Severe weather

At least 28 people have died as brutal Winter Storm Fern battered the US, the New York Post reports.The grim toll also includes at least seven people in New York City, although their exact cause of death has not been released, and a man shoveling snow outside a Long Island church. The first reported US death was a 16-year-old girl who died when she and another girl were being towed on a sled in Texas by a 16-year-old boy driving a Jeep. The sled slammed into a curb and then collided with a tree, according to police in Frisco, just outside of Dallas.A 17-year-old boy also was killed in Arkansas in another sledding accident when he hit a tree while being pulled by an ATV, officials said.Kansas second-grade teacher Rebecca Rauber, 28, perished, too, after leaving a bar on foot late Friday without her purse and in 3-degree temperatures. Her body was found Sunday covered in snow several hundred yards away from where she was last seen, and authorities believe she died from hypothermia.Six people have also been confirmed dead after a private plane crashed and burst into flames just after taking off in Bangor, Maine, late Sunday, the Federal Aviation Administration confirmed Monday.