Around the Nation

Nebraska Plans to Amend 'Safe Haven' Law

LINCOLN, Neb. -- Deciding he could wait no longer to address what has become a state embarrassment, Gov. Dave Heineman (R) said Wednesday that he will call a special legislative session to amend Nebraska's loosely worded "safe haven" law, which in just a few months has allowed parents to abandon nearly two dozen children as old as 17.

Heineman had planned to wait until the next regular legislative session convened in January, but he changed his mind as the number of children dropped off at hospitals grew. Two teenagers were abandoned Tuesday night, and three children dropped off previously did not even live in Nebraska.

"We've had five in the last eight days," Heineman said in explaining why he called a special session. "We all hoped this wouldn't happen."

The special session will begin Nov. 14. That's less than two months before the regular session, but the governor and others see a need to act quickly.

"This law needs to be changed to reflect its original intent" to protect infants, Heineman said at a news conference Wednesday.

The law, which Heineman signed in February and which took effect in July, prohibits parents from being prosecuted for leaving a child at a hospital.

As of Wednesday, 23 children had been left at Nebraska hospitals, including nine from one family and children from Iowa, Michigan and Georgia. Many are teenagers, only one is younger than 6, and none are babies.

Thousands Without Power After Northeast Snowstorm

ALBANY, N.Y. -- More snow fell in parts of the Northeast as utility crews labored to restore service to thousands of customers blacked out by the region's first big snowstorm of the season. The National Weather Service reported storm totals of about 14 inches at northern New Jersey's High Point State Park, as much as 15 inches along the northwestern edge of New York's Catskill Mountains and a foot in Pennsylvania's Pocono Mountains. There was one to three inches of snow in the mountains of western North Carolina, where one school system closed Wednesday because of slick roads. The earliest recorded snowfall in the Asheville, N.C., area was less than half an inch on Oct. 1, 1952, the Weather Service said.

Fort Dix Defendant Caught on Tape Discussing Assault

CAMDEN, N.J. -- One of the defendants in an alleged plot to kill soldiers at an Army base was caught on tape discussing using nail bombs and machine guns for an assault that he said would punish Americans for their arrogance. Mohamad Shnewer was secretly recorded during a car trip he made to Fort Dix in 2006 with government informant Mahmoud Omar. The attack was never carried out, and six men, all foreign-born Muslims in their 20s who lived for several years in southern New Jersey, were arrested in May 2007.

Amphibians Decline in Yellowstone; Scientists Blame Warming

Frogs and salamanders, considered by scientists to be bellwether species demonstrating global warming, are declining as Yellowstone National Park's wetlands dry out, Stanford University researchers said. Climate monitoring over six decades and surveys of 49 ponds in Yellowstone -- where the Old Faithful geyser, native bison and hot springs have enthralled visitors since the park was established in 1872 -- show "climatic warming already has disrupted one of the best-protected ecosystems on our planet," said a study published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

-- From News Services