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Another ice storm across the South knocks out power to 445K ATLANTA (AP) — The second wintry storm in two weeks to hit the Deep South encrusted highways, trees and power lines in ice Wednesday, knocking out electricity to nearly a half-million homes and businesses. But it didn't wreak the highway havoc in Atlanta that the previous bout of heavy weather did — largely because people learned their lesson the last time and stayed off the roads. At least nine traffic deaths across the region were blamed on the treacherous weather, and nearly 3,300 airline flights nationwide were canceled. As residents across the South heeded forecasters' unusually dire warnings and hunkered down at home against the onslaught of snow and freezing rain, the storm pushed northward along the Interstate 95 corridor, threatening to bring more than a foot of snow Thurs- day to the already sick-of- winter mid-Atlantic and Northeast. Forecasters warned of a potentially ''catastroph- ic'' storm across the South with more than an inch of ice possible in places. Snow was forecast overnight, with up to 3 inches possible in Atlanta and much higher amounts in the Carolinas. About 1M sign up for health plans in January WASHINGTON (AP) — Most states are still lagging when it comes to sign-ups under President Barack Obama's health care law, but an Associat- ed Press analysis of num- bers reported Wednesday finds a dozen getting ahead of the game. Huge disparities are emerging in how well states are living up to fed- eral enrollment targets, and that will help deter- mine if the White House reaches its unofficial goal of having 7 million signed up by the end of March, six weeks away. Connecticut is the nation's over-achiever, signing up more than twice the number of resi- dents it had been project- ed to enroll by the end of January. Massachusetts, which pioneered the approach Obama took in his law, is at the bottom of the list having met only 5 percent of its tar- get. Six Republican-led states — Florida, Idaho, Maine, Michigan, North Carolina, and Wisconsin — are on pace or better. The administration said Wednesday about 1 million people signed up for private insurance under the health law in January, extending a turn- around from early days when a dysfunctional website frustrated con- sumers. There were fewer enrollments than in December, but a drop-off had been expected. Senate sends Obama bill clearing way for govt to pay bills WASHINGTON (AP) — Legislation to raise the federal debt limit and pre- vent a crippling govern- ment default cleared Con- gress on Wednesday with an awkward assist from top Senate Republican leaders who were forced into a politically treacher- ous vote engineered by tea party favorite Ted Cruz. The Texas Republi- can's maneuver forced several GOP colleagues, including Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, into a reluc- tant vote against a fili- buster, helping the mea- sure along. It's a vote like- ly to cause grief for McConnell, who is facing a primary election chal- lenges. On a day of legislative drama, the key vote clearing the way for final action was held open for more than an hour — as the stock market looked on nervously — and broke open only after McConnell and top lieu- tenant John Cornyn, R- Texas, unexpectedly voted ''aye.'' Several other Republicans then switched their votes to support the measure, ultimately breaking the filibuster by a 67-31 margin. The bill then passed the Senate by a near party-line 55-43 vote, with all of the yes votes coming from President Barack Obama's allies. The president is now clear to sign the bill, which allows the govern- ment to borrow all the money it needs to pay bills such as Social Secu- rity benefits, federal salaries, and payments to Medicare and Medicaid providers. Failure to pass it would have likely sent the stock market — which dipped modestly as the voting dragged on — into a tailspin. Sid Caesar dies at age 91 LOS ANGELES (AP) — Sid Caesar, the TV comedy pioneer whose rubber-faced expres- sions and mimicry built on the work of his daz- zling team of writers that included Woody Allen and Mel Brooks, died Wednesday. He was 91. Family spokesman Eddy Friedfeld said Caesar, who also played Coach Calhoun in the 1978 movie ''Grease,'' died at his home in the Los Angeles area after a brief illness. ''He had not been well for a while. He was getting weak,'' said Friedfeld, who lives in New York and last spoke to Caesar about 10 days ago. Friedfeld, a friend of Caesar's who wrote the 2003 biography ''Cae- sar's Hour,'' learned of his death in an early morning call from Cae- sar's daughter, Karen. In his two most important shows, ''Your Show of Shows,'' 1950- 54, and ''Caesar's Hour,'' 1954-57, Caesar displayed remarkable skill in pantomime, satire, mimicry, dialect and sketch comedy. And he gathered a stable of young writers who went on to worldwide fame in their own right — including Carl Reiner, Neil Simon, Larry Gel- bart ("M-A-S-H'), and Allen. In besieged Syrian city, kids begged for food BEIRUT (AP) — Weeping children begged for food and women picked grass to eat as hunger gripped rebel-held neighborhoods of the Syr- ian city of Homs during a nearly two-year military blockade, according to a rare first-hand account by a man evacuated during a truce this week. It was ultimately that hunger that caused Abu Jalal Tilawi to flee, along with around 1,300 others, mostly women, children and elderly allowed out during the truce. ''They couldn't dis- lodge us with the missiles they rained down on us,'' the 64-year-old Tilawi said of besieging govern- ment forces. ''The hunger defeated us. The hunger, the hunger, the hunger. I left the city where I was born, where my father was born, where my ancestors were born. I was weeping while I was walking.'' Tilawi's account in a Skype interview spot- lights the suffering expe- rienced by an estimated 250,000 civilians living in over 40 areas across Syria that have been blockaded for months. Most of the sieges are by