Among those rescued was pickup driver Kaleb Whitby, 27, who miraculously escaped with minor injuries after his vehicle became sandwiched between two trailers

BAKER CITY, Ore. -- Black ice is believed to be the cause of a freeway pileup involving more than a dozen tractor-trailers that left 12 people injured Saturday in eastern Oregon, police said.

Among those rescued was pickup truck driver Kaleb Whitby, 27, who miraculously escaped with minor injuries after he was sandwiched in his vehicle crushed between two big rigs. He was trapped for about 30 minutes inside the wreckage -- a scene captured by a photographer whose own truck became disabled in the pileup.

"Thank God that I'm still alive," Washington state resident Whitby told OregonLive.com. "Now I've got to go figure out why."

He said he needed only a couple of Band-Aids and some ice for his injuries.

The 26-vehicle pileup left a long stretch of Interstate 84 closed for most of the day as crews worked to clean spilled diesel fuel and clear away dozens of vehicles that were either damaged or stranded.

12 people were treated for injuries at a Baker City hospital, with four of them then going to other hospitals with more serious injuries, Oregon State Police Sgt. Kyle Hove said. Police had initially reported just four people hurt. There were no fatalities.

The crash occurred shortly before 5 a.m. east of Baker City, about 130 miles northwest of Boise, Idaho.

Hove arrived on the scene to find "a sheet of ice" on the roadway. Troopers are still investigating, but Hove said he believes it was a chain-reaction crash.

"A couple of the trucks came upon the black ice, and they jackknifed and crashed into each other. And it just continued to escalate," Hove told The Associated Press by phone.

Authorities updated their report hours after the crash, increasing the number of vehicles directly involved from 20 to 26, and saying that the pileup left 50 to 70 vehicles stranded at the scene.

There were several separate collisions over a stretch of about three-quarters of a mile in the eastbound lanes, Hove said. He said many of the damaged vehicles were tractor-trailers, and several spilled their loads.

Two trucks were transporting hazardous materials. Their cargo did not spill, but crews had to clean up diesel from the trucks' fuel tanks.

"We understand it's frustrating when the freeway is closed like this," said Tom Srandberg, a spokesman for the Oregon Department of Transportation. "Our primary concern is safety, and (we) want to make sure everything is cleared by our hazmat folks before we let any traffic through the areas."

Interstate 84 links Salt Lake City with Portland, Oregon, and is the primary east-west highway through eastern Oregon. The eastbound lanes were closed for several hours but officials said at least one lane was reopening Saturday night. Westbound lanes were closed temporarily near the crash site.

For the first time since Western Massachusetts residents eager to see the tornado-damaged Cathedral High School rebuilt organized a community movement, the bishop of the Springfield Roman Catholic Diocese is speaking directly about the problem money poses in the plan to accommodate their wishes. Watch video

SPRINGFIELD — For the first time since Western Massachusetts residents eager to see the tornado-damaged Cathedral High School rebuilt organized a community movement in November, the bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield is speaking directly about the problem money poses in the plan to accommodate their wishes.

In an address to Western Massachusetts Saturday night, Bishop Mitchell T. Rozanski said that he looks forward to the upcoming "facilitated dialogues and problem solving sessions" to discuss the fate of Cathedral High School in the city's East Forest Park neighborhood, but that the financial considerations present the biggest roadblock to rebuilding the school.

"Catholic schools have played an important role in our diocesan church, (and) Cathedral High School and its legacy have played an important part in that history. At the same time, our support for Catholic education as a whole and Cathedral High School in particular has increasingly taken up a larger and larger portion of our increasingly limited financial resources," Rozanski said. "It is a situation which I must be completely honest with you, is no longer sustainable."

Although the diocese stresses that no decision has been made, the bishop alluded to a declining Catholic population in Western Massachusetts and limited diocesan finances.

Cathedral High School on Surrey Road was built in 1959 for 3,000 students, but the school now has only about 200 enrolled. Cathedral temporarily moved to a former elementary school in the wealthy suburb of Wilbraham following the 2011 tornado.

Tuition at Cathedral ranges from $8,600 to $9,300 a year, while 57 percent of students receive some amount of financial assistance. Cathedral has established a $10 million tuition endowment goal to help students and parents attend the school, and so far has raised about $3.3 million in donations and pledges in its campaign.

The Committee for Cathedral Action, the new community group, raised another $8,000 this week to fund its ongoing campaign to save the school.

In response to the bishop's address Saturday night, the Committee for Cathedral Action released a statement urging him to read an op-ed submitted to The Republican by a board member addressing the creation of a sustainable school.

