Yahoo Inc. has finally started to roll out new features designed to make its e-mail service more like the popular online hangouts Facebook and MySpace, following through on a promise made nearly a year ago.

With the additions announced Monday, Yahoo's roughly 275 million e-mail users will have the option of setting up their accounts so they can highlight communications from other people with whom they have formed an online connection.

The concept mirrors a premise that has turned privately held Facebook and News Corp.'s MySpace into two of the Web's hot spots for socializing over the past three years - a period that has coincided with a wrenching downturn at Yahoo.

After registering their profiles on Facebook and MySpace, people can use the sites to form online bonds with their friends and family so they can share personal information and keep track of each other's activities.

Yahoo also is copying Facebook and MySpace by opening its e-mail service to applications created by outside programmers. In a test that started Monday among a small number of e-mail users, Yahoo began offering applications developed for finding photos stored in their mailboxes, transferring information to blogs and sharing tips about movies.

The changes will turn Yahoo's e-mail service into a "scrapbook for your life," said John Kremer, a company vice president. "We hope opening up Yahoo mail will have a game-changing influence on the industry."

Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang offered the first glimpse at the Sunnyvale-based company's broader e-mail ambitions during a presentation at a consumer electronics show held in January.

Introducing the changes took time because Yahoo wanted to ensure it got the technology right and hoped to minimize disruption for users, said Ash Patel, who heads up the company's products. "We are very deliberate in the way we roll things out," he said.

The e-mail overhaul took so long to complete that Yang is now on the way out as Yahoo's chief executive. With Yahoo's stock price and earnings eroding under his leadership, Yang plans to step down as soon as a new CEO is found.

Besides tweaking its e-mail service, Yahoo plans to upgrade its toolbar for Web browsers. The improvements include the ability to check new messages coming into Yahoo e-mail and competing services as well as to receive notifications about their online connections' latest activities.

A Victorian Christmas Tour will be held at the home of Larry and Joyce Evans from 1-4 p.m. on Sunday, Dec. 21, at their home, 297 W. Coshocton Street in Johnstown. The Johnstown Lions Club is accepting reservations for local families who would like a home visit from Santa Claus on Monday, Dec. 22, beginning at 6:30 p.m.

Those interested should contact Bemiller-Sergakis Insurance, 740-967-2026, by Friday, Dec. 19.

Johnstown residents can be screened to reduce their risk of having a stroke. Life Line Screening will be at the Church of the Ascension, 555 South Main Street in Johnstown, on Tuesday, Dec. 16.

Students went home for a snow day, stranded travelers waited at airports and drivers slid across icy roads in the second day of a bitter cold wave that blanketed much of the nation Tuesday.

There was little relief in sight. Temperatures were forecast to drop below zero Wednesday in at least 12 states in the Midwest and West. A band of snow and sleet fell Tuesday from Minnesota to New Hampshire.

Dozens of schools closed in Kentucky, Arkansas and Tennessee, and some school districts in Illinois sent students home early Tuesday. Up to a half-foot of snow had fallen in parts of Kentucky.

"It's pretty treacherous," said Jodi Shacklette, a Kentucky State Police dispatcher in Elizabethtown. "We're working wrecks just left and right."

More than 300 flights were canceled at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport and about 50 were canceled at Midway Airport, said Department of Aviation spokesman Gregg Cunningham.

Police in northern Texas had to close some highway overpasses because they were so slippery with ice. In parts of Oklahoma, snow froze overnight and left a glaze of ice on roads, said John Pike, a weather service meteorologist.

Ski resorts near Flagstaff, Ariz., reported 8 to 12 inches of snow Tuesday and strong rain showers covered residents in Phoenix. Flash flood watches were issued for central Arizona through Wednesday night.

In Washington state, as much as 8 inches of snow was expected north of Seattle to the Canadian border and up to 2 feet of new snow was forecast in the Cascades.

Some of the sharpest cold Tuesday was in northern Minnesota, where Hibbing bottomed out at 32 below zero and International Falls dropped to 28 below. In the middle of the state, St. Cloud fell to 24 below, breaking its old record of 21 below set in 1963.

The weather service posted winter storm warnings Tuesday for parts of the Southwest - where New Mexico had numerous school closings, including those in Albuquerque - and the Ohio Valley.

In Oklahoma where daytime temperatures were mostly in the teens and lower 20s Tuesday, David McElyea complained that the cold made his construction work harder at an unheated home in Oklahoma City.

"All the materials I carry around in my van - buckets of water and drywall - are frozen right now," McElyea said.

Winter weather advisories were in effect across the Midwest and from Texas to New England, where utilities were still repairing power lines snapped by last week's devastating ice storm.

New Hampshire utilities reported roughly about 106,000 homes and businesses still without power Tuesday, down from a peak of 430,000. Central Maine Power said fewer than 7,850 customers were still in the dark and a spokesman said it expected to have power restored Wednesday. About 70,000 customers are still waiting for service in Massachusetts, state officials said.

New Hampshire residents were warned Tuesday that some of them might have to wait until next week for electricity.

"It's fair to say there may be some pockets of customers that would be (without power) beyond the weekend," said Tom Goetz, chairman of the New Hampshire Public Utilities Commission. In places, he said, utility workers must still wait for other crews to clear fallen limbs and other debris before they can reach outages.