The Latest: Northeast US digs out from brutal snowfall as second storm may near

Neighbors, government workers and a powerful railroad snow-clearing machine nicknamed ''Darth Vader'' scrambled to dig out from a brutal and — in some areas — record-breaking storm that blanketed the northeastern United States with snow, causing thousands of flights to be cancelled.

Even as the snow moved north Tuesday, giving way to sunshine in parts of the region, National Weather Service forecasters warned another storm originating in the Great Lakes was right around the corner.

Monday's storm, which meteorologists are calling the strongest in a decade, dumped more than 2 feet (60 centimeters) of snow in parts of the metropolitan Northeast.

By Tuesday, roads were beginning to reopen, mass transportation was coming back online in some cities and power had returned for some of the hundreds of thousands that had lost electricity in Massachusetts, New Jersey, Delaware and Rhode Island.

The Latest:

NYC will soon deploy snow-melting hot tubs

Known as snow melters, the massive basins of warm water are used by city workers to dump large quantities of snow and ice, accelerating the clearing process. They will soon roll out in all five boroughs, acting Sanitation Commissioner Javier Lojan said Tuesday.

Power restoration across southeastern Massachusetts will take days

About 230,000 customers remain without power, including roughly 164,000 on Cape Cod and 60,000 in the Plymouth–New Bedford area, said Doug Foley, president of Eversource's Massachusetts electric operations.

''It will take days. This is a multi-day restoration,'' Foley said during a streamed press conference in Yarmouth and Tuesday. ''The last customers, unfortunately, will be a couple days out.''

Crews restored about 145,000 customers during and immediately after the storm, but damage appears comparable to — and possibly worse than — a January 2022 storm that peaked near 300,000 outages in the region.

Blizzard conditions Monday limited crews largely to clearing downed wires and debris for emergency access. Full restoration work accelerated Tuesday as weather improved.

Heavy, moisture-laden snow caused substantial icing on equipment, including at a substation in West Barnstable that required specialized clearing. Restoration will focus first on major circuits before crews move into snow-clogged neighborhoods and backyards.

Shelters are open in some communities for residents in need of heat, officials said.

Over 1/3 of students stay home as New York City public schools reopen

And nearly 1 in 6 teachers called out sick Tuesday, the first day back after the blizzard and a midwinter break, city officials said.

After declaring a snow day Monday, Mayor Zohran Mamdani took some heat for reopening the nation's biggest public school system instead of switching to remote learning Tuesday while snow-clearing continued, particularly on hard-hit Staten Island.

''I am proud we were able to reopen our doors this morning,'' Samuels said. Preliminary attendance data shows 63% of the roughly 900,000 students came in, Samuels said. City data show the average attendance rate for the last school year was about 90%.

Mamdani said about 12,000 of the school system's 78,800 teachers called out sick. The city called in more than 5,000 substitutes.

Mamdani suggests criminal charges unnecessary for teens who hurled snow at cops

At a press conference Tuesday, the Democratic mayor declined to call for criminal charges against the teenagers seen on video pelting New York City police officers with snow during a massive snowball fight in Washington Square Park.

''Look, I've seen the videos of this snowball fight,'' Mamdani said, in response to repeated questions about the incident. ''I think it was a snowball fight.''

''Officers have been on the front line of helping our city respond to this blizzard,'' Mamdani added. ''They and our entire city workforce deserve to be treated with respect.''

NYC relaxes rules for ‘emergency snow shoveler' program after confusion

In recent days, hundreds of New Yorkers have appeared at sanitation garages across the city to register for $30-per-hour shifts clearing snow across public streets and bus stops.

But several applicants reported being turned away after being told – despite Mayor Zohran Mamdani's claim otherwise – that they needed to show a physical copy of their Social Security card and two Passport-sized photographs.

As of Tuesday, the city had dropped both of those requirements, according to Sanitation Department spokesperson Joshua Goodman. ''The goal is to make this as simple as possible,'' he told the AP.

Rhode Island governor lifts the state's travel ban

Rhode Island Gov. Dan McKee announced Tuesday that the state's travel ban was no longer in effect but still urged the public to stay off the roads if possible.

The governor's office says they've requested help from other states, particularly with resources like heavy-duty plows, backhoes and other equipment to speed up snow removal.

