million tax-free, taxing anything above that amount at a 45 percent rate. They argued that the higher estate tax would affect only 6,600 of the wealthiest estates in 2011 and would save $23 billion over two years.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., called the estate tax the "most egregious provision" in the bill and held a vote that would have imposed the higher estate tax. It failed, 194-233.
Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., said he thought the White House could have gotten a better deal.
"When I talk to the Republicans they are giddy about this bill," he said.
U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon has prostate cancer and will miss late-session votes that could include approval of an arms treaty with Russia and repeal of the "don't ask, don't tell" law on gays in the military, he said Thursday.
The 61-year-old Democrat said the cancer is in its early stage, diagnosed after his annual physical examination in late November. He said he scheduled surgery for Monday at Johns Hopkins Hospital, expecting the Senate to be in recess by then.
"However, it now appears that I will be missing votes tomorrow and possibly next week," he said in a statement.
Wyden has surgery preparation scheduled Friday but would be available for votes on the weekend, said a spokeswoman, Jennifer Hoelzer.
On the congressional agenda are a government appropriations bill, a new arms treaty with Russia and legislation to allow openly gay servicemembers to remain in the military, but aides said the schedule is so fluid it's not certain what votes Wyden would miss.
Regan Lachapelle, a spokeswoman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, said time is too short for the Senate to adjust its schedule to make sure Wyden is on the floor for critical votes, and it's not clear that his votes would be make-or-break for measures such as the repeal of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy or the arms treaty.
"We expect all those votes to be close," she said.
Wyden would vote for both measures, said spokesman Tom Caiazza.
In a statement, Reid called Wyden "respected and admired on both sides of the aisle."
"We look forward to welcoming him back here in the Senate soon so he can continue fighting for the people of Oregon," Reid added.
Wyden has been a durable figure in Oregon politics, first as an advocate for the elderly in the 1970s and then as a member of Congress for three decades. His legislative interests range from health care and financial reform to the environment and jobs. Despite solid liberal credentials, he also has a reputation for working across party and interest lines.
Last month, he was re-elected handily to the Senate seat he's held since 1996. Before that, he served eight terms in the House, beginning in 1980.
Wyden said one in six men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer, and early detection through routine physicals "is critical to catching this disease when treatment is most effective." He said he expected to make "a full and speedy recovery."
He could be out of the hospital as soon as Tuesday, and "after that we're going to play it by ear," Hoelzer said.
Wyden said he expects to be back at work full time when the Senate reconvenes in January.
An astronomer argues that his Christian faith and his peers' belief that he is an evolution skeptic kept him from getting a prestigious job as the director of a new student observatory at the University of Kentucky.
Martin Gaskell quickly rose to the top of a list of applicants being considered by the university's search committee. One member said he was "breathtakingly above the other applicants."
Others openly worried his Christian faith could conflict with his duties as a scientist, calling him "something close to a creationist" and "potentially evangelical."
Even though Gaskell says he is not a creationist, he claims he was passed over for the job at UK's MacAdam Student Observatory three years ago because of his religion and statements that were perceived to be critical of the theory of evolution.
Gaskell has sued the university, claiming lost income and emotional distress. Last month a judge rejected a motion from the university and allowed it to go to trial Feb. 8.
"There is no dispute that based on his application, Gaskell was a leading candidate for the position," U.S. District Judge Karl S. Forester wrote in the ruling.
Gaskell later learned that professors had discussed his purported religious views during the search process. Gaskell told the AP in an e-mail that he didn't grow frustrated, but felt "one should not allow universities to get away with religious discrimination."
University scientists wondered to each other in internal e-mails if Gaskell's faith would interfere with the job, which included public outreach, according to court records.
The topic became so heated behind the scenes that even university biologists, who believed Gaskell was a critic of evolution, weighed in by citing a controversial Bible-based museum in Kentucky that had just opened.
"We might as well have the Creation Museum set up an outreach office in biology," biology professor James Krupa wrote to a colleague in an October 2007 e-mail. The museum was making national headlines at the time for exhibits that assert the literal truth of the Bible's creation story.
