Wire
Authorities search for man in pit
PITTSBURG (AP) — A 911 call to Pittsburg police has prompted a search of an old strip mining pit in Southeast Kansas for a man whose whereabouts are unknown. The Joplin Globe reported a hiker called authorities on Saturday morning saying an adult male had fallen into the pit at Wilderness Park. Police on Monday identified the missing man as 22-year-old Pittsburg resident Mateo Vincent Lorenzo. While the search goes on, investigators are also h...
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Kansas works on system to evaluate teachers
TOPEKA (AP) — Kansas teachers and administrators are working with the state Department of Education to develop an evaluation system to measure their performance. The Topeka Capital-Journal reported that the Kansas Education Evaluation Protocol is a pilot program in place in about two dozen districts. It is part of the state’s efforts to comply with the requirements of a federal waiver it received under the No Child Left Behind Act. All school ...
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Kobach touts Kansas photo ID law
TOPEKA (AP) — Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach says fewer than expected registered voters cast provisional ballots in the Nov. 6 general election in response to the new state photo identification law. The law requires voters to show a valid photo identification in order to receive a ballot and cast a vote. This was the first general election to require proof of identity since the law was enacted in 2011. Kobach said Tuesday that only 717 ...
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Theft stops honor flights
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — As many as 100 World War II veterans missed their chance to travel to Washington to see their war’s memorial after about $110,000 disappeared from a Kansas nonprofit that organized free trips for them. Richard Foster, the president of the board for an organization that ran Central Prairie Honor Flights, fears some of the veterans will never see the National World War II Memorial. It wasn’t completed until 2004, and with...
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Retailers push up opening day of holiday shopping
By The Associated Press This season could mark the end of Black Friday as we know it. For decades, stores have opened their doors in the wee hours on the day after Thanksgiving. But this year, major chains such as Target and Sears ushered customers in on Thanksgiving itself, even before the turkey leftovers had gotten cold, turning the traditional busiest shopping day of the year into a two-day affair. Despite an outcry from some employees, b...
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Rural hospitals brace for change
By Dave Ranney KHI News Service LEOTI — In small towns like this across Kansas, hospital administrators are paying close attention to federal deficit-reduction talks in Washington, D.C., that could lead to a 2 percent cut in Medicare spending, starting Jan. 1. “Two percent may not sound like much,” said Vicki Hahn, who runs the Wichita County Health Center in Leoti. “But we’re a ‘critical access hospital,’ which means we’re reimbursed for 101 ...
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Southwest Airlines to offer Wichita flights
WICHITA (AP) — Southwest Airlines has announced plans to begin flights in June from Wichita-Mid-Continent Airport, saying the fate of government subsidies given to its predecessor will have no bearing on its own future in Wichita. “We are here with no conditions, no demands,” Bob Montgomery, the company’s vice president for airport affairs, said Monday. “We ask that y’all fly Southwest, because this is a tough business.” The Wichita Eagle repo...
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Concealed-carry holders commit few gun crimes
WICHITA (AP) — Few Kansans who hold a concealed-carry gun permit have been charged with a firearm-related crime, statistics show. Of the 51,078 permits issued in Kansas since the law took effect in 2007, just 44 permit holders were charged with a crime committed while using a firearm, according to records from the Kansas attorney general’s office. The Wichita Eagle reported that works out to one charge for every 1,161 permit holders, or 0.09 p...
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Vote bodes well for wind energy
WICHITA (AP) — The re-election of President Barack Obama has rekindled hopes by wind energy supporters for the extension of the production tax credit. Not only was Obama, who strongly backs alternative energy re-elected, but Democrats gained seats in the Senate and House. The Wichita Eagle reported that the American Wind Energy Association has warned that the loss of the tax credit, which expires Jan. 1, will lead to 37,000 layoffs as demand f...
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Customers balk at bankruptcy sale
WICHITA (AP) — A bankruptcy judge sided Monday with a group of current Hawker Beechcraft customers who balked at a move by the Kansas plane maker to immediately sell off its inventory of discontinued Hawker 4000 jet aircraft at substantial discounts as part of the company’s bankruptcy proceedings. Hawker Beechcraft wants to sell the remaining inventory on “an expedited basis,” without bankruptcy court approval of each sale, because it believes...
