All eight members up for re-election to the Pennsylvania school board that had been sued for introducing the teaching of intelligent design as an alternative to evolution in biology class were swept out of office yesterday by a slate of challengers who campaigned against the intelligent design policy.

[SNIP]

The election will not alter the facts on which the judge must decide the case. But if the intelligent design policy is defeated in court, the new school board could refuse to pursue an appeal. It could also withdraw the policy, a step that many challengers said they intended to take.

"We are all for it being discussed, but we do not want to see it in biology class," said Judy McIlvaine, a member of the winning slate. "It is not a science."

The fiercely split Kansas Board of Education voted 6 to 4 on Tuesday to adopt new science standards that are the most far-reaching in the nation in challenging Darwin's theory of evolution in the classroom.

[SNIP]

Among the most controversial changes was a redefinition of science itself, so that it would not be explicitly limited to natural explanations.

[SNIP]

"This is a sad day, not just for Kansas kids, but for Kansas," Janet Waugh of Kansas City, Kan., one of four dissenting board members, said before the vote. "We're becoming a laughingstock not only of the nation but of the world."

[SNIP]

In the standing-room-only crowd in the small board room for Tuesday's session were two dozen high school students fulfilling an assignment for government class by attending the public meeting. They shook their heads at the decision.

"We're glad we're seniors," said Hannah Teeter, 17, from Shawnee Mission West, a high school in Overland Park, a suburb of Kansas City. "I feel bad for all the kids that are younger than us that they have to be taught things that aren't science in science class."

The Republican loss in Virginia, which President Bush carried with 54 percent just a year ago, came after an 11th-hour campaign stop by Mr. Bush and the kind of all-out Republican effort to mobilize the vote that reaped rich rewards last year.

Republicans argued on Tuesday that Virginia was a local election driven by local events, with little long-term national significance. But the loss clearly stung, as did the double-digit defeat in New Jersey, a blue state that had seemed within reach for the Republicans.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was dealt a stinging rebuke on Tuesday by voters who rejected the centerpiece of his efforts to change the balance of power in Sacramento, an initiative to cap state spending and grant sweeping new budget powers to the governor.

Jerry Sanders, a former police chief, outpolled a surf-shop owner and City Council member on Tuesday to be elected mayor of San Diego, a city that has been tainted by corruption and fiscal mismanagement.

With 90 percent of the precincts reporting, Mr. Sanders, a Republican, had 54 percent of the vote, to 46 percent for Donna Frye, his Democratic opponent.

Doctors would have to tell women seeking abortions in their 20th week of pregnancy or later that their fetuses might feel pain -- an assertion debated in the medical community -- under a bill passed by Wisconsin lawmakers.

Gov. Jim Doyle, a Democrat, promised to veto the legislation, which the Assembly passed 61-34 Tuesday and the Senate passed earlier.

[snip]

Three states have similar requirements and federal legislation is pending in Congress, the National Conference of State Legislatures said.

Texans voted overwhelmingly to add a prohibition of same-sex marriage to their constitution on Tuesday, becoming the 19th U.S. state to do so.

[I]n St. Paul, Randy Kelly became the city's first incumbent mayor in more than 30 years to lose a re-election campaign.

Polls suggested that Mr. Kelly's endorsement of President Bush last fall was a factor in his loss to a fellow Democrat, Chris Coleman, by 70 percent to 30 percent.

"I have never seen anything quite like this," Lawrence Jacobs, director of the University of Minnesota Center for the Study of Politics and Governance, said about what he called a firestorm over the endorsement.

A poll conducted by Mr. Jacobs found that more than half of likely voters in the city said Mr. Kelly's endorsement would influence their votes. Most of those respondents said it would lead them to vote for Mr. Coleman, a former City Council member.