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VAN BUREN, Mo. (AP) -- A young Missouri lawmaker who promised a "fresh approach" and denounced "reckless spending in Washington" won the Republican nomination Saturday to replace resigned U.S. Rep. Jo Ann Emerson.

State Rep. Jason Smith prevailed after six rounds of voting by an 84-person committee of local Republican leaders and immediately became the favorite in a June 4 special election in the GOP-leaning 8th District.

"We're going to win this seat," Smith declared to the applause of fellow Republicans after accepting the nomination. "The fiscal responsibility in Washington, D.C., is what's destroying our country, and we've got to take control of it and get it back," he added.

At age 32, Smith would be one of the younger members of Congress, but he already has plenty of experience as a lawmaker. Smith won a special election to the Missouri House of Representatives in November 2005 and, because of term limits, is now one of the most senior members of the chamber. After serving as majority party whip, his colleagues elected him in January as House speaker pro tem - the No. 2 ranking position.

On Saturday, he defeated nine other GOP candidates, including Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder, former state Sen. Jason Crowell and former state party Chairman Lloyd Smith, who had been Emerson's chief of staff.

Missouri's 8th Congressional District is one of three vacant seats in the nation, but it's the only one where party leaders - not voters - are choosing the candidates. Democrats are to select their nominee next weekend.

Emerson, 62, resigned Jan. 22 to become president and CEO of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, ending a 32-year run of family representation in Congress. Her late husband, Republican Rep. Bill Emerson, first won the seat in 1980 and served until he died of lung cancer in June 1996. Jo Ann Emerson then won an election to succeed her husband and rarely faced a formidable challenge thereafter.

Missouri's sprawling 8th District stretches south from the outer suburbs of St. Louis to the agricultural-base of the Missouri Bootheel and westward to the rolling Ozark hills. The district's residents are the poorest and least educated in Missouri, with a median household income of less than $36,000 and more than 85 percent lacking college bachelor's degrees.

A resident of rural Salem, Smith touted the fact that he drove 10,000 miles to all 30 counties in the district and visited with each committee member over the past two months. Smith is a man of many trades. He owns a fourth-generation family farm with about 30 cattle, is an attorney and also a partner in a real estate business.

During a speech Saturday before committee members began voting, Smith pledged to "bring a fresh approach" to conservative policies without trying to "speak and yell the loudest." He lead after each round of voting, gradually pick up more support as other candidates were dropped from the ballot.

Smith described himself as more conservative than U.S. House Speaker John Boehner and said his goal is "to cooperate but not compromise on your core values." He asserted that President Barack Obama and "Washington, D.C., liberals" are twisting the words of the Declaration of Independence by trying to "guarantee happiness" instead of simply assuring people have the right to pursue happiness.

Federal spending, Obama's health care law and policies that "tax the rich to give to the poor" all are making the country "less American," Smith said. "It makes us less independent, less prosperous and less free." Because there was no traditional primary, there was no mass media advertising and little need for candidates to fund raise. Consequently, the campaign was intensely personal. Many candidates met face-to-face with committee members in their homes, coffee shops or at public forums. On the eve of Saturday's meeting, for example, the eventual finalists all dined at the same restaurant in Van Buren - each seated at separate tables conversing with committee members. Their handshake campaigning continued up to the last minute before the meeting was gaveled into session Saturday.

Smith portrayed a less confrontational style than some of the other finalists.

Kinder, for example, had pledged to be Boehner's "worst headache" if he didn't get spending under control. Crowell had emphasized his record of shutting down debate in the state Senate to block spending with which he disagreed. Lloyd Smith had declared federal debt to be the "new red menace" that is destroying the nation's future.

