Wire
Police search for ex-cop
IRVINE, Calif. (AP) — Police blocked off a street and stood guard in front of a home in a typically quiet Southern California suburb Sunday, protecting a man they believe has been targeted by a fugitive ex-police officer suspected of killing three people and setting the region on edge by eluding authorities in a sprawling manhunt that has lasted days. Irvine residents, meanwhile, were left to adjust to life in the midst of a heavy police prese...
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Convoys move equipment out of Afghanistan
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The United States began its withdrawal from Afghanistan in earnest, officials said Monday, sending the first of what will be tens of thousands of containers home through a once-blocked land route through Pakistan. The shipment of 50 containers over the weekend came as a new U.S. commander took control of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan to guide the coalition through the end stages of a war that has so far lasted m...
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Pope’s resignation surprises church
VATICAN CITY (AP) — With a few words in Latin, Pope Benedict VXI did what no pope has done in more than half a millennium, stunning the world by announcing his resignation Monday and leaving the already troubled Catholic Church to replace the leader of its 1 billion followers by Easter. Not even his closest associates had advance word of the news, a bombshell that he dropped during a routine morning meeting of Vatican cardinals. And with no cl...
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Number of Kansas flu cases rises
TOPEKA (AP) — Kansans are reeling from influenza and flu-like symptoms, government health officials said, and the state’s death toll is near 700 since the flu season began. The state has recorded 699 deaths from Sept. 1 through Monday in which flu and/or pneumonia was a direct or contributing factor, The Topeka Capital-Journal reported Thursday. Kansas Department of Health and Environment spokeswoman Miranda Steele said the rate of people bein...
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Bill focuses on abortion training at KU
TOPEKA (AP) — A proposal in the Kansas House would allow University of Kansas Medical Center students to receive privately funded abortion training. The provision is part of a bill introduced this week that would more strictly regulate abortions in Kansas. A similar bill last year would have prevented state employees — including doctors in training at the medical center in Kansas City, Kan. — from performing abortions on state property or stat...
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State seeks mediation in school finance case
TOPEKA (AP) — Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt and Gov. Sam Brownback have asked the Kansas Supreme Court to stay a lower court’s ruling on school finance and send the case to mediation. The documents were filed Thursday in Topeka in response to a Jan. 11 ruling in Shawnee County District Court that said the state’s system for funding K-12 schools was unconstitutional. The lawsuit also alleged that Kansas reneged on promises to abide by e...
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Tax plan meets GOP resistance
TOPEKA (AP) — Gov. Sam Brownback is meeting resistance to his tax plan from fellow Republicans because he’s mixing promises of future cuts in individual income tax rates with proposals to raise hundreds of millions of dollars in new revenues to plug holes in the state budget. The backlash was evident Thursday as Kansas legislators wrapped up hearings on Brownback’s proposals. Some Republican lawmakers worried about getting tagged as tax increa...
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Military tactics help rescue hostage
By The Associated Press Within hours after an armed, angry man shot a school bus driver and kidnapped a 5-year-old boy, workers feverishly unloaded boxes packed with percussive grenades, military C-4 explosives and an array of guns from a windowless DC-9 that had landed just miles from the suspect’s isolated compound. Helmeted officers decked out in tan fatigues, camouflage and body armor, many carrying long guns, rumbled in rented cargo truc...
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All dogs in England to get microchips
LONDON (AP) — Dog owners who refuse to fit Fido with a microchip may someday find themselves fetching a hefty fine, the British government said Wednesday. All dogs in England will have to be fitted with microchips by 2016, authorities said, meaning that canines across the country will be chasing cars with a tiny circuit embedded in the back of their necks. Britain’s Environment Department said that the chips would help reunite owners with lost...
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Antarctic base can slide across ice
LONDON (AP) — British researchers have unveiled a futuristic Antarctic research base that can move, sliding across the frozen surface to beat the shifting ice and pounding snow that doomed its predecessors. The British Antarctic Survey said Wednesday that the Halley VI Research Station is the sixth facility to occupy the site on the Brunt Ice Shelf — a floating sheet of ice about 10 miles from the edge of the South Atlantic. Most of the previo...
