MCPHERSON, Kan. (AP) — A federal agreement requires a Kansas pharmaceutical plant accused of gender discrimination to pay about $400,000 in back wages and hire more women.

The U.S. Department of Labor says the Hospira plant in McPherson was accused of hiring a smaller percentage of women than men and paying the women less than their male counterparts in 2012.

The Hutchinson News reports that Hospira doesn’t admit any liability in the settlement and says it believes plant hiring practices have been fair.

The Labor Department says Hospira received applications for pharmacy attendant positions from 160 women, of whom 15 were hired. The company also received 199 applicants from men, of whom 45 were hired.

Hospira will hire 11 more women and pay $400,000 in back wages and interest to women denied jobs.

 NEWTON- The cause of Tuesday’s fatal fire in Newton remains under investigation.

Bruce Rempel, 63, died in the apartment building fire according to the Newton Fire Department.

The blaze  occurred just after 10 p.m. at the 7 story Midtown Towers on 9th Street.

Firefighters were called after a report of smoke in the building, according to a fire department media release.

Upon arrival, crews noted fire venting out a 6th floor window on the south side of the apartment complex.

There were also reports of residents trapped on the upper floors and many could be seen looking out the windows.

Utilizing the fire department connection to extend hose lines from the standpipe in the stairwells, firefighters attack the blaze and began evacuating residents, many physically disabled, through the stairwells.

Some of the residents were carried downstairs by firefighters and Newton police officers.

One of the apartments was fully involved with fire and crews found an adult male who was assessed and pronounced dead at the scene.

In addition to the fatality, two residents were treated at the scene but declined medical transport.

Residents of lower floors were allowed to remain in their apartments if they desired.

Residents of upper floors were evacuated due to heavy smoke conditions and sheltered at the First Church of the Nazarene across the street from the fire.

Harvey County Support Services and Hesston EMS crews medically monitored all displaced occupants.

American Red Cross Disaster Services responded and established overnight sheltering and accommodation for those who needed it.

There were no injuries to emergency responders, although a medical monitoring and rehab station was established for them due to the extreme and prolonged efforts required during the operation.

Over 30 firefighters and EMS personnel from Newton, Hesston, and Walton were involved, along with more than a dozen law enforcement officers from Newton Police and Harvey County Sheriff’s office.

Investigators from Newton Fire, EMS and Newton Police Department are working the case.

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NEWTON- One person died in an apartment building fire in Newton on Tuesday night.

Newton Fire/EMS reported on social media that crews were called to the report of a smoke smell at Mid-Town Towers apartment complex on north 9th street just after 10p.m. Tuesday.

First-arriving crews found fire on the sixth floor.

The fire was extinguished, however crews had  to evacuate residents from the heavy smoke and return other residents to uninvolved apartments.

Uninjured residents whose apartments were involved were evacuated to a nearby church while some victims were treated on the scene.

North Main street was temporarily closed to traffic during the fire.

Officials are working with the State Fire Marshal to determine the cause of the fire. Name of the victim has not been released.

Off duty personnel were called to staff fire, EMS stations in Newton Tuesday night along with fire, EMS personnel from Hesston, Halstead, and Walton.

CareerCast.com has issues its annual listing of the Most Endangered Jobs of 2015. The list includes mail carriers, newspaper reporters and farmers.

Click HERE for the complete list.

LIBERAL – Law enforcement authorities in Seward County are investigating a car accident that involved the death of a Kansas man.

Just after 8:30p.m. on Monday emergency responders were dispatched to 1350 Jewell Avenue for a reported injury accident where a vehicle had struck a house and the driver was not breathing, according to a media release from Liberal Police.

Responding officers arrived to find a woman standing at the driver’s side door attempting chest compressions on the driver.

The driver was later identified as a 36-year-old man.

He was transported to Southwest Medical Center in serious condition and died.

Investigating officers later learned that the driver was not feeling well and pulled over to switch places with the passenger.

As the passenger made her way around to the driver’s door, the driver pressed on the accelerator and proceeded eastbound in the 1300 block of Jewell Avenue before coming to rest against the front porch of a house.

Authorities are waiting for results of an autopsy. The victim’s name has not been released.