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Kline argues ethics case to court
TOPEKA (AP) — Former Attorney General Phill Kline told the Kansas Supreme Court on Thursday that he never lied or intentionally misled authorities as he conducted an extensive investigation of abortion providers during his term in office. The seven-member court heard 90 minutes of arguments from Kline and from attorneys representing the Board of Discipline of Attorneys who recommend that Kline’s license to practice law be suspended indefinitel...
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Panel’s choices will spur debate on judges
TOPEKA (AP) — A commission bypassed Republican Gov. Sam Brownback’s top attorney and a prominent conservative judge in naming finalists for a Kansas Court of Appeals seat on Thursday, an announcement certain to inspire a legislative debate about the selection process. The statewide judicial nominating commission nominated a veteran western Kansas trial court judge, a Kansas City-area prosecutor and a Topeka attorney for the vacancy on the stat...
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Lawmaker alleges attempt to shield law
TOPEKA (AP) — A Democratic legislator in a close re-election fight alleged Thursday that Republican Secretary of State Kris Kobach was trying to deflect scrutiny of a voter ID law he championed when he filed an unsuccessful lawsuit aimed at preventing her from contacting constituents who cast provisional ballots. But Kobach rejected the criticism from state Rep. Ann Mah of Topeka, saying he has repeatedly given her and other legislators detail...
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Study finds science has been reduced
TOPEKA (AP) — Elementary schools in Kansas and four surrounding states have drastically reduced or even eliminated instruction in science because teachers feel pressured to improve performance in math and reading, according to a survey conducted by a Kansas school superintendent. George Griffith, superintendent of the Trego school district and a member of a Kansas committee drawing up new national science standards, told the Kansas Board of Ed...
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KDOT announces transportation work
TOPEKA (AP) — Kansas transportation officials released a list Wednesday of more than 430 construction projects totaling $1.1 billion to be carried out in the next two budget years, including several that are already under way. The list released Wednesday includes some major projects that were previously announced by the Kansas Department of Transportation. They include completion of the South Lawrence Trafficway in Douglas County; expansion of...
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Kobach loses round in battle over voter names
TOPEKA (AP) — Kansas Secretary of Kris Kobach lost a legal battle Wednesday to block one of his most persistent critics from contacting voters who cast uncounted provisional ballots in her close legislative race, and some county officials suggested his stance represented an attempt to change office policy. U.S. District Judge J. Thomas Marten ruled against the Republican secretary of state in a federal lawsuit Kobach filed last week to prevent...
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Coalition of advocates calls for Medicaid expansion in Kansas
TOPEKA (AP) — Health care advocates in Kansas on Friday called on Gov. Sam Brownback to accept a federal expansion of Medicaid coverage for some low-income residents. More than 75 people attended a rally at the Statehouse, arguing the expansion would help about 130,000 Kansas residents who lack health insurance. Approximately 393,000 residents now receive health coverage through Medicaid, the government health care program for the poor. Anna L...
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Mother in forgery case had her own conviction
OVERLAND PARK (AP) — The mother of a Kansas City lawyer facing charges of “death by forgery” for allegedly falsifying her father’s signature to have him removed from life support had her own run-in with the law over an alleged forgery years earlier. Susan Elizabeth Van Note, 44, is charged with killing her father, William Van Note, in October 2010. He died after he and his live-in girlfriend, Sharon Dickson, were shot at their Lake of the Ozar...
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Federal government will run state health exchange
TOPEKA (AP) — Gov. Sam Brownback said Thursday that Kansas will have a federally run health insurance exchange, after he declined to support the state insurance commissioner’s application for a state-federal partnership. Brownback had said months ago he would wait until after Tuesday’s election before moving forward on any provisions of the new federal health care law. He announced his decision about the required exchange — an online health in...
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Kobach tells election officials they can’t release voters’ names
TOPEKA (AP) — Secretary of State Kris Kobach’s office told county election officials Thursday that they shouldn’t release the names of Kansas voters who cast provisional ballots, a directive that came a day after one of Kobach’s critics began pursuing such a list in hopes of averting a narrow election loss. The Republican’s office sent two memos to county officials. One, from its elections chief, said the information “is not public record” and...
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