HUTCHINSON, Kan. (AP) — Plans to restrict smoking to specific areas of the Kansas State Fair burned out for this year’s fair.

After much debate, the fair board voted in May 2015 to establish designated smoking areas across the fairgrounds for this year’s fair. The effort was led by a Reno County youth organization called Communities that Care.

The Hutchinson News reports the designated smoking areas were delayed because grants to pay for benches and smoking receptacles weren’t received in time to install them for this year’s fair, which runs through Sunday.

Fair Manager Susan Sankey says she didn’t want to implement the policy until it could be done correctly.

Officials say they plan to have the designated smoking areas ready for the 2017 fair.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — The Latest on the disappearance of a Missouri woman and the man accused of burning her car that had been found abandoned (all times local):

8:15 p.m.

Kansas City area investigators looking into the disappearances of a woman and a teenager nine years apart say they’ve taken bullets and other items from the home of a man considered a person of interest in at least one case.

Kylr Yust is charged with knowingly burning 21-year-old Jessica Runions’ vehicle. She was last seen Thursday night.

Investigators haven’t said whether Yust knows Runions.

Police say Yust is a person of interest in the 2007 disappearance of his ex-girlfriend, Kara Kopetsky. She was 17 when she vanished in 2007.

Yust has also spent time in jail for assaulting a pregnant then-girlfriend in 2011.

Court records show investigators with search warrants related to Runions’ vehicle and a “missing persons investigation” seized two bullets from a home occupied by Yust, as well as clothing, hair, fingernail scrapings and swab samples from him.

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5:50 p.m.

A man considered a person of interest in his ex-girlfriend’s 2007 disappearance has been returned to Kansas City, Missouri, to face charges that he burned another missing woman’s car.

Kylr Yust, who turned 28 on Wednesday, was brought back to Kansas City from Benton County, where he’d been jailed since his arrest Sunday.

He’s charged with knowingly burning 21-year-old Jessica Runions’ vehicle. She was last seen leaving a party Thursday night.

It’s unclear whether Yust has an attorney and when his first court appearance may be.

Police say Yust is a person of interest in ex-girlfriend Kara Kopetsky’s disappearance. She was 17 when she vanished in 2007 just days after filing for a protection order against Yust.

Yust also spent time in jail for assaulting a pregnant then-girlfriend in 2011.

 

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Sedgwick County authorities have charged the suspect in a 2014 hit-and-run that killed a man near Clearwater.

Fifty-four-year-old Cary Whitlock of Clearwater was charged Wednesday with failure to stop at an accident, resulting in great bodily harm. He is accused of hitting and killing Jeremy Napier as he was walking along a road in September 2014.

Whitlock’s preliminary hearing is scheduled for Oct. 20.

He’s free from jail on $25,000 bond. No defense attorney is listed in court records.

Whitlock was arrested last week. Authorities have not detailed what led to his arrest after nearly two years.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States will strive to take in 110,000 refugees from around the world in the coming year, the White House said Wednesday, in what would be a nearly 30 percent increase from the 85,000 allowed in over the previous year.

The increase reflects continuing concern about the refugee crisis stemming from Syria’s civil war and conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Yet it’s still far short of what advocacy groups say is needed to address an unprecedented crisis that saw some 1 million people pour into Europe alone last year.

Of the 110,000, 40,000 will come from the Middle East and South Asia, where the origins of the crisis have been most pronounced. An additional 35,000 will come from Africa, 12,000 from East Asia, 4,000 from Europe and 5,000 from Latin America and the Caribbean, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said.

The administration did not release a country-specific breakdown. The total includes 14,000 unallocated slots that can be given to refugees from any region once Congress is notified.

Secretary of State John Kerry had previously suggested that the U.S. target would climb to 100,000 in the coming year, but that the figure was a floor, not a ceiling. He briefed lawmakers on the revised figure on Tuesday.

The 110,000 goal covers a 12-month period that starts next month. In the 12 months ending Sept. 30, the U.S. goal was 85,000, and in the three years before that, the target was 70,000 per year.

The White House has tried to emphasize that the refugee program is safe and doesn’t pose a major threat to national security. That concern was heightened last year after terrorist attacks in European cities, including some connected to people who had spent time in Syria.

Officials said that potential refugees would continue to be subject a rigorous screening process that typically lasts more than a year and involves both in-person interviews and examination of biographical and biometric information.

The announcement came two weeks after the U.S. announced it had met President Barack Obama’s goal of admitting 10,000 Syrian refugees despite early skepticism that it would reach its goal. Millions of Syrians have been displaced by a civil war that has killed roughly half a million people.

Republican governors have pushed back vehemently and tried to refuse to let them into their states, leading to a clash with the administration, which has maintained that states can’t legally bar refugees who otherwise meet the criteria.

The U.S. has tried to encourage other countries, too, to increase their contribution to alleviating the refugee crisis. The official said increasing the U.S. target this year reflected that strategy and Obama’s belief that all nations need to do more to help the neediest.

As part of that effort, Obama plans to host a summit on refugee issues with world leaders next week during the U.N. General Assembly gathering in New York. The White House said the summit would spotlight the need to increase money for aid agencies, resettle more refugees and provide education and job assistance.

The refugee crisis has become a major political issue in Europe, where countries have been inundated by migrants after harrowing journeys that have killed scores. Concerns about refugees have played into the broader debate about immigration in Europe and were a major factor in Britain’s recent vote to leave the European Union.

The U.N. refugee agency chief, Filippo Grandi, said Tuesday that while the U.S. is “by far the largest donor government to refugee programs worldwide,” more still needs to be done. In an Associated Press interview, he said the U.N. was discussing those needs with the U.S. “all the time.”

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — The man convicted of killing abortion provider George Tiller will face this fall a new jury, which will be tasked with deciding how long he must stay in prison before he is eligible for parole.

Sedgwick County District Court records show resentencing procedures for Scott Roeder are set to begin Nov. 28. A status conference is scheduled Sept. 21.

Roeder’s life sentence with no chance of parole for 50 years was among many vacated after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2013 that juries, not judges, must decide whether to increase punishment.

Jurors must decide whether to resentence him to at least 50 or 25 years before being eligible for parole. Prosecutors are seeking a second Hard 50 prison sentence, while the defense contends the lesser term is sufficient.

OLATHE, Kan. (AP) — A judge has doubled the bail for a man suspected in an attempted robbery and shooting at a suburban Kansas City Wal-Mart.

The suspect, 27-year-old Arthur Fred Wyatt III, made his first court appearance Wednesday via closed circuit TV in Johnson County. The Kansas City Star reports his bail was increased to $2 million from $1 million.

Investigators say he and another man attacked a woman Sunday in the parking lot of a Shawnee Wal-Mart. A man in the lot intervened and was shot several times. Shawnee police say another good Samaritan shot and killed one of the attackers, John Simmons of Kansas City.

Police say Wyatt fled and was arrested Tuesday in Overland Park.

Wyatt told a Johnson County magistrate judge Wednesday he would hire his own attorney.