WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Prosecutors have filed criminal charges against a medical marijuana advocate who lost custody of her 11-year-old son following comments the boy made during a drug education program at school.
The Finney County district attorney announced Friday that charges have been filed against 37-year-old Shona Banda related the March 24 incident. The divorced Garden City mother has been at the center of a social media storm after going public with her story.
She faces five criminal counts, including possession with intent to distribute and unlawful manufacture of a controlled substance, possession of drug paraphernalia, and endangering a child.
Her attorney did not immediately return a phone message seeking comment.
Banda is a motivational speaker and author of a book that recounts her use of concentrated cannabis oil to treat Crohn’s Disease.
After a Thursday night soft-opening, On The Rocks Bar & Grill will swing its doors open again at 5 p.m. Friday.
The bar, formerly Neighbars, is managed by Tony Taylor.
Taylor said there will be a food truck at the establishment, 507 W. Seventh, next week. An official grand opening ceremony will be scheduled later this summer.
For more, see the On the Rocks Facebook page HERE.
There will be a reception for Martha A. Brungardt in the St. Joseph Parish Activity Center 10:30 a.m. Sunday after the 10:30 a.m. Mass.
Brungardt is retiring after 33 years of service to St. Joseph Parish. Her primary responsibility was to coordinate the Religious Education Program for grades K–8. She also did some adult ministry by teaching in the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults. She also ran the coffee house, Cup a Joe, until it closed.
She received her first degree from Marian College in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin with a major in history and secondary education. She taught history and religion at Immaculate Conception High School in Elmhurst, Ill., and also at Marian High in Hays, Kansas. She received a master’s degree from Fort Hays State University in Communication.
After receiving her master’s, she was a Youth Minister in Pasco, Wash., for one year before returning to Hays to assume her duties at St. Joseph Parish. During her time at St. Joseph, she receive a certificate in Catechesis from Benedictine college, she received a Parish Life Coordinator certificate from the Diocese of Salina, and was certified as a Master Catechist.
Her family includes her daughter and son–in–law, Ann and Ernie Pfeifer. She has a son, Mark Brungardt. She also has three grandchildren.
NASHVILLE (AP) – Tim McGraw will launch a tour today and once again, he’s giving away houses to military veterans. McGraw has teamed with Operation Homefront and Chase to give mortgage-free homes to veterans. In the past three years, he’s awarded 108 homes in 30 states. Thirty-six homes will be given during the upcoming “Shotgun Rider” tour.
MANHATTAN -The thunderstorm that ripped through the Manhattan and Ogden areas early Friday morning left a lot of damage behind.
Pat Collins, Riley County Emergency Management Director, confirmed that in the industrial park by the airport tractor trailers were pushed around and flipped over, a couple of residents were impacted by trees blown over in Ogden, and there were a lot of trees blocking streets with power lines down. J
Just before 11:30 on Friday morning, Collins said, “Right now we’ve got city and county crews out trying to get all the trees out of the road.”
Collins noted there were also a lot of tree branches down in the yards of residents.
He noted many trees are blocking storm drains. Authorities also watched Wildcat Creek Friday morning for flooding. That creek rose into the action stage, but it later stabilized just above the action stage, and the water level began to recede.
There were no injuries reported in the storm.
Multiple streets were closed in both Manhattan and Ogden and on a couple of rural county roads because of trees across the roadway according to Collins.
He said wind speeds at the Manhattan Regional Airport were closed at 73 miles per hour, and 65 miles per hour at the Riley County shops just north of Manhattan.
Because of the road and tree damage Riley County officials plan to issue a disaster declaration in anticipation of any other rains and flooding. That would put the county in line for any federal funding assistance that might be available. The disaster declaration will be submitted to Riley County Commission Chairman Ron Wells Friday for his signature, with the intent of keeping the declaration in effect for seven days.
WICHITA- A Kansas man was injured in an accident just before 11am on Friday in Sedgwick County.
The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 2005 Ford F 350 driven by Alejandro Contreras-Villa, 25, Wichita, was eastbound on Kansas 254 at 45th Street in Wichita.
The truck swerved to the right, went through a guardrail and flipped onto its top.
Contreras-Villa was transported to Wesley Medical Center.
NICHOLAS CLAYTON, Associated Press
JOHN HANNA, Associated Press
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — The deadline has passed for Kansas to notify nonessential state employees that they will be furloughed next week.
The Republican-controlled Legislature has been sharply divided over how to close a projected budget shortfall for the fiscal year beginning July 1.
The House has approved a proposed budget that would leave the state with a $406 million shortfall.
GOP lawmakers are sharply divided over raising taxes to fill the rest of the gap. They were in the 106th day of an annual session set for 90 days.
The impasse has driven the lawmakers into overtime, and nonessential state workers will be furloughed at 12:01 a.m. Sunday if a budget is not signed by then, according to the Department of Administration’s website.
It wasn’t immediately clear how many employees received notices.
Editor’s note: Distributed to faculty and staff of FHSU on Friday. Reprinted with permission.
