Abortion clinics seek leak inquiry
Two abortion clinics asked the state’s highest court Monday to investigate Attorney General Phill Kline and Fox television’s Bill O’Reilly over O’Reilly’s statements that he had information from Kansas abortion records.
A Kline spokeswoman called the move “a political ploy.”
The clinics’ attorneys want the Kansas Supreme Court to seize records that Kline, an outspoken abortion opponent, obtained on 90 of the clinics’ patients. Kline received edited versions of the records from a district judge on Oct. 24 after arguing he wanted to review the records for evidence of possible crimes including rape and illegal abortions.
O’Reilly said Friday on his show, “The O’Reilly Factor,” that an inside source gave him information that a doctor at one of the clinics, George Tiller, had performed late-term abortions because patients were depressed. O’Reilly deemed it “executing babies.”
COLUMBIA, S.C.
Stage lights burn governor’s eyes
Gov. Mark Sanford burned his eyes under the bright stage lights at a groundbreaking ceremony and had to sit out the last day of the campaign, his wife said Monday.
Sanford, a Republican seeking re-election, was taking eye drops and wearing temporary contact lenses to treat the discomfort, Jenny Sanford said. He suffered the injury Sunday and went to a doctor in the morning.
The groundbreaking was for a headquarters for Inspiration Networks, a Christian TV network. Evangelists Pat Robertson and Rex Humbard spoke during the roughly two-hour program, and Humbard wore sunglasses.
NEWARK, N.J.
Addressee’s heir to get ‘God’ mail
A fisherman who found a bag of 300 letters to God – many addressed to a New Jersey minister – floating in the ocean off Atlantic City will give most of them to the late clergyman’s daughter.
Bill Lacovara, an insurance adjuster, found the letters in a shopping bag in the surf under a pier last month. They included everything from a man asking God to let him win the lottery to a teen asking forgiveness for an abortion.
About 150 of the letters were too damaged by the water to be legible. He placed the remaining ones up for auction on eBay but canceled the auction after more than 25 people pushed the price past $550.
He said he and his family have received many hostile letters and phone calls from people upset that the letters were put up for auction, and said it never was his intention to profit from them.