WELLINGTON, Kan. (AP) — Funeral arrangements have been set for a 10-year-old boy who police say was fatally beaten and stabbed by his mother.
Services for Caleb Blansett are planned for 3 p.m. Saturday at First Christian Church in Wellington. A visitation is scheduled for 1-8 p.m. Friday at Day Funeral Home.
Wellington police say 33-year-old Lindsey Blansett entered her son’s room on Sunday night with a knife and a rock. They say she struck him with the rock and stabbed him multiple times in the chest.
Blansett’s 9-year-old daughter was removed from the home unharmed.
Blansett is charged with first-degree murder in the death. It wasn’t immediately clear if she has an attorney.
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Residents in Wichita can now track the location of the city’s snow plows on a new interactive website.
The city on Wednesday unveiled the site that provides citizens with real-time data from all 50 of the city’s GPS-equipped snow plows. That allows people to determine which streets and areas have been treated.
Public works director Alan King says this is the city’s latest effort to improve how it responds to snow storms while providing citizens with the information they need to travel safely.
Residents can follow the plows during winter events at www.wichita.gov/snowremoval .
OAKLEY- A Hays man was injured in an accident just after 11:30 p.m. on Wednesday in Gove County.
The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 2010 Ford E 350 driven by John Howard Jr., 57, Hays, was exiting Interstate 70 at milemarker 76.
The driver lost control due to weather and struck the westbound on ramp closure gate.
The vehicle rolled into the east ditch.
Howard Jr. was transported to Logan County Hospital. The KHP reported he was properly restrained at the time of the accident.
Some patchy fog will dissipate early this morning and give way to cloudy skies. Skies should become partly cloudy near the Colorado border this afternoon with cloudy skies continuing over central Kansas. Fairly quiet weather is expected through Saturday.
Today Cloudy, with a high near 36. Light and variable wind.
Tonight Mostly cloudy, with a low around 26. Calm wind becoming south southwest around 5 mph. Friday Cloudy, then gradually becoming mostly sunny, with a high near 44. South southwest wind 3 to 8 mph. Friday Night Partly cloudy, with a low around 23. West southwest wind around 7 mph. Saturday Mostly sunny, with a high near 47. Southwest wind 6 to 9 mph. Saturday Night Mostly cloudy, with a low around 28. Sunday Mostly sunny, with a high near 47. Sunday Night Partly cloudy, with a low around 33. Monday Partly sunny, with a high near 51.
LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — The University of Kansas has ordered two years of probation for a fraternity that was the focus of a sexual assault investigation.
Kappa Sigma is barred from having alcohol in its chapter house and must turn over materials to investigators and offer sexual assault prevention training.
The Kansas City Star reports that the university imposed the sanctions Wednesday after an investigation into reports that women were sexually assaulted during some type of gathering at the Kappa Sigma house on Sept. 26 and 27. The investigation found that the fraternity had violated a student code, although the university didn’t offer specifics.
Vice public affairs chancellor Tim Caboni said “significant and substantial sanctions” were placed on the fraternity because of the “seriousness and disturbing nature” of what happened.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas officials say bedbugs have been found inside a state office building near the Statehouse targeted for demolition.
The Topeka Capital-Journal reports that the pests were discovered on the third floor of the Docking State Office Building, west of the Capitol. The floor houses Department of Revenue offices.
Department spokeswoman Jeannine Koranda said it has brought in an exterminator.
She initially said the problem was confined to a small area with a handful of desks, but later said the exterminator will determine the extent of the problem.
The state is moving offices for the revenue agency and the Department for Children and Families to other buildings next year.
It plans to demolish the building because officials believe renovations of the 1950s-era high-rise would be too expensive.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The tempestuous 113th Congress has limped out of Washington for the last time, capping two years of modest and infrequent legislating that was overshadowed by partisan clashes.
How’s this for a legacy? Congressional data show that just over 200 bills became law during the past two years. That was the fewest since at least 1947 and 1948, when what President Harry Truman dubbed “the do-nothing Congress” enacted more than 900 laws.
This Congress did less than the do-nothing one.
Efforts to revamp the immigration system, tighten gun background checks and force work on the Keystone XL oil pipeline all foundered as the Republican-run House and Democratic-led Senate blocked each other’s priorities.
Longtime Hays artist Kris Kuksi has been featured in an article on Huffington Post — “Wildly Intricate Steampunk Sculptures Reveal An Apocalyptic Side Of Art.”
WASHINGTON (AP) — Restaurant drinkers who don’t want to know how many calories are in their margarita or craft beer will have a way out: Avoid the menu and order at the bar.
New menu labeling rules from the Food and Drug Administration will require chain restaurants with 20 or more outlets to list calories in alcoholic drinks on menus by next November.