I wish I could start by saying “I hope this note finds you well,” but I can’t because I know this note will find you concerned and anxious as a result of the possible furloughs. While I am also very concerned and anxious, I remain hopeful that our legislators will end the impasse by passing a budget that will keep the state’s economy moving forward.
You are the key to our state’s future; you are the key to moving Kansas forward. Each of you has an incredible impact on our university and on our state. Your dedication, compassion, commitment to each other, to our students, and to the Fort Hays State University family is second to none. I want each of you to know how much I acknowledge, admire and respect who you are and what you do.
No university president ever wishes to have to notify its family that there may be possible furloughs coming. But given the state of affairs in Kansas, I have no choice but to alert you to this possibility. I know many of you are committed to our mission and have made Fort Hays State your home. Many of you have both incomes derived from our university. Many of our students depend on the income derived from their summer work at our University to put food on the table and to meet their academic tuition obligations for the coming year. I am all too aware of this and thus, it is so disheartening to have to make the choices that have to be made.
If the Legislature does not pass a budget by 11:59 p.m. on Saturday, June 6, Fort Hays State, just like every other state agency, will have to cease normal operations and designate just a skeleton crew to continue the mandated close-of-year reports and to meet our contractual obligations. If we are furloughed, beginning 12:01 a.m. Sunday, we may not transact business on behalf of our University. Depending on the day-to-day needs, each of us will be on a day-to-day call-back notice.
Notices will go out later today providing details about the furloughs and telling you where to look for changes in the status of the situation.
News like this is not easy to deliver. I am so sorry to have to be writing this note. Regardless of the outcome of the next days’ legislative activities, I want to continue to thank you for what you do, and I want to remind you how critically important you are to the future of Fort Hays State University. I am so grateful for all your support.
The bonds of family survive in times of trouble and anguish. A family sticks together for better and for worse. Together, our family will survive the ups and downs that are thrown our way.
You all know I have great faith in you. I also believe the best is yet to be and I believe in miracles. Let’s pray together for one now.
Thank you for everything,
Mirta M. Martin, Ph.D., president, Fort Hays State University
The Rolling Stones warmed up for their current North American tour with a surprise show at the 1,200-capacity Fonda Theatre in Los Angeles on May 20. Now comes word that the intimate gig, during which the British rock legends played their entire 1971 Sticky Fingers album, may be the focus of a new concert movie or home video.
In a Rolling Stone interview last week, frontman Mick Jagger said his band worked hard rehearsing for the show because it was being filmed for a possible future release.
“We had to revisit tunes that we don’t do very often, and we had to make sure they worked really well,” Jagger explained. “We worked quite hard on ‘Sister Morphine’ and ‘I Got the Blues.’ They’re not actually that easy to do — it’s not simple 12-bar stuff.”
Guitarist Keith Richards, meanwhile, revealed he and his band mates have been discussing the possibility of making a new album. “Just last week, the word ‘studio’ popped up while we were rehearsing,” he told Rolling Stone. “I said, ‘Well, let’s find a time. I’m ready!'”
That time likely won’t open up until later in the year, since The Stones are eyeing a fall South American trek after the North American tour winds down in July. “I’m looking at what the options are,” said Jagger about the fall outing. “We haven’t etched it in stone.”
Guitarist Ronnie Wood, meanwhile, told Rolling Stone he and his band mates are getting along great.
“I think it’s the best vibe ever within the band,” maintained Wood. “We’ve never been closer.” Richards agreed, while suggesting that the tragic suicide of Jagger’s longtime girlfriend L’Wren Scott last year has made the singer focus more on the group.
“Mick went through that terrible thing, and the band has become even more important to him because of that,” Keith said.
The Rolling Stones play their next show on their North American Zip Code Tour in Dallas Saturday, June 6.
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A federal judge has tossed out a legal challenge from a national gun control group of a Kansas law that asserts the federal government lacks authority to regulate firearms made, sold and kept only in the state.
U.S. District Judge Julie Robinson ruled Friday that the Washington-based Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence failed to show that the state law’s enforcement inflicts an actual or imminent injury on any of its members. Robinson said the federal court therefore lacks jurisdiction to consider the merits of the lawsuit.
She granted the state’s motion to entirely dismiss the case without prejudice, meaning it could be refiled.
The 2013 state law at issue makes it a felony for any U.S. government employee to attempt to enforce federal regulations for Kansas-only firearms or ammunition.
MANHATTAN –Police in Riley County assisted Homeland Security, US Postal Service Investigators, and ATF in an execution of a federal search warrant in the 500 block of Fort Riley Boulevard in Manhattan on Friday morning.
John Ham, Public Information Officer for ATF, confirmed a suspect is in custody after federal search warrant and federal arrest warrants were served.
Maynard Herrman, age 82, of Hays passed away June 3, 2015 at Wesley Medical Center in Wichita.
Funeral Services will be 10 AM Monday, June 8, 2015 at St. Joseph Catholic Church in Hays.
Visitation will be Sunday 5 PM – 8 PM with a parish vigil service at 7:30 PM all at
Brock’s-Keithley Funeral Chapel & Crematory, 2509 Vine, Hays, KS 67601.
