WICHITA, Kan. —  Dr. George Tiller, who remained one of the nation’s few providers of late-term abortions despite decades of protests and attacks, was shot and killed Sunday in a church where he was serving as an usher.

The gunman fled, but a 51-year-old suspect was arrested some 170 miles away in suburban Kansas City three hours after the shooting, Wichita Deputy Police Chief Tom Stolz said.

Long a focus of national anti-abortion groups, including a summer-long protest in 1991, Tiller was shot in the foyer of Reformation Lutheran Church, Stolz said. Tiller’s attorney, Dan Monnat, said Tiller’s wife, Jeanne, was in the choir at the time.

Johnson County sheriff’s spokesman Tom Erickson said Scott Roeder was the man whose car was stopped on Interstate 35 on Sunday, about three hours after the shooting of George Tiller.

Earlier in the day, Wichita police said the suspect was a 51-year-old man from Merriam, Kan., but they refused to identify him by name.

Roeder has not been charged in the slaying, but he was expected to be taken to Wichita for questioning.

The slaying of the 67-year-old doctor is “an unspeakable tragedy,” his widow, four children and 10 grandchildren said in statement. “This is particularly heart-wrenching because George was shot down in his house of worship, a place of peace.”

The family said its loss “is also a loss for the city of Wichita and women across America. George dedicated his life to providing women with high-quality health care despite frequent threats and violence.”

Tiller’s Women’s Health Care Services clinic is one of just three in the nation where abortions are performed after the 21st week of pregnancy. The clinic was heavily fortified and Tiller often traveled with a bodyguard, but Stolz said there was no indication of security at the church Sunday.

Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri said it was working with law enforcement to secure its facilities Sunday even after the suspect was in custody.

A protester shot Tiller in both arms in 1993, and his clinic was bombed in 1985. More recently, Monnat said Tiller had asked federal prosecutors to step up investigations of vandalism and other threats against the clinic out of fear that the incidents were increasing and that Tiller’s safety was in jeopardy. Stolz, however, said police knew of no threats connected to the shooting.

In early May, Tiller had asked the FBI to investigate vandalism at his clinic, including cut wires to surveillance cameras and damage to the roof that sent rainwater pouring into the building.

Anti-abortion groups denounced the shooting and stressed that they support only nonviolent protest. The movement’s leaders fear the killing could create a backlash just as they are scrutinizing U.S. Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, whose views on abortion rights are not publicly known.

“We are shocked at this morning’s disturbing news that Mr. Tiller was gunned down,” Troy Newman, Operation Rescue’s president, said in a statement. “Operation Rescue has worked for years through peaceful, legal means, and through the proper channels to see him brought to justice. We denounce vigilantism and the cowardly act that took place this morning.”

In 1991, the Summer of Mercy protests organized by Operation Rescue drew thousands of anti-abortion activists to this city for demonstrations marked by civil disobedience and mass arrests.

Tiller began providing abortion services in 1973. He acknowledged abortion was as socially divisive as slavery or prohibition but said the issue was about giving women a choice when dealing with technology that can diagnose severe fetal abnormalities before a baby is born.

Nancy Keenan, president of abortion-rights group NARAL Pro-Choice America, issued a statement praising Tiller’s commitment.

“Dr. Tiller’s murder will send a chill down the spines of the brave and courageous providers and other professionals who are part of reproductive-health centers that serve women across this country. We want them to know that they have our support as they move forward in providing these essential services in the aftermath of the shocking news from Wichita,” Keenan said.

After the 1991 protests, Tiller kept mostly to his heavily guarded clinic, although in 1997 he opened it to three tours by state lawmakers and the media.

The clinic is fortified with bulletproof glass, and Tiller hired a private security team to protect the facility. Once outside the clinic, Tiller was routinely accompanied by a bodyguard.

At a recent trial, he told jurors that he and his family have suffered years of harassment and threats and that he knew he was a target of anti-abortion protesters.

Federal marshals protected Tiller during the 1991 Summer of Mercy protests, and he was protected again between 1994 and 1998 after another abortion provider was assassinated and federal authorities reported finding Tiller’s name on an assassination list.

