SALINA – Law enforcement authorities in Salina are investigating an accidental shooting Friday night at the Starplex Theater in the Mall on South 9th Street.
“A man’s gun went off and I believe the theater was evacuated,” said Police Sergeant Gary Hanus.
The man was transported to the hospital, according to Hanus. There were no other injuries reported.
Staff at the Starplex were asked not to comment on the incident and calls to the company’s corporate office were not immediately returned.
The man’s name and additional details were not released.
PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Heating bills should drop this winter for most U.S. households, thanks to a combination of lower energy prices and warmer weather across most of the country.
The U.S. Energy Department’s annual prediction Tuesday calls for lower energy costs than the past two winters.
It says the biggest savings should be for those using propane or heating oil, with homes that use propane spending $322 less and those with heating oil spending $459 less than last winter.
The projection is based on warmer weather for most of the country except in the West, which is forecast to be slightly cooler.
The forecast is especially good news in the Northeast, where homes are more reliant on heating oil. Heating oil prices were at a 10-year low in the most recent survey.
Erica Hardin holds her 3-month-old son, Marcus, at home. CREDIT TODD FEEBACK / HALE CENTER FOR JOURNALISM AT KCPT
A new statistical summary by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment shows progress in reducing a long-standing health disparity between black and white Kansans: the death rate for babies in their first year of life.
For more than 20 years, black babies have died at a much higher rate than white babies in Kansas. Some years, the difference has been three-fold. But the 2014 Summary of Vital Statistics from KDHE reflects a drop of almost one-third in the black infant mortality rate, from 15.3 per 1,000 live births in 2013 down to 10.3 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2014.
KDHE officials caution against reading too much into the figures, because the numbers are relatively small and there can be large fluctuations year-to-year. Still, it’s the lowest black non-Hispanic infant mortality rate in Kansas since 1998.
J’Vonnah Maryman, who oversees fetal and infant mortality review at the Sedgwick County Health Department, hopes it’s an indication that efforts to address the causes of infant mortality are beginning to pay off.
“That is something that we’re excited to hear about,” she says, noting the rate fell 32.7 percent from 2013 to 2014. “Overall, if you look at a rolling average over a five-year period, it’s also down within the state, so those are all good things.”
However, Maryman says the battle isn’t won yet.
“There is still cause for concern,” she says. “Even though it’s decreasing, and that’s the way that we want it to go, the rate (five-year rolling average) is still approximately 2.6 times higher than that of white non-Hispanic infants.”
Sedgwick County has a higher infant mortality rate than the state as a whole. That’s been true since at least 1985.
“We will continue to work in Sedgwick County to identify the gaps or barriers that we have in resources here, or in education here, so that we can try to minimize the rates here, which weigh heavily on the state of Kansas because of the size and population of Sedgwick County,” Maryman says.
One of those barriers, according to Maryman, is that too many pregnant women and young mothers lack health insurance.
“There’s a good proportion of the cases that we review where the families are not insured, or weren’t insured for the duration of the entire pregnancy,” Maryman says. “We recognize the benefits that come with access to insurance and how insurance can be a facilitator to access to health care, and the importance of health care in ensuring the healthy birth of an infant.”
Bryan Thompson is a reporter for Heartland Health Monitor, a news collaboration focusing on health issues and their impact in Missouri and Kansas.
MANHATTAN–The Kansas Department of Agriculture has been selected to receive a cooperative agreement totaling $2.25 million over the next five years from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. This FDA grant allows for collaboration between the KDA Agriculture Laboratory and the Dairy and Feed Safety program to expand animal feed testing and safety in Kansas.
The funding provides KDA the ability to implement a feed safety program within the framework of the Animal Feed Regulatory Program Standards set forth by the FDA. This will allow KDA’s laboratory to increase current animal feed testing capabilities which will expand the existing quality system. The cooperative agreement will also allow for the KDA laboratory to expand its ISO 17025 accreditation, establishing a more complete quality system and increasing the quality analytical data collected. ISO 17025 accreditation attests to the competency and technical capabilities of a laboratory to perform certain testing and supports the traceability of any data generated.
“The development and implementation of these standards will help both federal and state programs better direct their regulatory activities toward reducing hazards, consequently improving the safety and security of the animal feed supply in Kansas,” KDA Agriculture Laboratory program manager Sarah DeDonder said in a news release.
Kansas was one of 21 states selected to receive the cooperative agreement. The additional funding will help the agency in achieving its vision of a balanced approach to ensuring a safe food supply, protecting natural resources, promoting public health and safety, protecting animal health, and providing consumer protection to the best of the department’s ability.
TOPEKA – There were long lines for those attending Congresswoman Lynn Jenkins’ job fair on Thursday afternoon at the Topeka Expocentre, Agriculture Hall.
Jenkins reported on social media over 75 employers from across Kansas were in attendance to find employees for quality jobs.
Last year’s fair drew hundreds, according to media release from Jenkins. It appears Thursday’s second annual event drew an even larger crowd.
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A Wichita mathematician seeking to audit voting machine tapes after finding statistical anomalies in election counts is getting legal and other support in pursuing her lawsuit.
Wichita State University statistician Beth Clarkson had been pursuing the case herself, but now has a Wichita lawyer representing her. Other people have set up a non-profit foundation for donations.