government forces, aiming to wear down resistance, but rebels have also adopted the tactic in some areas. Western powers at the U.N. Security Council are trying to push for more sanctions against Syria to punish the government of President Bashar Assad for the blockades, though Russia has vowed to veto a resolution. Woman convicted of killing pregnant pal WORCESTER, Mass. (AP) — A woman accused of killing her pregnant friend three months after her own mis- carriage was convicted Wednesday of beating and strangling her, then cut- ting the baby from her womb and passing the child off as her daughter. Julie Corey sobbed as a Worcester Superior Court jury found her guilty of the 2009 murder of 23- year-old Darlene Haynes. The jurors had deliberated for 10 hours over two days. Sentencing was scheduled for Tuesday. Prosecutors said Haynes was eight months pregnant when Corey attacked her and cut the baby out of her body. They told the jury that Corey had been pregnant, too, but had a miscarriage three months earlier and told her boyfriend and family that Haynes' baby was her own. ''It's probably the most horrific case this office has ever seen in terms of facts,'' District Attorney Joseph Early Jr. said in a statement after the verdict was handed down. ''This woman was killed for her baby.'' Corey, 39, did not testi- fy during the trial. Report disputes value of routine mammograms A Canadian study that many experts say has major flaws has revived debate about the value of mammograms. The research suggests that these screening X-rays do not lower the risk of dying of breast cancer while finding many tumors that do not need treatment. The study gives longer follow-up on nearly 90,000 women who had annual breast exams by a nurse to check for lumps plus a mammogram, or the nurse's breast exam alone. After more than two decades, breast can- cer death rates were simi- lar in the two groups, sug- gesting little benefit from mammograms. It's important to note that this study did not compare mammograms to no screening at all, as most other research on this topic has. Many groups have not endorsed breast exams for screen- ing because of limited evidence that they save lives. Critics of the Canadian study also say it used out- dated equipment and poor methods that made mam- mograms look unfairly ineffective. The study was pub- lished Wednesday in the British journal BMJ. Clues to early colonization of Americas NEW YORK (AP) — The DNA of a baby boy who was buried in Mon- tana 12,600 years ago has been recovered, and it provides new indications of the ancient roots of today's American Indians and other native peoples of the Americas. It's the oldest genome ever recovered from the New World. Artifacts found with the body show the boy was part of the Clovis culture, which existed in North America from about 13,000 years ago to about 12,600 years ago and is named for an archaeological site near Clovis, N.M. The boy's genome showed his people were direct ancestors of many of today's native peoples in the Americas, researchers said. He was more closely related to those in Central and South America than to those in Canada. The rea- son for that difference isn't clear, scientists said. The researchers said they had no Native Amer- ican DNA from the Unit- ed States available for comparison, but that they assume the results would be same, with some Native Americans being direct descendants and others also closely relat- ed. The DNA also indi- cates the boy's ancestors came from Asia, support- ing the standard idea of ancient migration to the Americas by way of a land bridge that disap- peared long ago. Gay-marriage backers win in Kentucky LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — A federal judge ruled Wednesday that Ken- tucky must recognize same-sex marriages per- formed in other states, part of an unprecedented bar- rage of marriage-equality lawsuits in states where voters have overwhelming- ly opposed recognition of gay and lesbian couples. U.S. District Judge John G. Heyburn II struck down part of the gay-marriage ban that Kentuckians had approved in 2004, saying it treated gays and lesbians ''in a way that demeans them.'' ''Assigning a religious or traditional rationale for a law does not make it con- stitutional when that law discriminates against a class of people without other reasons,'' wrote Hey- burn, an appointee of Republican President George H.W. Bush. His decision coincided with legal attacks Wednes- day on gay-marriage bans in three other socially con- servative states — Texas, Louisiana and Missouri — and was issued just a few weeks after federal judges in Utah and Oklahoma struck down the voter- approved bans in those states. According to the advo- cacy group Freedom to Marry, there are now 45 pending marriage-equality cases in 24 of the 33 states that do not allow same-sex marriage. Seventeen states and the District of Colum- bia have legalized such unions, while three other states — Colorado, Neva- da and Oregon — grant marriage-like rights though civil unions or domestic partnerships. The stage for the cur- rent wave of litigation was set by the U.S. Supreme Court last June, when it ordered the federal govern- ment to recognize valid same-sex marriages, but stopped short of striking down state laws banning them. Gay-rights activists hope that one or more of the lawsuits filed since June or planned for the near future will reach the high court and lead to nationwide legalization. ''One of the 40-plus ongoing cases, or even some other one, could con- ceivably reach the Supreme Court as soon as 2015, or within a few years later, so the clock is tick- ing,'' said Freedom to Marry president Evan Wolfson. ''The aim is not just to get to the Supreme Court, but to win when we get there,'' Wolfson said. The Kentucky decision came in lawsuits brought by four gay and lesbian couples seeking to force the state to recognize their out-of-state marriages. The ruling only requires Kentucky to recognize such marriages. 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