LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — The Kansas Highway Patrol says a man who apparently was hitchhiking died after being hit by two vehicles on the interstate.
The patrol says the man was hit Thursday night on Interstate 70 about six miles east of Lawrence.
Authorities say that the 42-year-old man from the St. Louis area was struck by two vehicles. The first vehicle didn’t stop but the second vehicle’s driver stopped and cooperated with investigators.
The man died at the scene.
SALINE COUNTY – Law enforcement authorities in Saline County are investigating a unique online scam.
An elderly couple in Salina was interested in purchasing a puppy online and found a female Shih Tzu puppy named “Sophie” for sale for $500 on the website PerfectShihtzu.com, according to Salina Police Captain Mike Sweeney.
The couple contacted the website by email and were contacted several times between August 22nd and August 26th by a man that identified himself as “Henry Anderson”.
When the couple attempted to pay for the puppy using a credit card, “Anderson” told them the website did not accept credit cards.
Sweeney said the couple was instructed to send the $500 payment via Western Union to an address in Texas.
They were told that once the money was collected, the dog would be flown from Texas to Denver, Colorado and then to Salina.
After sending the payment, the couple was contacted on August 26th by a man with a middle eastern accent that identified himself as “Adam Karl” from Pet Express Transportation Services.
He informed the couple that the dog was still in Denver and would not be flown to Salina unless a $1,200 payment was made for flight insurance for the dog. The couple sent the payment and the dog never arrived.
Sweeney said his agency was notified of the scam by the couple on August 28th after the dog was not delivered.
Total loss in the case is listed at $1,700, according to Sweeney.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Four former Kansas governors are launching a bipartisan campaign next week to retain Kansas Supreme Court justices in November’s election.
The three invitation-only events with former Republican Govs. Mike Hayden and Bill Graves and former Democratic Govs. John Carlin and Kathleen Sebelius are sponsored by Kansans for Fair Courts. It says it wants to keep the state’s courts independent.
The first event is Tuesday morning at Union Station in Kansas City, Missouri. The others are Tuesday afternoon in Topeka and Wednesday morning in Wichita.
Voters will determine whether five of the seven justices receive another six-year term. They are Chief Justice Lawton Nuss and Justices Carol Beier, Dan Biles, Marla Luckert and Caleb Stegall.
Conservatives are targeting all of them except Stegall. He is Republican Gov. Sam Brownback’s only appointee.
LAWRENCE — A $1 million dollar gift commitment from a retired University of Kansas engineering faculty member will endow a fund named in honor of four influential professors.
The Herbert and Grace Himmelstein Endowment for the Bishop-Rosson-Swift-Marchello Chemical Engineering Fund at KU will support chemical engineering graduate students and faculty in the Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering at KU, according to a media release.
Kenneth Himmelstein, who established the gift, was a faculty member at KU from 1976 to 1988. The gift recognizes the accomplishments of Kenneth Bishop, Harold Rosson and the late George “Bill” Swift, all engineering professors at KU, and Joseph Marchello, formerly of the University of Maryland.
The four professors are being recognized for their academic, educational and service contributions to their respective students, departments and universities.
Bishop is retired and lives in Lawrence. His research specialty was in the area of computer applications to chemical engineering.
Rosson is also retired and living in Lawrence. In addition to his accomplishments in traditional academic areas, he was a former department chair and associate dean of engineering.
Swift, a KU alumnus, received his bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees in chemical engineering from KU before becoming a professor. His research area was in the physical properties of liquids and gases.
The late Joe Marchello was an engineering professor at the University of Maryland. Marchello went on to become the chancellor at the University of Missouri-Rolla and president of Old Dominion University in Virginia.
Michael Branicky, dean of KU’s School of Engineering, said, “This gift helps KU Engineering fill a critical need. Funding that supports our outstanding faculty and helps to recruit more top minds to KU Engineering is essential to our continued success.”
The fund will support a named assistant professorship in a nontraditional chemical engineering field, named graduate student fellowships based on merit and an award fund for junior faculty members and graduate students to attend professional meetings or purchase textbooks.