A Sedgwick County judge is expected to set filing deadlines and a trial date at a Monday hearing.
Clarkson has analyzed election returns in Kansas and elsewhere over several elections that indicate “a statistically significant” pattern where the percentage of Republican votes increase the larger the size of the precinct. The pattern could indicate election fraud.
Her attorney, Randy Rathbun, says Clarkson convinced him that she is right, and somebody needed to help her.
– NASA Astronaut Scott Kelly works inside the U.S. Destiny Laboratory. Destiny is the primary research laboratory for U.S. payloads, supporting a wide range of experiments and studies contributing to health, safety and quality of life for people all over the world.-NASA PHOTO
WASHINGTON (AP) — Waking up hundreds of miles above the Himalayas, astronaut Scott Kelly broke the U.S. record Friday for the most time spent in space with 383 days.
Kelly is more than halfway through a yearlong mission at the International Space Station and will eventually set a record for the longest single U.S. space mission.
Kelly tweeted back to Earth that he hopes that his eventual 500 plus days in orbit will be exceeded by someone visiting Mars. He tweeted that his day began with a strikingly beautiful view of the Himalayas and vowed to visit them.
Kelly and his ex-astronaut twin Mark, on the ground, are part of an experiment on the long-term effects of space.
Russia’s Gennady Padalka holds the record with 879 days in space.
GARNETT –A semi driver was injured in an accident just before 4p.m. on Friday in Anderson County.
The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 2007 Feightliner semi driven by Hamza Jama Gorod, 29, Kansas City, was northbound on U.S. 169 five miles south of Garnet.
The semi left the roadway on the west side. The driver tried to maneuver the truck back onto the roadway. He over corrected, went back into the ditch and then into a pond.
Gorod was transported to the hospital in Garnett. He was properly restrained at the time of the accident, according to the KHP.
NEW YORK (AP) — A federal appeals court says Google is not violating copyright laws by digitizing books for a massive online library.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City ruled Friday, agreeing with a judge who concluded that the snippets that Google showed customers from its database did not violate copyright laws.
The Authors Guild and various authors had challenged Google, contending that the digital book project violated their rights.
Mountain View, California-based Google Inc. has made digital copies of tens of millions of books from major libraries and established a publicly available search function.
The appeals court says Google’s profit motivation does not in these circumstances justify denial of what is a fair use of the books’ content.
Lawyers did not immediately return messages seeking comment.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A state agency has fined Kansas Gas Service $7,000 over problems with locating underground gas lines.
The Kansas Corporation Commission originally approved $14,000 in penalties related to incidents in the Kansas City area, but cut the amount in half after KGS sought reconsideration.
The Topeka Capital-Journal reports gas utilities must provide accurate information about where lines are within two days because of dangers if a line is struck and natural gas is released. KCC staff reported finding 149 instances of noncompliance related to KGS in the past two years.
The utility attributes the problems to an unusually high number of requests to locate gas lines in Johnson and Wyandotte counties, and said work laying fiber-optic cables drove that increase. KGS also says it’s made changes to address the problem.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — The state parole board has denied parole to a 40-year-old man convicted of killing a Topeka toddler in 1995.
The Topeka Capital-Journal reports that the Kansas Prisoner Review Board has denied release to Glenn Allen Heath, and won’t consider parole for him again until October 2018.
Heath was convicted of first-degree murder in the October 1995 beating death of 2-year-old Cain Baker. He’s serving a life sentence at the Lansing Correctional Facility.
The prisoner review board considered Heath for parole once previously, in 2010, and passed him for consideration for five years.
The Corrections Department says board members chose not to grant parole because of the serious nature and circumstances of Heath’s crime, public objections to his potential parole and because he denies responsibility for the crime.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — The Kansas Supreme Court has indefinitely suspended a Topeka attorney’s law license.
The state’s high court handed down on Friday a more severe penalty against Wendell Betts than the two-year suspension recommended by a disciplinary panel. The effective date was made retroactive to the September 2013 date an administrative hearing.
The Supreme Court said that given Betts disciplinary record and his current problems, a more severe discipline than recommended by the panel should be imposed.
A disciplinary panel found Betts had been previously disciplined on five occasions, and had engaged in a pattern of criminal misconduct and abuse of alcohol and use of illegal drugs.
Betts could eventually petition for reinstatement, but would be required to establish he has complied with certain conditions, such as abstinence from alcohol and drugs.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — An assistant professor who has accused Emporia State University of racial discrimination has filed a federal lawsuit, accusing the school of defamation and invasion of privacy.
Melvin Hale filed the lawsuit Wednesday. He and his wife, Angelica, who are black, have been embroiled in confrontation with the university since April, when someone left a note with a racial slur in the office of Angelica Hale’s graduate assistant. They allege the dean of School of Library and Information Management did not investigate the incident and retaliated against them for complaining.
In September, the university said an investigation found no evidence of a hate crime or racial discrimination.
Melvin Hale alleges those findings damaged his reputation and portrayed him as a liar.
The university said it doesn’t comment on pending litigation.
SALINA – Law enforcement authorities in Salina are investigating an accidental shooting Friday night at the Starplex Theater in the Mall on South 9th Street.
