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• ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) -- Stormy weather across the West blamed in eight deaths moved steadily eastward, prompting alerts of wintry conditions in New Mexico and Texas.
• Forecasters said the storm system in the West would sweep across the South and toward the Atlantic coast the coming week, causing problems for holiday travelers.
• The "Nordic outbreak" will "produce a mixed bag of wily weather that will end up impacting much of the nation," National Weather Service meteorologist Joe Harris said.
• With a winter storm warning in effect for parts of New Mexico, snow was falling across much of the state early Sunday and forecasters predicted up to 5 inches for many areas.
• The state Department of Transportation said motorists on several major roadways, including parts of Interstate 40, faced difficult driving conditions because of packed snow and ice, while some roads in the south were closed. Low temps were predicted to be mainly in the 20s statewide.
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• SOROK ISLAND, South Korea (AP) -- Kang Sun Bong once considered this tiny island a "hell on earth," a place where hospital workers beat the leprosy patients exiled here and forced them into harsh labor, sterilizations and abortions. But three years ago, old, sick and broke, Kang returned to the place he'd been banished with his mother decades ago.
• His savings wiped out by cancer treatment, the 74-year-old now hopes to live the rest of his life with hundreds of other former patients on Sorok Island, which sits off South Korea's southwestern tip and has become a mini-welfare state.
• Despite the misery many say they endured here, dozens are returning each year, partly for the free medical care, food and housing offered to former sufferers of the disease. But the onetime place of exile has also become a peaceful refuge for many after years of discrimination and hardship, the only place they feel at home.

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