A police chief who isn't afraid to look in the mirror

January 25, 2016 - Daily News Briefing

To help it reform its police department, Chicago hired a man who has willingly opened his force to outside scrutiny in the past.

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Millions of Americans started digging themselves out Sunday after a mammoth blizzard with hurricane-force winds and record-setting snowfall brought much of the East Coast to an icy standstill. New York and Baltimore began lifting travel restrictions and hearty souls ventured out on snow-choked streets, while mass transit systems up and down the coast gradually restored normal service. But even as United Airlines said limited service might begin later in the afternoon in New York City, airports in the Washington D.C. area were likely to remain closed Sunday, and other airlines started to cut Monday service in addition to the 7,000 already-canceled weekend flights. The massive snowstorm brought both the nation's capital and its largest city to a stop, dumping as much as 3 feet of snow and stranding tens of thousands of travelers. At least 18 deaths were blamed on the weather, resulting from car crashes, shoveling snow and hypothermia. The storm dropped 26.8 inches in Central Park, the second-most recorded since 1869 and just short of 26.9 inches set in February 2006. The 26.6 inches that fell on Saturday, however, was the city's record for a single day.

A magnitude-7.1 earthquake knocked items off shelves and walls in Alaska early Sunday morning, jolting the nerves of residents in this earthquake-prone region. But there were no reports of injuries. Alaska's state seismologist, Michael West, called it the strongest earthquake in the state's south-central region in decades. The state often has larger or more powerful earthquakes, such as a 7.9 last year in the remote Aleutian Islands.

Authorities are continuing to search for three inmates who escaped from a Southern California maximum-security jail by cutting through half-inch steel bars and rappelling from the roof by a makeshift rope. The inmates — one of whom is an alleged killer — were last seen at 5 a.m. Friday at the Orange County Central Men's Jail in Santa Ana, about 40 miles southeast of Los Angeles. They could have escaped any time between then and late Friday night.

Canada's government, grappling with a fatal attack in a remote aboriginal town, is very concerned about the "tragic and alarming" conditions in other indigenous communities, a top official said on Sunday. A 17-year-old boy was due to appear in court on Monday, charged with four counts of murder after Friday's deadly incident in La Loche, an impoverished town in the western province of Saskatchewan.

US Secretary of State John Kerry began a visit to Asia on Sunday in which he plans to press China to put more curbs on North Korea after its nuclear test and to urge Southeast Asia to show unity in response to Beijing's claims in the South China Sea. Sec. Kerry started what will be a three-day stay in the region in Laos, the 2016 chair of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). He will head to Cambodia on Monday night and then on to Beijing for talks on Wednesday with the leadership there.

Thousands of Poles marched through Warsaw on Saturday to protest against their new conservative government's plan to increase its surveillance powers, with some saying they feared Poland was following Hungary towards an "illiberal democracy." Since Poland's Law and Justice (PiS) party took power in November, its moves to take more control of the judiciary and the media have divided Poland and raised alarm bells in the European Union, which has started investigating charges that Warsaw is undermining democratic principles.

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