pelley: today a blizzard swept through dakotas and minnesota. have a look at fargo, north dakota. wind gusts topped 70 miles an hour. the blowing snow made driving next to impossible interstate 90 was partially closed in south dakota. this winter, ice formed in the great lakes shipping channels earlier than anyone can remember. don dahler went for a look on board a u.s. coast guard ice breaker. foot-thick ice on the passage that connects lake superior to lake huron. it s loud, violent, and can feel endless. 1400 yards, making six knots now. reporter: the coast guard ice breaker mackinaw has been clearing small chunks since mid- december. michael davanzo is the chap captain. the bigger challenge in the river you can see the broken brash. we had brash that was up to eight feet thick. reporter: is part of your job not just breaking through ice but dealing with what happens after that? what we re really trying to do is manage the ice. the flow of the ice in the river so we can
winter. shipments of ore and coal to the region s fuel mill have been delayed days, canceled or stuck in the ice which now covers more than a third of lake michigan. slow going? very slow going. it took us 17 hours to move a ship seven miles. reporter: wow. at 3,500 tons, the mackinaw is the biggest and newest ice breaker on the great lakes. older ice breakers ride up on the ice and break it using the ship s weight. 176, sir. reporter: on the mackinaw, ensign michael cooper manipulates the propulsion system to churn up the ice like a blender. the beam of our boat is 58 feet wide. we re able to cut a track close to 70 feet by using that directional thrust. reporter: the vibration caused by this massive ship smashing through thick ice is relentless. one crewman described it as living 18 hours a day in an earthquake. forecasters expect 60% of the
was going to be taken away from him or he was going to have bodily harm, he had a right. pelley: the juror also told cooper that the six women on the jury deliberated about 16 hours and were driven to tears by the stress of it. as they reached their verdict. in washington today, senate democrats and republicans reached agreement to avert what one member called political armageddon. the republican minority agreed to stop blocking confirmation of key presidential nominations, and the democratic majority withdrew the threat to change senate rules and strip the minority of its power to filibuster those nominations. north korea seems to have been caught red handed trying to smuggle parts of a weapons system from cuba through the panama canal. panama s military seized that cargo yesterday. david martin tells us what was on the ship. reporter: u.s. intelligence had been tracking the ship since last week when it left cuba to
transit to panama canal en route to north korea. when canal authorities stopped and searched the vessel, they found hidden beneath a cargo of sugar what panama s president silled sophisticated missile equipment. that would be a clear-cut violation of u.n. sanctions against north korea. according to panama s president, the ship s captain was so upset at being caught that he tried to commit suicide. sources said the equipment was part of a russian-made antiaircraft missile system known as the sa2 which was first fielded in the late 1950s. during the cold war the soviet union was fidel castro s chief military backer in his stand-off with the united states. and sources say the soviets provided the sa2 to cuba years ago and that cuba was now transferring it to north korea. just last month one of north korea s top generals paid a state visit to cuba which is one of the north s few remaining
mike claffey, a transportation department official, had a sense of foreboding about what was to come. as the afternoon goes on, we re expecting wind, blowing snow, visibility is expected to be pretty bad. as the snow piles up and accumulates it could be very slick driving conditions. reporter: the storm will now move out over the mid atlantic states dropping maybe six to eight inches of snow there scott, before hooking north and passing up the coast and the areas that are still trying to recover from super storm sandy. pelley: dean reynolds in the windy and freezing city. thank you, dean. an announcement today from the agency that screens travelers at airports has a lot of folks scratching their heads now. the t.s.a. says it will soon be okay to board a plane with a knife. here s homeland security correspondent bob orr. reporter: it s a partial roll back of one of the core aviation