Tiller remained prominent in the news, in part because of an investigation begun by former Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline, an abortion opponent.

Prosecutors had alleged that Tiller had gotten second opinions from a doctor who was essentially an employee of his, not independent as state law requires. A jury in March acquitted Tiller of all 19 misdemeanor counts.

“I am stunned by this lawless and violent act, which must be condemned and should be met with the full force of law,” Kline said in a written statement. “We join in lifting prayer that God’s grace and presence rest with Dr. Tiller’s family and friends.”

Abortion opponents also questioned then-Gov. Kathleen Sebelius’ ties to Tiller before the Senate confirmed her this year as U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary. Tiller donated thousands of dollars to Sebelius over the years.

An demonstrator shouts at a group of Jews to 'go back to the oven' at a Gaza protest in Fort Lauderdale. Protest organizers accused supporters of Israel of being 'barbaric' terrorists.

Like many other protests of Israel’s campaign in Gaza, this one ended badly — police had to cool an ugly fight between supporters of Israel and Gaza, breaking up the warring sides as their screaming and chanting threatened to turn into something worse.

But some protesters at this rally in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., took their rhetoric a step further, calling for the extermination of Israel — and of Jews.

Separated by battle lines and a stream of rush-hour traffic outside a federal courthouse last week, at least 200 pro-Palestinian demonstrators faced off against a smaller crowd of Israel supporters.

Most of the chants were run-of-the-mill; men and women waving Palestinian flags called Israel’s invasion of Gaza a “crime,” while the pro-Israel group carried signs calling the Hamas-run territory a “terror state.”

But as the protest continued and crowds grew, one woman in a hijab began to shout curses and slurs that shocked Jewish activists in the city, which has a sizable Jewish population.

“Go back to the oven,” she shouted, calling for the counter-protesters to die in the manner that the Nazis used to exterminate Jews during the Holocaust.

“You need a big oven, that’s what you need,” she yelled.

• Click here to see video from the protest.

Millions of Jews were gassed and burned in crematoria throughout Europe during Adolf Hitler’s rule of Germany. The protest organizers, asked to comment on the woman’s overt call for Jewish extermination, said she was “insensitive” but refused to condemn her statement.

“She does not represent the opinions of the vast majority of people who were there,” said Emmanuel Lopez, who helped plan the event, one of many sponsored nationwide on Dec. 30 by the ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism ) Coalition.

Lopez, a state coordinator for ANSWER, admitted there is a problem with anti-Semitism within his organization’s ranks. But then he went on to call the supporters of Israel across the street “barbaric, racist” Zionist terrorists.

“Zionism in general is a barbaric, racist movement that really is the cause of the situation in the entire Middle East,” Lopez said.

The unidentified woman, who protest organizers said was a Muslim, wasn’t the only protester who raised hackles that day. Other demonstrators held signs that said “Nuke Israel,” and a number made comparisons to the Holocaust, accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza.

More than 670 Palestinians, including hundreds of civilians, have been killed in the 12 days of Israel’s campaign in Gaza. At least 30 were killed Tuesday by Israeli shelling of a U.N. school that had been housing refugees. (Israel said its forces fired at militants who launched mortars from that location.)

“This is absolutely inhumane,” said Ahmed Suid, who attended the demonstration, according to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. “This is a modern-day Holocaust.”

The comparisons of the Israelis to the Nazis has Jewish organizations concerned about a “growing trend” at protests in America, where they say hatred of Israel and Jews is being increasingly preached.

“We’re worried about hate speech. We’re worried because hate speech eventually leads to pain and suffering and death,” said Abraham Foxman, director of the Anti-Defamation League, which has been tracking Gaza protests.

“Comparisons of Israel to the Nazis are a deeply cynical perversion of history, an attempt to turn the tragedy that befell the Jewish people into a bludgeon against Israel,” he said.

Even though police had to intercede and break up a potentially violent confrontation between the two factions at the Fort Lauderdale protest, organizers called it a success, saying it drew crowds of new activists.

“It was not just an academic exercise . . . not just a protest,” Lopez told FOXNews.com. “It’s a material force.”