Science professors cited a lecture Gaskell has given called "Modern Astronomy, the Bible and Creation," which he developed for "Christians and others interested in Bible and science questions...," according to an outline of the lecture. Gaskell told the AP he was invited to give the lecture at UK in 1997, and organizers had read his notes.
The wide-ranging lecture outlines historical scientific figures who discuss God and interpretations of the creation story in the biblical chapter Genesis. Also in the notes, Gaskell mentions evolution, saying the theory has "significant scientific problems" and includes "unwarranted atheistic assumptions and extrapolations," according to court records.
Gaskell was briefly asked about the lecture during his job interview in 2007 with the chair of the Department of Physics and Astronomy, Michael Cavagnero, according to Gaskell's deposition. Gaskell said he felt that questions related to religion during the job interview were "inappropriate."
"I think that if I had a document like this and I was advocating atheism ... I don't think it would be an issue," he said of his lecture.
Science professors also expressed concern that hiring Gaskell would damage the university's image.
An astrophysics professor, Moshe Elitzur, told Cavagnero that the hire would be a "huge public relations mistake," according to an e-mail from Cavagnero in court records.
"Moshe predicts that he would not be here one month before the (Lexington) Herald-Leader headline would read: 'UK hires creationist to direct new student observatory.'"
University spokesman Jay Blanton declined to comment Monday because the litigation is pending.
Gaskell said he is not a "creationist" and his views on evolution are in line with other biological scientists. In his lecture notes, Gaskell also distances himself from Christians who believe the earth is a few thousand years old, saying their assertions are based on "mostly very poor science."
Gaskell's lawsuit is indicative of an increasingly tense debate between religion and science on college campuses and elsewhere, said Steven K. Green, a law professor and director of the Center for Religion, Law & Democracy at Willamette University in Salem, Ore.
"I think it reflects a phenomenon that the sides in this debate are becoming more encamped, they're hunkering down," Green said. "Because certainly within the biology community and within the science community generally, they see the increasing attacks creationists are making as very threatening to their existence — and vice versa, to a certain extent."
Gaskell was uniquely qualified for the new position at the University of Kentucky, according to court records, because he oversaw the design and construction of an observatory at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He also advised UK during the building of the MacAdam facility. He currently teaches at the University of Texas.
His attorney, Frank Manion, said scientists at UK were too quick to place Gaskell on one side of the creation-evolution debate.
"Unfortunately too many people get hung up on the idea that you have to be one extreme or the other," said Manion, who works for American Center for Law & Justice, which focuses on religious freedom cases. They say "you can't be a religious believer and somebody who accepts evolution, which is clearly not true. And Gaskell's a perfect example of that."
Investigators received hundreds of calls after releasing photographs of women seized at the home of a mechanic accused of the "Grim Sleeper" serial killings, authorities said Friday.
Detective Dennis Kilcoyne expected the tally of calls to reach 1,000 by the day's end. Several callers said they were among the women in the photographs, but detectives must interview each one to make sure.
Police want to know who the women in the photographs are and fear some of them could have been victims of a crime.
"By the end of the weekend, we will be buried in work," said Kilcoyne, noting he has canceled leaves for the eight homicide detectives who worked the case.
The photos and videos were found in the home and garage of suspect Lonnie Franklin Jr. during a three-day search after his July arrest. Several of the closely cropped images depicted women in sexually explicit poses.
Investigators spent years trying to crack the "Grim Sleeper" case in which at least 10 women were killed from 1985 to 1988 and from 2002 to 2007. The apparent pause in slayings led a newspaper to dub the killer the "Grim Sleeper."
The arrest came when Franklin's son was swabbed for DNA after being arrested on an unrelated matter. Using a technique known as a familial DNA search, the sample came back as similar to evidence in the serial killings, ultimately leading police to Franklin.
Detectives now say they doubt the killer took a hiatus and are reviewing more than 30 cold-case files to see if they can make any connections.
Police on Thursday released images of about 160 women and asked anyone who recognized them to come forward.
Franklin has pleaded not guilty to the murders of 10 women. He has declined a request for a jailhouse interview.
Anyone who recognized a photo was asked to call 1-877-527-3247.
