After snow and ice, temperatures rise

The temperature rose back above the freezing mark Tuesday as hundreds of thousands of people waited for the restoration of electrical service that was knocked out by last week’s snow and ice storm.

After a run of temperatures in the teens, St. Louis thermometers reached the 40s Tuesday.

Residents without power were using portable generators or burning coal and other fuels indoors to stay warm. That proved as dangerous as the below-freezing temperatures. At least 43 people in the St. Louis area were hospitalized with carbon monoxide poisoning, and two people had died by Tuesday, authorities said.

The storm, which cut a snowy, icy path across the Midwest and into the Northeast last week, is believed to be the cause of 16 deaths in Missouri and Illinois. Another nine deaths in the two states were suspected to be weather-related.

The St. Louis-based utility Ameren Corp. reported about 140,000 homes and businesses still without power Tuesday evening in Illinois and Missouri. The bulk of the outages were in St. Louis’ metropolitan area.

San Francisco

Court OKs school’s ‘favoritism’ policy

A divided federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that a private school in Hawaii can favor Hawaiian natives for admission as a means of helping a downtrodden indigenous population.

The 8-7 decision by a 15-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned an earlier ruling by three of the same judges that the Kamehameha Schools policy amounted to unlawful discrimination.

In Tuesday’s decision, the majority noted that the case was unique because Congress has singled out the plight of native Hawaiians for improvement, just as lawmakers have done with Alaskan natives and American Indians.

The case was brought by a white student excluded because of his race.

Admission to the elite school is first granted to qualified Hawaiian students, and non-Hawaiians may be admitted if there are openings available. Only one in eight eligible applicants is admitted to the school, which serves about 5,400 students at three campuses.