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Nearly 900 flights have been canceled across the U.S. and another 500 have been delayed due to the large storm system moving through the middle part of the country.

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WASHINGTON (AP) --
The nation's three-decade-old ban on blood donations from gay and bisexual men was formally lifted Monday, but major restrictions will continue to limit who can give blood.
The Food and Drug Administration said it is replacing the lifetime ban with a new policy barring donations from men who have had sex with a man in the previous year. While the one-year ban has been criticized by activists it matches policies in other countries, including Australia, Japan and the U.K.
Gay rights activists said the new policy is a "step in the right direction," but falls short.
"It continues to stigmatize gay and bisexual men," said David Stacy, of the Human Rights Campaign, the largest U.S. gay rights group. "It simply cannot be justified in light of current scientific research and updated blood screening technology."
Monday's policy shift was first proposed in late 2014 and follows years of lobbying by medical groups and gay rights groups, who said the previous ban was outdated and perpetuated negative stereotypes.
Dr. Peter Marks of the FDA said the change is "backed by sound scientific evidence" and will "continue to protect our blood supply."
The FDA considered eliminating all restrictions on blood donations from gay and bisexual men, but concluded that would increase the transmission of HIV through the blood supply by 400 percent.
"An increase of that magnitude is not acceptable," Marks told reporters.
All U.S. blood donations are screened for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. But there is a roughly 10-day window between initial infection and when the virus can be detected by current testing techniques. The American Red Cross estimates the risk of getting an HIV-positive blood donation is 1 in 1.5 million for all U.S. patients. About 15.7 million blood donations are collected in the U.S. each year.
The lifetime ban was put in place during the early years of the AIDS crisis and was intended to protect the blood supply from what was a then little-understood disease.
The FDA concluded that moving to a one-year abstinence requirement would not change the safety of U.S. blood donations, based primarily on data from Australia. That country has had a one-year rule for active gay and bisexual men for over 10 years.
FDA officials said there are no comparable data using shorter restriction periods.
"Right now there are really no large, major countries with shorter intervals than one year," Marks said during a teleconference.
On the current blood donor questionnaire, men are asked if they have ever had sex with another man since 1977-- the start of the AIDS epidemic in the U.S. Potential donors who answer positively are barred from donating blood. The new questionnaire, as outlined under FDA guidelines, would ask men if they have had sex with another man in the last 12 months.
The U.S. blood banking system also bars donations from people who have had sex with a prostitute or an intravenous drug user in the past 12 months.
The FDA sets national standards for the collection and shipment of all U.S. blood donations, which must be screened for transmissible diseases.
The push for a new policy gained momentum in 2006, when the Red Cross, the American Association of Blood Banks, and America's Blood Centers called the ban "medically and scientifically unwarranted."
The groups said in a joint statement they are "pleased" with the FDA's announcement. It will take several months for blood banks to update their procedures to begin accepting donations from gay and bisexual men, the groups said.
The switch in policy could increase the U.S. blood supply by 2 percent to 4 percent by making 2 million additional men eligible to donate, according to previous research by UCLA's Williams Institute.

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SAN DIEGO (AP) --
Nearly 100 Mexicans have sought to return to the U.S. by Wednesday's deadline under the settlement of a class-action lawsuit that accused federal immigration officials in Southern California of failing to advise people of their rights.
The American Civil Liberties Union sued the Department of Homeland Security in 2013 over the use of a procedure to expel people from the country known as a voluntary return.
Under the procedure, people surrender rights to appear before an immigration judge and can't legally return to the U.S. for up to 10 years. The lawsuit claimed authorities threatened people into accepting the terms.
The government didn't acknowledge wrongdoing but agreed to changes in California that include a revised form that spells out the consequences and options of a voluntary return, new training and procedures and an information hotline for detainees seeking legal aid.
The settlement reflects the agency's "commitment to ensuring foreign nationals fully understand the implications of returning voluntarily to Mexico," the department said in a statement.
The government also agreed to let some Mexicans return to the U.S. to resume efforts to stay legally.
The ACLU, which had estimated thousands might be eligible for that chance, identified nearly 100 who might qualify to return to the U.S., said staff attorney Gabriela Rivera. Of those, the government has so far approved more than 20 to return and was reviewing other cases.
The number reflects the high bar to qualify, Rivera said. The requirements include being married to a U.S. citizen after entering the country legally, being in the country for at least 10 years and having a spouse, child or parent who relies on them, or being eligible to be shielded from deportation under President Barack Obama's 2012 executive order.
Applicants also must have accepted a voluntary return in Southern California between 2009 and 2014.
Lucy Sanchez, who came to California in 1996, was on a fishing boat in San Diego's Mission Bay in October 2009 when authorities asked her legal status. She said they told her she might be jailed for months if she fought to stay and would be released immediately to Mexico if she agreed to a voluntary return.
"They didn't even let me read it, they just said sign here," said Sanchez, 35, a wife and mother of U.S. citizens.
Sanchez lived in Tijuana, Mexico, for six years with her daughter, now 7, and was among a small group of Mexicans allowed to return to the U.S. in August to plead her case before an immigration judge. She has a court date in April.
The ACLU spearheaded an extensive campaign on both sides of the border that included workshops, billboards and television advertising to reach the estimated 200,000 people who accepted voluntary returns in Southern California during the period covered by the settlement.
The settlement applies only to the Border Patrol's San Diego sector and Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Los Angeles and San Diego field offices, and the requirements on the agencies to change the form and its practices expire in August 2017.
The agencies have limited changes to Southern California and made no commitment to keep them in place after 2017.
The number of voluntary returns has dropped sharply in recent years to less than 9,000 nationwide in fiscal 2015, the federal agency said.

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