New Kansas Law Shuts Down Two Abortion Clinics

Kansas will now just have one clinic in the state allowed to provide abortions, as the state signaled Thursday that Kansas’ only other two providers are out of business due to tough, new licensing requirements. Advocates of abortion rights allege it’s part of a coordinated, national campaign to limit a woman’s access to reproductive freedom, while abortion opponents argue Kansas’ new rules merely aim to protect the health of women or a viable fetus.

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Philippines pays reward in militant’s arrest

Police in the Philippines have paid an informant in the arrest of a militant tied to the kidnapping of four Americans and dozens of Filipinos. Hajer Adjuan Sailani, who also goes by the name Abu Ajair, was captured last week in a mall in Cotabato City, the Philippine National Police said Tuesday.

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The Air Force Seeks a Low-Tech Alternative to the F-22

The Air Force spent years fighting to keep building the $350 million F-22 fighter, an airplane crammed with so much gee-whiz technology there’s a law barring it from being sold to any other nation. But since no other nation is building such a plane to challenge it, the F-22 has become a costly investment with an uncertain payoff, and Defense Secretary Robert Gates just killed it. That sent an unmistakable message to the two new top Air Force officials Gates recently appointed, and now the service is seeking 100 slower, lower-flying and far cheaper airplanes — most likely prop-driven — that it can use to kill insurgents today and use to train local pilots — such as Afghans or Iraqis — tomorrow

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Dogfighters get creative as spotlight on Vick case fades

When pro quarterback Michael Vick pleaded guilty to bankrolling a dogfighting operation in 2007, there was a spike in reports of dogfighting in the United States. But when the headlines faded, the blood sport grew stronger and went even more underground, with thugs taking inventive precautions to keep police at bay, animal cruelty experts say.

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Why Newt Gingrich Converted to Catholicism

Visitors to the Basilica of the National Shrine in northeast Washington often do a double take when they see Newt Gingrich and his familiar shock of white hair slip into a pew for the noon Mass on Sundays. The former Speaker of the House is known for many things, but religious zeal is not one of them. In fact, the social conservatives who fueled his Republican revolution in 1994 often complained about Gingrich’s lack of interest in issues like abortion or school prayer.

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Abilene: Where Porn Fought the Law and Porn Won

Not so long ago, a family driving across Kansas on well-traveled I-70 would encounter nothing racier than a pecan log and nothing more hyped than the “world’s largest prairie dog.” Then porn came to the freeway. The surprising thing is that officials in the Bible Belt state are taking the invasion lying down.

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Prison was ‘a turning point,’ quarterback Vick says

The Philadelphia Eagles welcomed Michael Vick back into the National Football League on Friday after the quarterback spent almost two years in federal prison on a felony dogfighting conviction. Vick, formerly with the Atlanta Falcons, has signed a two-year deal with the Eagles. “I think everybody deserves a second chance,” Vick said at a news conference in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on Friday

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Obama’s New Gitmo Proposal Draws Wide Range of Critics

Republican politicians and human-rights activists rarely agree on how to treat terrorist suspects, but they are unwitting allies in opposition to the Obama Administration’s latest proposal: the creation of a special facility in the continental U.S.

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