4A THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
NEWS
Jet set for spring break
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2005
Trevor Niedfeldt, travel adviser for STA Travel in the Kansas Union, enters flight information into the computer for Cyril Ichac, Mohamad El Rez and Soulivanh Didier yesterday afternoon. El Rez and Didier, Paris freshmen, were planning their spring break trip to New York. Ichac, also a Paris freshman, planned his trip for Cancun, Mexico, with STA.
NATION
California mudslides cause evacuations
LOS ANGELES — For firefighters, there's little time to stop and eat or even use the restroom. For road crews, there are thousands of potholes — some the size of cars.
While skies cleared Wednesday over Southern California, a six-day drenching left city workers scrambling to keep up with a rush of calls for collapsing homes, roads choked with mud - not to mention house-sized boulders seemingly ready to tumble down hillsides. At least nine people have died in the deluge.
In Los Angeles, city engineers slapped red or yellow tags on more than 100 homes, rendering them temporarily uninhabitable or safe for only limited entry.
Crews responded to 270 mudslides, some of which forced evacuations after crashing into homes, said Los Angeles Public Works Department Commissioner Janice Wood
commissioner Janice Wood. The damage spread south into Orange and San Diego counties — where dozens of homes were slipping or evacuated following landslides — and across the border into Tijuana, Mexico, where the Office of Civil Protection reported at least seven homes had collapsed and more than 150 people were evacuated.
Warnings have been placed
on thousands of houses, Tijuana Civil Protection Director Humberto Garcia said, though some families don't want to leave for fear their belongings could be looted.
A house-sized boulder teetered above Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu, forcing the closure of a two-mile stretch of the well-worn road. Crews planned to inject the rock with a type of gel that would cause it to disintegrate from the inside.
Everyone in the Los Angeles Public Works Department licensed to evaluate whether shifting ground had made homes uninhabitable was in the field, according to commissioner Janice Wood.
license, he'd be out there today,
too," she said.
and thunders.
At least nine people died throughout the state during the six-day deluge that pushed rain totals to their highest level since Los Angeles was a small outpost in the desert.
too, she said. City fire spokesman Brian Humphrey said some ambulance crews had been diverted to work as reconnaissance teams to spot signs of flooding and mudslides.
"If the janitor had a geotech
In downtown, rainfall has reached 9.14 inches, bringing the total since July 1 to 34.36 inches - the most in Los Angeles since 1889-90. The yearly average is about 15 inches.
Kline seeks abortion files
TOPEKA — In an investigation conducted secretly for months, the Kansas attorney general is demanding that clinics turn over the complete medical records of neatly 90 women and girls who had abortions.
BY JOHN MILBURN THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
and girls who are two abortion clinics are fighting the request in Kansas Supreme Court, saying the state has no right to such personal information. But Attorney General Phil Kline said yesterday he was simply enforcing state law.
"I have the duty to investigate and prosecute child rape and other crimes in order to protect Kansas children," Kline, an abortion opponent, said at a news conference.
Kline is seeking the records of girls who had abortions and women who received late-term abortions.
The Associated Press
Sex involving someone under 16 is illegal in Kansas, and it is illegal in the state for doctors to perform abortions after 22 weeks unless there is reason to believe it is needed to protect the mother's health.
Kline spoke to reporters after details of the investigation, which began in October, surfaced in a legal brief filed by attorneys for two medical clinics. The clinics argued that unless the high court intervenes, women who obtained abortions could find government agents knocking at their door.
knotting at the clinics said Kline demanded their complete, unedited medical records for women who sought abortions at least 22 weeks into their pregnancies in 2003, as well as those for girls 15 and younger who sought abortions. Court papers did not identify the clinics
The records sought include
the patient's name, medical history, details of her sex life, birth control practices and psychological profile.
logical probe. The clinics, which said nearly 90 women and girls would be affected, were offering to provide records with some key information, including names, edited out.
"These women's rights will be sacrificed if this fishing expedition is not halted or narrowed," the clinics said in court papers.
On Oct. 21, state District Judge Richard Anderson ruled that Kline could have the files. The clinics then filed an appeal with the high court. No hearing has been scheduled.
The clinics outlined their legal arguments in a brief filed Tuesday. Though other documents in the case remain sealed, the brief filed Tuesday was not, and the Wichita Eagle disclosed Kline's investigation in a story published yesterday.
In their brief, the clinics' attorneys said a gag order prevented the clinics from even disclosing to patients that their records were being sought. Attorneys declined to comment yesterday, citing the order.
"You can see our desire to discuss as much as possible, but we feel constrained," said attorney Lee Thompson.
hey Lee Hawkson
Kline began pushing in 2003
to require health care professionals to report underage sexual activity. Kline contends state law requires such reporting, but a federal judge blocked him.
The case has yet to be resolved
Speaking yesterday at a Statehouse news conference, three Republican legislators said the right of the state to prosecute a crime outweighs the right to individual privacy.
"I want to know what's going on in Kansas," said Sen. Susan Wagle (R-Wichita) and an abortion opponent.