"We commend the Bishop for addressing the sustainability issue which diocesan leadership has neglected to address for far too long. Like the Bishop, we believe that if the Diocese continues to operate the school as it has for the last several decades, it will not survive," the community group said. "That is precisely why we have advocated for a new state-of-the-art Cathedral with new leadership, new marketing strategies and new techniques to engage alumni and others to support the school. As we have shown, there are a plethora of successful and sustainable Catholic High Schools in the Northeast; some in places as challenged economically as Springfield like Central Catholic in Lawrence.

Some of the tense feelings between the Committee for Cathedral Action and the diocese stem from the change in tone since a press conference was called by the diocese in March 2014 in which now retired Bishop Timothy A. McDonnell announced plans to obtain demolition permits and move forward with design of a new school.

Upon celebrating a $38.5 million agreement between the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the diocese, under which FEMA would cover about $29 million (75 percent) for tornado damages and related costs while the diocese would cover the balance of approximately $9 million, McDonnell said the rebuilding would commence.

"We now have the brick-and-mortar funds to rebuild here on Surrey Road, and so we shall," McDonnell said to wild applause from those in attendance. While McDonnell closed his speech by saying he was counting on alumni to help subsidize the cost of an education at Cathedral, he reiterated that "the building will go up."

That press conference was attended by several notable locals including Mayor Domenic Sarno and Congressman Richard Neal, who was instrumental in attaining the FEMA assistance for the diocese.

The diocese has since said that rebuilding is at least partially contingent on achieving the $10 million goal of the tuition endowment fund.

Groups of stakeholders, as designated by the diocese, are scheduled to meet for a two-day workshop on Jan. 24 and 25 to discuss the options regarding the school. Members of the Committee for Cathedral Action have said they weren't included and voiced displeasure that parents were only engaged via survey.

"One of our goals was to make it clear that support for a new Cathedral runs far, wide and deep. We have ideas and are confident that we can help. We have offered to participate in the stakeholder process and, in particular, in the stakeholder meetings of January 24 and 25, but, to date, the diocese has not taken us up on our offer," the Committee for Cathedral Action said in the statement. "We will even go a step further and say that if the Diocese chooses not to rebuild and run a new Cathedral High School we stand ready, able and very willing to form a committee, with professionals, to take the school private and would very much expect the Diocese's cooperation in that transition."

The diocese on its website lists 13 stakeholder groups involved in its process, including Cathedral and St. Michael's Academy parents.

In an editorial board meeting with The Republican this week, church officials said Rozanski would announce the final decision about what to do with the school, irreparably damaged in the June 2011 tornado that swept through the region, by mid-February.

Bishop Mitchell Rozanski TV Address

Springfield Bishop Mitchell Rozanski addresses the people of Western Massachusetts on TV on Saturday, Jan. 17, 2015. Robert Rizzuto | rrizzuto@repub.com

Obituaries from The Republican.

Justin Giles 

Justin M. Giles, 30, passed away on Tuesday. He was born in Springfield. He was a graduate of Pittsfield High School in New Hampshire. He was an associate for Home Depot Rapid Distribution Center in Westfield. He enjoyed hiking, music, picture taking, reading and his most treasured time was spent with his two sons.

A group of Clinton advisers offered a detailed economic agenda last week that aims to help raise wages for millions of workers and close the gap between rich and poor.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Inside the Democratic Party, economic policy is often seen as a contest between President Barack Obama's track record and the anti-Wall Street approach advocated by Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

As Hillary Rodham Clinton heads for an expected 2016 run for president, her allies are pointing her toward something in-between.

A group of Clinton advisers offered a detailed economic agenda last week that aims to help raise wages for millions of workers and close the gap between rich and poor. The policy road map was produced at the Center for American Progress, a Washington-based think tank stocked with veterans of the Bill Clinton and Obama administrations. It appeared to target those who are disenchanted with Obama and skeptical that Clinton effectively would police Wall Street and champion middle-class workers.

"While there are large forces, globalization, technology and more, that are creating large challenges for many workers, there is no excuse or intellectual basis for fatalism," said Larry Summers, one of its authors and a former treasury secretary under President Bill Clinton who later worked for Obama.

The subject is clearly on Hillary Clinton's mind. In her first tweet in more than a month, she posted this Friday: "Attacking financial reform is risky and wrong. Better for Congress to focus on jobs and wages for middle-class families."

Campaigning for Democrats last fall, she often spoke of the need to return to an economic system of broadly shared prosperity.