With Oprah Winfrey, the intersection of politics and education is making for strange bedfellows. Federal tax returns and other reports confirm that she’s accepted at least $5 million for her self-named South African girls’ school from perhaps Barack Obama’s single greatest political enemy.

Oprah was front and center in her support of Obama's presidential bid -- not so for her acceptance of $5M in contributions from one of his staunchest foes.

Oprah is probably the most well-known celebrity to back Senator Barack Obama’s bid for the presidency. She threw him a lavish launch party, endorsed him on her show, stumped for him in the early primaries, and cried — as captured by photographers — in a Chicago park when he won the election. Her loyalty seemed fierce.

But it turns out that Winfrey is very close friends with Dallas billionaire named Harold Simmons, a leading Republican donor and supporter of John McCain.

This past August it was revealed that Simmons was the single donor to a 527 committee called American Issues Project. Its only issue: to run ads linking Obama to William Ayers, the political activist who was once part of the Weather Underground. Simmons paid $2.9 million to try and make Ayers the Obama campaign’s “Swift Boat,” an issue that might have sidelined permanently the Illinois senator’s chances and advance John McCain — Simmons’s candidate — to the White House.

Nevertheless, Winfrey has cultivated her friendship with Simmons on many social fronts since 2001, resulting in his being second only to her in donating funds to her Leadership Academy in Johannesburg, South Africa.

According to the 2006 federal tax filing for the Oprah Winfrey Operating Fund, Winfrey accepted a $1 million donation to the school from Simmons. That amount, The Dallas Morning News reported in 2007, was only part of a $5 million pledge to the Academy. Simmons is considered Dallas’s leading philanthropist to worthy causes. In this case, though, it might have been unnecessary, since Winfrey herself has donated over $60 million to the school.

It’s not like Simmons is a new Republican donor. He gave over $100,000 in the 2007-2008 election cycle to Republican candidates, separate from his Ayers campaign. He has always been an active Republican. In 2004 he was a major donor to the Swift Boat Veterans, the group credited with destroying the campaign of John Kerry for president.

Winfrey has long been close friends with Simmons and his wife Annette. She’s their neighbor in Montecito, California, having bought the estate next to them in 2001. As recently as two weeks ago, Oprah mentioned the couple on her show during a telephone discussion of the Montecito fires with another neighbor, actor Rob Lowe.

(Winfrey was not available for comment, according to her representative. Simmons, who doesn’t have a press representative, did not return our call.)

The Dallas Morning News—thanks to the dogged byline of Alan Peppard — is full of stories over the years documenting Oprah’s friendship with the Simmonses. They are often at each others’ homes and parties. When Oprah’s significant other, Steadman Graham, spoke to a group in Dallas, it was noted that he dined with the Simmonses. In April, 2006 — two years after the Swift Boat scandal was revealed — Oprah sent a camera crew to a Dallas luncheon hosted by Annette Simmons showcasing the thousands of tulip bulbs surrounding the lake on her property.

It’s unlikely though that the Simmonses were at Oprah’s house next door on September 9, 2007. That’s when she hosted an all-star fundraiser for Obama with Stevie Wonder and guests like Halle Berry, Will Smith, and other A-list Hollywood names. One can only imagine what Simmons thought as the sound of “Ain’t No Stoppin’ Us Now” blared over the loudspeaker system.

Interestingly, that was the last time either Oprah or Graham, for that matter, contributed any money either to the Obama campaign or to the Democratic Party. While they could have each made donations to Obama’s presidential bid, they gave just for the primary. And neither of them showed any interest in the Party itself, which funneled money to Obama.

Simmons, on the other hand, is a regular and constant Republican donor. And it’s not like the Obama campaign hasn’t taken notice of him. On August 21st and 25th, Robert Bauer, general counsel for Obama for America, wrote letters to John C. Keeney, Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Criminal Division, concerning the American Issues Project.

On the 25th Bauer wrote: “New facts have come to light that underscore the patently illegal nature of AIP’s formation and operation, and also demonstrate a knowing and willful violation of law on the part of its contributor, Howard Simmons [sic].” Bauer then attaches the Federal Election Committee filing by AIP that states its sole purpose: to defeat Barack Obama. Contran Corporation, owned by Simmons, is listed as AIP’s owner.