BY BRYAN THOMPSON

Climate change is real and must be addressed head-on to prevent future food shortages. That’s the message Cargill Executive Director Greg Page delivered Monday night to an audience at Kansas State University in Manhattan.

“Climate change is not a particularly popular subject in much of the heartland,” he said. “But at Cargill, we have come to believe that it is important to have serious conversations about what we can do now to accommodate a range of climate scenarios, and for agriculture to take part in those conversations and in making reasonable preparations.”

In an interview after his talk, Page spoke about the need to err on the side of caution when dealing with a global issue like climate change.

“If this is about flooding the basements of some resort hotels in Florida, that’s one kind of a problem,” he said. “But when it starts to impact the potential for us to feed the 9 billion people that we could be confronting (by 2050), I think it’s important for people at both extremes to realize they don’t know the answer. And the fact we don’t know the answer does not permit us to do nothing.”

Page co-chaired a group of business leaders who looked at the economic risks under various climate change scenarios. Their report, “Risky Business,” concluded that farmers in northern states likely would benefit from a longer growing season. But that would be more than offset by lost production in the southern grain belt.

“U.S. production of corn, soybeans, wheat and cotton could decline by 14 percent by mid-century, and by as much as 42 percent by late-century,” he said.

But Page said that scenario doesn’t have to come true if farmers adapt to the changing climate — as he’s confident they will. He noted that adaptation already is happening in his home state of North Dakota. As the climate has warmed there, farmers have been able to take advantage of an average of nine additional frost-free days a year. That longer growing season means they can now grow 30 crops.

“At this stage, the good that’s happened in the top 2 degrees of latitude, basically central North Dakota and up, has not come at the expense of any other place,” Page said. “The most likely scenario in the study that Risky Business published is that we are going to cross that sometime in the next 20 years, the point at which there will be places that will start giving up productivity.”

Page noted that farmers already have technology that might be able to overcome those projected productivity losses.

“The temperatures that are predicted in the ‘Risky Business’ study are actually lower than the temperatures faced by our corn-farming customers in Mato Grosso, Brazil, or in Thailand,” he said. U.S. Midwest farmers could adopt some of their methods when facing possible temperature increases in the coming decades, Page said.

The debate over whether climate change is caused by human activity — like burning fossil fuels — is beside the point, he said.

“If we thought, based on seismology, that we were going to have a period of increased volcanic activity that was going to impact the climate, would we then say that because we didn’t cause it we don’t need to do anything to prepare? What difference does it make, other than on the issue of trying to make people stop certain behaviors? From an agricultural standpoint, we have to prepare ourselves for a different climate than we have today,” Page said.

While Cargill has faced some criticism for addressing climate change, Page said neither he nor the company regrets the decision.

“Should agriculture remain — in the perception of many consumers and many of the world’s biggest packaged-foods companies — deniers and people that are unwilling to engage?” he asked. “Is that a good brand for us, collectively, to carry to consumers, who increasingly, by survey, think to some degree or another this is happening, and that it’s true?”

It’s only natural for Cargill to play a leading role in agriculture’s response to climate change, he said, because the company has operations all over the world.

Page spoke at K-State as part of its Henry C. Gardiner Global Food Systems Lecture Series. He started at Cargill in 1974 as a trainee in its feed division. In 2007 he became CEO of Cargill and later that year also was named chairman. He retired as Cargill’s CEO in 2013 but continues to serve as executive director.

Bryan Thompson is a reporter for Heartland Health Monitor, a news collaboration focusing on health issues and their impact in Missouri and Kansas.

LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — A 51-year-old Lawrence man has been convicted on charges accusing him of attempted human trafficking at a massage parlor.

The Lawrence Journal-World reports that Chen Li reached a plea deal and pleaded no contest Tuesday to attempted human trafficking and promoting the sale of sexual relations. He was originally charged with aggravated human trafficking and promoting the sale of sexual relations.

He was scheduled for a jury trial Oct. 26.

Assistant Douglas County District Attorney Mark Simpson says women were recruited to work at the massage parlor under the guise of a legitimate job and were then coerced into involuntary sexual services.

In 2013, Li and a co-defendant pleaded no contest to promoting prostitution after a police raid on two massage businesses in Bonner Springs.