Ken Stanford

An arctic blast eased its grip on much of the U.S. on Wednesday, with winds calming and the weather warming slightly a day after temperature records - some more than a century-old - shattered up and down the Eastern Seaboard.

Jackson EMC experienced scattered outages Tuesday throughout its 10-county service area, from a high of around 1,800 customers between 3 and 5 a.m. to around 500 at 9 a.m. and about 70 by late afternoon.

A U.S. Air Force Pave Hawk helicopter crashed in the coastal marshes of eastern England during a training mission on Tuesday night, killing all four crew members aboard, officials said.

Anti-smoking measures have saved roughly 8 million U.S. lives since a landmark 1964 report linking smoking and disease, a study estimates, yet the nation's top disease detective says dozens of other countries do a better job on several efforts to cut tobacco use.

Stocks rallied Tuesday, ending a slump that had ushered in the New Year.