VICTORIA- A Barton County woman was injured in an accident just before 6 a.m. on Friday in Ellis County.
The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 2006 Chevy Cobalt driven by Hope M. Yeager, 22, Ellinwood, was westbound on Interstate 70 two miles east of Victoria.
The vehicle hit a deer carcass in the road and sideswiped a semi driven by Patricia E. Bussart, 48, Salina.
The semi driver lost control of the vehicle and overturned in the median.
Yeager was transported to Hays Medical Center.
Bussart was not injured.
The KHP reported Yeager was not wearing a seat belt.
CHEROKEE, Kan. (AP) — Officials with the Southeast School District in Crawford and Cherokee counties are celebrating word that the district will receive a federal grant for a safe room.
The district found out Wednesday that it will get a $285,049 grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to build the storm-safe room at the Southeast Elementary School in Weir. The school district must provide another $95,016.
The Joplin Globe reports that the district, which serves several towns, has suffered severe damage from straight line winds twice in five years. It is in a high risk area for tornadoes.
District spokesman Chris Wilson says the proposed 1,886-square-foot structure will have 8-inch concrete walls and miles of steel rebar. It also will be used as the school’s music room.
Three northwest Kansas students recently were awarded bicycles for their winning entries in the annual “Put the Brakes on Fatalities” poster contest.
The winners were: Blaire Beougher, 5, Stockton; Conner Miller, 9, Gorham; and Taylor Stein, 12, Hoxie. Pictured with each of the winners is Kansas Highway Patrol Trooper Tod Hileman, the KHP’s public resource officer for the northwest Kansas area.
Agra resident Judith E. Forell passed away Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2014, at the Smoky Hill Health & Rehab Center in Salina, KS at the age of 77.
She was born January 30, 1937 in Dresden, KS, the daughter of Julius H. & Doris E. (Kemper) Hicks. Judy devoted her life to nursing. Her husband, Richard E. Forell, preceded her in death on Nov. 11, 1991.
Survivors include her son, Kurtis, of Agra, KS; five daughters: Rodeen Davidson of Joplin, MO; Yolanda Powell of Russell, KS; Louetta Forell of Red Cloud, NE; Kea Forell of Wichita, KS; and Gaylin Forell-Peterson of Salina, KS; 8 grandchildren and 7 great-grandchildren.
Funeral services will be held Wed., Nov. 12, 2014 at 2:00 p.m. in the Olliff-Boeve Memorial Chapel, Phillipsburg, with Pastor Joel Hiesterman officiating. Burial will follow in the Marvin Cemetery, Glade, KS.
Mrs. Forell will lie in-state on Monday & Tuesday from 9 a.m. – 9 p.m. at the funeral home, with the family receiving friends Tues. evening from 7 – 8 p.m.
Memorial contributions may be given to the Phillips County EMS. Online condolences to www.olliffboeve.com.
Olliff-Boeve Memorial Chapel, Phillipsburg, is in charge of arrangements.
Gene Policinski is senior vice president of the First Amendment Center
Things are not “looking up” when it comes to our ability to “look down” or just around to keep an eye on what our police and other authorities are doing.
In several high-profile incidents and elsewhere, police have moved to block the public from effectively seeing what they are doing at scenes. Those actions put First Amendment freedoms — speech, assembly, petition and free press — literally on the line.
Police stifled coverage by reporters and photographers in Ferguson Mo., and in New York City by blocking access on the ground, and by creating “no-fly zones” banning news helicopters from reporting on public demonstrations and altercations.
In some cases, authorities have cited safety concerns, but a report by The Associated Press recently cast doubt on the real reason for the no-coverage zone around Ferguson, Mo., last summer.
Make no mistake: While the issue is framed in terms of police and “news media,” the view being blocked is yours and mine and that of our fellow citizens. What is being excluded is the public’s right to know — and sometimes see first-hand — what their police are doing.
According to the AP, federal aviation officials agreed to a local police request for a “no media” zone of 37 square miles around Ferguson, Mo. for 12 days last August. AP uncovered audio tapes showing that the so-called “safety” zone was really intended to keep news helicopters away during a time of street protests.
