HUTCHINSON -A Kansas man involved in a fatality accident has been formally charged by the state with vehicular homicide and having no insurance.

On May 12, Everette Hardy, 25, Hutchinson, was eastbound on 14th Avenue in Reno County.

He failed to yield at a stop sign and collided with southbound pickup driven by Jack B. Johnson, 80, at the intersection of Poplar Street, according to Police

Johnson was transported to Hutchinson Regional Medical Center for treatment of injuries and was later transported to a Wichita hospital where he died on June 3.

Hardy was cited at the time for disobeying the stop sign, but now faces the much more serious charge.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — State and county agencies are joining with university laboratories in searching for ways to make sure the Zika virus doesn’t take hold in Kansas.

The Topeka Capital-Journal reports the Kansas Department of Health and Environment has started a statewide surveillance program to monitor the mosquitoes that spread the virus, and it’s preparing to release a plan of action.

The Biosecurity Research Institute at Kansas State University has increased research on the virus, and the Shawnee County Health Agency has created an awareness program to deter any further increase of Zika virus cases in the state.

Five individuals have been diagnosed with the Zika virus in Kansas, with all of those cases travel-related.

There have been 820 cases of Zika virus in the U.S.

HODGEMAN COUNTY –Two people were injured in an accident just before 9:30 a.m. on Tuesday in Hodgeman County.

The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 2001 Ford Escort driven by Cameron Duane Finke, 46, Garden City, was east bound on Kansas 156 three miles west of Burdett.

The vehicle entered the south ditch, went off a bridge and was under the roadway.

Finke and a passenger Crystal Finke, 44, were transported to the Hodgeman County Hospital.

They were properly restrained at the time of the accident, according to the KHP.

By Abigail Wilson

To say that many educators in Kansas are fed up with state lawmakers would be an understatement. The Legislature has been putting a tighter and tighter squeeze on public schools in recent years.

This election season, educators are trying to send some legislators packing. The Kansas Association of School Boards (KASB) estimates that across the state, roughly 50 current and former school board members, administrators and teachers are candidates in legislative elections.

In western Kansas, Stafford USD 349 Superintendent Mary Jo Taylor is running for Senate.

On the other side of the state in Johnson County, retired special education teacher Vicki Hiatt is vying for a Senate seat, and English teacher Brett Parker hopes to get a seat in the House.

South of Wichita, KASB President Don Shimkus is gunning for the seat left vacant by Senate Education Committee Chair Steve Abrams, who withdrew from the election just before the deadline.

In Wichita, Democrat Lynn Rogers has been campaigning for Senate District 25 since August of last year.

After serving on the Wichita school board for 16 years, he’s frustrated with legislators he says act as rubber stamps for Gov. Sam Brownback. Rogers said the block grant funding system passed by incumbent legislators assumes all children have the same needs.

And he’s sick of hearing the repeated talking points about top-heavy administration.

A huge part of the support for Rogers’ campaign has come from area educators and parents. He estimated that more than 150 people with education ties have helped him spread his message, knocking on doors or handing out fliers.

Changing climate 

Linda Zehr, who recently retired from a 30-year career as a teacher in Wichita’s public school district, is one of them.

With her long hair tied back in a low ponytail and a clipboard in her hand, she walked with Rogers through her west Wichita neighborhood, introducing him to her neighbors.

Zehr said she has been politically active before, but never to the extent of going door-to-door for a candidate. Zehr said decisions made at the state level left her with an increasing number of duties and a frozen salary for at least eight years.

Her daughter is still a kindergarten teacher in Wichita. “She said to me the other day, ‘Mom, how did you do this for 30 years?’”

Zehr told her daughter there was a supportive climate for teachers in the first 25 years of her career.

“This last four or five years is when it really has become a battle against public education in many respects.”

Zehr said recent moves by state lawmakers have threatened public education in ways she had never seen before.

The Legislature eliminated guaranteed tenure and attempted to limit what teachers can negotiate for in their contracts.

There also has been a push to use public money for private schools.

Senate candidate Lynn Rogers said part of the problem is that school boards, like the one he’s been serving on, are partly to blame.

He said board members have done such a good job of shielding parents and students from the effects of state cuts to public education that few noticed how deep the cuts were. And as long as those cuts were hidden, no one was questioning their legislators.

