COWLEY COUNTY – A Kansas inmate missing since Wednesday is back in custody, according to prison officials in Winfield.

A tip led Correction’s Special Enforcement Officers to believe Bradley Wayne Storable, 37, was  at a family member’s home, according to a media release.

Struble was seen about midnight Wednesday during the prison’s inmate count. The Winfield Correctional Facility is a minimum-security facility where inmates are supervised, but the grounds are not fenced in.

Struble has been convicted of robbery, burglary and theft, according to the Kansas Department of Corrections.

He was sent to Winfield in February and was due to be released in October.

HUTCHINSON — One of the four suspects in two Kansas home invasion cases was found guilty of all charges Thursday by a jury in Reno County.

Dakota Anderson, 19, Hutchinson, was convicted of aggravated kidnapping; two counts of aggravated robbery, one count of aggravated battery and two counts of aggravated burglary for two home invasions in May of 2014.

One of the victims, a 92-year-old World War II veteran testified during the trial that he was awakened by three men who hit him in the head with a gun and then forced face down on his bed with a gun to the back of his head.
He says he was then robbed of a number of items including his war medals including his purple heart and gold and silver stars, $450.00 in cash, his van and some of his late wife’s jewelry.

Sentencing is scheduled for May 6.

GEARY COUNTY -A semi overturned on Interstate 70 Westbound near McDowell Creek Road just after 9 a.m. on Sunday..

The Kansas Highway Patrol reported the westbound lane was reduced to one lane, and will be for several hours until KDOT officials get the truck flipped over.

The KHP reported they had multiple vehicles drive by those working the accident at a high rate of speed.

KDOT is on scene directing traffic.

No injuries are reported

BY BRYAN THOMPSON
New county health rankings tell the same old story in Kansas.

The southeastern corner of Kansas remains the state’s least healthy region, according to the rankings released Wednesday by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute.

However, the Kansas county at the bottom of the list — Wyandotte — is next door to Johnson County, the state’s top performer.

Gianfranco Pezzino, senior fellow and strategy team leader at the Kansas Health Institute, says the big story in the annual rankings is the disparity from county to county.

“We have deep, deep differences among the poorest and the richest counties, and so as a consequence also among the healthiest and the least healthy counties,” Pezzino says.

He sees two main factors causing the variation among counties.

“The two best predictors of good or poor health are economic situation and education, and those two are very much linked to each other,” Pezzino says.

People with less education are more likely to have jobs that don’t provide economic security, he says, and that leads to what some researchers call “toxic stress.” As a result, they’re more likely to make lifestyle choices — smoking, for example — that are less healthy.

“The cumulative effect of living a stressful life really takes a toll on people,” Pezzino says. “And when you are poor, that toll is even bigger. You are under continuous stress. Once again, you don’t know what you’re going to feed to your children this evening for dinner. And you don’t know if you’re going to have any kind of job that will allow you to pay rent next month. So the level of stress becomes really high. Every smoker will tell you, the first thing they do when they feel stress is reaching out for a cigarette.”

Pezzino says Wyandotte County has the highest smoking rate in Kansas and poor performance on a host of other measures. While officials and community leaders in Wyandotte County are working to address those issues, it takes time to see a change in the ranking.

“We call these the 2016 rankings. In reality, the data that’s based on spans from 2007 to 2014 — and that’s just for a few measures in 2014,” Pezzino says. “Recent efforts, even if they have produced results, those results are not captured in this report. It may take a full generation before they can really see the results of their investment. But they’re doing wonderful things, and they’re really addressing the right factors.”

Bryan Thompson is a reporter for KHI News Service in Topeka, a partner in the Heartland Health Monitor team.

WYANDOTTE COUNTY – A Kansas man died in an accident just after 7p.m. on Saturday in Wyandotte County.

The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 1996 Toyota 4-Runner driven by Brayan Josue Valladres Varela, 24, Kansas City, was eastbound on Interstate 70 in the left exit only lane to 5th street.

The driver made a lane change to the right to continue eastbound on on the Interstate and the SUV went off the roadway and overturned multiple times ejecting the driver out of the sunroof.

Valladres Varela was pronounced dead at the scene and transported to Frontier Forensics.

He was not wearing a seat belt, according to the KHP.

MICHELLE R. SMITH, Associated Press
SUSAN HAIGH, Associated Press

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — It’s called “passing the trash”: A school suspects a teacher of sexual misconduct and forces the teacher out to protect the students. But that person can still get a new job in a new school, sometimes with a glowing recommendation.

Only Pennsylvania, Missouri and Oregon ban the practice.

A man charged with child sex crimes was hired as a Wichita teacher last fall after a background check failed to uncover that he resigned from Garden City Community College amid a child pornography investigation.

Sixty-two-year-old Steven Thompson, of Wichita, was charged In January  with three counts of sexual exploitation of a child in Finney County, where he previously was a tenured computer science instructor.

Garden City Police Capt. Randy Ralston says school officials reported in September 2013 that child pornography was found on Thompson’s work computer.

A federal mandate passed in December now requires states to address its potential risks. Connecticut is considering such legislation.

Advocates say it’s an important tool to keep abusers from moving from school to school and hurting more children.

A  teachers union says it overreaches and presumes guilt before innocence.

And the Connecticut Association of Boards of Education says it worries the legislation might make it difficult for schools to make timely job offers.

LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — A four-month investigation into a University of Kansas professor who used a racial slur in class has concluded it was used in an educational context and not intended as racist.

The Lawrence Journal-World reports assistant communication studies professor Andrea Quenette was notified late Friday by the university’s Office of Institutional Opportunity and Access that she did not violate school policies.

Quenette used the slur a day after a heated university-wide town hall forum on race. The teacher noted that unlike other campuses where there had been highly racist acts, she hadn’t see the slur spray painted on walls at KU.

A group of eight graduate students filed a discrimination complaint because of her use of the word and Quenette was put on paid leave while the university investigated.