That goal has eluded Obama, even though he is able to point to a rebounding economy, falling unemployment rates and lower gas prices. Obama, in Tuesday's State of the Union, plans to propose raising the capital gains rate on the wealthy and eliminating a tax break on inheritances. The plan is a nonstarter with Republicans, but Obama will make the case for using the additional revenue for new tax credits and other benefits for the middle class.

Warren, in a speech this month to the AFL-CIO, said that despite stronger economic growth and a soaring stock market, "America's middle class is in deep trouble." Liberals say the problem of stagnant wages require urgent action.

"We need to be extremely aggressive to deal with income and wealth inequality," said Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent who may seek the Democratic presidential nomination.

Republicans such as Jeb Bush and Mitt Romney are beginning to articulate their own agenda for addressing income inequality, reflecting an expected argument that Obama's policies have not helped millions of workers.

"Their liberal policies are good every four years for a campaign, but they don't get the job done," Romney said in a speech last week to the Republican National Committee.

Clinton's template has been the 1990s, during her husband's two terms, and Summers noted that many of the ideas in the report built upon the "Putting People First" agenda from Bill Clinton's first presidential campaign.

It also cited some of the chief parts of Obama's economic program, such as efforts to raise the federal minimum wage, spend more on roads, bridges and public works, offer paid leave for workers and help students pay for college.

But the report also offered other ideas with broad appeal in the party: tax credits for middle-class families, incentives for employees to partake in profit-sharing, attention to collective bargaining rights and tying the repayment of student loans to a graduate's income earned over two decades or more.

Those responsible for the report have strong Clinton connections.

Along with Summers, the commission included the center's president and CEO, Neera Tanden, a former Hillary Clinton policy adviser; former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, a leader of a political action committee set to back a Clinton candidacy; and Steven Rattner, who was chief adviser to Obama's auto bailout task force and is a longtime Clinton donor.

Clinton, who returns to the speaking circuit in Canada this coming week, has said she would offer a "very specific agenda" if she runs for president.

Some progressives said that while the new report offered good ideas, it had deficiencies. Most notably, it does not advocate for the breakup of Wall Street banks, which Warren has sought, and does not push for a higher minimum wage beyond the $10.10 pushed by Obama.

Anna Galland, executive director of MoveOn.org, noted the role of lobbyists only had a passing reference in the findings.

"In some areas, the report represents a largely Washington establishment perspective, and isn't as bold as folks outside the Beltway are probably ready for," Galland said.

Jared Bernstein, a former economic adviser to Vice President Joe Biden, said much of the report offered ideas that could unite broad parts of the Democratic coalition. He said it built upon a growing understanding in the party, in the aftermath of the November elections, that simple economic growth is not enough to lift the fortunes of middle-class workers.

"I don't think the 2014 midterms were some sort of fluke. If you don't give people a reason to get up and go vote for you, I'd expect them to sit down and stay home or vote for somebody else," he said. "So you can't assume based on demographics or race or income class that the electorate is going to support you. ... You have to do precisely the kind of policy work that this group is offering us."

The vice president and his wife were not at home at the time of the shooting, authorities said.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The U.S. Secret Service said Sunday that multiple gunshots were fired from a vehicle near the Delaware home of Vice President Joe Biden on Saturday night. The vice president and his wife were not at home at the time of the shooting, authorities said.

The home is several hundred yards from the main road where the shots rang out, and authorities were searching outside the Biden residence and nearby houses to determine if any rounds hit anything.

Secret Service spokesman Robert Hoback said the shots were fired at around 8:25 p.m. on a public road outside the secure perimeter near the home in Wilmington, Delaware.

The shots were heard by Secret Service personnel, who saw the vehicle drive past the home at a high rate of speed and flee the scene.

The Secret Service said about 30 minutes later, an individual in a vehicle tried to pass a New Castle County police officer securing the outer perimeter of the area. That person was arrested for resisting arrest and will be questioned regarding the shooting to determine if he was involved.

Hoback said the incident is under investigation by the Secret Service and the New Castle County Police.

Biden's office said the vice president and his wife, Jill Biden, were briefed Saturday night, as was President Barack Obama. Biden's office referred all other questions to the Secret Service.

The Bidens spend many weekends at their Delaware home and commute back to Washington for the work week. When he served in the Senate, Biden frequently commuted daily by train to Washington.

