Rains help ease drought across most of South

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) - A soggy December has helped much of the South recover from a drought that dried up reservoirs and turned crops and lawns to straw for the last two years.
    The latest U.S. Drought Monitor report says parts of Virginia and West Virginia, Eastern Tennessee and most of Kentucky remain in at least a moderate drought.
    But Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana and Arkansas are completely drought-free.
    A pocket of severe to extreme drought persists in the western tip of the Carolinas and northeast Georgia.
    Southern Texas is the only area in the nation still plagued by exceptional drought.
    Forecasters say conditions began improving in the spring and through the fall as more regular rains helped add moisture to soil and dumped more water into rivers.