BIG BEAR LAKE, Calif. (AP) -- More than 100 officers fanned out again at daybreak Saturday in the snow-covered San Bernardino Mountains, resuming the search for the former Los Angeles police officer suspected of going on a deadly rampage to get back at those he blamed for ending his career. Authorities hope clearer skies will allow aircraft to help them in the manhunt for Christopher Dorner, which entered its fourth day Saturday. Relentless snowfall on Friday grounded helicopters with heat-sensing technology and hampered their effort to find Dorner, whose burned-out pickup truck was found a day earlier in this ski resort town. SWAT teams in camouflage scoured the mountains and went door-to-door examining vacant cabins, aware to the reality they could be walking into a trap set by the well-trained former Navy reservist who knows their tactics and strategies as well as they do. "He can be behind every tree," said T. Gregory Hall, a retired tactical supervisor for a special emergency response team for the Pennsylvania State Police. "He can try to draw them into an ambush area where he backtracks." As authorities weathered heavy snow and freezing temperatures in the mountains, thousands of heavily armed police remained on the lookout throughout California, Nevada, Arizona and northern Mexico for a suspect bent on revenge and willing to die. Police said officers still were guarding more than 40 people mentioned as targets in a rant they said Dorner posted on Facebook. He vowed to use "every bit of small arms training, demolition, ordnance and survival training I've been given" to bring "warfare" to the LAPD and its families. The manhunt had Southern California residents on edge. Unconfirmed sightings were reported near Barstow, about 60 miles north of the mountain search, and in downtown Los Angeles. Some law enforcement officials said he appeared to be everywhere and nowhere, and speculated that he was trying to spread out their resources. For the time being, their focus was on the mountains 80 miles east of Los Angeles - a snowy wilderness, filled with thick forests and jagged peaks, that creates peril as much for Dorner as the officers hunting him. The small army hunting him has the advantage of strength in numbers and access to resources, such as special weapons, to bring him in. In his online rant, Dorner baited authorities. "Any threat assessments you generate will be useless," it read. "I have the strength and benefits of being unpredictable, unconventional, and unforgiving." Without the numbers that authorities have, Dorner holds one advantage: the element of surprise. Authorities said they do not know how long Dorner had been planning the rampage or why he drove to the San Bernardino Mountains. Property records show his mother owns undeveloped land nearby, but a search of the area found no sign of him. It was not clear if he had provisions, clothing or weapons stockpiled in the area. Even with training, days of cold and snow can be punishing. "Unless he is an expert in living in the California mountains in this time of year, he is going to be hurting," said former Navy SEAL Clint Sparks, who now works in tactical training and security. "Cold is a huge stress factor. ... Not everybody is survivor-man." Jamie Usera, an attorney in Salem, Ore., who befriended Dorner when they were students and football teammates at Southern Utah University, said he introduced him to the outdoors. Originally from Alaska, Usera said, he taught Dorner about hunting and other outdoor activities. "Of all the people I hung out with in college, he is the last guy I would have expected to be in this kind of situation," Usera, who had lost touch with Dorner is recent years, told the Los Angeles Times. Others saw Dorner differently. Court documents obtained by The Associated Press on Friday show an ex-girlfriend of Dorner's called him "severely emotionally and mentally disturbed" after the two split in 2006. Dorner served in the Navy, earning a rifle marksman ribbon and pistol expert medal. He was assigned to a naval undersea warfare unit and various aviation training units, according to military records. He took leave from the LAPD for a six-month deployment to Bahrain in 2006 and 2007. Last Friday was his last day with the Navy and also the day CNN's Anderson Cooper received a package that contained a note on it that read, in part, "I never lied." A coin riddled with bullet holes that former Chief William Bratton gave out as a souvenir was also in the package. Police said it was a sign of planning by Dorner before the killing began. On Sunday, police say Dorner shot and killed a couple in a parking garage at their condominium in Irvine. The woman was the daughter of a retired police captain who had represented Dorner in the disciplinary proceedings that led to his firing. Dorner wrote in his manifesto that he believed the retired captain had represented the interests of the department over his. Hours after authorities identified Dorner as a suspect in the double murder, police believe Dorner shot and grazed an LAPD officer in Corona and then used a rifle to ambush two Riverside police officers early Thursday, killing one and seriously wounding the other. The incident led police to believe he was armed with multiple weapons, including an assault-type rifle. That detail concerned officers whose bullet-proof vests can be penetrated by such high-powered weapons, said LAPD Deputy Chief Kirk Albanese. As a result, all LAPD officers have been required to work in pairs to ensure "a greater likelihood of coming out on top if there is an ambush," Albanese said. "We have no officers alone right now."

