More than a month after a plane carrying a Silicon Valley executive and his family in central Idaho went missing, police officials said it has been found with no survivors.

The single-engine plane was registered to Dale Smith, a 51-year-old pilot and software executive from San Jose. Smith was traveling with his son, Daniel, and Daniel's wife, Sheree Smith; and daughter Amber Smith with her fiance, Jonathan Norton, according to the Associated Press. 

Lt. Dan Smith, operations supervisor at the Valley County Sheriff's Office, said in a press release that further recovery efforts may be delayed "due to weather conditions and a severe storm moving in."

Officials had suspended the search for the aircraft in mid-December, but family and friends located the damaged aircraft on Friday after going on a search. In a Google website called "Search For Dale's Plane," volunteers posted team reports and maps updating people about their search.

Dellon Smith, the brother of Dale Smith, organized a...

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — For the third straight day, with more ahead, about 300,000 residents of West Virginia were unable to use their tap water because a chemical solvent leaked into the area’s water supply Thursday.

As authorities on Saturday worked to flush pipes that supply water to Charleston and nine counties in the state, officials said it will take several days to properly test the water to ensure it is safe to drink.

“I would think we’re talking days,’’ West Virginia American Water Company president Jeff McIntyre told reporters Saturday afternoon. The timeline will vary depending on location and customer demand on the state’s largest water utility.

An emergency order against using the tainted water has all but shut down Charleston, the state capital, where schools, restaurants and businesses were told to close late Thursday. Downtown Charleston remained dark and shuttered Saturday.

McIntyre said the order will not be lifted until tests...

West Virginia health officials said Saturday that several people have been admitted to hospitals for chemical-related symptoms following a solvent leak into the area’s water supply that has left more than 300,000 residents unable to use tap water.

Seventy-three people have gone to area emergency rooms since the spill late Thursday and four have been admitted with symptoms such as skin irritation and nausea, Secretary Karen Bowling of the Department of Health and Human Resources said at a news conference in Charleston.

West Virginia American Water President Jeff McIntyre said it is expected to take several days before uncontaminated water is flowing again.

An emergency order issued by Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin advised residents not to use tap water for drinking, bathing, brushing teeth or washing dishes or clothes. Boiling the water will not make it safe, authorities said.

McIntyre said experts are continuing to test the water. 

“We need to look at a body of results before we...

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — For the third straight day, more than 300,000 residents of West Virginia were unable to use their tap water because of a state of emergency declared after a chemical solvent leaked into the area’s water supply late Thursday.

As authorities on Saturday worked to flush pipes that supply water to Charleston and nine counties in the state, officials said they could still not estimate when the water would be safe to drink. Thousands of residents lined up in a driving rain Saturday morning to collect bottled water or to fill containers with drinking water supplied by emergency management agencies.

State and federal agencies continued to investigate how a chemical foaming agent, 4-methylcyclohexane methanol, spilled out of a containment tank Thursday morning into the Elk River. The chemical is used in processing coal.

A state regulatory agency ordered the chemical company responsible for the spill, Freedom Industries, to remove all remaining chemicals from its...

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Downtown Charleston, normally packed with Friday night customers at restaurants and bars, was dark and quiet Friday evening. The local health department had ordered restaurants and other businesses to close as a faint chemical odor lingered on the streets. Residents were warned not to drink, cook with or bathe with tap water.

Hundreds of thousands of West Virginia residents have no idea when they will again be able to trust their water supply after a chemical used in the processing of coal spilled into the Elk River on Thursday morning. Once in the river, it flowed into a water treatment facility, about 1.5 miles away, where officials worried it could have polluted the water eventually sent to about 300,000 residents.

Even as state and federal agencies rushed emergency water supplies to the nine stricken counties, officials were promising to investigate how the chemical, 4-methylcyclohexane methanol, spilled. Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin said Friday that officials did not...

Former South Boston crime boss James "Whitey" Bulger was transferred to a high-security federal penitentiary in Arizona as the Boston Globe revealed an emotional exchange of prison love letters between Bulger and the woman with whom he lived in hiding for years.

Bulger, 84, is at USP Tucson, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons website. The facility holds 1,700 male inmates -- 1,552 in a high-security lockup and 148 in an adjacent minimum-security satellite camp, the bureau's website says.