So now Rogers is knocking on doors, telling anyone who will listen that the cuts are not over and it’s to a point now that they’re really going to hurt.

The Wichita school district was forced to reduce expenditures for the upcoming school year by $22 million because of flat funding from the state. In order to save money, the teachers in the district agreed to lengthen the school day and shorten the overall school year.

Rogers said those moves, along with the possibility of outsourcing custodial staff and eliminating elementary and middle school librarians, finally caught people’s attention. “So people are seeing the impact, either fewer bus routes, different start times for their kids or in some cases fewer schools if we’ve had to close schools,” Rogers said.

‘This little Band-Aid’ 

Although the Legislature did avert a statewide shutdown of public schools at the end of June threatened by the Kansas Supreme Court, educators running for office say the last-minute fix doesn’t change anything.

Kim Palcic, a third-grade teacher from Olathe, is a candidate for House District 15.

“We need every student to have the best possible education and I don’t think this little Band-Aid is going to help us,” Palcic said.

“It will work for this year. The schools will open, and that’s what’s important. But it’s not enough.”

However hard it was for lawmakers to come up with the money to resolve inequities between school districts and avoid the shutdown, satisfying the Supreme Court on adequacy will be harder. And no matter what, the Legislature will have to come up with a new funding formula.

This year’s legislative elections will determine whether it’s going to be a formula that educators like or a formula that the conservatives – with whom teachers are at odds – will get behind.

 

Abigail Wilson is a reporter for KMUW, a partner in a statewide collaboration covering elections in Kansas.

SALINE COUNTY – Law enforcement authorities in Saline County are investigating a burglary suspect.

Just after 8:30 p.m. on Sunday, sheriff’s deputies were sent to the 2100 block of East Schilling Road after the report of someone trying to break into the office of Johnson Sand, according to Saline County Undersheriff Roger Soldan.

When deputies arrived they found the building had been broken into and noticed a pickup with a welder in the back was stuck in the mud. There were also footprints leading away from the pickup.

In a search of the area they found Johnathan Ahlvers, 33, McPherson, in a sand pit hiding behind cattails.

Ahlvers began to swim away, was told by a deputy he would not be able to cross it, before he began swimming back to the edge of the pit. He told deputies he was having trouble breathing and could not get to the top of the pit.

Emergency Medical Staff transported Ahlvers was to the hospital, then on to jail.

He is being held on requested charges of burglary, felony theft, trespassing, and criminal damage to property.

Deputies recovered two laptop computers from the edge of the sand pit, which had been taken from the office building, according to Soldan.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A 26-year-old Kansas man who climbed onto a roof to launch fireworks is dead after falling from atop his Topeka home.

The Topeka Capital-Journal reports Christen Locke fell from the roof after he was injured by a firework just after midnight Tuesday morning.

Topeka police Lt. Jennifer Cross says the call was originally reported as a fall but an investigation revealed the fireworks accident.

Locke was transported to a hospital with life-threatening injuries and later died.

WASHINGTON (AP) — FBI Director James Comey says the FBI will not recommend criminal charges in its investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while secretary of state.

Comey made the announcement Tuesday, three days after FBI agents interviewed Clinton in a final step of its investigation.

The Justice Department has been looking into whether anyone mishandled classified information that flowed through Clinton’s email server. Attorney General Loretta Lynch said last week that she would accept the recommendations of Comey and of career prosecutors

Although Comey’s announcement removes the threat of criminal charges, it’s unlikely to eliminate concerns about Clinton’s trustworthiness. And it almost certainly won’t stop Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump from continuing to make the server a campaign issue.

SALINE COUNTY – A Kansas woman and child were injured in an accident just before 8a.m. on Tuesday in Saline County.

The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 2015 Mazda passenger car driven by Irene Booth, 51, Ogden,

was westbound on Interstate 70 two miles east of the Ohio Street exit. The driver swerved to miss a deer and overcorrected. The vehicle entered the north ditch, hit a fence and a tree.

Booth and a passenger Angel Booth, 9, were transported to Salina Regional Medical Center.

They were both properly restrained at the time of the accident, according to the KHP.

NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. government is investigating complaints from Ford Explorer owners who say they smelled exhaust gas inside their SUVs.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says it received 154 complaints involving Ford Explorers with model years between 2011 and 2015.

One driver says the odor caused a crash. No injuries were reported.