While police denied that intent, AP’s report included audio segments that would appear to leave little doubt: “They finally admitted it really was to keep the media out,” said one FAA manager about the St. Louis County Police. “But they were a little concerned of, obviously, anything else that could be going on.” At another point, a manager at the FAA’s Kansas City center said that police “did not care if you ran commercial traffic through this TFR (temporary flight restriction) all day long. They didn’t want media in there.”
There’s history here: In 2011, New York City police banned news helicopters — as well as reporters on the ground — from the vicinity of a small park where the national “Occupy” movement had set up its headquarters. Authorities moved about 1 a.m. to clear the demonstrators. The few reporters on scene, as quickly as they could be identified, were escorted to locations blocks away.
Apart from running roughshod over our First Amendment rights, the news media bans are both ineffective and likely counter-productive. How many times do authorities have to see cell phone videos, often posted in near–real time before they accept that it’s no longer possible to stop such reports? Where is the realization that narrowly focused reports — with some, to be sure, motivated by advocacy rather that rooted in accuracy — often miss the “big picture” provided by journalists? And where police act properly, no-view often translates into misplaced suspicion.
Lest we think attempts to restrict news coverage are rare, one need only scan for the all-too regular incidents in which journalists and others are accosted and often taken into custody for simply taking photos of regular police activity happening out in the open. Go to the other end of the spectrum and consider the ongoing flap over the White House’s persistent attempts to exclude press photographers from events, with “official” photos offered as replacement.
The nation’s founders provided constitutional protection for a free press in large degree to provide an independent entity to observe and report on our public officials and the work that they do. You cannot be an effective “watchdog on government” if you’re kept penned in the official doghouse, or shut out of the public yard.
Disturbingly, the efforts at censorship occur even in the most benign circumstances. Reports say that two Lindenwood University student reporters were questioned for more than 90 minutes by more than a dozen St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department officers and detectives who saw the students filming department patrol cars from a public sidewalk. The department is investigating the incident, according to St. Louis Police Chief Sam Dotson, responding to a Nov. 1 letter from the university.
Perhaps that investigation should expand to include at least the Ferguson police officials behind the “no-fly” zone, and start with this question: When did the “Show Me” state motto get edited to include the words “ … except for this or that!”?
Gene Policinski is chief operating officer of the Washington-based Newseum Institute and senior vice president of the Institute’s First Amendment Center. [email protected]
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Boeing officials say they are discussing the sale of the company’s land in south Wichita.
The Wichita Eagle reports the airplane company declined to provide details of the potential sale but confirmed the negotiations are underway. The company also says it might have to move its Dreamliner operations to Wichita’s Mid-Continent Airport.
Boeing shut down its Wichita site last summer and moved the work to Oklahoma City, San Antonio and the Seattle area.
The company flies specially modified 747s, called the Dreamlifter, to Wichita to pick up fuselage sections built by Spirit AeroSystems. The planes land at McConnell Air Force Base. Boeing says those operations might have to move to Mid-Continent Airport if the Wichita property is sold.
COLBY — Authorities in Thomas County are asking the public to help find a missing teenager.
In a media release, the Colby Police Department reported Andrew Shubert, 16, was last seen at his home in Colby on Monday. As of Thursday morning, he remained missing.
Chief Ron Alexander of the CPD said Thursday that Shubert was last seen wearing jeans, a green T-shirt and a black or brown leather bomber jacket. The department is working with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to help spread the word about the disappearance.
Shubert is 6 foot, 1 inch and weighs approximately 170 pounds. He has blonde hair and blue eyes.
Alexander said Shubert could be in the Denver area, but leads are scarce.
“We just don’t know for sure,” he said.
Anyone with information as to Shubert’s whereabouts is asked to contact the CPD at (785) 460-4460, or National Center for Missing and Exploited Children at (800) THE LOST.
DETROIT (AP) — Honda is adding hundreds of thousands of vehicles to a previously announced recall for passenger air bags that can explode with too much force and send shards of metal into the passenger compartment.
The vehicles include older versions of the company’s three most popular models, the Accord, Civic and CR-V, with air bag systems made by troubled parts supplier Takata Corp.
Honda Motor Co. already was repairing the vehicles under a safety improvement campaign. The expanded recall announced Thursday night brings the vehicles under supervision of U.S. safety regulators.
Honda says a precise number of vehicles being added isn’t available.
