Saturday, January 27, 2007

Damn global warming

NEW YORK (AP) -- One month into one of the mildest winters on record in the Northeast, an arctic blast sent temperatures into the danger zone Friday, and New York gave its police legal authority to remove homeless people from the streets to keep them from freezing to death.

Temperatures from Maine to Pennsylvania were in the single digits and the teens, with lows of minus-10 recorded in northern Pennsylvania.

The temperature in Central Park was 9 degrees before daybreak and reached 12 degrees by dawn, but the wind chill made it feel like minus 6.


City officials declared a weather alert that gave police power to remove hundreds of homeless people from the streets and put them in shelters. Authorities are normally not permitted to force anyone off the street without their consent.

Can the planet stand much more of this horrible heat?