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2B Daily News – Monday, October 31, 2011 WORLD BRIEFING 3M powerless after snow surprises Northeast SOUTH WINDSOR, Conn. (AP) — When win- ter's white mixes with autumn's orange and gold, nature gets ugly. A freak October nor'easter knocked out power to more than 3 mil- lion homes and businesses across the Northeast on Sunday in large part because leaves still on the trees caught more snow, overloading branches that snapped and wreaked havoc. Close to 2 feet of snow fell in some areas over the weekend, and it was particularly wet and heavy, making the storm even more damaging. ''You just have absolute tree carnage with this heavy snow just straining the branches,'' said National Weather Service spokesman Chris Vaccaro. From Maryland to Maine, officials said it would take days to restore electricity, even though the snow ended Sunday. The storm smashed record snowfall totals for October and worsened as it moved north. Communi- ties in western Massachu- setts were among the hard- est hit. Snowfall totals topped 27 inches in Plain- field, and nearby Windsor had gotten 26 inches by early Sunday. Australian court ends union strikes CANBERRA, Aus- tralia (AP) — Qantas Air- ways could begin return- ing its grounded fleet to the skies as early a Mon- day after an Australian court intervened in a bitter labor dispute by ending strikes and canceling a staff lock out. The arbitration court ruling Monday is a major victory in the airline's battle with unions whose rolling strikes have forced to cancellation of 600 flights in recent months, disrupted the travel for 70,000 passengers and cost Qantas 70 million Australian dollars ($75 million). But the surprise grounding of all 108 planes on Saturday, at a cost of $20 million a day, has hurt the Australian flagship's reputation among the tens of thou- sand of passengers who have been stranded around the world. ''We will be getting our aircraft back up in the air as soon as we possibly can,'' CEO Alan Joyce said in a statement within an hour of his court victo- ry 2 a.m. Monday. A limited flight sched- ule could begin Monday afternoon with the approval of aviation regu- lators, he said. US: More prosecutions in Afghan, Iraq effort WASHINGTON (AP) — A Marine in Iraq sent home $43,000 in stolen cash by hiding it in a foot- locker among American flags. A soldier shipped thousands more con- cealed in a toy stuffed ani- mal. An embassy employ- ee tricked the State Department into wiring $240,000 into his foreign bank account. As the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan wind down, the number of people indicted and convicted by the U.S. for bribery, theft and other reconstruction- related crimes in both countries is rapidly rising, according to two govern- ment reports released Sunday. ''This is a boom indus- try for us,'' Stuart Bowen, the special inspector gen- eral for Iraq reconstruc- tion, said in an interview. ''Investigators and auditors had a productive quarter,'' said a report on the theft of Afghanistan aid by Steven Trent, who holds the same job for Afghanistan. His report covered August through October. In the past 13 months U.S. investigators in Iraq secured the indictments of 22 people for alleged aid- related offenses, bringing to 69 the total since the SIGIR office was created in 2004. Convictions stand at 57. Several hun- dred more suspects are under scrutiny in 102 open investigations and those numbers are expect- ed to climb. Data question GOP policies WASHINGTON (AP) — Key proposals from the Republican presiden- tial candidates might make for good campaign fodder. But independent analyses raise serious questions about those plans and their ability to cure the nation's ills in two vital areas, the econ- omy and housing. Consider proposed cuts in taxes and regula- tion, which nearly every GOP candidate is push- ing in the name of creat- ing jobs. The initiatives seem to ignore surveys in which employers cite far bigger impediments to increased hiring, chiefly slack consumer demand. ''Republicans favor tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations, but these had no stimulative effect during the George W. Bush administration, and there is no reason to believe that more of them will have any today,'' writes Bruce Bartlett. He's an econo- mist who worked for Republican congressmen and in the administra- tions of Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. As for the idea that cutting regulations will lead to significant job growth, Bartlett said in an interview, ''It's just nonsense. It's just made up.'' Government and industry studies support his view. Skeptic's own study finds climate change real WASHINGTON (AP) — A prominent physi- cist and skeptic of glob- al warming spent two years trying to find out if mainstream climate scientists were wrong. In the end, he deter- mined they were right: Temperatures really are rising rapidly. The study of the world's surface temper- atures by Richard Muller was partially bankrolled by a founda- tion connected to global warming deniers. He pursued long-held skep- tic theories in analyzing the data. He was spurred to action because of ''Climategate,'' a British scandal involv- ing hacked emails of scientists. Yet he found that the land is 1.6 degrees warmer than in the 1950s. Those numbers from Muller, who works at the University of Cal- ifornia, Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, match those by the National Oceanic and Atmos- pheric Administration and NASA. He said he went even further back, studying readings from Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson. His ultimate finding of a warming world, to be presented at a conference Monday, is no different from what mainstream climate sci- entists have been saying for decades. What's different, and why everyone from opinion columnists to ''The Daily Show'' is paying attention is who is behind the study. Local Businesses: You can sponsor a whole classroom of kids to design an ad for YOUR business! YOU choose the winning entry. Your kid-designed ad will be featured in Through a Child's Eyes • Published as a full section of The Daily News in November • Digital edition stays online for a full year Tuesday, November 1 D NEWSAILY Sponsor Deadline: RED BLUFF TEHAMACOUNTY For details and sponsorship Reservations call your Daily News advertising Representative today! 527-2151