There will be a chance for severe thunderstorms later today into tonight. Thunderstorms will again be possible on Friday but the chance of severe thunderstorms Friday afternoon currently appears to be more isolated.
Today A 30 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms, mainly after 2pm. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 80. South wind 7 to 12 mph increasing to 13 to 18 mph in the afternoon. Winds could gust as high as 28 mph.
Tonight Showers and thunderstorms likely, mainly before 5am. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 60. South wind 7 to 17 mph. Chance of precipitation is 60%. New rainfall amounts between a quarter and half of an inch possible.
Friday A 30 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms, mainly before 9am. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 78. Southwest wind 6 to 9 mph becoming north in the morning.
Friday Night A 40 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms, mainly before midnight. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 54. North wind 11 to 17 mph.
Saturday Partly sunny, with a high near 69. North wind around 14 mph.
Saturday Night Partly cloudy, with a low around 50.
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A 13-year-old boy has been arrested by Wichita police on suspicion of sexually assaulting eight children.
Wichita media outlets report said the victims range from ages 2 to 9. Wichita Police Department spokesman Lt. James Espinoza said police were called to a local hospital Tuesday night, where a woman told police her 9-year-old had been sexually assaulted by a 13-year-old male.
Espinoza said that police learned over several hours that there were allegedly seven more victims that included boys and girls.
DODGE CITY- A Kansas man was injured in an accident just before 9:30 p.m. on Wednesday in Ford County.
The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 2002 Chevy Trailblazer driven by Cyrilla L. Brace, 73, Dodge City was eastbound on U.S. 50 two miles east of Dodge City and hit a disabled semi that was partially in the eastbound lanes of the highway.
Brace was transported to Western Plains Regional Medical Center.
The semi driver Steven Roger Smith, 48, Scott City, and a passenger in the Chevy were not injured.
The KHP reported all were properly restrained at the time of the accident.
MINNEOLA- A Kansas man avoided injury when a train hit his semi just before 9 p.m. on Wednesday in Clark County.
The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 2009 Kenworth semi driven by Joshua L. Coleman, 30, Alexander, turned off U.S. 54 west of the U.S. 283 Junction and the entrance to CO-OP and was northbound across railroad tracks when truck’s trailer got stuck.
A Union Pacific train with 4 engines and 130 cars hit the semi.
Coleman was out of the truck at the time of the accident.
The highway from Minneola to Dodge City was closed for several hours due to the accident.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas legislators are likely to have one of their longest annual sessions ever this year because they’re still struggling to resolve budget and tax issues.
Lawmakers were convening Thursday for the 98th day of their session, eight more than their leaders traditionally schedule. Each extra day in session costs the state a total of more than $40,000.
Republicans in the GOP-dominated Legislature have yet to agree on proposals for raising taxes to close a projected $406 million budget shortfall for the fiscal year beginning July 1.
Resolution of budget and tax issues isn’t expected until at least the session’s 100th day.
Only five sessions have lasted 100 days or more, according to legislative researchers. The longest in state history was in 2002, at 107 days.
NEW YORK (AP) – Alex Rodriguez hit a three-run homer to break Lou Gehrig’s American League record for RBIs, and the New York Yankees beat the Kansas City Royals 4-2 Wednesday to finish a three-game sweep.
Michael Pineda (6-2) rebounded from consecutive losses and Brian McCann hit a solo shot for the Yankees, who outscored the AL champions 23-4 in their first home sweep of at least three games against Kansas City since August 2007.
Coming into the series, New York had lost six in a row and 10 of 11.
Chris Young (4-1) gave up both Yankees home runs, and the slumping Royals have dropped four straight for the first time since Aug. 28-31. They’ve managed only five runs during the slide.
LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — The Lawrence school board has approved a proposal to cut and reallocate more than $1.2 million in the district’s budget.
The Lawrence Journal World reports the proposal is for the upcoming fiscal year starting July 1, and is in response to a new law that repealed the Kansas school finance formula that had been in place since 1993 and replaced it with a block grant system.
According to Lawrence schools Superintendent Rick Doll, the law decreases the amount of funding the district receives from the state over the next two years.
Dr. Roger Marshall, R-Great Bend, made a stop in Hays Wednesday as part of his campaign announcement tour for the 1st Congressional District race.
By BECKY KISER Hays Post
“I think Kansas can be better. I think our country can be better.”
That’s the reason Great Bend OB-GYN Dr. Roger Marshall told a Hays audience Wednesday evening he is running for Congress.
Marshall, who said he and his wife Laina, have been thinking about his candidacy the past two years, is taking on incumbent Kansas Congressman Tim Huelskamp, R-Fowler, for the Big First District.
Marshall, 54, is in the midst of a 17-community tour over four days to make his announcement bid.
He is also a board member of Farmer’s Bank and Trust community bank, and a former Governor of Rotary International’s western Kansas district.