BOSTON (AP) -- A behemoth storm packing hurricane-force wind gusts and blizzard conditions swept through the Northeast overnight, where more than 650,000 homes and businesses in the densely populated region lost power, roads were impassable and New Englanders awoke Saturday to more than 2 feet of snow. More than 38 inches of snow fell in Milford in central Connecticut, and an 82-mph wind gust was recorded in nearby Westport. Areas of southeastern Massachusetts, Rhode Island and New Hampshire notched at least 2 feet - with more falling. Airlines scratched more than 5,300 flights through Saturday, and the three major airports serving New York City as well as Boston's Logan Airport closed. Flooding was also a concern along the coast. The possibility led to the evacuation of two neighborhoods in Quincy, Mass., south of Boston, and of 20 to 30 people in oceanfront homes in Salisbury in northeastern Massachusetts, authorities in those towns said. But it did not appear to create major problems in New York and New Jersey, states hit hardest during last October's Superstorm Sandy. Snow piled up so high in some places Saturday that people couldn't open their doors to get outside. Streets were mostly deserted throughout New England save for plow crews and a few hardy souls walking dogs or venturing out to take pictures. In Boston's Financial District, the only sound was an army of snowblowers clearing sidewalks. Streets in many places were inaccessible. Even the U.S. Postal Service closed post offices and suspended mail delivery Saturday in New England. Some of the worst of the storm appeared to hit Connecticut, where all roads were ordered closed Saturday. The snow made travel nearly impossible even for emergency responders who found themselves stuck on highways all night. In the shoreline community of Fairfield, police and firefighters could not come in to work, so the overnight shift was staying on duty, said First Selectman Michael Tetreau. "It's a real challenge out there," Tetreau said. "The roads are not passable at this point. We are asking everyone to stay home and stay safe." Nearly 22 inches of snow fell in Boston and up to 3 feet was expected, the National Weather Service said, threatening the city's 2003 record of 27.6 inches. In the heavily Catholic city, the archdiocese urged parishioners to be prudent and reminded them that, under church law, the requirement to attend Sunday Mass "does not apply when there is grave difficulty in fulfilling this obligation." Gov. Deval Patrick enacted a statewide driving ban for the first time since the Blizzard of `78, a ferocious storm that dropped 27 inches of snow, packed hurricane-force winds and claimed dozens of lives. "This is crazy. I mean it's just nuts," said Eileen O'Brien, 56, of blacked-out Sagamore Beach, Mass., clearing heavy snow from her deck for fear it might collapse. As the pirate flag outside her door snapped and popped in gale-force winds Saturday, she pointed to the snowman she'd built 16 hours earlier, when her mood and the snow were both lighter - and the Upper Cape village still had power. "My thermostat keeps dropping. Right now it's 54 inside, and I don't have any wood," said O'Brien, a respiratory care practitioner. "There's nothing I can do to keep warm except maybe start the grill and make some coffee." In downtown Topsfield, north of Boston, most stores were dark and blocked off by snowdrifts, but the convenience store where Kim Mitchell works was lit and shoveled out and had been open since 5 a.m. Mitchell, 48, lives in neighboring Ipswich but stayed overnight with a friend who lives within walking distance of the store so she could get to work. One customer, Jack Donaher, general manager of a nearby farm and garden store, was buying coffee and pastries and headed back to keep clearing out the store lot for possible reopening Sunday. The weather and statewide driving ban had limited his workforce. "One showed up," he said. "There was supposed to be four." The wind-whipped snowstorm mercifully arrived at the start of a weekend, which meant fewer cars on the road and extra time for sanitation crews to clear the mess before commuters in the New York-to-Boston region of roughly 25 million people have to go back to work. But halfway through what had been a mild winter across the Northeast, it also could mean a weekend cooped up indoors. Road conditions were awful in New Hampshire, said Jim Pierce, who works for the state transportation department and plows driveways in Concord and surrounding towns as a side business. He started plowing about 6:30 a.m. "It takes quite a bit to push this back," he said. "It's fluffy, but there's a lot of it." About 650,000 customers in the Northeast lost power during the height of the snowstorm, most of them in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. The Pilgrim Nuclear Power Plant in Plymouth, Mass., lost electricity and shut down Friday night during the storm. Authorities say there's no threat to public safety. At least six deaths were blamed on the storm, including three in Canada. In southern Ontario, an 80-year-old woman collapsed while shoveling her driveway and two men were killed in car crashes. One pedestrian was struck by a vehicle and killed Friday night in Prospect, Conn., and a 23-year-old New York man plowing his driveway with a farm tractor went off the edge of the road and was killed, police in those states said. Rhode Island's governor ordered residents to stay off the roads. Typically busy streets in Providence were empty Saturday as the wind blew snow into drifts that buried cars and parking lots. No injuries or significant accidents were reported on state highways, authorities said, though many cars will have to be dug out of snow drifts. Several state police cars were also stuck in deep snow in Maine, where stranded drivers were warned to expect long waits for tow trucks or other assistance. Early snowfall was blamed for a 19-car pileup Friday in Cumberland, Maine, that caused minor injuries. In New York, hundreds of cars got stuck on the Long Island Expressway on Friday, and dozens remained disabled early Saturday as police worked to free them. A little more than 11 inches fell in New York City, but the city was "in great shape" Saturday, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said, and he said streets would be cleared by the end of the day. Still, native New Yorker Efrain Burgos took no chances. "I took the subway for the first time in 10 years," he said. For Joe DeMartino, of Fairfield, Conn., being overprepared for the weather was impossible: His wife was expecting their first baby Sunday. He stocked up on gas and food, got firewood ready and was installing a baby seat in the car. The couple also packed for the hospital. "They say that things should clear up by Sunday. We're hoping that they're right," he said. Said his wife, Michelle: "It adds an element of excitement."