Facebook announced Friday a bug that allowed developers access to users photos in September.

The bug affected up to 6.8 million users, Facebook said, and occurred between Sept, 13 and 25.

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JACKSON COUNTY — A rural home was destroyed by fire early Friday morning.

Just after 3a.m., authorities received a report of a structure fire at 16700 98th Road in rural Jackson County, according to Sheriff Tim Morse.  Fire departments from Hoyt, Mayetta, Soldier Township, and the Potawatomi Nation responded to the scene.

The fire was brought under control around 5:30 am. The home was a log style home and is deemed a complete loss. All the occupants, including four children escaped the home without injury.

The fire is suspected of igniting from a heat lamp that was being used for animals, according to Morse.

Crews began clearing the scene around 7 a.m. Friday.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A state court judge is considering whether to block Kansas from enforcing a ban on telemedicine abortions that are to start in January.

With telemedicine abortions, women in rural areas are allowed to get abortion pills without an in-office consultation in a city clinic.

On Friday, Judge Franklin Theis will hear an abortion rights group’s request to stop the law.

The Center for Reproductive Rights contends the ban violates the state constitution by treating women seeking abortions differently from other telemedicine patients. The group says the law places an undue burden on women seeking abortions.

The center sued on behalf of Trust Women Wichita, which operates a clinic that this year began to offer abortions through telemedicine so that women in rural areas would not have to come to Wichita.

KANSAS CITY– A Kansas City man who was arrested after an hours-long standoff with police officers was indicted by a federal grand jury for attempted distribution and possession of child pornography, according to the United State’s Attorney.

Eric C. Hacker, 36, was charged in a 10-count indictment returned under seal by a federal grand jury in Kansas City this week. That indictment was unsealed and made public following his arrest.

The federal indictment alleges that Hacker attempted to distribute child pornography over the internet on eight separate occasions between March 27, 2017, and June 2, 2017. The indictment also charged Hacker with one count of receiving child pornography over the internet and one count of possessing child pornography.

Hacker was arrested on Wednesday after he fled from police officers and barricaded himself for several hours inside of a storage container he had been using as a residence.

The charges contained in this indictment are simply accusations, and not evidence of guilt. Evidence supporting the charges must be presented to a federal trial jury, whose duty is to determine guilt or innocence.

KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — Authorities say a collision with a parked dump truck has left one teen dead and another injured in Kansas City, Kansas.

Police say the teens were riding in a speeding sport utility vehicle that skidded into the city work truck Thursday. It appears that the SUV then struck a guardrail and rolled over. A team of workers who were around the corner didn’t see the crash but came running after they heard the impact.

The teen who died was ejected. A girl in the SUV was taken to a hospital with minor injuries. Two other teens in the SUV weren’t hurt.

Police say the teens weren’t wearing seat belts.

SHAWNEE COUNTY— Law enforcement authorities are investigating a suspect on weapons charges.

SEDGWICK COUNTY  — Law enforcement authorities continue to search for a missing 11-year-old boy.

Just after 10:15a.m. Thursday, Joan Ibarra walked away from Hamilton Middle School, 1407 South Broadway in Wichita, according to office Paul Cruz.

He was last seen in the area of Harry and Broadway and was  wearing black pants, and gray sweater. He is Hispanic approximately 4-foot-8, 80 pounds with black hair and brown eyes.

Please call 911 with any information.

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. health officials have traced a food poisoning outbreak from romaine lettuce to at least one farm in California.

But they cautioned Thursday that other farms are likely involved in the E. coli outbreak and consumers should continue checking the label before purchasing romaine lettuce.

The Food and Drug Administration said 59 people in 15 states have now been sickened by the tainted lettuce. That’s seven more cases than previously reported, but regulators said they are fairly confident that the lettuce which first triggered the outbreak has been removed from the market. The FDA told consumers to avoid romaine lettuce just before Thanksgiving.

Officials said a water reservoir at Adam Bros. Farms in Santa Barbara County tested positive for the bacterial strain and the owners are cooperating with U.S. officials. Officials from the FDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have not determined how the water reservoir — which is used to irrigate lettuce — became contaminated.

The bacteria can get into water and soil through multiple routes, including waste from domesticated animals or wild animals, fertilizer and other agricultural products.

The FDA’s Dr. Stephen Ostroff said investigators have linked the tainted lettuce to multiple distributors and processors, suggesting it must have come from several farms.

