Weather, East Coast | featured news

A minor earthquake has rattled the same Virginia area that was at the center of last year's East Coast quake.

The summer heat just won't quit, with another scorcher forecast for the Midwest Friday. The sweltering temperatures may have claimed at least two lives so far, bringing back memories of the 1995 heat wave that killed hundreds. Much of the Midwest, and even parts of the East Coast are suffering.

Across the Midwest and up and down the East Coast, millions of people are living without power. And they are not happy about it. More than 900,000 households remain without power early Wednesday in Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia and Ohio, the states hardest hit by the storm Friday night that packed 80-mph winds.

At least 2.3 million people across the Northeast found themselves without electricity after an unusual autumn storm dumped record amounts of snow. More than 2.3 million customers from Pennsylvania through New England had no electricity, according to reports, as the region was lashed by surprisingly high winds and snowdrifts. In Manhattan, tree branches snapped under the weight of wet snow, piling up along 5th Avenue and toppling across and obstructing the walkways of Central Park.

A classic nor'easter was chugging along up the East Coast and expected to dump anywhere from a dusting of snow to about 10 inches.

Nearly 100,000 people were ordered to flee the rising Susquehanna River on Thursday as the remnants of Tropical Storm Lee dumped more rain across the Northeast, socking areas still recovering from Hurricane Irene and closing major highways at the morning rush. At Binghamton, N.Y., the wide river broke a flood record and flowed over retaining walls downtown. Interstate 88 was closed and emergency responders scrambled to evacuate holdouts who didn’t heed warnings to leave neighborhoods.

The price in disaster relief will further balloon a government account that already is a source of partisan friction between President Obama and Congress.

The big, ugly hunk of weather known as Lee weakened as it moved across Louisiana on Monday morning, and is no longer classified as a tropical storm -- though experts warn it could still cause flooding as it moves up the East Coast.

Tropical Storm Irene destroyed roads and marooned residents in more than a dozen central and southern Vermont towns in a matter of hours. The disaster took four days to unfold on Camels Hump Road, just east of Chittenden County.

Retail sales at major chain stores beat analysts' expectations, rising 4.4% year-over-year in August, according to Thomson Reuters' tally of 23 retailers. Discounters, including Target Corp. and Costco Wholesale Corp., did well as East Coasters stocked up before Hurricane Irene.