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Fiery crash kills four
MONTROSE, Ga. (AP) — More than two dozen cars, pickup trucks and tractor-trailers collided Wednesday morning in a fiery pileup on a foggy Georgia interstate, killing at least four people and sending nine others to a hospital, officials said. Work crews on Interstate 16 were still clearing charred and twisted wreckage from the crash scene, which covered nearly a quarter-mile of the roadway, nearly six hours after the chain of crashes occurred a...
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Small tsunami hits Solomons, leaving four missing
SYDNEY (AP) — A powerful earthquake off the Solomon Islands on Wednesday generated a tsunami of up to about 5 feet that damaged dozens of homes and left at least four people missing and presumed dead in the South Pacific island chain. Authorities canceled tsunami warnings on more distant coasts. Local officials reported that two 4 foot, 11-inch waves hit the western side of Santa Cruz Island, damaging between 70 and 80 homes and properties, sa...
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Heavy clashes rock Damascus
BEIRUT (AP) — Syrian rebels and regime forces fought their most intense clashes in weeks inside the heavily guarded capital of Damascus on Wednesday, activists said, with the sounds of shell blasts echoing through the downtown area and keeping many children home from school while residents hid in their houses. The opposition fighters blasted army checkpoints with rifles and anti-aircraft guns while government forces shelled the eastern and sou...
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Mexico seeks culprits in rape of six Spaniards
ACAPULCO, Mexico (AP) — Authorities have information they hope will lead them to the gang of armed, masked men who raped six Spanish tourists in the Mexican resort of Acapulco, the attorney general in the southern state of Guerrero said. The vicious, hours-long attack at a beach home on the outskirts of Acapulco before dawn Monday was the latest chapter of violence that has tarnished the once-glamorous Pacific coast resort celebrated in Frank ...
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Lawyer, Senate leader clash on bill
TOPEKA (AP) — A labor attorney and the Kansas Senate president sparred Tuesday over whether public employees have a right to have money deducted from their paychecks for union-backed political activities. Rebecca Proctor and Senate President Susan Wagle clashed during a Senate Commerce Committee meeting over a bill that would bar automatic, voluntary deductions from teachers and government workers’ paychecks to support union-backed political a...
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Groups push for downtown Lawrence to be cultural district
LAWRENCE (AP) — Representatives of about two dozen organizations are promoting a plan to have downtown Lawrence designated as a cultural district, which they said would spread the city’s reputation for supporting culture and improve the organizations’ chances to receive grants. The groups met Sunday with the Lawrence Cultural Arts Commission, which agreed to forward the proposal to the City Commission, The Lawrence Journal-World reported. The ...
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Petition seeks blockage of abortion clinic
WICHITA (AP) — Anti-abortion activists delivered a petition with about 14,000 signatures to the Wichita City Council on Tuesday asking it to block the opening of a clinic at the building once owned by slain abortion provider George Tiller. The city council took no action on the petition, which Kansans for Life concede has no legal force. However, the group also plans to present the petition to the local planning commission later this month. Th...
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Free HIV testing to end
State ends free HIV testing in most counties From Staff and Wire Reports Health advocates are warning that Kansas' decision to stop providing free HIV testing for many small, rural communities restricts services for some of the most vulnerable in the state. Labette County will not be impacted by this move. The Kansas Department of Health and Environment used to provide services — such as free HIV testing kits and specimen analysis — to 40 cou...
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Judge says drug courts offer offenders new chance
HUTCHINSON (AP) — Those who go to prison for drug crimes spend an average of about 18 months there, which costs the state roughly $40,000. “If you could show it actually changes their behavior, it would be worth it,” says Reno County District Judge Joe McCarville. “But it doesn’t. So we really can’t afford to spend $40,000 to lock them up.” Instead, McCarville has overseen the creation of a special drug court to provide intensive supervision a...
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Suicide bomber kills guard at U.S. Embassy
ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — In the second deadly assault on a U.S. diplomatic post in five months, a suicide bomber struck the American Embassy in Ankara on Friday, killing a Turkish security guard in what the White House described as a terrorist attack. Washington immediately warned Americans to stay away from all U.S. diplomatic facilities in Turkey and to be wary in large crowds. Turkish officials said the bombing was linked to leftist domestic m...
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