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Residents in Kentucky and Missouri were sorting through the wreckage left behind in neighborhoods devastated by tornadoes, remaining anxious on Sunday as more severe weather was expected. The storms, which swept across parts of the Midwest and South, claimed the lives of over two dozen people. Kentucky bore the brunt of the destruction, with a powerful tornado tearing through the state, damaging hundreds of homes, overturning vehicles, and leaving many residents without shelter. At least 19 fatalities were reported, the majority occurring in southeastern Laurel County. The National Weather Service warned of another “multi-day” stretch of hazardous weather across the central U.S., including heavy rainfall, thunderstorms, and the risk of additional tornadoes. Gaza death toll hits 140 as Israel launches major ground offensive The weather service confirmed a “large and extremely dangerous” tornado Sunday afternoon near Mingus, Texas, about 70 miles (110 kilometers) west of Fort Worth. Significant damage but no immediate casualties were reported in Palo Pinto County, which includes Mingus, a sheriff’s office dispatcher said. Forecasters warned of hail the size of tennis balls in that area, and damaging hail elsewhere in parts of Kansas, Oklahoma and Nebraska.   ‘It happened so fast’ Jeff Wyatt’s home of 17 years was destroyed along with much of his neighborhood in London, Kentucky. Wyatt, his wife and two of their children scarcely made it to safety in a hallway while the roof and family room were ripped away. On Sunday, the family returned to the wrecked home to collect photos, baby blankets and other keepsakes. “It happened so fast,” said Wyatt, 54. “If we would have been there 10 seconds longer, we would have been gone with the family room.” Survivors and their supporters picked through the debris in London on Sunday, wary about new forecasts. Severe storms were possible for Kentucky on Monday and even more so on Tuesday, the weather service said. Zach Wilson, whose parents’ home was destroyed, said he was “terrified” another storm would ruin the remaining salvageable items scattered across their property — or even worse, destroy another community. “If I had to tell anybody it would be to listen to every word that the National Weather Service kicks out and take every warning seriously,” Wilson said. The Kentucky storms emerged from a weather system Friday that killed seven in Missouri and two in northern Virginia, authorities said. The system also spawned tornadoes in Wisconsin, brought punishing heat to Texas and temporarily enveloped parts of Illinois — including Chicago — in a pall of dust on an otherwise sunny day. MISSOURI and KANSAS could see more storms The weather service said parts of Missouri and Kansas could see severe thunderstorms, golf ball-sized hail and wind gusts up to 60 mph (97 kph) into Monday. In London, Kentucky, Ryan VanNorstran huddled with his brother’s large dogs in a first-floor closet as the storm hit his brother’s home Friday in a neighborhood along Keavy Road where much of the destruction in the community of nearly 8,000 people was centered. VanNorstran was house-sitting. He said he felt the house shake as he got into a closet. Then, a door from another house crashed through a window. All the windows blew out of the house and his car was destroyed. Chunks of wood had punched through several parts of the roof but the house avoided catastrophic damage. When he stepped outside, he heard screaming. “I guess in the moment, I kind of realized there was nothing I could do. I’d never really felt that kind of power from just nature,” he said.   DAMAGE ASSESSMENTS UNDERWAY Damage assessments were underway Sunday as the state readied its request for federal disaster assistance, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said.    

A gas explosion Monday at a southeast Missouri home killed one person and injured nine others, authorities said. The explosion happened around 7 a.m. in Wyatt, a town of about 280 people that's about 130 miles (210 kilometers) south of St. Louis, Capt. Barry Morgan with the Mississippi County Sheriff’s Office said. He said authorities were trying to determine whether a water heater or stove were to blame. He identified the person killed only as a man in his mid-20s. Nine other people — the youngest just 6 months old — had serious or critical burn injuries. Several were flown to hospitals in St. Louis and Memphis, Tennessee. Also read: Officials: Fire at Coptic church in Cairo kills 41, hurts 14 “That is a ton of people in a house," he said. “So that’s what we’re trying to determine why there were so many people in there, because when I arrived on scene, it was just there was victims lying everywhere, badly burned." The garage of a neighboring home also caught fire, but no one inside that structure was hurt, Morgan said. Also read: Deputy coroner: House explosion in southern Indiana kills 3 The State Fire Marshal and a state propane commission were investigating.

