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• As much as 2 feet of snow could fall on a region that has seen mostly bare ground this winter, the National Weather Service said. That's exciting for resort operators who haven't had much snow this year.
• The storm would hit just after the 35th anniversary of the historic blizzard of 1978, which paralyzed the region with more than 2 feet of snow and hurricane force winds from Feb. 5-7.
• "This has the potential for being a dangerous storm, especially for Massachusetts into northeast Connecticut and up into Maine," said Louis Uccellini, director of the weather agency's National Centers for Environmental Prediction.
• Uccellini, who has written two textbooks on Northeastern snowstorms, said Wednesday it was too early to tell if the storm would be one for the record books. But he said it will be a rare and major storm, the type that means "you can't let your guard down."
• ___

• CASTLE ROCK, Colo. (AP) -- Stunned by the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings in Connecticut, police and school officials in one Colorado county felt they had to do something to reassure students.
• Their solution: Have police officers on patrol do their arrest reports and other paperwork in school parking lots, rather than simply pulling off the road or returning to the police station.
• It's had an immediate calming impact at a time when the nation is embroiled in the emotional debate over gun control and gun violence.
• "The kids get to see us in a new light. We're not showing up after something bad has happened," said Sgt. Chris O'Neal of the Douglas County Sheriff's Department south of Denver.
• O'Neal spoke while filling out paperwork outside Fox Creek Elementary School -- one of six schools he visits daily.
• ___

• WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama is promoting his second-term agenda to House Democrats, eager to keep them unified as a bulwark against a Republican majority on issues as diverse as the economy, immigration and guns.

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