Midwestern United States

Corn is a key element of the U.S. food supply. It is what dairy cows eat to make milk and hens consume to lay eggs. It fattens cattle, hogs and chickens before slaughter. It makes soda sweet. As the building block of ethanol, it is now also a major component of auto fuel. And that may signal trouble ahead.

A deadly storm that roared across the Midwest this week left the region blanketed in snow and bitter cold temperatures Thursday, with wind chills as low as 30 below zero. Blizzard conditions hammered portions of Michigan and Ohio, where communities were already struggling to dig out from drifts more than 15 feet high, as the storm moved northeast and into Canada. Forecasters with the National Weather Service said Thursday that more than 13.5 inches of snow had fallen in southwestern Michigan, and an additional foot was expected there and in northwestern parts of the state by today.

Saying that Canada is no longer a water-rich nation, Environment Minister Tom McMillan rejected plans for large-scale water diversions to the United States. The best known of these plans, known as the Grand Canal scheme, would send water from James Bay in northern Canada through the Great Lakes and as far south as Mexico. The second plan, developed by the Pasadena-based Ralph M. Parsons Co.

A fierce storm ripped across the Midwest on Wednesday, stranding travelers, closing hundreds of schools and cutting off power to thousands of people across the country's heartland. The National Weather Service warned residents in Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois and Michigan of "extremely dangerous blizzard conditions" with near whiteout driving conditions. "This is a very big and very fast-moving storm," said Jack Hales, a lead forecaster at the National Weather Service's storm prediction center in Norman, Okla.

Normally, this would be the beginning of the busy season at Jim Nadeau's ice-sculpting company. But when the phone rings, Nadeau tells confused Chicago-area brides and party planners that they might want to postpone their events. "The cicadas are coming!" he tells them. "You don't know how disgustingly bad they can be," said Nadeau, 53, who has been carving ice figures for 27 years in Forest Park, Ill.

For the TV networks, the meat and potatoes of prime time are back on the menu. After abandoning America's heartland and failing in recent years to create a successful sitcom, ABC on Wednesday will try to revive its legacy of strong family comedies with "The Middle." Set in the fictional town of Orson, Ind., "The Middle" stars Patricia Heaton as a harried mom trying her best to hold down a job selling cars while taking care of her husband and their three mostly ordinary kids -- even if that means serving them still-frozen waffles.

While the West burns and the Southeast bakes, there is little to suggest a large-scale, climatological catastrophe playing out any time soon in the Midwest. In fact, farmers in Iowa and Minnesota had trouble last week harvesting their corn and soybean crops because there had been too much rain.

The detectives were relaxing over fried pork rinds when they saw a car turn into the driveway of the farmhouse they had just raided. The car rattled past the Confederate flag, past the skull and crossbones, heading for the overgrown yard where several addicts had been cranking out the illegal drug methamphetamine. The detectives exchanged glances. They ducked behind a truck. When the car stopped and the driver got out, they rushed him. "Randy!" Det. Darin Kerwin exclaimed in mock surprise.

Six plastic bags, swollen with trapped air, bounce around the back seat of the Buick. It's a good thing they're not leaking, Dwaine Bundy says as he drives, because the bags are filled with stink. Bundy has just spent his lunch hour collecting the foul gases that hover over a lagoon brimming with 400,000 gallons of runny hog manure. He'll deliver the air to his lab at Iowa State University, where a team of trained sniffers will determine just how badly it reeks.

Gov. Steve Beshear deployed every last one of his Army National Guard troops Saturday, with his state still reeling after a deadly ice storm last week. More than 700,000 homes and businesses, most of them in Kentucky, remained without electricity from the Ozarks through Appalachia, though with temperatures creeping into the 40s, a swarm of utility workers were able to make headway.

For the TV networks, the meat and potatoes of prime time are back on the menu. After abandoning America's heartland and failing in recent years to create a successful sitcom, ABC on Wednesday will try to revive its legacy of strong family comedies with "The Middle." Set in the fictional town of Orson, Ind., "The Middle" stars Patricia Heaton as a harried mom trying her best to hold down a job selling cars while taking care of her husband and their three mostly ordinary kids -- even if that means serving them still-frozen waffles.

Violent storms tore through four Midwestern states, killing three people in northern Missouri, damaging hundreds of homes and leaving thousands without power. At least two tornadoes touched down in Missouri's Adair County on Wednesday night, authorities said. One destroyed 10 homes in the town of Kirksville, and more than 200 buildings across the county were damaged.

Wind-blown snow whipped across the northern Plains on Tuesday, closing major highways, before a powerful storm that had stalled over western Nebraska and South Dakota moved northeastward. In Montana, the Army National Guard dispatched two helicopters to help find motorists stranded by a snowstorm in the southeastern part of the state. "We do know we have some motorists out there, but we don't know where.

Gov. Steve Beshear deployed every last one of his Army National Guard troops Saturday, with his state still reeling after a deadly ice storm last week. More than 700,000 homes and businesses, most of them in Kentucky, remained without electricity from the Ozarks through Appalachia, though with temperatures creeping into the 40s, a swarm of utility workers were able to make headway.

After the great floods of 1993 swamped this tiny town in eastern Iowa, Mike Luck begged the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to help protect it from future disasters. Corps officials responded that this community of fewer than 700 residents probably would have to chip in more than $1 million to help build the federally engineered levee system it sought, the former mayor recalled.

Water from the swollen Mississippi River surged over more than 10 levees Thursday, flooding huge swaths of Missouri farmland as thousands of volunteers continued to pile sandbags in a desperate bid to protect their communities. The efforts brought mixed results in Winfield, a rural and commuter city of 1,200 about an hour north of St. Louis.

Under cover of morning darkness, the Merrie Men of Downtown rumbled through the city, loaded for deer. A pickup and a van passed the baseball stadium and the high-rise business district to converge, as planned, on Weebetook Lane. The drivers parked on a block of stately dwellings. They drew camouflage outfits over their jeans and reached for their crossbows and quivers. They waved to a passing dog-walker.

President Clinton's biggest liability in the Midwest in the November general election may not be the economy or his foreign policy but his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, according to poll results released here Thursday--two days before a scheduled visit by the first lady. Negative publicity surrounding Mrs. Clinton has run high of late with renewed allegations of impropriety over her role in the White House travel office firings and the Whitewater land deal.

Severe thunderstorms packing large hail and tornadoes rumbled across the nation's midsection Sunday, killing at least eight people and damaging dozens of homes, authorities said. Iowa Homeland Security administrator David L. Miller said seven of the dead were killed by a tornado in northeast Iowa -- five from Parkersburg, 80 miles northeast of Des Moines, and two from nearby New Hartford. At least 50 injuries were reported. "Occasionally we have a death, but we have warning system. Seven deaths.

The tornadoes that ripped through the Midwest and South over the weekend killed about two dozen people, officials said Monday, making 2008 the deadliest year so far for twisters in a decade. According to the National Weather Service, 96 people have lost their lives in a year that has seen an unusual number of storms. In 1998, 115 had perished by May 11.