An Amtrak passenger train traveling from Los Angeles to Chicago struck a dump truck Monday in a remote area of Missouri, killing three people and injuring dozens more as rail cars tumbled off the tracks and landed on their sides, officials said. Two of those killed were on the train and one was in the truck, Missouri State Highway Patrol spokesman Cpl. Justin Dunn said. It was not immediately clear exactly how many people were hurt, the patrol said, but hospitals reported receiving more than 40 patients from the crash and were expecting more. Amtrak's Southwest Chief was carrying about 207 passengers and crew members when the collision happened near Mendon at a rural intersection on a gravel road with no lights or electronic controls, according to the highway patrol. Officials were still trying to determine the exact number of people aboard. Seven cars derailed, the patrol said. Rob Nightingale said he was dozing off in his sleeper compartment when the lights flickered and the train rocked back and forth. Also read: 46 dead, 16 hospitalized after trailer of migrants found “It was like slow motion. Then all of a sudden I felt it tip my way. I saw the ground coming toward my window, and all the debris and dust,” Nightingale told The Associated Press. “Then it sat on its side and it was complete silence. I sat there and didn’t hear anything. Then I heard a little girl next door crying.” Nightingale was unhurt and he and other passengers were able to climb out of the overturned train car through a window. The collision broke the dump truck apart, he said. “It was all over the tracks,” said Nightingale, an art gallery owner from Taos, New Mexico, who said he rides Amtrak regularly to Chicago. It's too early to speculate on why the truck was on the tracks, said National Transportation Safety Board Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy. A team of NTSB investigators will arrive Tuesday, she said. Trains won't be able to run on the track for “a matter of days” while they gather evidence, she added. At one point, KMBC-TV helicopter video showed rail cars on their side as emergency responders used ladders to climb into one of them. Six medical helicopters parked nearby were waiting to transport patients. Close to 20 local and state law enforcement agencies, ambulance services, fire department and medical helicopter services responded, Dunn said. The first emergency responders arrived within 20 minutes of receiving a 911 call, he said. Passenger Dian Couture was in the dining car with her husband celebrating their 40th wedding anniversary when she heard a loud noise and the train wobbled and then crashed onto its side. Also read: Russian missile strike hits crowded shopping mall “The people on our left-hand side flew across and hit us, and then we were standing on the windows on the right-hand side of the car," Couture told WDAF-TV. “Two gentlemen in the front came up, stacked a bunch of things and popped out the window and literally pulled us out by our hands." Passengers included 16 youths and eight adults from two Boy Scout troops who were traveling home to Appleton, Wisconsin, after a backcountry excursion at the Philmont Scout Ranch in New Mexico. No one in the group was seriously injured, said Scott Armstrong, director of national media relations for the Boy Scouts of America. The Scouts administered first aid to several injured passengers, including the driver of the dump truck, Armstrong said. High school students from Pleasant Ridge High School in Easton, Kansas, who were headed to a Future Business Leaders of America conference in Chicago, were also aboard, Superintendent Tim Beying told The Kansas City Star. Cheryl Benjamin was on her way home to East Lansing, Michigan, after an Alasksan cruise and a trip to Disneyland. She said she felt a bump, then heard a squeal, then looked out the window and saw the cars in front of her falling to the right. Then her car fell, the last to derail. It all took about 45 seconds. Benjamin told The Associated Press that the passengers organized themselves to escape the cars. Some of the Boy Scouts on board helped her climb out of the train and onto the ground. She was spending Monday evening in a local high school gym, where community members had brought in food for the passengers as they waited for buses to take them to hotels. Republican state Rep. Peggy McGaugh was at the high school. She said locals heard about the crash and started frying chicken, making sandwiches and delivering pallets of water. “Being the small community this is, nobody wants to be the hero but everyone wants to help," McGaugh said. Mike Spencer, who grows corn and soybeans on the land surrounding the intersection where the crash occurred, said everyone in Mendon understands that the intersection is dangerous, especially for those driving heavy, slow farm equipment. The approach to the tracks is on an inclining gravel road and it’s difficult to see trains coming in either direction, he said. Spencer said he had contacted state transportation officials, Chariton County commissioners and BNSF Railway, which owns the track, about the potential danger. Spencer, who is on the board of a local levy district, said the dump truck driver was hauling rock for a levy on a local creek, a project that had been ongoing for a couple days. Amtrak is a federally supported company that operates more than 300 passenger trains daily in nearly every contiguous U.S. state and parts of Canada. It was the second Amtrak collision in as many days. Three people in a car were killed Sunday afternoon when an Amtrak commuter train smashed into it in Northern California, authorities said. The Southwest Chief takes about two days to travel from Los Angeles to Chicago, picking up passengers at stops in between. Mendon, with a population of about 160, is about 84 miles (135 kilometers) northeast of Kansas City.

South Carolina earned its No. 1 ranking with a style coach Dawn Staley described as "fast and fluid."

Authorities say a 2-year-old has died after being shot in suburban St. Louis, Missouri, the latest of many young victims of gun violence in the area.