After 16 years on the run, Bulger was captured in June 2011 in Santa Monica, where he was hiding with his longtime love, Catherine Greig, a former dental hygienist. In November, he was sentenced to two life terms plus five years for participating in or orchestrating 11 murders.

"The Federal Bureau of Prisons utilizes a classification system to place offenders in the most appropriate security level institution that also meets their program needs and is consistent with the Bureau's mission to...

Hours after the Obama administration said it would recognize 1,300 same-sex marriages in Utah, a large crowd of gay marriage supporters crowded inside the state Capitol on Friday calling on Republican Gov. Gary Herbert to do the same.

"Let it stand," many said, referring to a Dec. 20 federal district court ruling that Utah's ban on same-sex marriages was unconstitutional. U.S. District Judge Robert Shelby had refused to delay gay marriages while Utah appealed the decision.  

But last week, the U.S. Supreme Court put a halt to same-sex marriages in the state at least until the 10th Circuit Court hears the appeal. Utah announced two days ago that it did not consider the marriages legal.

"I support Judge Shelby's ruling," the petition states. "Utah's ban on same sex marriage is unconstitutional. Governor Herbert, let his ruling stand."

Troy Williams, 43, an organizer, described the rally as "electric."

"The energy was heightened by the announcement that the federal government is...

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear an appeal from the nation’s television broadcasters and decide whether to shut down a new streaming service that sends shows to consumers via the Internet for a monthly fee.

Aereo, a Brooklyn-based start-up distributor, uses small antennas to pick up over-the-air TV signals and allows a consumer to store them for later viewing. The company says its service is entirely legal since it uses the signals that a homeowner with an old-fashioned antenna could pick up as well.

But broadcasters see a major threat to their industry because Aereo is re-transmitting their copyrighted programs and not paying for them. These days, broadcasters depend heavily on revenue paid by cable and satellite companies that carry their signals, and they fear that business model will erode if cable firms are told they can take over-the-air signals for free.

The biggest TV companies, including ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC and PBS, went to court in New York and...

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said Friday that the federal government would recognize hundreds of same-sex marriages that took place in Utah over the past three weeks, two days after Utah announced it did not consider the marriages to be legal.

Holder’s announcement left some 1,300 couples who rushed to marry after a federal District Court ruling on Dec. 20 in complicated legal limbo, with their marriages deemed valid for federal tax purposes but not for state taxes.

“I am confirming today that, for purposes of federal law, these marriages will be recognized as lawful and considered eligible for all relevant federal benefits on the same terms as other same-sex marriages,” Holder said in a videotaped statement. “These families should not be asked to endure uncertainty regarding their status as the litigation unfolds.”

A federal District Court judge had ruled the state ban on same-sex marriages unconstitutional and refused to delay the implementation...

The federal government began moving in water to help hundreds of thousands of people struggling on Friday to cope with the effect of a chemical spill that has left water in nine counties around Charleston, W.Va., off limits for drinking, bathing and cleaning. 

Even as aid was being rushed to the area, the U.S. Attorney's office announced it would investigate the spill of a chemical used to prepare coal flow into the Elk River.  

President Obama issued a federal disaster declaration for the state on Friday and the Federal Emergency Management Agency and other emergency teams began transporting water to the region where as many as 300,000 people were warned not to use municipal water.  

Several local centers have already been set up to distribute safe...

Just a few days ago, the East Coast shivered in record-setting lows ushered in by an Arctic weather system known as a "polar vortex." But this weekend, forecasters predict near-record highs from Georgia to the Northeast.  

"We are going from well below normal to well above normal in five days -- it's a big change," Ken Clark, an AccuWeather meteorologist, told the Los Angeles Times. "It's going to be much warmer than it has been, but not necessarily record highs."

North Carolina could see the biggest temperature climb, from 25 degrees Tuesday to 72 degrees Saturday -- a nearly 50-degree difference.

New York City, Washington and Baltimore are expected to be in the 60s on Saturday. Boston can look forward to a high of 55.

Although warm, these temperatures are about 6 to 7 degrees shy of the record highs, Clark said. 

But rain is forecast with the warmth Saturday.

"It's going to be warmer so it will feel better, but there will be some problems," Clark said, listing local flooding,...