STURBRIDGE – Two people were taken to a Worcester hospital in serious condition Sunday morning after firefighters found a severely damaged car resting in some trees off Interstate 84. Around 3 a.m. Sunday, the state police called for help from the Sturbridge police and fire departments after a vehicle crashed into the woods on I-84 eastbound near Exit 2, according...

STURBRIDGE – Two people were taken to a Worcester hospital in serious condition Sunday morning after firefighters found a severely damaged car resting in some trees off Interstate 84.

Around 3 a.m. Sunday, the state police called for help from the Sturbridge police and fire departments after a vehicle crashed into the woods on I-84 eastbound near Exit 2, according to the Sturbridge Fire Department.

First responders found the vehicle positioned in the trees and two injured inside. Firefighters stabilized the vehicle to free the trapped passenger with extrication tools. The female driver was able to free herself.

The passenger was freed from the vehicle within 30 minutes, according to the fire department.

A medical helicopter landed on the highway and took the passenger to UMass Memorial Medical Center—University Campus in Worcester. The driver was taken to the same hospital by ambulance.

The accident is under investigation by the state police.

His left eye bruised and swollen shut, Australian golfer Robert Allenby is still shaking over a beating and robbery that left him unable to remember anything except being dumped in a gutter near a park of homeless people.

HONOLULU -- His left eye bruised and swollen shut, Australian golfer Robert Allenby is still shaking over a beating and robbery that left him unable to remember anything except being dumped in a gutter near a park of homeless people.

"You think ... that happens in the movie, not real life," Allenby told The Associated Press by phone Sunday. "I'm just happy to be alive."

Allenby posted a photo to his private Facebook account showing a bloodied scrape on his forecast and the bridge of his nose. He said that came from being tossed from the trunk of a car. He said the bruise on his left eye must have come from being beaten in the car.

"I don't know what they hit me with between the eyeballs, whether a fist or a baseball bat," he said. "Whatever it was, it hurts."

Allenby missed the Sony Open cut and then went to Amuse Wine Bar in Honolulu on Friday night with his caddie and a friend from Australia. He had been to the bar earlier in the week, thought it was a trendy spot and wanted to try the restaurant. Allenby remembers having dinner, a few glasses of red wine and that was about it.

Even after he returned to the bar on Saturday with police and watched tape from a surveillance camera that showed him leaving with four people, he doesn't know who they were or even leaving the bar. Allenby said he has no recollection until getting kicked and prodded by homeless people searching for whatever he had left.

Allenby said his wallet, cash, driver's license, PGA Tour badge and cellphone were taken. All he had on him in the gutter were two receipts, the American Express card to pay for dinner that he put loosely in his pockets and a watch.

He said the receipt showed that he paid for dinner at 10:06 p.m. Friday, and paid for the wine at 10:48. He said the restaurant closed at 11 p.m.

Allenby said he was checked out by the doctors, but he did not have a blood test to determine if he was drugged.

"I did ask to get a blood test, but they said it was probably out of your system," he said.

The Honolulu Police Department did not return repeated calls. TV station KHON2 in Honolulu reported Saturday that the matter was being investigated as second-degree robbery.

The image of Allenby's face, which he posted to Facebook, was a jarring image in the middle of a golf tournament. Webb Simpson ran into Allenby went he got back to the hotel last night.

"I could believe what happened to him," Simpson said.

Allenby said surveillance cameras showed his friend Anthony Puntoriero talking to someone in the bar.

"I think that was a decoy, a distraction," Allenby said. "I went to the bathroom, came out of the bathroom and was told that Anthony had left and was downstairs waiting for me. I go downstairs and then, bang! They knock me out and take me six or seven miles away."

He said the tape showed one man put a hand on Allenby's shoulder.

"I seriously don't even remember meeting these people," he said. "That's what is weird. All I know is that I was walking very quietly with them and normal. It didn't make any sense at all."

Allenby said a homeless woman told him he was thrown out of the car, but the ordeal wasn't over just yet. He said several homeless were "kicking me to see if I was alive, and then trying to steal everything else from me."

He said a man who said he was in the Army came to his aid. Instead of calling an ambulance or the police, Allenby said he wanted to go back to the Kahala Resort at Waialae Country Club because "I just wanted to be in a safe place."

Allenby said he called daughter Lily, who turned 13 on Saturday, and she was sobbing.

He said his body felt fine except for the swollen left eye and scrapes on his face. He was hoping to make his flight Sunday night to Los Angeles, and then he would decide if he was fit to play the Humana Challenge next week in La Quinta, California.

Allenby has 22 wins worldwide, including four on the PGA Tour, the last one in 2001. He has played in the Presidents Cup six times.