Himmelstein encourages anyone who had experience with the educators for which the fund is named to donate to the fund and continue the spirit of academic generosity that Bishop, Rosson, Swift and Marchello exemplified.
MANHATTAN— State and Riley County health officials continue working to determine why dozens of Manhattan High School students are getting sick at school.
Since the first week of school more than 120 students and staff at the school have been sent home due to reports of nausea and vomiting.
The first cases were reported from Manhattan High’s West Campus last week.
The county health department did not find similar illnesses at other area schools.
Parents of sick students are being asked by to provide stool samples to the Riley County Health Department, located at 2030 Tecumseh Rd. in Manhattan.
School officials are also asking students who get sick to stay home for an additional 24 hours after symptoms go away.
Principal Greg Hoyt said in a note to parents that the school nurse reported she had sent more students home from school with vomiting and related symptoms than she ever had in her many years of experience.
SHAWNEE COUNTY – Law enforcement authorities in Shawnee County are investigating a shooting and have identified a person of interest.
Just after 4 p.m. on Wednesday, police in Topeka responded to report of a shooting in the 2100 Block of Southeast 12th Street, according to a media release.
Justin Lee McCoy, 27, Topeka, was shot during a dispute.
The Topeka Police Department requests the public’s assistance in locating a person of interest in relation to a shooting. Dominic Mychal Bosworth, 23, Topeka.
McCoy was transported to a local hospital with non-life threatening injuries.
Police asked the pubic to contact Detective Jared Strathman at [email protected]
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Samsung says it is suspending sales of its Galaxy Note 7 smartphone after finding batteries of some of the gadgets exploded while they were charging.
Koh Dong-jin, president of Samsung’s mobile business said Friday that customers who already bought Note 7s will be able to swap them for new smartphones, regardless of the purchasing date.
The announcement comes just two weeks after Samsung launched its latest flagship smartphone.
Some buyers reported their phones caught fire or exploded while charging, and Samsung said it had confirmed 35 such cases, caused by faulty batteries.
Samsung said it has sold more than 1 million Note 7 smartphones since the product’s launch.
OLATHE, Kan. (AP) — A Kansas City rapper and record company president is guilty in the killing of an aspiring rapper from Kansas.
A Johnson County District Court jury on Thursday found 33-year-old Dale “Poppa Willo” Willis guilty of first-degree murder in the September 2015 death of 24-year-old Jurl Carter of Olathe.
Prosecutors say Willis, president of Duced Out Records, ordered his brother, James Willis, to shoot Carter after a confrontation outside an Overland Park bar. James Willis is awaiting trial on a murder charge.
The Kansas City Star reports Carter, who went by Yunglyfe Carter or Bo Boogy, was driving away when James Willis allegedly fired several shots at his car, hitting Carter four times in the chest.
Attorneys for Dale Willis argued no evidence confirmed that Dale Willis ordered the shooting.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A federal judge has awarded a former inmate at the Topeka Correctional Facility a $2.5 million judgment against a man who taught at the women’s prison, but it’s unclear if she will see any of that money.
U.S. District Judge Daniel Crabtree on Tuesday issued the ruling against Ananstacio Gallardo for $750,000 in actual damages and $1.5 million in punitive damages for sexually assaulting the woman in October 2007.
The Topeka Capital-Journal reports Gallardo was a vocational plumbing instructor at the all-woman prison when he forced the victim to have sex with him. She became pregnant and alleged Gallardo tried to get her to have an abortion.
Gallardo later pleaded guilty to one felony count of unlawful sexual relations with an inmate and two counts of trafficking contraband.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach says he’s still advising Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.
Kobach told reporters Thursday, “I am in regular communication with the campaign.”
Kobach gained national attention before his election as secretary of state in 2010 for helping local and state officials across the nation write tough laws against illegal immigration. He was Trump’s highest-profile early backer in Kansas.
Trump advocates building a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border and forcing Mexico to pay for it. In a fiery speech Wednesday in Phoenix, the GOP nominee promised to curb even legal immigration. Kobach called the speech “historic.”