Providence may be looking for more locations to dump snow

In snowbound Providence, Rhode Island, snow is being transported to five locations, according to Josh Estrella, communications director for the city government.

Providence has more than 60 of its own plows and at least 30 vendor plows on the job, he said, with main roads, hospital routes and overpasses getting priority attention.

State Rep. David Morales has criticized the city for hauling snow to a vacant lot slated for redevelopment in South Providence.

Two work crew members carry a snowblower up the steps of the Rhode Island State Capital, Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2026, in Providence, R.I. (AP Photo/Mark Stockwell)

Morales called that part of Providence ''the most polluted part of the city'' and home to a dense population of people of color.

''My frustration is the fact that the most polluted community in Providence has to once again become the dumping ground of polluted contaminants – in this case, dirty snow,'' Morales said. He is running in the September Democratic primary against incumbent Mayor Brett Smiley.

''One, for equity,'' Estrella said. ''Two, we have snow haulers go where it's closer to them.'' He said the South Providence lot is the largest and easiest to push snow into.

Outages may last for days in some parts of Massachusetts, officials say

In Massachusetts nearly a quarter-million customers remained without electricity Tuesday, with outages concentrated along coastal communities.

Officials said it may take days for power to return to some areas of the state.

In Boston, many sidewalks remained coated in packed snow or reduced to narrow, icy trenches carved out by foot traffic. While property owners are responsible for clearing sidewalks in front of their homes, compliance appeared uneven.

Two Brooklyn dads say the city rushed kids back to school

Lerone Davis, who works nights as a first responder, said it would've been safer for children to have an extra day at home because the streets are still piled high with snow.

''Finally I was thinking, ‘OK I'll park the car and relax for a little bit,' but then I had to jump right back into it,'' he said, standing with another father outside his kid's Brooklyn day care, which follows the city's decision to reopen Tuesday.

Both dads said they weren't thrilled.

''Not having to worry about getting to school, battling with snow and everything, I think makes a little bit more sense,'' Davis said. ''Plus, they have snow days built into the school year.''

This storm's impact is particularly severe for Northeast air hubs

In addition to the thousands of canceled flights due to the storm, more than 1,500 of Tuesday's flights within, into or out of the United States were delayed, according to flightaware.com.

Even after a storm passes, it takes time for airlines to get their planes and flight crews back where they need to be to restore full schedules, according to Michael McCormick, an associate professor of air traffic management at Embry‑Riddle Aeronautical University.

''This storm is so wide-ranging, it's impacted major hubs along the Northeast. And those airports are the most vulnerable airports in terms of getting aircraft and air crews positioned to be able to fly their schedule,'' McCormick said. As a result, there will continue to be cancellations that ''gradually decrease daily,'' he said.

Storm strands juror as sex trafficking trial resumes

A juror was ''trapped in Miami'' and wasn't scheduled for a return flight until Friday, Judge Valerie Caproni said Tuesday. And it was unlikely the juror could make it back sooner: ''She's flying Spirit. That tells you everything,'' Caproni said.

The judge eventually dismissed the stranded juror, leaving just one alternate. The trial already wasn't held last week to accommodate jurors whose children were on a school break.

''I am loath to lose another juror, but I am also loath to lose another week of trial,'' Caproni said.

New storm to hit Great Lakes, could drop more snow on Northeast

A storm descending from Canada is forecast to bring snow to the Great Lakes starting Tuesday and could drop up to 2 inches in places of the Northeast still digging out from blizzard-like conditions.

‘Abolish ICE' is the top vote-getter in Chicago's ‘Name a Snowplow' contest

Choosing the protest slogan with a double meaning proved a potent way for voters to jab at President Donald Trump after he sent Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers into the city and its suburbs in a major immigration crackdown. ''Operation Midway Blitz'' resulted in more than 4,000 arrests, a fatal shooting and a sour taste among many Chicago residents.

Chicago maintains 300 trucks, and is naming just six this year. After 39,000 final votes were cast, the other top winners were:

1. ''Stephen Coldbert,'' for late-night talk show host Stephen Colbert

2. ''Pope Frio XIV,'' with the Spanish word for ''cold'' rhyming with the Chicago-born pontiff's name, Leo

4. ''Svencoolie,'' a play on the Chicago TV horror host, Svengoolie

5. and ''Caleb Chilliams'' a play on Bears quarterback Caleb Williams, who Chicago to the playoffs for the first time in 15 years.

