NATIONAL AND WORLD NEWS DIGEST | Icy weather hits South, cancels flights

Icy weather hits South, cancels flights

JACKSON, Miss.

A blast of winter weather pushed across the South on Sunday, coating bridges and roads with snow, sleet and freezing rain and causing hundreds of flight cancellations.

The governors of Louisiana, Alabama and Georgia issued emergency declarations. Alabama Gov. Bob Riley said workers had readied snow and salt trucks to help clear icy roads, and he asked all residents to stay home Sunday night and today unless necessary.

The National Weather Service posted winter-storm warnings from east Texas to the Carolinas.

Hot gadgets? Tablets and faster wireless

LAS VEGAS

Gadgets revealed at the annual International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas flop more often than they pop. This year’s show, however, delivered many products that are bound to make a difference for years to come.

Microsoft provided a sneak peek at a radical new version of Windows, Verizon showed the first consumer gadgets for a wireless network that’s faster in many cases than wired broadband, and many manufacturers showed tablet computers with the potential to give Apple’s iPad a run for its money.

The show itself, the largest trade show in the Americas, was back in high form, after two lean years.

Militant is freed

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan

He is a self-declared warrior against U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan. He allegedly ran terrorist training camps there when the Taliban was in power. He was suspected of involvement in the attempted assassination of two Pakistani leaders. And today, Qari Saifullah Akhtar is free.

Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah, the top judicial official in Akhtar’s native Punjab province, told The Associated Press he was released from four months of house arrest in early December because authorities finished questioning him in connection with the October 2007 attempted assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and found no grounds to charge him. Bhutto was killed in December the same year.

Study: Love music? Thank dopamine

NEW YORK

Whether it’s The Beatles or Beethoven, people like music for the same reason they like eating or having sex: It makes the brain release a chemical that gives pleasure, a new study says.

The brain substance is involved both in anticipating a particularly thrilling musical moment and in feeling a rush from it, researchers found.

Previous work already had suggested a role for dopamine, a substance brain cells release to communicate with each other. But the new work, which scanned people’s brains as they listened to music, shows it happening directly.

Though dopamine helps us feel the pleasure of eating or having sex, it also helps produce euphoria from illegal drugs. It’s active in particular circuits of the brain.

Defending Simpson

YARMOUTH, Maine

Former O.J. Simpson defense lawyer F. Lee Bailey is defending Simpson’s 1995 acquittal on charges of murdering his ex-wife and her friend.

In his first written account of the trial, Bailey has posted a 46-page paper on his website in which he presents evidence he says proves Simpson’s innocence.

The 77-year-old Bailey tells the Portland Press Herald that the document, called “The Simpson Verdict,” is an effort to reveal evidence not heard before and to explain why he has maintained Simpson’s innocence in the face of attacks from critics.

Associated Press