But the rules don’t apply to drinks ordered at the bar or any drinks that aren’t listed on the main menu. And unlike other beverages and foods, most bottles and cans don’t have to list full nutritional information.
After years of lobbying for more nutritional information on alcoholic beverages, public health advocates say the menu labeling rules are a first step.
Across the country and throughout the Heartland, most people take it for granted: Turn the tap to quench your thirst, and you can be reasonably assured that your water is clean and safe to drink. It’s an assurance greatly bolstered by the Safe Drinking Water Act, a landmark environmental protection law passed by Congress 40 years ago on December 16, 2014.
Safe drinking water is absolutely essential for healthy and thriving communities. In Region 7, more than 12.5 million people rely on regulated public drinking water systems every day.
EPA Region 7, with midwest regional headquarters in Lenexa, includes Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Iowa and nine tribal nations.
Congress passed the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) on December 16, 1974, and directed EPA to implement a series of regulations and standards to protect public drinking water from source to tap. The law was amended in 1986 and again in 1996 to include additional actions to protect drinking water, including those that recognize the needs for source water protection, training for water system operators, funding for water system improvements, and public information about the quality of treated water to inform water consumers and hold water delivery systems accountable.
Four decades ago, America’s drinking water simply wasn’t as safe as it is today. Sewage, chemicals and trash were freely dumped into our rivers and streams. The regulation of public water supplies was too often limited or, in some places, practically non-existent.
In 1974, more than half of the water treatment facilities surveyed by the federal government had major deficiencies involving disinfection, clarification, or pressure in their distribution systems – all dangerous conditions that posed potentially serious public health hazards.
Today, the United States is recognized as a world leader in providing safe drinking water. Under the authority of the SDWA, EPA has drinking water regulations in place for more than 90 contaminants, including microorganisms, disinfectants, disinfection byproducts, inorganic and organic chemicals, and radionuclides.
We’ve made great strides as a nation in protecting our drinking water over the past 40 years, and EPA will certainly play a key role in keeping this vital resource safe and in supply, both now and in the future. While we celebrate four decades under the protection of the Safe Drinking Water Act, we recognize the challenges ahead of us are significant.
For example, EPA estimates that the U.S. currently has $384 billion in drinking water infrastructure needs – the unmet costs of maintaining, repairing and replacing systems that treat and deliver water to the public. Fully 97 percent of all public water systems in the country are categorized as small – serving less than 10,000 people – and many of those systems face acute problems related to funding, operations and maintenance.
Since its inception in 1997, the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund, which EPA administers, has provided $25.8 billion in funds for more than 10,000 local drinking water infrastructure projects, including treatment systems, pipes for transmission and distribution, and storage. In EPA Region 7, the Agency has provided more than $947 million for such projects over that time.
Whether provided by local utilities or drawn from individual wells, the water we drink ultimately comes from groundwater, streams, rivers, springs or lakes – all of which may be threatened by pollution or development. EPA works with states, local government and public-private partnerships to protect those resources, promoting compliance and, when appropriate, taking enforcement actions. Through its Waters of the U.S. initiative, EPA has proposed new regulatory authority to ensure those protections are adequate.
Advances in science and technology are helping EPA and its partners, including local water systems, to discover and better understand previously unknown contaminants in water, including chemicals, toxins and pharmaceuticals. EPA evaluates these unregulated contaminants to determine whether new national drinking water standards are needed for public water systems.
Last but not least, climate change poses challenges to the protection of water sources and water infrastructure alike, as systems adapt to warmer temperatures, rising sea levels, stronger storms, more droughts and changes in water chemistry. EPA is meeting those challenges on a variety of fronts, such as by working with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Office of Rural Development to increase the sustainability of rural drinking water and wastewater systems, and by promoting use of the Climate Resilience Evaluation and Awareness Tool (CREAT), which helps water utilities evaluate climate change impacts to their facilities and build greater resilience into their systems.
EPA has some very robust efforts underway to make drinking water even safer over the next 40 years, and beyond. We invite everyone to play a part with us.
Karl Brooks, Lenexa, is Administrator of EPA Region 7 which includes Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Iowa and nine tribal nations.
GOODLAND- Three people were injured in an accident just before 4 p.m. on Wednesday in Sherman County.
The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 2008 Toyota Tacoma driven by Chayce G. Lanphear, 27, Westminster, CO., was eastbound on Interstate 70 at Kansas 27.
The driver lost control, went through the median and hit a 2005 Subaru Impreza head on.
Lanphear, the driver of the Subaru Mckenna E. Ganz, 21, and a passenger Larry Ganz, 52, Colorado Springs, CO., were transported to Goodland Regional Medical Center.
The KHP reported all were properly restrained at the time of the accident.
WELLINGTON, Kan. (AP) — Funeral arrangements have been set for a 10-year-old boy who police say was fatally beaten and stabbed by his mother.