Marshall said he is a “pro-life, conservative Republican” concerned first about the national debt as well as “disappearing economic freedoms.”
“You and I can’t be the entrepreneurs that we want to be.
“Whether it’s in banking and the Dodd-Frank Act, or the ‘Not So Affordable Care Act’ known as Obamacare, my life has drastically changed the past four to six years. I’ve seen my hospital and the bank have parallel paths of increasing governmental intrusion upon our lives, but what I don’t see is how it makes any better health care or how it makes us a better bank oftentimes,” Marshall said.
Marshall, who served seven years in the Army Reserve, is also a Commissioner of the Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism. He was raised on a farm and is involved in a cattle-feeder operation.
Marshall shakes hands with Hays resident Dr. Gary Hulett
“I think it goes without saying we need a voice on the (U.S. House) Ag Committee,” Marshall said in answer to a question from the audience.
“As I’ve traveled the state, I’ve set down with the feedlot people, the dairy people, the packing plant people, and the constant theme is the overreach of government.”
Rep. Huelskamp, a third-term Congressman, has become an outspoken Tea Party Republican and an opponent of House Speaker John Boehner.
Boehner removed Huelskamp from the House Agriculture Committee in 2013, the first time a representative from western Kansas has not served on the panel in a century.
More information about Marshall and his candidacy for the the 2016 election is available on his webpage.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A one-year travel ban is expiring for five senior Taliban leaders held in U.S. detention at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, until they were released last year in exchange for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl — raising the possibility that the five can move freely around the world as early as Monday.
Under terms of the exchange in May 2014, the five detainees were sent to Qatar where officials there agreed to monitor their activities and prevent them from traveling out of the country. In return, Bergdahl was released to the U.S. military after being held captive by the Taliban for nearly five years after he walked away from his Army post in Afghanistan.
U.S. officials have discussed with the Qataris the possibility of extending the travel ban after it expires on June 1.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — The Kansas Senate has rejected a bill for raising taxes to close a projected state budget shortfall.
Senate President Susan Wagle said after the chamber’s action Wednesday that legislators will need to trim additional spending from the budget.
The Senate voted 30-1 against giving the bill first-round approval after members spent hours whittling it down.
The measure would have raised sales, tobacco and gasoline taxes. It also would have suspended a tax break enacted in 2012 for business owners and farmers as an economic stimulus.
The bill initially would have raised $496 million during the fiscal year that begins July 1, more than enough to erase the budget shortfall.
But after the debate the measure would have raised about $350 million toward closing the shortfall.
MANHATTAN, Kan. – U.S. Senator Pat Roberts, R-Kan., Chairman of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, today released the following statement after the White House Office of Management and Budget released the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s finalized ‘Waters of the United States’ (WOTUS) rule.
The release of the nearly 300-page, finalized WOTUS rule raises more questions than it answers about the expansion of federal jurisdiction under EPA’s Clean Water Act. In March, the Committee held a hearing on the impacts of the WOTUS rule and heard from farmers, ranchers and rural constituencies from Kansas and around the country. The message was clear: this is the wrong approach and the wrong rule for agriculture and rural America.
What’s more, thanks to a New York Times story, serious concerns about EPA’s tactics to garner support for the rule are being raised. EPA not only stacked the deck against agriculture, it ignored them.
“Today, the Obama Administration released the damaging ‘Waters of the U.S.’ finalized rule – a regulation is opposed by virtually every farm organization, commodity group and other business interests in rural America.
I am sorry to say, as expected, the rule is bad news for rural America.
As Chairman of the Agriculture Committee, I’m proud to champion agriculture. We will lead the charge in pushing back against EPA’s egregious federal overreach.
That’s why I have helped introduced the Federal Water Quality Protection Act. This requires EPA to go back to the drawing board and restart the rulemaking process to include stakeholders – especially agriculture.
All of us want to protect clean water, especially agriculture. However, farmers and ranchers cannot be ignored.
The EPA’s conduct during the rulemaking process confirms my belief that the Administration is not listening. Any American who feels aggrieved by their government now has no voice. This is a serious problem.”
WICHITA — a Federal Grand Jury in Wichita has indicted a 28-year-old Claflin man on gun and drug charges.
Shawn D. McCollum, Jr., is charged with one count of unlawful possession of a firearm in furtherance of drug trafficking, and one count of possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine.
The crimes are alleged to have occurred on Sept. 19, 2014, in Lyons.
McCollum has been on Community Corrections for two convictions out of Barton County including a conviction for aggravated assault and distribution of meth. Both crimes occurred on Sept. 19, 2014.
If convicted on the federal charges, he faces a penalty of not less than five years and a fine up to $250,000 on the firearm charge, and a penalty of not less than five years and a fine up to $2 million on the drug charge.
The case was investigated by the Lyons Police Department.
Today A 30 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms, mainly after 2pm. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 80. South wind 7 to 12 mph increasing to 13 to 18 mph in the afternoon. Winds could gust as high as 28 mph.