Owners say they smelled exhaust gas when the SUVs were in full throttle, like when climbing steep roads or merging into freeway ramps. The odor was also detected when the air conditioner was in recirculation mode.

The NHTSA and Ford Motor Co. declined to say how many vehicles are being investigated. Ford sold more than 950,000 of its 2011 to 2015 Explorers, according to Autodata Corp.

Ford, based in Dearborn, Michigan, says it is cooperating with the investigation.

By DEWEY TERRILL
JC Post

JUNCTION CITY -The fireworks show at Sundown Salute Monday night in Junction City came to an abrupt end when an accident occurred during the show.

The owner of the company providing the fireworks show, Roger Bennett , Junction City, was injured by an errant fireworks shell, according to Sundown Salute Coordinator Sharon Glessner.

“We were doing great and then one of the shells kind of exploded on the owner’s ankle. Roger has second-degree burns on his ankle, but he refused transport to a hospital,” Glessner said. “He’s going to be fine. He’ll be in pain for a couple of days, but he’ll be OK.”

The accident occurred about 12 minutes into the 15-minute show.

“We all ran really fast because we didn’t know what happened,” Glessner said. “We just heard that somebody got hurt and something blew up, so we didn’t know what we were going to get. He is fine, but it was scary.”

An ambulance, fire truck, police and Glessner responded to the accident scene at the Sixth Street viaduct.

The large crowd in the Heritage Park and Sixth and Washington area downtown waited for a few minutes, but the fireworks did not resume.

SHAWNEE COUNTY- Law enforcement authorities in Shawnee County are investigating a fatal accident.

Just after 9:30p.m. on Monday first responders were dispatched to SE Park Lane Court and SE Lakeshore in Topeka for an accident involving a vehicle and a pedestrian, according to a media release.

A woman in her 60s was transported to a local hospital where she died. It is not known if alcohol was involved in the accident. Name of the victim has not been released.

PASADENA, Calif. (AP) — The Latest on NASA’s mission to Jupiter (all times local):

A solar-powered spacecraft is circling Jupiter on a mission to map the giant planet from the inside out.

NASA mission control received a radio signal Monday night from the Juno spacecraft confirming that it’s in orbit around the biggest planet in the solar system.

Because Juno’s camera and other instruments were turned off during the highly anticipated arrival, there won’t be pictures of the key moment.

The trip took nearly five years and 1.8 billion miles (2.8 billion kilometers). Juno is the first spacecraft to venture so far from Earth powered by the sun.

It’ll spend 20 months circling Jupiter’s poles, peering through thick clouds and studying the planet’s gravity and magnetic fields.

———-

A NASA spacecraft has begun firing its rocket motor in preparation for its arrival at Jupiter.

The space agency said Monday the engine burn is expected to last about half an hour. It’s designed to slow the Juno spacecraft down so that it can slip into orbit around the giant planet.

Mission controllers can’t send any commands during this key moment because Juno is on autopilot. Its camera and other instruments were also powered off as a precaution.

Juno traveled nearly five years and 1.8 billion miles (2.8 billion kilometers) to the outer solar system. Its goal is to peek behind Jupiter’s swirling clouds and explore its gravity and magnetic fields.

___

11:35 a.m.

After a nearly five-year journey, a solar-powered spacecraft is passing Jupiter’s inner moons as it readies for the closest encounter with the biggest planet in the solar system.

NASA’s Juno spacecraft will fire its main rocket engine late Monday to slow itself down from a speed of 150,000 mph (250,000 kph) and slip into orbit around Jupiter.

Juno chief scientist Scott Bolton said at a morning briefing that the spacecraft is expected to survive rings of debris and a hostile radiation environment because it’s “built like an armored tank.”

NASA released a series of images taken last week during the approach, showing the destination planet glowing yellow in the distance, circled by its four inner moons.

Scientists have promised close-up views of Jupiter when Juno skims the cloud tops during the 20-month, $1.1 billion mission.

WICHITA – Law enforcement authorities in Sedgwick County are investigating a suspicious death.

Just after 11:30a.m. on Monday, Wichita Police Officers were sent to an address in the 2100 block of South Laura to check the welfare of a man at the residence, according to a media release.

Upon arrival, a 58-year-old man was found dead inside.

The death is being considered suspicious and investigators are currently working on interviews and processing the scene.

Additional details are expected to be released on Tuesday