RUSSELL – Open auditions for the Russell Community Theater production of “A Second Evening of One Acts” will be held Aug. 25 and 27 from 7:30 to 9 p.m.
Auditions will be held at the RCT Playhouse at Fifth and Kansas. Auditions will include an evening of theater games and cold readings. Prepared audition materials are not required.
“Offering a selection of one acts allows folks the chance to get involved on a smaller scale,” said Sheryl Krug, director. “The traditional rehearsal schedule of four nights a week for six weeks is modified to two nights a week for most weeks.”
During production, audiences will meet a cast of characters that will be sure to keep them on their toes. In “Not My Cup of Tea” by A.F. Groff, a domineering old maid and her spinster sister create elaborate plans to off their mother for her inheritance. In “WANTED: One Groom” by Claudene Rease, audiences will witness a comical variation on the “mistaken identity” theme – this one with an artful twist. And in “Murder at the Banquet” by Robert LaVohn, the International Association of Mystery Solvers hosts an awards banquet with several of the “world’s greatest detectives”.
Roles are available for 6-13 adult women and 7-9 adult men. Doubling will be possible between acts. Rehearsals will begin September 13 and production dates are Tuesday through Saturday, November 3-7, 2015. A Second Evening of One Acts is presented by special arrangement with Pioneer Drama Service, Inc. of Englewood, Colorado. For more information contact RCT at 785-483-4057.
Russell Community Theater is a non-profit theater company in Russell, Kansas. The sole purpose of RCT is to produce theater for the community and the surrounding area. Completely volunteer-driven, RCT is supported financially solely through ticket admissions and gifts from those supportive of community theater. Since its inception in 1986, RCT has presented 83 full-scale theatrical productions.
A stationary front will be located across south central Kansas today. West of this boundary highs today will range from the mid 80s to lower 90s. A Canadian cool front will pass through the area tonight. Ahead of the front, there is a chance of showers and thunderstorms mainly along and south of Interstate 70.
Temperatures will be below normal Monday through Wednesday, but still very pleasant, with a slow warming trend and plenty of sunshine.
We recieved .70 of an inch of rain in the last 24 hours at the Eagle Media Center.
Today: A 30 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms, mainly after 3pm. Partly sunny, with a high near 90. West wind 6 to 8 mph becoming east in the afternoon.
Tonight: A 30 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms, mainly before 11pm. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 69. South southeast wind 5 to 8 mph becoming light and variable.
Monday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 87. North wind 7 to 17 mph.
Monday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 65. North northeast wind 5 to 13 mph.
Tuesday: Partly sunny, with a high near 86. Light and variable wind becoming east northeast 5 to 8 mph in the afternoon.
Missouri and Kansas have done little to fund tobacco control and prevention efforts, a factor in their bottom-half-of-the-class ranking in a report by the American Cancer Society’s Cancer Action network. CREDIT WIKIMEDIA — CREATIVE COMMONS
Kansas and Missouri are in the bottom half of the class in a new report from the American Cancer Society’s Cancer Action Network.
The report, “How Do You Measure Up,” judges states on a variety of policies related to cancer control and prevention. It uses a traffic signal color scheme to indicate state legislative progress: green for a positive trend, red for serious shortcomings and yellow for somewhere between.
Twenty-five states, including Kansas and Missouri, have reached benchmarks in only two or fewer of the 10 legislative priority areas measured in the report.
Kansas received a green rating for two measures: cancer pain control policies and a statewide ban on smoking in most public places, which has been in effect for five years.
Missouri fared worse, receiving no green ratings.
Kansas got a yellow rating for its tobacco taxes, even though lawmakers approved a 50-cent per-pack increase this year. That’s because the Kansas cigarette tax rate of $1.29 per pack is still below the national average of $1.59.
Missouri got a yellow rating for Medicaid coverage of tobacco cessation, pain policy and access to palliative care.
Kansas got a red rating for six other policy areas in the report: Medicaid coverage of tobacco cessation services; funding for tobacco control programs; indoor tanning restrictions; increased access to Medicaid (the state is one of 20 that have not expanded Medicaid eligibility under the Affordable Care Act); state funding for breast and cervical cancer screening; and access to palliative care.