"I'm still shaking, still scared," he said. "It's just so surreal, just amazing. How does that happen to me? I went from one area where I could have died to another area where I got dumped and homeless people are trying to mug me even more. Sometimes we're all naive. We only think this happens in the movies."

The heavy rain should hold off until the end or after the end of the AFC Championship game.

SPRINGFIELD - Temperatures are slowly warming in the Pioneer Valley Sunday evening and are expected to melt some of the worst of the icy roads throughout the region.

But it isn't all good news. Heavy rain will continue to pour over the region until about 10 p.m. as temperatures rise into the mid 30s, said Mike Skurko, meteorologist for CBS 3, media partners with The Republican and Masslive.

"Temperatures are continuing to slowly warm up so the worst of the icing conditions are over for now," he said. "The worst of the driving was this morning."

Police over a dozen communities reported accidents due to the freezing rain. A West Springfield car accident shut down the dry bridge over the CSX rail line on Route 20 east and west bound.

Even at 5 p.m. police in Holyoke , Chicopee, Southampton and Springfield police were calling for additional crews to sand and salt icy hills throughout the communities.

But the winter weather is not completely over. Around midnight the rain will taper off and mix with snow flurries, mainly in the higher elevations, Skurko said.

"Flurries will continue, mainly in the Berkshires. It will mix with snow in higher elevations and they could see a coating to two inches from midnight through (Monday)," he said.

The Connecticut River Valley was hit with the worst of the freezing rain. Temperatures hovered at 33 degrees for much of the day while they rose to 40 degrees in Pittsfield in the early morning and stayed there, he said.

"Cold air likes to settle in the lowest part of the valley possible. It is hard to get rid of the cold pocket of air so temperatures were stuck in the Springfield area," he said.

Even ski country didn't get lucky. Northern Vermont ski areas were reporting early morning snow followed by rain. Many are expecting snow later in the evening.

But the good news is the worst of the rain is supposed to hold off in Foxboro where the New England Patriots will play the Indianapolis Colts for the AFC Championship at Gillette Stadium. It will be drizzling and about 40 degrees at the 6:30 p.m. kickoff and expected to remain like that for most of the game, Skurko said.

"It is going to be dreary but any downpour wouldn't be a concern until the end of the game," and it is possible it may hold off until the game is completed, he said.

The focus of the Boston Marathon bombing trial figures to be as much on what punishment Dzhokhar Tsarnaev could face as on his responsibility for the attack.

WASHINGTON -- The focus of the Boston Marathon bombing trial figures to be as much on what punishment Dzhokhar Tsarnaev could face as on his responsibility for the attack.

With testimony expected to start later this month, the Justice Department has given no indication it is open to any proposal from the defense to spare Tsarnaev's life, pushing instead toward a trial that could result in a death sentence for the 21-year-old defendant.

In a deadly terror case that killed three people, including a child, and jolted the city, there may be little incentive for prosecutors who believe they have incontrovertible evidence to negotiate away their ability to seek the maximum penalty possible.

"There would be now, in my judgment, no reason for the government to reverse course and not let 12 citizens decide if the death penalty is appropriate," said Larry Mackey, a former Justice Department prosecutor involved in the case of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, who was executed in 2001.

The prospect of a death sentence, a rare punishment in the federal system, raises the stakes of a trial that will revisit in gory detail the 2013 attack that also injured more than 260. Should the jury find Tsarnaev guilty, it would then decide in a separate penalty phase whether he should be sentenced to death. Jury selection is underway and the judge has said he hopes to begin testimony on Jan. 26.

Only three federal inmates, including McVeigh, have been put to death since 2001. Recent botched executions at the state level have placed the practice under scrutiny, with President Barack Obama directing the Justice Department last year to investigate how the death penalty is applied across the nation.

Despite his own personal reservations about the death penalty, Attorney General Eric Holder says the government is committed to seeking that punishment for Tsarnaev. Prosecutors have cited factors including a "lack of remorse," the evident premeditation involved in the attack and allegations that Tsarnaev also killed an MIT police officer after the bombing that left an 8-year-old boy dead.

"The nature of the conduct at issue and the resultant harm compel this decision," Holder said in a statement last January.

There has been no indication the government has wavered in that decision, even though one of Tsarnaev's lawyers, Judy Clarke, has gotten prosecutors to spare the lives of multiple high-profile killers, including Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, Olympic Park bomber Eric Rudolph and Jared Loughner, who killed six people and wounded former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.

