Midwest

It may be spring, but the United States on Thursday found parts of its midsection caught in the grip of record snow and ice while in part of California wildfires were spreading woe. The upper Midwest, particularly Minnesota and Wisconsin, were struggling to cope with late-season snow a good six weeks past the start of spring. “A historic May snowstorm will slowly wind down [Thursday] afternoon across western Wisconsin, with light snow continuing into [Thursday night],” the National Weather Service predicted . “Friday into Friday night, precipitation will spread back west across the area, starting as snow Friday morning but transitioning to rain in the afternoon and staying that way into Saturday.

It's not that the Midwest hasn't been extremely hot before, and it's not that it hasn't been incredibly dry. But it's unusual for a vast swath of the Midwest to be so very hot and so very dry for so very long -- particularly this early in the summer. The current heat wave -- which is spurring comparisons to the catastrophic heat of 1936 --  is "out of whack," meteorologist Jim Keeney said Friday in an interview with the Los Angeles Times.  Photos: Midwest heat wave "Even on the East Coast today, temperatures are 100 or above" -- basically, Keeney said, the heat wave extends from Kansas all the way to the East Coast.

After months of drought, many areas of the Midwest on Saturday continued to fight off flooding from rising rivers that are not expected to crest for several more days. National Weather Service forecasters expect flooding to continue throughout the week along the Des Plaines, Fox, Illinois and other rivers and their tributaries in Illinois. U.S. Geological Survey monitors in the area have recorded record floods. Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn has declared 48 counties in his state disaster areas.

Spring typically means the return of sunshine, tornadoes and biblical thunderstorms across the Midwest, but a weekend blizzard in the lower Plains had winter stamping on all signs of life in Kansas and Missouri. A daffodil exposition in Springfield, Mo., had to be put on hold. The phone for the I-70 Drive-In's box office in Kansas City, Mo., rang without answer: There would be no outdoor movie with 8 inches of snow on Sunday. Guerrilla Streetfood, a food truck in St. Louis, tweeted that it would take a day off on Monday, preferring not to slog through the city's biggest snowstorm in 30 years -- joining many others in taking a late snow day in this part of the country.

Corn prices rose Monday to record levels as the prolonged Midwest drought continued baking the nation's crops. Corn futures for September delivery rose almost 3% to $8.20 per bushel. And December corn rose to $8.13. Since the beginning of June, corn prices have risen more than 50%. The U.S. Department of Agriculture on Monday downgraded the condition of the country's corn crop for the eighth week in a row since the Midwest has been gripped by a searing drought. Now, only 24% of the country corn crop is in "good" or "excellent" condition -- that's down from 26% the week before.

Some of the March 12 letter writers seemed to be outraged about Rakolta's protest against the TV series "Married . . . With Children." I don't know if I share Mrs. Rakolta's views about television, but I do know that homemakers from the Midwest have as much right to become outraged and write letters as Calendar readers from West Hollywood. Now let's get to the real point. Mrs. Rakolta is a homemaker who lives in an upper-class, mostly white suburb. What if she wasn't rich? And what if her campaign was against sponsors of a program that treated the handicapped unfairly?

All societies have creation myths, ideas that are so fundamental that they have survived over time and define the heart of why people came together in the first place. In the United States, there is no idea more enduring than that anyone can work himself or herself up the economic ladder to a better present and an even more glorious future. It turns out, however, that economic mobility may not be as widespread as the politics it supports. Further, it may be swayed by geography so that those in the Northeast and Midwest have a better chance than those in the South of actually moving on up. In a report that is the first of its kind, researchers at the Economic Mobility Project at the Pew Center on the States examined economic mobility on the state level.

Thousands of mustangs that roam the West would be moved to preserves in the Midwest and East to protect the wild horses and the rangelands that support them, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said Wednesday. The plan would not require killing any wild horses, he said. Interior Department officials had warned in recent months that slaughtering some wild horses and burros might be necessary to combat the rising cost of maintaining them. "We have a huge problem -- out-of-control populations of wild horses and burros on our public lands," Salazar said in a conference call with reporters.

Sprint Nextel Corp. said it is buying a large chunk of struggling U.S. Cellular Corp., including its hometown Chicago market, for $480 million. The nation's third-largest cellular phone company also is buying U.S. Cellular's operations in St. Louis, central Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Ohio. The deal, which requires regulatory approval and is expected to close in mid-2013, will transfer spectrum and about 585,000 customers — roughly 10% of U.S. Cellular's subscribers — to Sprint.