Missouri likewise fell short in six policy areas: cigarette tax rates (it has the lowest in the nation, at 17 cents a pack); smoke-free laws; tobacco prevention funding; indoor tanning restrictions; breast and cervical cancer early detection; and increased access to Medicaid (Missouri, like Kansas, has not expanded Medicaid eligibility).
Reagan Cussimanio, government relations director in Kansas for the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, said Kansas has underfunded tobacco control and prevention for years.
“We are just under $1 million and have been at that level for a number of years,” she said. “The CDC recommends funding for a state such as Kansas be closer to the area of $27 million. Only when you tackle tobacco use through a comprehensive approach can we really effectively overcome the country’s tobacco epidemic.”
Cussimanio said lawmakers should not see funding for these programs as just an expense.
“This is a return on investment,” she said. “When you’re investing in prevention, you are ultimately reducing your expenditures on Medicaid. You’re reducing your expenditures in other areas.”
Another top priority for Cussimanio’s group is for Kansas to make tanning beds off-limits to anyone younger than 18. She said the number of young people using tanning beds has been rising for the last two decades. So has the number of Kansas diagnosed with melanoma, the most deadly form of skin cancer.
“People who use an indoor tanning device before the age of 35 actually end up increasing their risk for melanoma by 59 percent,” she said.
The report may not have a direct bearing on efforts to win National Cancer Institute comprehensive cancer cetner designation for the University of Kansas Cancer Center. However, Cussimanio said making progress on policies to reduce the use of tobacco in Kansas would help to demonstrate that the state is serious about attacking cancer.
An estimated 14,400 Kansas will be diagnosed with cancer this year and 5,510 will die from it, according to Cussimanio. Nearly half of all cancer deaths in the United States are preventable with cancer-fighting policies like those outlined in the report, she said.
Bryan Thompson is a reporter for KHI News Service in Topeka, a partner in the Heartland Health Monitor team.
CLOUD COUNTY – A Kansas teen was injured in an accident just after 5 p.m. on Saturday in Cloud County.
The Kansas Highway Patrol reported an Outlaw Polaris ATV driven by Jacob A. Wespe, 16, was ATV was westbound on Cloud Road three miles west of U.S. 81.
The driver braked too hard and was tossed over the front of the ATV and into the ditch.
Wespe was transported to Cloud County Health Center. He was not wearing a helmet, according to the KHP.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The dramatic anti-death penalty dissent by two experienced Supreme Court justices is not expected to be of any help to death-row inmates who face imminent execution.
The court probably will weigh in over the next few days on Texas’ plans to execute two death row inmates.
If past practice is any guide, the Supreme Court is much more likely to allow the lethal-injection executions to proceed than to halt them.
Opponents of the death penalty took heart when Justices Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg made the case against capital punishment in late June as arbitrary, prone to mistakes and time-consuming.
Even if death penalty opponents eventually succeed, the timeline for abolition likely will be measured in years, not months.
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — U.S. wildlife officials want smartphone-owning outdoor lovers to use a downloaded app to report any endangered species they see in the wilderness.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Monday it’s teaming up with Sweden-based FishBrain, a social network and free-to-use mobile app for anglers. The mobile product was developed so sport-fishing enthusiasts could share information on their catches.
The new effort helps anglers log any sightings of up to 50 at-risk species spotted as they trek to waterways. The federally protected animals across the country include shortnose sturgeons, whooping cranes, Kemp’s ridley sea turtles and Columbia white-tailed deer.
The federal conservation agency hopes the input will help researchers discover where the dwindling critters are centralized, the habitat they need and maybe how the public can help protect native wildlife.
BUNKER HILL – A Hays man was injured in an accident just before 2 p.m. on Saturday in Russell County.
The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 2010 Harley Davidson motorcycle driven by Chad M. Haynes, 31, Hays, was eastbound on Interstate 70 three miles east of Bunker Hill.
The motorcycle collided with an eastbound 2003 Harley driven by Riley D. Faris, 19, Salina.
Haynes’ bike lay over the in the road and a 1999 Harley Davidson driven by Dustin J. Werner, 37, Maize, ran over him.
