Prior to the 2011 movie “The Big Year” featuring Jack Black, Steve Martin, and Owen Wilson, many people were unaware that competitive birdwatching existed. Commonly referred to as “big years,” birdwatchers around the globe partake in an informal competition to see who can observe the most bird species within a designated geographic area in one calendar year. This fun and unique activity has steadily grown in popularity over the years, serving as a life-long hobby for some.

This year the Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism (KDWPT) will host its very own birding contest dubbed the “Kansas Birding Big Year.” Unlike other big year competitions that span the U.S. in a calendar year, participants in the Kansas Birding Big Year compete from April 20-Dec. 31 to observe as many species of birds as they can within the borders of Kansas.

“The real driving force behind this competition is getting folks into the Kansas outdoors to enjoy nature and the fun wildlife watching opportunities available,” said KDWPT wildlife education coordinator Mike Rader. “We also hope this competition will help show folks just how many different kinds of birds either migrate through or call Kansas home.”

Participants can log their data into the online service, eBird, available on the Cornell University web site, www.ebird.org.

“The data gathered from this competition will help researchers study a number of different bird-related issues, mainly dealing with abundance, time spent in the field and numbers of folks actually out watching birds,” said Rader.

Participants can compete in one of three categories: youth (16 and under), adult (17-64), and senior (65 and up).Winners of each category will receive prizes to be awarded next January.

Health officials are seeing more food poisonings caused by a bacteria commonly linked to raw milk and poultry.

A study released this week said campylobacter cases grew by 14 percent over the last five years.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report was based on foodborne infections in only 10 states — about 15 percent of the American population. But it is seen as a good indicator of food poisoning trends.

Overall, food poisonings held fairly steady in recent years. There were no significant jumps in cases from most other food bugs, including salmonella and E. coli. But campylobacter rose, and last year accounted for more than a third of food poisoning illnesses in those states and about a 10th of the deaths.

Kansas officials have lowered their estimates for what they expect Medicaid and other social services to cost the state through the middle of next year.
Lt. Gov. Jeff Colyer said Friday the new figures show that there is a “dividend” from the state’s overhaul of Medicaid.
The new projections cover about $1 billion in state spending on social services each during the current fiscal year and the one beginning in July.
The new figure for the current fiscal year is almost $38 million lower than the previous estimate. The figure for the next fiscal year is about $25 million lower than previous total.
The state turned its Medicaid program the needy over to three private health insurance companies this year, promising it would lower costs and improve health coverage.

A northeast Kansas man will go to prison for more than three years for a head-on crash that killed two people.

KAIR-AM reports that Brian Keefe, of Nortonville, was sentenced Friday in Jefferson County District Court.

Keefe pleaded guilty in December to two counts of involuntary manslaughter and two misdemeanor counts of driving under the influence.

The Kansas Highway Patrol said a car driven by Keefe crossed the center line of a road north of Oskaloosa and struck another vehicle on March 29, 2011. The crash killed 38-year-old Shawn Fraker, of Winchester, and 27-year-old Daniel Walker, of Oskaloosa.

Keefe was sentenced to three years and seven months on each of the manslaughter counts, to run concurrently. He’ll also spend three years on post-release supervision.

 (AP) — A 19-year-old college student wanted in the Boston Marathon bombings was taken into custody Friday evening after a manhunt that left the city virtually paralyzed and his older brother and accomplice dead.

Police announced via Twitter that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was in custody. They later wrote, “CAPTURED!!! The hunt is over. The search is done. The terror is over. And justice has won. Suspect in custody.”

Tsarnaev’s brother, 26-year-old Tamerlan, was killed Friday in a furious attempt to escape police.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev had been holed up in a boat in a Watertown neighborhood. The crowd gathered near the scene let out a cheer when spectators saw officers clapping.

“Everyone wants him alive,” said Kathleen Paolillo, a 27-year-old teacher who lives in Watertown.

Boston Mayor Tom Menino tweeted “We got him,” along with a photo of the police commissioner speaking to him. Watertown residents poured out of their homes and lined the streets to cheer police vehicles as they rolled away from the scene.

During a long night of violence Thursday into Friday, the brothers killed an MIT police officer, severely wounded another lawman and hurled explosives at police in a car chase and gun battle, authorities said.

The suspects were identified by law enforcement officials and family members as Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, ethnic Chechen brothers who had lived in Dagestan, which neighbors Chechnya in southern Russia. They had been in the U.S. for about a decade, an uncle said, and were believed to be living in Cambridge, Mass.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev, a 26-year-old who had been known to the FBI as Suspect No. 1 and was seen in surveillance footage of the marathon in a black baseball cap, was killed overnight, officials said. His younger brother, who had been dubbed Suspect No. 2 and was seen wearing a white, backward baseball cap in the images from Monday’s deadly bombing — escaped and was on the run.

Their uncle in Maryland, Ruslan Tsarni, pleaded on live television: “Dzhokhar, if you are alive, turn yourself in and ask for forgiveness.”

Authorities in Boston suspended all mass transit and warned close to 1 million people in the entire city and some of its suburbs to stay indoors as the hunt for Suspect No. 2 went on. Businesses were asked not to open. People waiting at bus and subway stops were told to go home. The Red Sox and Bruins postponed their games.

From Watertown to Cambridge, police SWAT teams, sharpshooters and FBI agents surrounded various buildings as police helicopters buzzed overhead and armored vehicles rumbled through the streets. Authorities also searched trains.

“We believe this man to be a terrorist,” said Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis. “We believe this to be a man who’s come here to kill people.”

The bombings on Monday killed three people and wounded more than 180 others, tearing off limbs in a spray of shrapnel and instantly raising the specter of another terrorist attack on U.S. soil.

Chechnya was the scene of two wars between Russian forces and separatists since 1994, in which tens of thousands were killed in heavy Russian bombing. That spawned an Islamic insurgency that has carried out deadly bombings in Russia and the region, although not in the West.

Investigators in the Boston case have shed no light on the motive for the bombing and have said it is unclear whether it was the work of domestic or international terrorists or someone else entirely with an unknown agenda.

The endgame — at least for Suspect No. 1 — came just hours after the FBI released photos and video of the two young men at the marathon’s finish line and appealed to the public for help in identifying and capturing them.

State Police spokesman Dave Procopio said police realized they were dealing with the bombing suspects based on what the two men told a carjacking victim during their getaway attempt overnight.

A judge has ruled that a Kansas abortion opponent can shield from disclosure ministerial visits with the killer of abortion provider George Tiller.

U.S. District Judge J. Thomas Marten on Friday reversed a magistrate judge’s decision that Angel Dillard’s communications with convicted murderer Scott Roeder were not protected because she was not an ordained minister. Marten found that Dillard she was acting as a lay minister.

But Marten also said Dillard must disclose communications with another inmate who claims Dillard hired him to stalk a Wichita doctor training to do abortions after Tiller’s death. Dillard contends the inmate tried to blackmail her after getting out of prison.

The judge says regardless of who is telling the truth such a relationship is not covered by the priest-penitent privilege.

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