The vehicles were sold or registered in 13 high-humidity states and territories. Humidity can cause the air bag propellant to burn too fast and blow apart metal canisters.
Hays city commissioners offered Matt Gough, the lawyer representing DP Management and the ownership group at the Hays Mall, with some amendments to the development agreement discussed again by commissioners at Thursday’s work session.
Commissioners requested all of the renovations be complete by Dec. 31, 2016, and pitched an amendment that requires the commission to approve a transfer of the CID if the mall is sold. The city also plans on adding an amendment requiring staff to keep the facility maintained.
The CID would add an additional 1 percent sales tax on sales generated on the mall property, funds that would be used to offset construction costs.
In the original proposed development agreement, developers wanted to have the first phase of improvements complete by July 1, 2016, and the second phase done a year later. The first phase of improvements include interior improvements to the lighting, flooring and other areas, repaving the parking lot and demolishing the bank drive-through and the former Montana Mike’s building. The second phase includes improvements to the landscaping, mall entrances and additional interior upgrades.
The first phase of improvements are projected to cost approximately $1.3 million and DP Management has already secured a loan to finance the phase. The second phase is projected to cost approximately $1.75 million and financing is not secured.
“If we’re asked to commit to both phases without loan approval for the second phase, assuming the ownership group is obligated to do phase one and two in order to get money from the CID, that’s something the development group is going to have some very serious conversations about,” Gough said.
Gough also noted the commissioner’s proposed deadline for phase one was a “safe one” and the improvements are intended to be done sooner.
Commissioner Ron Mellick expressed concerns with the deadlines noting new chains that have signed non-bonding letters of intent wouldn’t come until July 2018.
“It’s hard to believe that someone would come here because (DP Management put new lights inside),” Mayor Henry Schwaller said. “Now if you redid the facade, which would happen by mid-2017, that would make it a more attractive place to shop. … I think our concern is that it is a long time to wait.”
Schwaller also noted the phases most likely will have to be coupled in order for him to vote in favor of the proposal.
“If the phases are done separately, it shows a lack of commitment,” Schwaller said. “It’s not as if the property is vacant and not generating revenue. … Some of these things are overdue, and they’ve been deferred such as the bank drive-through.”
Gough said he was “concerned” with the idea of combining the two phases.
Commissioners expressed concerned with the possibility of the mall being sold while the CID was still in place. The proposal gives the CID a maximum lifespan of 22 years, or it sunsets once the improvements are paid off.
“I don’t want the ownership group to fix things up and then run,” Mellick said.
Another item brought up by Commissioner Shaun Musil during the discussions was the idea of using local contractors for the work. Both parties agreed to add language to the development agreement so that DP Management make a “good-faith effort” to use local contractors.
“There may not be an instance in every case where there is someone local who can do the work,” Gough said. “And we wouldn’t want to require it to be local, because it could stifle the bidding process and raise the price.”
Gough said he plans on taking the commission’s recommendations back to DP Management for discussion, and commissioners will discuss DP’s response at their next work session.
SkyWest Airlines will be offering extra flights at the Hays Regional Airport on Saturday, Nov. 28, and Sunday, Nov. 29, as part of an experiment during the Thanksgiving Holiday.
An extra flight is being added each way — to and from Denver. Travelers can chose to leave Hays at either 6:50 a.m. or 1:52 p.m. On the return trip, travelers have the option of leaving Denver International at 11:05 a.m. or 8:05 p.m. The same flights will be offered on Thanksgiving Day.
On normal weekends, SkyWest only offers one flight in and out of Hays to and from Denver.
For more information or to book tickets, visit United.com
UNDATED (AP) – New Zealand prosecutors have done an about-face and dropped a murder-for-hire charge against AC/DC drummer Phil Rudd.
Officials tell The Associated Press the charge has been dropped due to issues with the sufficiency of the evidence against Rudd.
Three lesser charges against Rudd remain. Those include threatening to kill and possession of meth and pot.
AC/DC say they only found out about the arrest of Rudd as the news was breaking.
The band says in a statement they have no further comment on the matter and Rudd’s arrest will not affect the release of their “Rock or Bust” album in December and their tour next year.
VICTORIA- A Barton County woman was injured in an accident just before 6 a.m. on Friday in Ellis County.
