LINDSAY WHITEHURST, Associated Press

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A federal appeals court will allow a hotly contested Utah law banning price fixing for contact lenses to go into effect.

The decision handed down Friday from the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver comes after three of the nation’s largest contact lens manufacturers sued to block the measure. The law could have wide-ranging effects on the roughly $4 billion contact lens market, which has some 38 million American consumers.

Alcon Laboratories, Johnson & Johnson and Bausch & Lomb say it’s a brazen overreach written to give Utah-based discount seller 1-800 Contacts an illegal end run around manufacturers’ minimum prices.

But the Utah Attorney General says the companies are wrongly driving up prices.

The decision allows the law to go into effect while a legal battle over the measure works its way through the courts.

FORT RILEY, Kan. (AP) — Fort Riley troops stood in formation Friday as a fleet of Kiowa helicopters flew overhead in a symbolic tribute to the retiring aircraft.

Unlike the heavily armored Apache helicopters, Kiowas are intended to be flown so low they’ve been outfitted with wire cutters in front of the cockpit in case the helicopter encounters power lines.

Chief Warrant Officer Tim Riordan told The Manhattan Mercury that he’s grown to love the Kiowa. But he said advances in drone technology and the need to trim costs have led the Army to replace the Kiowa with a combination of Apache helicopters and Shadow unmanned aerial systems.

Riordan and other pilots will fly the unit’s Kiowas to Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Arizona, where the helicopters will be stored.

Associated Press

TOPEKA- Kansas legislators have approved increases in sales and cigarette taxes to erase a budget deficit and avert deep spending cuts.

The Senate voted 21-19 Friday to approve a bill raising the sales tax to 6.5 percent from 6.15 percent. The House passed it 63-45 early Friday morning, and it goes next to Republican Gov. Sam Brownback.

The GOP-dominated Legislature also is sending Brownback a companion bill to increase the cigarette tax by 50 cents a pack to $1.29. The House passed it 63-44 early Friday, after the Senate’s approval Sunday.

The two bills together raise $384 million during the fiscal year that begins July 1 to balance the budget.

The state’s budget problems arose after lawmakers slashed income taxes in 2012 and 2013 at Brownback’s urging to stimulate the economy.

GRANDVIEW PLAZA- Two women were injured in separate accidents just after 11:45a.m. on Friday in Geary County.

The Kansas Highway Patrol reported Honda passenger car driven by Allyson Knight, 25, Alexandria, Virginia was eastbound on Interstate 70 at Grandview Plaza.

The car left the interstate into the median, rolling several times. The vehicle then entered the westbound lanes of the interstate and came to rest on the right shoulder.
Knight transported to Stormont Vail Hospital in Topeka.

Just after the Honda accident, another woman was injured in a second accident that involved two school buses traveling westbound on Interstate70.

A bus driven by Lopez, Melanie M. Lopez, 28, Ridgewood, NY., rear-ended another bus driven by Robert E. Cook, 71, Junction City that had slowed in traffic to avoid the first accident.

Lopez was transported to Irwin Hospital at Fort Riley.

Cook was not injured.
All were properly restrained at the time of the accidents.

HUTCHINSON— A Kansas woman charged with unlawful sexual relations with an inmate at the Hutchinson Correctional Facility was bound over for trial on Thursday.

Marla Criqui, Hutchinson, is charged in the case for the alleged misconduct, which occurred in 2012 according to the criminal complaint filed in December.

She’s accused of having the sexual relations with 30-year-old inmate Breland Davis who is serving time for a murder conviction in Sedgwick County.

Criqui was working for a food service contractor for the prison and the inmate worked with her in the kitchen of the central unit when the alleged encounters occurred.

Davis testified there was never anything sexual saying it was merely a working relationship. But, both apparently made statements to investigators at the prison indicating that the sexual encounters did occur.

Davis was moved to the Ellsworth Correctional Facility shortly after it was learned that the encounter had occurred.

Criqui will be arraigned on the charges July 6. She faces a maximum sentence of 11 years in prison if convicted.

ROXANA HEGEMAN, Associated Press
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A federal judge says he is inclined to release pending trial a couple accused of laundering millions of dollars for a Mexican cartel drug at a small Kansas bank.

U.S. District Judge J. Thomas Marten told George and Agatha Enns of Meade, Kansas, during a detention hearing he would free them on a $50,000 bond each if updated information they provide about their assets appears to be satisfactory.

An indictment alleges that between 2011 and 2014, the couple deposited more than $6.8 million into their account at Plains State Bank.

The government contends the couple is hiding assets that they could use to flee.

But a defense attorney says if it weren’t for their 10 family members the couple wouldn’t even have had the money to retain legal counsel.

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ROXANA HEGEMAN, Associated Press

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A federal judge is expected to hear arguments on whether to free before trial a couple accused of laundering millions of dollars for a Mexican drug cartel at a small Kansas bank.

A detention hearing is scheduled Friday for George and Agatha Enns of Meade, Kansas, in federal court in Wichita.

U.S. District Judge J. Thomas Marten in April blocked a federal magistrate judge’s order in Texas that had allowed the couple’s release. He ordered them returned to Kansas, where the issue of their detention could be resolved.

The indictment alleges that between 2011 and 2014, the couple deposited more than $6.8 million at Plains State Bank. Cash deposits totaled more than $1.6 million.

The bank’s former president and two other former bank employees are also charged in the case.

CLEVELAND (AP) — An Ohio appeals court says a man convicted of masterminding a $100 million Navy veterans charity fraud won’t have to spend every Veterans Day in solitary confinement as indicated in his prison sentence.

The man identifying himself as Bobby Thompson ran a Florida-based charity and was arrested in Portland, Oregon, in 2012.

He was convicted in 2013 of racketeering, theft, money laundering and 12 counts of identity theft. A Cuyahoga County judge sentenced him to 28 years in prison, with solitary confinement each Veterans Day.

In a ruling Thursday, the 8th District Court of Appeals said the trial court had no authority under Ohio sentencing law to impose the solitary-confinement punishment.

Authorities say the man’s real name is John Donald Cody.

A message was left Friday for his attorney.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — The Kansas Supreme Court has ruled that an insurance company should cover a student who was in a private vehicle when he was injured in a crash on the way to a soccer match.

The ruling stems from a 2006 accident in which Jesus Rodriguez was seriously injured while traveling in a pickup to the first soccer match of his high school season. Rodriguez filed a claim under the Kansas State High School Activities Association’s Mutual of Omaha insurance policy. Mutual of Omaha denied the claim.

In a ruling released Friday, the high court reversed an appeals court decision and held that private vehicle transportation to a school soccer match during which a student is injured qualifies as “covered travel.”

The case returns to the district court in Kansas City.