zero cold during the week put homeless people in danger, or drove them into other dangers indoors. Two homeless men aged 41 and 22 were overcome by fumes and killed in an unexplained fire early Saturday at free housing in Bitterfeld, eastern Germany. In southern and central regions of Poland, overnight blizzards slowed traffic and a major thoroughfare linking Warsaw and the Baltic Sea port city of Gdansk was also snow-bound. Polish temperatures were not forecast to rise above zero till New Year's Day Sunday. Italians have shivered this week, with unusually cold weather hitting the north of the country. Several motorways in northern France had to be closed Friday when snow-ploughs could not keep pace. Pileups were reported on snowed-over roads in Hungary and Slovakia. In the Alps, the latest in a chain of romantic igloo villages opened Saturday on the slopes of Germany's highest mountain, the Zugspitze. Honeymoon suites are furnished with polar-grade sleeping bags. New Year's Eve guests were offered a soak in a hot tub nearby. The 15 igloos, built by a company that started the idea in Switzerland, required 3,000 tons of snow to construct and will melt away in April.