But there's also no predicting how a trial will play out, including whether a conviction would result in a death sentence -- particularly in liberal Massachusetts, which abolished its state death penalty in 1984. In a bid to save his life, defense lawyers may hope to cast Tsarnaev as an impressionable young man pressured into participating in the attack by his older brother, Tamerlan, who died after a firefight with police days after the bombing.

Gerald Zerkin, a Virginia defense lawyer who represented Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui, who is now serving a life sentence, said there are obvious benefits for the government to accept a plea in death penalty cases, including to reduce the uncertainty of a trial and to spare victims and their loved ones from reliving the horrific facts of a case.

"You can get a resolution that is life without parole, and you could do it for a lot less money, a lot less time, a lot fewer resources" and without "re-traumatizing victims," Zerkin said.

Rob Owen, a professor who runs a death penalty case clinic at Northwestern University, said a death sentence will result in years of legal appeals whereas a guilty plea would presumably help the case fade faster from public attention.

But with the trial's opening arguments less than two weeks away, any window for a deal to spare Tsarnaev's life has likely closed and there's little reason for the government to entertain the possibility, Mackey said.

"The calculus was done, I'm sure in this case, the day after the bombing, when people were faced full-front with the ugly scenario left on the streets of Boston," he said.

Sunday brought freezing rain, icy roads and plenty of accidents.

The weather has been, well, wintery this week.

The week started with a few inches of snow on Monday that forced dozens of schools to close, some for the third day in a row. The cancellations brought a flurry of "our kids are soft" complaints from people who apparently did walk to school uphill both ways for miles in snowstorms and zero degree temperatures.

A cold snap that lasted more than two weeks meant it felt positively balmy when temperatures eased into the high 20s on Friday. Of course that didn't last long when the cold roared back Friday afternoon bringing blustery winds and temperatures in the teens.

A below-20 degree day Saturday was followed by, not snow, but freezing rain most of the day Sunday as temperatures sneaked up to 32 degrees. The freezing rain, of course, coated the highway and side streets with ice causing many accidents Sunday.

Temperatures are expected to stay in the normal range for January, between 25 and 30 degrees next week. Some flurries are expected Monday and Wednesday.

Here are some the things people were Tweeting about the weather in Western Massachusetts.

There have been multiple accidents throughout Western Massachusetts.

WEST SPRINGFIELD - Two tractor trailer accidents on either side of the Massachusetts Turnpike has partly closed the highway and slowed traffic near Exit 4.

"We are telling people to use extreme caution," Massachusetts State Police Sgt. George Hamilton said.

Freezing rain is continuing throughout Western Massachusetts Sunday evening causing accidents on a wide variety of roads throughout the area.

The accidents on the Massachusetts Turnpike happened at about 6:45 p.m. One truck traveling eastbound crashed on the icy roads in the high speed lane. That lane is expected to be closed for some time and motorists are advised to slow down and use caution in the right lane, Hamilton said.

The second accident happened at about the same time in the westbound lanes of the Massachusetts Turnpike. It also occurred in the high speed lane and the two other lanes are open for traffic, he said.

Neither driver is believed to have been seriously injured in the accidents.

The speed on the Turnpike has been reduced to 40 miles an hour because of the icy conditions, Hamilton said.

There have also been multiple reports of cars spinning off the road in other locations on the Turnpike, he said.

Police in other communities have been reporting multiple accidents in the evening.

In Springfield there have been a number of accidents but no major injuries, Police Lt. Brian Keenan said.

"It is very slippery and icy on the hills," he said. "People need to slow down."

Holyoke Police closed Bemis Road following an accident caused by icy conditions. There have also been problems on Lower Westfield Road near Ingleside and Cabot Street was closed because of ice, Sgt. Brian Chirgwin said.

The Vermont State Police is asking motorists to limit driving to emergencies.

BRATTLEBORO, VT - Due to icy conditions, Interstate 91 between Exit 3 in Brattleboro and Exit 5 in Bellows Falls is closed.

The Vermont State Police is asking motorist to limit driving to absolute emergencies.

"The roads are extremely icy and forecast to become worse as the night progresses," police officials said.

As of about 7:30 p.m. Sunday, Interstate-91 was closed between Exit 3 and Exit 5 and will be closed because of a tractor trailer accident.

The accident happened at about 6 p.m. when a tractor trailer truck jackknifed, blocking the passing lane. Because of the ice and snow, several other vehicles slid into guardrails, police said.

The tractor trailer truck was totaled in the accident. Police did not say if the driver, who is from North Carolina, was injured in the crash.

