The mercury plummeted to 27 below zero while 44 mph winds blasted snow and ice, making the forest all around the tracks invisible. The freight train's power died 78 miles from the nearest village or farmhouse. It was right before the birth of Iowa-based locomotive engineer Jeff Kurtz's son, and he desperately wanted to be with his wife.

Climate change is throwing railway workers into more extreme weather, so blizzards and scalding heat waves are new everyday challenges. Some trains still have wood stoves that can keep a crew from freezing while they await rescue through a scary winter night. But this one didn't.

SOUTHERN PINES, N.C. — The lights began to flicker back on across Moore County on Wednesday, four days after gunfire attacks on two substations caused a countywide power outage.

In Southern Pines, part of a cluster of towns surrounding the county’s prized golf courses, some customers saw their power restored by 10 a.m. By around noon the Southern Pines Public Library, which had been providing residents with warmth, respite and a place to recharge cell phones, was back online.

WASHINGTON — In the post-mortem of the Georgia runoff, there were few Republicans willing to blame the loss on the MAGA takeover of the Republican Party, but many danced around it with some calling out "candidate recruitment" or finding polite ways of saying that Herschel Walker wasn't a good candidate.

Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) is on his way out of the office with nary a care about the political expediency of the chief of the Republican Party. He seemed more than happy to place the blame on Donald Trump for picking such a crap candidate.

WASHINGTON — There were several Republicans who were willing to celebrate the Capitol Police and Washington, D.C. Metro Police that lost their lives in the wake of the Jan. 6 attack. They along with others who risked their lives at the Capitol were honored in a bipartisan ceremony Tuesday where everyone was welcomed to honor the officers.

A line of lawmakers, including Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), stood to shake hands with some of the officers, who refused to take their hand.

WASHINGTON — Some U.S. Capitol Police officers and their family members refused to shake hands with Republican Party members present at the Medal of Freedom ceremony on Tuesday.

Raw Story spoke to Ken Sicknick, the brother of Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, who explained why he refused to dignify the GOP with a response.

Former Mayor Michael Tubbs of Stockton, Calif., has gone national with an innovative anti-poverty program he pioneered in his city in 2019. But although his concept of “guaranteed income” has shown promising early results, it just hit a big obstacle: Republican control of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Tubbs founded Mayors For A Guaranteed Income in 2020 -- while still Stockton mayor – to spread the idea that, as he puts it: “Cash solves the lack of cash.” The idea has caught on around the country, with more than 100 pilot programs testing the concept across the nation.

Of late, Trump and his lawyers have been on defense—battling allegations of felony tax fraud and, separately, defamation, along with suits brought by numerous police officers over Trump’s role in the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection—but this time, it’s House Democrats who are treading lightly out of fear of fines or imprisonment if they overstep and divulge the former president’s personal financial information without legal justification.

“It’s very sensitive information,” current, if outgoing, House Ways and Means (i.e. taxes) Committee Chair Richard Neal told reporters at the Capitol this week. “We intend to deal with it professionally.”

But the quiet did not stop Tammye Pettyjohn Jones, who chairs Sisters in Service of Southwest Georgia and works with many local non-profit groups, and a caravan of like-minded community activists, from looking for Black voters to remind them of the U.S. Senate runoff and urge them to vote.

A motorcade led by Jones driving an eye-catching Black Voters Matter van whose sides were printed with scenes from last century’s Civil Rights Movement and new slogans such as “WE WON’T BLACK DOWN… cuz freedom is our birthright!” pulled off the road in front of every cluster of homes. At a set of old duplexes, the smell of a leaking gas pipeline hung in the air – a health and environmental hazard.

Just in time for Christmas and Hanukkah shopping, New York City is auctioning gifts that were given to Mayors Koch, Dinkins, Giuliani and Bloomberg that range from the unique and exquisitely beautiful to, in the case of Rudy Giuliani, the heavily used.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg's pristine Nike Air Force 1 sneakers signed by hip hop OGs Ice-T and Fab 5 Freddy currently stand at $510—and a winning bidder can run off in them on Saturday when bids close.

WASHINGTON — Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) spoke with Raw Story on Wednesday in the wake of the Oath Keepers verdict, saying that it was a "huge victory for the Justice Department and for justice."

Schiff, who began his career as an assistant U.S. Attorney, has served on the House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on Congress and the attempt to overthrow the government. He explained that charges like sedition are no joke, as they carry with them the possibility of 20 years in prison.

Michael Alan Jones had marched with the Proud Boys at rallies in North Carolina and Washington, DC in late 2020 as the far-right street-fighting gang exploded in popularity with Donald Trump’s apparent endorsement “Stand back and stand by.”

On Jan. 6, 2021, Jones joined a fight at the West Plaza and pulled away barricades at a police line before going inside the Capitol and carrying out a broken furniture leg. Despite his involvement in the attack on the Capitol, the only legal repercussion he faced was a misdemeanor arrest by the DC Metropolitan police later that evening for violating curfew.

If one thing did in Stewart Rhodes, the Oath Keepers founder who was found guilty today of seditious conspiracy for his role in the Jan. 6 insurrection, it was his decision to testify on his own behalf.

Rhodes was on trial with four other Oath Keepers. Kelly Meggs, a member of the far-right militia, was found guilty of seditious conspiracy, while the other three were acquitted of that charge. All five were convicted of obstruction of an official proceeding and aiding and abetting.

WASHINGTON — Now that officials have returned to Congress for the lame-duck session, Republicans are being asked about their party's former president meeting with avowed anti-Semites at his country club.

Speaking to Raw Story on Tuesday, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said flatly he couldn't understand why Donald Trump would take a meeting with Kanye West to begin with.