Tears are part of the NCAA tournament. They flow when teams win and flow when they lose. The tears shed for Louisville guard Kevin Ware on Sunday, though, were different. They almost spontaneously gushed in response to Ware's gruesome leg break during Sunday's Midwest Regional final game against Duke. Louisville Coach Rick Pitino was caught on TV wiping his eyes. "I literally almost threw up," he said after the game. Duke players, coaches and America's viewers were almost equally stunned.

In the NCAA Midwest Regional semifinals Friday, top-seeded Louisville will play No. 12 Oregon and No. 2 Duke will play No. 3 Michigan State. In the South Regional semifinals, top-seeded Kansas will play No. 4 Michigan and No. 3 Florida will play No. 15 Florida Gulf Coast. Writers from around Tribune Co. analyze who they think will emerge victorious and make the Elite Eight. Feel free to leave a comment below with your opinion. Chris Dufresne, Los Angeles Times The South puts me in a quandary in that I picked still-alive Florida to win the region but will be rooting against the Gators in their semifinal match-up against Florida Gulf Coast.

Spring typically means the return of sunshine, tornadoes and biblical thunderstorms across the Midwest, but a weekend blizzard in the lower Plains had winter stamping on all signs of life in Kansas and Missouri. A daffodil exposition in Springfield, Mo., had to be put on hold. The phone for the I-70 Drive-In's box office in Kansas City, Mo., rang without answer: There would be no outdoor movie with 8 inches of snow on Sunday. Guerrilla Streetfood, a food truck in St. Louis, tweeted that it would take a day off on Monday, preferring not to slog through the city's biggest snowstorm in 30 years -- joining many others in taking a late snow day in this part of the country.

Seeded teams 1 LOUISVILLE: The Cardinals, seeded No. 1 in the tournament, have won 10 straight since losing the game of the season, 104-101, in five overtimes to Notre Dame in South Bend. 2 DUKE: The Blue Devils have two 6-11 seniors in the post, five players who average double figures in scoring, and as a team shoot better than 40% from three-point range. 3 MICHIGAN STATE: They're back! The Spartans have made 16 consecutive NCAA¿ tournament appearances under the guidance of Coach Tom Izzo.

WASHINGTON -- A winter storm that roiled the Midwest prepared to turn its might toward the mid-Atlantic area, including the nation's capital, where power outages were a threat in a region that takes power very seriously. The storm, which dropped as much as 10 inches of snow in Chicago and surrounding states, was expected to drop six inches or more to parts of the Washington area on Wednesday then move northward to regions that have just recovered from large storms. “The strong winter storm that has been affecting the Midwest and Ohio Valley turns its sights on the Mid-Atlantic on Wednesday, where it is expected to bring 6-10 inches of snow to areas including Washington, D.C. The storm will move up the coast Wednesday evening into early Friday, generally bringing as much as 2-8 inches of snow from the New York City metro area into New England,” the National Weather Service warned . PHOTOS: Good names for bad storms But like the budget sequester -- the across-the-board $85 billion in budget cuts that politically deadlocked Washington -- the storm, already being dubbed “snowquester,” got off to a slow start, and its impact remained spotty.

Missouri and Kansas awoke on Tuesday to another major snowstorm, the second in as many weeks, with six additional inches of snow blown by gusting winds into drifts as high as two feet and municipal officials warning motorists to be careful of treacherous roads. At least three deaths have been reported since the current storm began to blow its way from Texas through Oklahoma and into the Midwest on Monday. The National Weather Service predicted continuing, though lessening, snowfall as the storm heads into the Great Lakes region by nightfall.

Thunderstorms left behind by Hurricane Bonnie drenched the lower Mississippi Valley, and severe storms rolled across Minnesota and Iowa. The storms battered Arkansas, northeastern Louisiana and central Mississippi. In Union County, Ark., heavy rains washed out roads and bridges. "We've got secondary roads and bridges washed out all over the county," said Deputy Sheriff Rance Nation Jr.

A blizzard dumped mountains of swirling snow across parts of Texas and Oklahoma on Monday, then turned toward Kansas and other parts of the Midwest still reeling from a major storm last week. Blizzard warnings and watches were posted for parts of Texas, Kansas and Oklahoma through Monday evening as high winds blew large accumulations of snow in a wide band through the Southwest and Midwest. The National Weather Service also warned of fierce thunderstorms along the Gulf Coast.

Like a fighter who has taken too many punches and was trying to find his balance, the Midwest sought to recover from wet snow and slick ice on Friday as flurries continued and roadways remained treacherous. The storm, which on Thursday dropped more than a foot of snow in some areas, worked its way eastward across the upper Great Lakes dropping snow like confetti across the region. Parts of New England, which recently had as much as three feet of snow, appeared in line to get more precipitation through the weekend, according to the National Weather Service.