Federal regulators are investigating whether Ford Motor Co. should expand a 2013 safety recall of diesel trucks.

DETROIT -- Federal regulators are investigating whether Ford Motor Co. should expand a 2013 safety recall of diesel trucks.

The previous recall involved 2,951 F-350, F-450 and F-550 trucks sold with ambulance packages. The trucks were equipped with 6.7-liter diesel engines that could stall because of a malfunctioning sensor. Ford replaced the sensors for free.

But since then, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says it has received complaints from truck owners who didn't have the ambulance packages as well as owners who got the first repair.

The government is now investigating to see whether the first recall repair worked, and whether Ford should expand the recall to cover all of the 200,000 diesel-equipped trucks it sold from the 2011 and 2012 model years.

Ford spokeswoman Kelli Felker says the company is cooperating with the investigation.

Vermont State Police said she was wearing a helmet and proper riding gear.

BETHEL, VT - A 67-year-old woman was killed Sunday afternoon while riding a snowmobile in the freezing rain and snow.

Dorithy Wilson, of Bethel, was riding alone at about 3:30 p.m. on private land on Sanders Road. A preliminary investigation showed she lost control on a difficult section of the trail, struck a log and was thrown from the snowmobile. She sustained injuries which lead to her death, according to Vermont State Police officials.

She was wearing a helmet and proper riding gear at the time of the accident, police said.

The accident remains under investigation by the Vermont State Police and the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. Bethel Fire assisted at the accident scene.

In honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day 2015, celebrities descended upon the town of Selma, Alabama, on Sunday to honor the holiday's namesake civil-rights pioneer.

In honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day 2015, celebrities descended upon the town of Selma, Alabama, on Sunday to honor the holiday's namesake civil-rights pioneer. 

According to AL.com, Stars of the Oscar-nominated biopic "Selma" (including Oprah Winfrey and David Oyelowo) as well as soundtrack contributors John Legend and Common led a song- and sign-filled march from Selma City Hall to the Edmund Pettis Bridge.  

About to march in Selma! #MarchOn http://t.co/yjpo0CY4LK

-- COMMON (@common) January 18, 2015

Selma is Now! #MarchOn http://t.co/9krQUqgQSJ

-- COMMON (@common) January 19, 2015

Happy Super Soul Sunday every 1. We're in Selma celebrating @SelmaMovie . How cool is that!

-- Oprah Winfrey (@Oprah) January 18, 2015

Such a joy, a privilege, an honor to be in the city of Selma today with my parents, my siblings + my #SelmaFilm family. Onward! #SelmaisNow

-- Ava DuVernay (@AVAETC) January 18, 2015

John Legend in #Selma, in Selma today. pic.twitter.com/Nw4bxjpsWl

-- Julie Bennett (@bennettphoto) January 18, 2015

The rally, which was prefaced by a Sunday afternoon Q&A session that drew over 100 Alabama students, culminated in a surprise concert at the foot of the bridge.

I had the honor of performing #Glory with @common and the Tuskegee University Gospel Choir on the... http://t.co/bjFGFVd07g

-- John Legend (@johnlegend) January 19, 2015

But Selma's celebration of King's memory was just one of a sea of commemorations held across the country over the past week. 

Lynda Blackmon Lowery, the youngest marcher from the 1965 Selma civil-rights march that inspired the movie, reminisced on her experience at the historic rally during a New York City Historical Society event on Sunday, according to the Associated Press.

And MTV is slated to broadcast 12 hours of Monday's programming in black and white, the AP said, in order to promote dialogue on race as part of #TheTalk initiative.

How will you be remembering Dr. King on Monday?  Whether you plan on honoring him through service, song, scholarship or something entirely different, share whatever celebration you have in store (as well as info on any interesting commemorations we may have missed) in the comments.

One man was seriously injured when his car ran off the side of Cape Street in Lee, and struck two utility polces.

Dwight B. Shepard | dshepard@repub.com 

Lee Police told the Berkshire Eagle that the unidentified man was driving his 2012 Volkswagen GLI on Cape Street, also Route 20 east, just after 12:30 p.m. Saturday, when the car went out of control and veered off the right side of the street. The car continued along the right shoulder of the street and struck two utility poles.

The man was alone in his car at the time of the crash. He was taken to the Berkshire Medical Center, but later transferred to the Albany Medical Center in New York. The victim's name is being withheld pending notification of family.

Lee police continue to investigate the incident.

Most Massachusetts banks will close on Monday.