Haynes was transported to Via Christi.
Faris was not injured and Werner refused treatment, according to the KHP.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — The Kansas agency that regulates utilities has offered its classified employees a 7.5 percent raise if they agree to be removed from the state’s civil service system.
The Topeka Capital-Journal reports 94 of the Kansas Corporation Commission’s roughly 200 employees are classified staffers. The newspaper obtained the text of the email KCC human resources director Danelle Harsin sent to classified workers Wednesday.
Commission spokesman Samir Arif says the employees have the option to take the offer but aren’t obligated to do so. The agency says the raises are being offered as a result of the Legislature’s passage this year of a measure changing the Kansas Civil Service Act.
Under that law, all newly hired employees, promoted workers or those who are voluntarily transferred are placed in the unclassified system.
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A Wichita State University student was found dead Saturday morning in the parking lot of Fairmount Towers on campus, Wichita police said.
Sgt. Paul Kimble said police received a call shortly before 6:30 a.m. Saturday from “somebody leaving for work” to check on a man lying in the parking lot of the dormitory. When police arrived, they found the man beside a car unresponsive and covered in blood, with an injury to his arm and apparent gunshot wounds, Kimble said.
Officers from both the Wichita Police Department and the university law enforcement are investigating the death as a homicide.
The Wichita Eagle reports that the man was transported to Wesley Medical Center, where he was later pronounced dead.
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Wichita police say they’ve not found any evidence pointing to the location of a 5-month-old boy who has been missing for nearly a month.
The Wichita Eagle reports Vincent Moore was last seen July 11 when his father picked him and his 2-year-old brother up from a Wichita home.
Police say the father, Gary McKensey Moore Jr., took the boys to Texas in June, around the time he cut off the GPS bracelet he was required to wear as a condition of probation for beating the children’s mother.
Investigators say the mother hasn’t seen the children since early June. Moore was pulled over in Sedgwick County on July 29 on warrants unrelated to the boy’s disappearance.
The 2-year-old was with Moore when he was arrested, but Vincent was not.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A thunderstorm that moved through Topeka early Saturday left thousands without power.
National Weather Service Meteorologist Chris Sanders said 50-60 mph wind gusts accompanied the storm, which hit Topeka at about 4:35 a.m. and moved to the east an hour later. The city received as much as 1.5 inches of rain.
The Topeka Capital Journal reports that the Westar Energy outage map shows more than 5,000 customers in Topeka were left without power in the storm’s aftermath.
Sanders said the city will remain dry throughout Saturday and into the evening with a high around 95 degrees.
Listen to Mike Cooper interviewing CardioVascular Surgeon Dr. Elizabeth Ashworth; and Cardiologist Dr. Mohammed Janif, from from the DeBakey Heart Institute at HaysMed, by clicking the link above and then clicking the play button
Police on the scene of Sunday’s standoff in Hutchinson
HUTCHINSON – The suspect, who kept law enforcement at bay in a standoff that lasted nearly six hours on August 1, has been arrested.
Police say Bruce Bingham, a teacher and coach for USD 308, was taken into custody after his release from Hutchinson Regional
Medical Center.
He was held for observation following Sunday’s incident. He is charged with one count of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. His bond was set at $5,000.
Bigham was in a standoff with police in the Rusty Needle restaurant parking lot after an officer in connection with a domestic situation in which he allegedly fired a weapon into the air stopped him.
A few minutes after the call, police spotted Bingham and attempted to pull him over. He then pulled into the parking lot and produced a weapon, threatening to take his own life.
Eventually, Bingham took off running toward some houses east of the area where he was quickly surrounded. He gave up without incident and was not armed at the time of his capture.
Following his arrest, Hutchinson USD-308 issued this statement:
“Bruce Bingham, a science teacher at HMS-8, was arrested on suspicion of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. Mr. Bingham has been a district employee since Aug. 14, 1998, and has served in a variety of roles including teaching and coaching middle school football and track.
Superintendent Shelly Kiblinger shared, “I was saddened to learn of the events leading to Mr. Bingham’s arrest and, on behalf of the district, wish to express my concern for all those who were involved, This personnel issue will be dealt with according to district policies.”