Kobach is the state’s top election official. He said it’s “perfectly appropriate” for him to take partisan stances because voters can hold him accountable for how he oversees elections.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A national trade association reports that commercial contractors in Kansas say they are struggling to fill construction jobs.
The Associated General Contractors of America reports that 83 percent of surveyed construction firms say they are facing difficulties filling in hourly craft positions, even though the state lost over 4,000 construction jobs from July 2015 to July 2016.
Lawmakers have attributed the job losses to delayed highway projects, according to the Topeka Capital-Journal.
Trade association CEO Stephen Sandherr says the most difficult positions to fill are carpenters, electricians, roofers, plumbers and concrete workers.
He says nearly half of firms nationwide have responded to worker shortages by raising base pay rates for craft workers.
But Sandherr says shortages are not going to be alleviated any time soon, partially due to the increasing demand for construction work in many other parts of the country.
OVERLAND PARK, Kan. (AP) — Prosecutors in Kansas’ Johnson County have charged a 22-year-old man with capital murder and rape in connection with last month’s death of a woman whose body was found this week.
Prosecutors charged Korrey Raine White Rinke of Ottawa, Kansas, on Thursday in the death of 46-year-old Julianna Pappas. Her body was found late Wednesday in a wooded area of Overland Park. She was last seen Aug. 22.
Court records do not indicate how Pappas was killed.
During Rinke’s initial court appearance Thursday, an attorney from the Kansas Death Penalty Defense Unit was appointed to represent him. His next court date is scheduled for Wednesday.
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JOHNSON COUNTY – Law enforcement authorities in Johnson County are investigating the murder of a Kansas woman.
The body of Julianna Pappas, 46, was found in a wooded area south of West 115 Street, between Switzer Road and Indian Creek Parkway, according to a media release.
Pappas was last seen Aug. 22.
Police reported receiving a lead in the case that led them to search the Indian Creek area on Wednesday afternoon.
They arrested Korrey R. Rinke, 22, on suspicion of first-degree murder. He and Pappas knew each other, according to police.
Rinke is scheduled to make a court appearance on Thursday afternoon, according to the Johnson County Sheriff’s Department.
Anyone with additional information is asked to call police or the Crime Stoppers tips Hotline.
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OVERLAND PARK, Kan. (AP) — Authorities in suburban Kansas City say foul play is suspected in the disappearance of a woman.
Overland Park police said in a news release that 46-year-old Julianna Pappas was last seen Aug. 22. Police described the circumstances around her disappearance as “suspicious” and said the case is being treated as a death investigation.
A search of a creek began Wednesday after authorities received a lead. The release didn’t say whether the search yielded any new clues but did stress that police are seeking additional leads. Anyone with information is urged to call police or a tips hotline.
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — An 18-year-old is dead after pointing a gun at a Sedgwick County deputy who pulled him over for driving erratically.
Sedgwick County Jeff Easter says the deputy spotted a possible impaired driver around 1 a.m. Thursday in Wichita and stopped the vehicle. The sheriff says the driver, Caleb Douglas, pointed a handgun at the deputy’s face after being asked to step out of his car.
Easter says the deputy retreated before firing at least 16 shots at the driver, who drove off before striking a house. An autopsy will show whether one of the deputy’s bullets killed Douglas, or if he killed himself.
The 32-year-old deputy has been a patrol officer for 14 months and has seven years of prior law enforcement experience.
Both he and the driver are white.
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WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Authorities say a man has died after a Wichita traffic stop led to a shooting and crash.
Lt. Lin Dehning of the Sedgwick County Sheriff’s Office says shots were fired after a deputy stopped a driver early Thursday. It wasn’t immediately clear whether the suspect or the deputy fired the shots. Dehning says there are no other suspects.
After the shots were fired, the vehicle left and struck a house a short time later. The man was taken to a hospital where he died.
No other information was immediately available. Authorities are planning a media briefing later Thursday to release more details.
