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accumulations ever recorded. Still, coastal areas were largely spared catastrophic damage despite being lashed by strong waves and hurricane-force wind gusts at the height of the storm.
• Hundreds of people, their homes without heat or electricity, were forced to take refuge in emergency shelters set up in schools or other places. But by early Monday, outages had dropped to 149,970 -- more than 126,000 of them in Massachusetts.
• "For all the complaining everyone does, people really came through," said Rich Dinsmore, 65, of Newport, R.I., who was staying at a Red Cross shelter set up in a middle school in Middletown after the power went out in his home on Friday.
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Former Pentagon chief says lawmakers should have oversight of drone strikes against al-Qaida
• WASHINGTON (AP) -- Robert Gates, a former defense secretary and spymaster, is backing lawmakers' proposal to form a special court to review President Barack Obama's deadly drone strikes against Americans linked to al-Qaida.
• Gates, who led the Pentagon for Presidents George W. Bush and Obama and previously served as the Central Intelligence Agency's director, said Obama's use of the unmanned drones follows tight rules. But he shares lawmakers' wariness over using the unmanned aircraft to target al-Qaida operatives and allies.
• "I think that the rules and the practices that the Obama administration has followed are quite stringent and are not being abused. But who is to say about a future president?" Gates said in an interview broadcast Sunday.
• The use of remote-controlled drones -- Obama's weapon of choice to strike al-Qaida with lethal missiles in places such as Pakistan and Yemen -- earned headlines last week as lawmakers contemplated just how much leeway an American president should have in going after the nation's enemies, including its own citizens.
• "We are in a different kind of war. We're not sending troops. We're not sending manned bombers. We're dealing with the enemy where we find them to keep America safe. We have to strike a new constitutional balance with the challenges we face today," said Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill.
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