Bauer finishes his letter demanding Simmons’s prosecution: “We reiterate our request that the Department of Justice fulfill its commitment to take prompt action to investigate and to prosecute the American Issues Project, and we further request that the Department of Justice investigate and prosecute Howard [sic] Simmons for a knowing and willful violation of the individual aggregate contribution limits.”

Simmons, Bauer complained, had exceeded his personal donation limit because he’d given $2.88 million — roughly $2.7 million more than was allowed by FEC guidelines that state only $42,700 may be given to organizations other than candidate committees or party committees.

It wasn’t the first time Simmons had had trouble with political donations. In 1993, the FEC fined him just under $20,000 for exceeding limits in donations from 1988 and 1989. According to the New York Times, Simmons’s Swift Boat group was fined almost $300,000 for illegally spending $20 million to influence the election. Another Simmons-backed anti-Kerry group, Progress for America, was fined $750,000. They’d spent $31 million.

Simmons’ contentiousness is not limited to the backing of the Swift Boat Vets and the Ayers campaign to smear Obama. In December 1997, according to reports in the New York Times and elsewhere, Simmons was sued by two of his four daughters for abusing his powers in controlling millions of dollars he placed in trust funds for them. A jury agreed that he’d breached his financial duty as guardian of their inheritance, but were undecided on other issues. The case ended in a mistrial. Unusually, the case had been catalyzed when Simmons served her legal papers on one of the daughters by dropping them in her baby’s crib. The child had been born premature and was susceptible to infection, according to the New York Times and other reports.

Read more at http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,460109,00.html

LOS ANGELES — Thousands took to the streets of Los Angeles and San Francisco on Wednesday evening to protest California’s passage of Proposition 8, a ban on gay marriage.

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Demonstrators marched through West Hollywood, Hollywood and Santa Monica where several protesters stopped at busy intersections, blocking traffic and prompting police intervention.

Nov. 5: Protesters march on the Sunset Strip during a

An additional group of about 500 protesters gathered near CNN’s Los Angeles bureau, where they were seen banging on the doors and walls, causing the Los Angeles Police Department to declare a tactical alert — requiring all available officers to respond to the protest — some of whom were brought in from other stations.

Television cameras showed one protester jumping on top of a police car at the intersection of Hollywood and Highland. He was quickly wrestled to the ground by police and handcuffed.

Several others were arrested when a group of people broke away from the larger demonstration that began in West Hollywood earlier in the evening.

Click for additional video coverage at MyFoxLA.com

Some of them were detained, but “the overall indication is that the demonstrators and marchers are peaceful,” Lee said.

In San Francisco, hundreds gathered on the steps of City Hall to protest approval of the ban.

Protesters held candles and carried signs that read “We all Deserve the Freedom to Marry” as part of the event, which was sponsored by groups opposed to Proposition 8.

Click for more on the protests in San Francisco

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom expressed frustration in the ban, but said he is hopeful it will be overturned in court.

The loss was a political defeat for Newsom, who’s been one of the most prominent advocates of same-sex marriage. However, he believed the effect on his gubernatorial aspirations is “trivial” and “irrelevant.”

City attorneys of Los Angeles and San Francisco, along with the American Civil Liberties Union, filed requests for the state Supreme Court to overturn the gay marriage ban on Wednesday.

Meg Waters, part of the Yes on 8 campaign team, told City News Service, “gay and lesbian couples have exactly the same protections under the law with civil unions.”

“Marriage has been defined as a man and woman since time began,” Waters said. “The people of California have voted twice, so I think the best thing to do is for everybody involved to figure out a way to move forward.”

Waters said she understands “how gays and lesbians may feel concerned about this.”

“If they stop and look at the situation, they have the exact same legal protections and rights under the law today they had yesterday,” Waters said.

“You can’t change the definition of something that existed forever because you don’t like it.”

The Yes on 8 campaign has “a great deal of compassion for gay and lesbian couples and support completely their right to live as they choose, whether it’s in a committed relationship and a domestic partnership or however they choose,” Waters said.

“We don’t believe that Proposition 8 hinders that at all,” Waters said. “We’re hoping very much to rebuild bridges to that community at some point.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.