SEDGWICK COUNTY – A Kansas man died from injuries in accident just before 5 a.m. on Friday in Sedgwick County.

The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 2002 Nissan truck driven by Sengaroun Phombounmy, 54, Wichita, was northbound on Interstate 135 at 21st Street.

The driver lost control on the icy bridge and left the roadway on the right side and started to roll.

The vehicle rolled approximately 4 times and came to rest in the east ditch.

The driver was ejected and came to rest on the entrance ramp to 21st Street.

Phombounmy was transported to Wesley Medical Center where he died.

He was not wearing a seat belt, according to the KH

CINCINNATI -Kroger announced Friday that they will ask for voluntary buyouts to about 2000 non-store employees, according to a media release.

The parent company of Dillon’s said that in a concession to difficulties of the current operating environment, Kroger was offering voluntary retirement buyouts. Kroger CEO Rodney McMullin said that the the announcement is in support of the company’s Customer 1st” strategy to reduce costs in areas not affecting the customer experience, such as in stores.

Because the program is voluntary, savings and cost will be based on the number of associates who accept the offer between now and early March, when the consideration periods expire, Kroger said. Expenses related to the offer will be reflected in Kroger’s first quarter 2017 results.

The effect of this buyout plan was not included in the company’s initial comments on its fiscal 2017 outlook. Bill Kirk, an analyst at RBC Capital, in a research note said the move would not likely have a material impact on Kroger, which employs some 431,000 workers in the U.S., but was indicative of the difficult operating environment. Kirk noted that if the number of employees that take the offer is lower than expected layoffs could be the next step.

The announcement comes on the heels of weakening sales at the Cincinnati ­based retailer, which early this month posted non­fuel comparable­ store sales of 0.1% in its fiscal third quarter, its lowest quarterly sales gain in 13 years.

SEDGWICK COUNTY -Law enforcement authorities in Sedgwick County are investigating a burglary and need help to identify a suspect.

Surveillance video shows the suspect breaking into vehicles in the parking lot on the Newman University Campus, according to a social media report.

If you have any information on this case or know the identification of this individual please call Crime Stoppers at 267-2111.

GEARY COUNTY – Law enforcement authorities in Geary County are investigating a suspect after a standoff while trying to deliver a warrant.

On Thursday evening, sheriff’s deputies responded to a home on Clarks Creek Road southeast of Junction City in reference to a warrant.

“He spotted officers that were down there when he was leaving the residence and then he got out of his car, went in to the house and barricaded himself in.” said Geary County Undersheriff Brad Clark.

“We called the SWAT team out and the negotiating team and they took threw a phone into a back window and eventually just talked him out of the house,” said Clark.

Deputies arrested James Glacken, 30, without injury on a warrant for a parole violation, and obstructing legal process or official duty.

He is being held in the Geary County Detention Center.

No officers were injured, according to Clark.

LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — A Jefferson County man has donated more than 1,300 acres of land to the University of Kansas and Kansas State University with the stipulation that income from the land’s sale go toward engineering scholarships.

The Lawrence Journal-World reports 88-year-old James F. Lindley of Grantville died in 2015. Lindley graduated from the University of Kansas in 1949 with an electrical engineering degree, and the school’s endowment staff began working with him in 1998 on his estate plans.

Lindley was a World War II Army veteran, and farmed and raised cattle.

The Kansas Board of Regents approved the transfer of land to charitable arms of each university on Wednesday. The land donated to the two schools is in Shawnee and Jefferson counties. The Regents say the property’s appraised value is $4.3 million.

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Authorities say a suspect in a Florida killing who exchanged gunfire with U.S. Marshals earlier this week has died.

Police on Friday identified the suspect as 26-year-old Gabriel L. Davis. He died Thursday at a Wichita hospital.

Police say Davis had a warrant for a September 2015 murder out of Florida. Federal agents were monitoring a home Wednesday, when the suspect and a female got into a vehicle in the driveway.

Davis shot at them as they came near to take him into custody, and they returned fire. The vehicle fled the scene and crashed into a house, and both the suspect and the woman took off running. She has not been located.

Police say they found Davis during a search, and he fired a shot into his head as officers approached.

By ANDY MARSO

A committee of legislators formed to study the consolidation of licensing boards for a dozen public health professions ultimately decided Wednesday to recommend few changes.

Consolidation of the boards was one of the recommendations from a government efficiency study lawmakers commissioned last year to help them identify cuts to close persistent budget deficits.

But most of the licensing boards involved strongly opposed consolidation, and Rep. Dan Hawkins noted that consolidation would not help with the state general fund deficits because the boards are almost entirely funded through fees on their members.

“It’s not SGF, so it’s a little bit hard to say, ‘Let’s go ahead and just wholesale change everything’ when it’s you who’s paying the bill and you’re happy with it,” Hawkins, a Republican from Wichita who chaired the committee, said in addressing the representatives of doctors, nurses, dentists and other groups.

The room was unusually full for an interim committee hearing. When the committee adjourned without recommending any major consolidation, many of those in attendance broke out in applause — another rarity at the Statehouse.

The committee ultimately recommended just one change: moving the board of hearing aid examiners under the Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Services, where it will join the board that regulates audiologists and speech pathologists.

That move was one that the stakeholders involved favored.

In contrast, representatives of the Kansas Board of Nursing testified against merging their licensing board with any others, including the Kansas Board of Healing Arts, which regulates 14 health care professions including doctors.

Seven people representing nurses testified against consolidation Wednesday, including JoAnn Klaassen, president of the state board of nursing.

Klaassen argued that nurses’ licenses need a different type of scrutiny than other health care professionals because they spend the most time with patients.

“If you are a patient who is dying, it’s the nurse who is the person at your bedside,” Klaassen said.

Maryann Alexander, chief officer of nursing regulation for the National Council of State Boards of Nursing in Chicago, came to testify to the efficiency of the Kansas Board of Nursing in its current form.

Alexander told legislators that the board’s 1.5-day average for processing license applications and 2.7-month average for completing investigations into complaints are well below the national rates.

“It’s one of the most efficient boards of nursing in the country,” Alexander said.

Rep. Kyle Hoffman, a Republican from Coldwater, said the line between doctors and nurses is becoming increasingly blurred with expansion of services that advanced practice registered nurses can do.

“I mean, APRNs, I almost consider them a doctor,” Hoffman said.

Some of the nursing representatives acknowledged the crossover in services. But they remained united in their desire to control their own board, funded through their own fees.

The revenue created by the fees for the boards amounted to almost $15 million this year, according to the Kansas Legislative Research Department.

Betty Smith-Campbell, a member of the Kansas Advanced Practice Nurses Association, said she feared consolidation would be used as an excuse to sweep some of that money into the general fund to help close the current $350 million budget gap — a practice that has drawn lawsuits from other professional groups in the past.

“Is the true goal here to use our nursing funds for the general fund?” Smith-Campbell asked.

 Andy Marso is a reporter for KHI News Service in Topeka, a partner in the Heartland Health Monitor team. You can reach him on Twitter @andymarso