Kansas

The candidate was at a loss for words Tuesday, which in this campaign is a rare occurrence. Standing in a packed gym in wind-swept Midwest oil country, Barack Obama was trying to explain how he and the 72-year-old white woman in the audience, with her hair band and spangly blue cardigan, happen to be related.

One of the nation's few late-term abortion doctors was ordered Wednesday to turn over about 2,000 patient medical records to a Kansas grand jury investigating his practice. Abortion opponents hope that the records will lead to further criminal charges against Dr. George Tiller, who already is facing 19 misdemeanor counts stemming from late-second and third-trimester abortions at his clinic in Wichita. Tiller's lawyers say he scrupulously follows the law.

The Kansas Supreme Court temporarily blocked a grand jury Tuesday from obtaining patient records from a physician who is one of the nation's few providers of late-term abortions. The grand jury is investigating whether Dr. George Tiller has broken Kansas laws restricting abortion, as many abortion opponents allege. The grand jury subpoenaed the medical files of about 2,000 women, including some who decided against having abortions.

Alvin Hewitt was the first baby born at Kiowa County Memorial Hospital after it opened in 1950. Today, the hospital is gone. So are the red brick high school, the single-screen movie theater, the soda shop, City Hall, the county courthouse. Like 95% of this little town on the prairies of southwest Kansas, they were destroyed by a tornado that struck a year ago Sunday, killing 11. Hewitt could have taken his insurance check and moved away, as about half the town's residents did. He didn't.

When Sean Tevis decided to run for a seat in the Kansas Legislature, he faced a serious problem: money. Local political advisors warned the campaign novice that he would need a war chest of at least $26,000 to compete against his entrenched Republican rival. It seemed like a fortune to the 39-year-old Democrat.

Pilots in a dozen planes flew over parts of Kansas and Colorado to look for snowbound travelers after a blizzard dumped nearly 3 feet of snow and piled some of it in drifts 15 feet high. As the aircraft soared above the frozen landscape, utility crews struggled to restore electrical service to tens of thousands of homes and businesses that lost power. Many towns and farms in Kansas were isolated by deep snow. "We're snowed under," said Bill Hassett, manager of the Sharon Springs, Kan.

A jackknifed tractor-trailer set off a pileup of about three-dozen vehicles along a half-mile stretch of an icy interstate near Overland Park. Ten people were taken to the hospital, one in serious condition, authorities said.

The Kansas State Board of Education on Tuesday threw out science standards deemed hostile to evolution, undoing the work of Christian conservatives in the ongoing battle over what to teach U.S. public school students about the origins of life. The board voted 6 to 4 to replace the guidelines with teaching standards that mirror the mainstream in science education and eliminate criticisms of evolutionary theory. "I'm glad we've taken this step.

As word of an approaching tornado spread by TV news and warning sirens Friday night, Dennis McKinney hurried his 14-year-old daughter, Lindy, down to their basement. A neighbor was supposed to join them -- a young woman with a baby and no basement -- but she didn't get there before the tornado hit. So McKinney was especially anxious as he climbed his basement stairs after the storm passed.