In a statement, Mayor Brandon Johnson thanked Chicago voters ''for their unmatched creativity, sense of humor, and civic pride.''

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is tallying up the snowfall

The agency said early Tuesday that Rhode Island gets top honors for 37.9 inches, a preliminary state record, at the airport in Providence. And as of 3 a.m., snow totals weren't complete for Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Rhode Island, where the storm's remnants were passing through. Other top state accumulations so far:

7. Rhode Island: 36.2 inches in Warwick, 36 inches in North Kingstown, 33 inches in Narragansett

8. New York: 31 inches in Islip, 22.5 inches at Laguardia, 22 inches in Washington Heights, 20.1 inches at JFK, 19.7 inches in Central Park

9. New Jersey: 29.5 inches at Bogota, 27.1 at Newark Airport

10. Connecticut: 27.7 inches in Killingly

11. Pennsylvania: 22.3 inches in Langhorne

13. Maryland: 16 inches in Bishopville

White House says FEMA working despite funding lapse to restore power across blizzard-battered Northeast

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt says the Federal Emergency Management Agency is ''on the ground'' working with state and local authorities to restore power, even though the agency is operating without a budget.

More than 350,000 customers in the Northeast were without electricity Tuesday morning, according to Poweroutage.com, which tracks outages nationwide.

''The Trump administration is on it,'' Leavitt said, when asked for the administration's message to those getting by without electricity.

Thousands of flights remain canceled

Roughly 2,200 flights in and out of the United States were canceled Tuesday, according to the flight tracking website FlightAware.

Most of the cancellations involved Boston and the New York City area's three major airports, affecting about half of all departing flights. About 14 percent of departing flights were canceled at Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C.

Rhode Island's T.F. Green International Airport's operational pause remained in effect Tuesday as authorities assessed conditions. The airport paused all flights Monday as it dealt with nearly 38 inches (97 centimeters) of snow, according to the Weather Service, breaking a record of 28.6 inches (72.6 centimeters) set in 1978. The airport is in Warwick, six miles south of Providence, the state capital.

Power outages remain, mostly in coastal Massachusetts

More than 350,000 customers in the Northeast were without electricity Tuesday morning, according to Poweroutage.com, which tracks outages across the country. Outages reached over 600,000 during the peak of the storm Monday. Most are in Massachusetts.

Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard and other coastal communities experienced the worst of the storm and suffered the most severe damage, Eversource said. Power restoration was expected to take multiple days, the utility said.

About 20% of Massachusetts households depend on electricity for heating. Most heat their homes with natural gas, and another 20% use fuel oil or kerosene, according to Census estimates.

Some NYC schoolchildren have a dodgy journey back to school

This is just a regular school day in New York City for more than 900,000 students in the nation's largest public school system — the mayor said so, and invited kids to pelt him with snowballs over his decision.

''We're walking on thin ice here. One more day would've been fine,'' said Danielle Obloj, the parent of a Brooklyn 5th grader. ''They should never have let these kids come back to school.''

Others, meanwhile, hailed the city's efforts at snow-clearing.

''It was much better than last time — an easy commute, no problems whatsoever,'' said Raul Garcia, as he exited a cab with his three school-age children. ''We thought it was going to be really bad walking, but looking at the streets, they're so clean.''

NYPD officers were pelted with snowballs in Washington Square Park

A massive snowball fight erupted Monday in New York City's Washington Square Park as the blizzard wound down, but it wasn't all fun and games.

City police commissioner Jessica Tisch posted that the NYPD is aware of the video, calling the behavior ''disgraceful'' and ''criminal.''

New York City schools are scheduled to be back in person

Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced that schools would be back in person on Tuesday, drawing questions about how feasible that is with snow still piled along sidewalks.

Staten Island Borough President Vito Fossella said schools should remain closed, while Michael Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Teachers, described the situation as ''a big mess.''

''There's going to be low attendance of students, you're going to have low attendance of staff because people don't know if they can travel, if they can get to schools,'' he said.