SPRINGFIELD — The Rev. Dr. Martin Lither King Jr. was born 86 years ago on Jan. 15, but the federal holiday honoring his legacy of peace, freedom and civil rights will be celebrated this year on Monday, Jan. 19.

Not all holidays are treated the same, however, so here is a list of what is open and what is closed:

Federal offices:

Post offices and mail delivery: closed

State offices

Closed

Banks

The Massachusetts Bankers Association said that most banks will be closed on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

State law does allow banks discretion, however. So the Bankers Association asks customers to check with their bank.

Stores, including liquor stores:

Open. But double check with individual locations. Massachusetts recognizes the federal King holiday, but it does not impose restrictions on businesses or require holiday pay for workers on Martin Luther King Day. The Secretary of State's office has a handy explainer at www.sec.state.ma.

FedEx and UPS

Both the FedEx [pdf] and UPS delivery services will operate as normal, according to their websites.

Peter Pan Bus Lines

Springfield-based Peter Pan advises travelers that schedules are subject to change and delays are expected due to traffic patterns over the holiday travel period.

It asks customers to arrive at departure locations at least 45 minutes in advance and have e-tickets printed and valid photo ID available.

Peter Pan's Book Your Trip tool page has updates and information on specific routes.

Bradley international Airport

The holiday week is a busy time for travel. The airport asks travelers to plan accordingly and to follow it on Twitter.

MBTA

Christopher Clark Road has been officially closed to hikers since the Oct. 8 microburst.

EASTHAMPTON -- A female hiker fell on the ice and hit her head while hiking on Mount Tom Sunday morning, according to Easthampton public safety dispatch.

The hiker fell on Christopher Clark Road and was transported to Holyoke Hospital via Easthampton ambulance; the ambulance was deployed in response to a mutual aid request from American Medical Response, which serves Holyoke, said the dispatcher.

The call for help came in around 11:15 a.m. 

The paved access road from Route 141 into Mount Tom Reservation, a state park, is closed to vehicles for the season. Hiking and driving have been further restricted from the park entrance since an Oct. 8 microburst downed thousands of trees on the mountain's northwest slope.

Christopher Clark Road crosses through both Easthampton and Holyoke.

The injured hiker's identity and condition were not available Sunday night. Icy conditions Sunday contributed to dozens of motor vehicle accidents around the region.

The Cincinnati Fire Department said the collapse onto southbound interstate 75 happened near Hopple Street around 10:30 p.m.

CINCINNATI -- A construction worker was killed and a tractor-trailer driver injured when an interstate overpass undergoing demolition collapsed in Cincinnati, fire and emergency medical officials said.

The Cincinnati Fire Department said the collapse onto southbound interstate 75 happened near Hopple Street north of downtown at about 10:30 p.m. Monday.

Police Chief Jeff Blackwell called it a workplace accident, saying crews were taking down the old bridge when something went "terribly wrong."

Panorama view of the bridge collapse on south I-75 in Cincinnati. This was the old northbound off ramp to Hopple St pic.twitter.com/yMOEcP1Jxp

-- Cincy Fire & EMS (@CincyFireEMS) January 20, 2015

"The big-rig driver is very lucky; in a matter of seconds his fate would have probably been different," Blackwell said.

The driver was taken to the University of Cincinnati Medical Center with minor injuries.

Fire officials said the tractor-trailer struck the collapsed section as the bridge hit the ground. They said the construction worker was killed in the collapse. His name was not immediately released.

Blackwell said the city will work with the Department of Transportation to figure out what happened. He said several hundred tons of concrete had to be removed from the road.

The southbound lanes of I-75 would be closed for at least 48 hours, officials said.

A witness told WLWT5 that he heard "a real big boom" and then a couple of seconds later he saw police cars rushing to the scene.

There was a time when Stephen Strasburg's name was spoken with the same sense of pitching royalty as Clayton Kershaw's.

These were the most read stories on MassLive.com yesterday. If you missed any of them, click on the links below to read them now. The most viewed item overall was the gallery of photos showing the inside the new Shortstop Bar and Grill in Westfield, above.

1) Report: NFL investigating possibility that Patriots deflated footballs Sunday vs. Colts [Kevin Duffy]

2) Springfield police raid East Forest Park home, find drugs, fireworks [Patrick Johnson]

3) What Stephen Strasburg could bring to the Boston Red Sox [Jason Mastrodonato]

4) Restaurant review: Joe's Cafe in Northampton [Fran Bellamy]

5) Springfield police investigate car jacking and armed robbery [Dave Canton]