A man who answered the phone at Adam Bros. Farms said he could not comment on the government announcement. According to the company’s website, it only grows vegetables products, including broccoli, cauliflower, celery and various types of lettuce.

The government also narrowed the source of the outbreak to three California counties: Santa Barbara, Monterey and San Benito. That’s down from six California counties under investigation when regulators began warning the public last month.

Regulators said people should only buy lettuce with a label listing where and when it was harvested. Lettuce from outside the three California counties that was harvested after Nov. 23 should be safe to eat.

Romaine harvesting recently began shifting from California’s Central Coast to winter growing areas, primarily Arizona, Florida, Mexico and California’s Imperial Valley. Those winter regions weren’t yet shipping when the illnesses began.

E. coli, the bacteria often associated with food poisoning, usually causes sickness two to eight days later, according to health authorities. Most people with the infection get diarrhea and abdominal cramps. Some cases can be life-threatening, causing kidney failure and seizures.

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TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A gang member who fled to Mexico after a Topeka killing will be sentenced in February.

Fernando Diaz, 25, pleaded guilty last week to involuntary manslaughter in the death of 22-year-old Christopher Galvan. In July 2015, Galvan was found wounded in a crashed car. He died three days later.

Diaz initially was charged with second-degree murder and fled the state after a warrant for his arrest was issued. The U.S. Marshals Service announced this September that Diaz had been arrested in Mexico.

Court records say that as part of the Diaz’ plea agreement, prosecution and defense attorneys recommended that Diaz be sentenced to 10 years and eight months in prison. Prosecutors also will ask that his probation be revoked in a law enforcement assault case.

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A Wichita art gallery says eight pieces of glass art were stolen during a break-in.

The founder of Karg Art Glass, Rollin Karg, says he discovered the break-in and theft early Wednesday.

Gallery officials estimated the loss was about $2,500.

Police are investigating.

Kara Art Glass is generally regarded as the city’s foremost glassblowing studio and gallery.

WICHITA, KAN. – An EMT in Jackson County, Kan., pleaded guilty Wednesday to stealing morphine from vials, according to U.S.Attorney Stephen McAllister.

Colby W. VanWagoner, 33, Mayetta, Kan., pleaded guilty to one count of obtaining a controlled substance by deception and one count of making a false statement during an investigation.

The crimes took place while VanWagoner was working for the Jackson County Emergency Medical Service in Holton, Kan.

In his plea, VanWagoner admitted he tampered with vials of morphine sulfate. He replaced morphine with saline solution and put the vials back into narcotic boxes on ambulances and in office stocks. Tests showed the concentration of morphine in vials that had been tampered with was low as 1 percent or less. The concentration of morphine should have been 100 percent.

Sentencing is set for March 12.

MOJAVE, Calif. (AP) — Virgin Galactic’s tourism spaceship climbed more than 50 miles high above California’s Mojave Desert on Thursday, reaching for the first time what the company considers the boundary of space.

One of the test pilots, Mark Stucky, is a 1976 graduate of Salina High School South.

The rocket ship hit an altitude of 51 miles (82 kilometers) before beginning its gliding descent, said mission official Enrico Palermo. It landed on a runway minutes later.

“We made it to space!” Palermo said.

Thursday’s supersonic flight takes Virgin Galactic closer to turning the long-delayed dream of commercial space tourism into reality. The company aims to take paying customers on the six-passenger rocket, which is about the size of an executive jet. Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson has said he wants to be one of the first on board.

Branson greeted the two pilots after the test, declaring “Space is Virgin territory!”

Virgin Galactic considers 50 miles (80 kilometers) the boundary of space because that is the distance used by the U.S. Air Force and other U.S. agencies. That’s different from a long-held view that the boundary is at 62 miles (100 kilometers). Virgin Galactic CEO George Whitesides noted that recent research favors the lower altitude.

Whitesides said a review of the flight’s data will last into the new year, and there will be more test flights, some with company employees as passengers. He wouldn’t estimate when commercial passenger trips might begin.

“This is a huge step forward and once we look at the data we’ll see what that pathway is,” he said.

At the start of the test flight, a special jet carrying the Virgin Space Ship Unity flew to an altitude near 43,000 feet (13,100 meters) before releasing the craft. The spaceship ignited its rocket engine and it quickly hurtled upward and out of sight of viewers on the ground. The spaceship reached Mach 2.9, nearly three times the speed of sound.

The two test pilots — Mark “Forger” Stucky and former NASA astronaut Rick “CJ” Sturckow — will be awarded commercial astronaut wings, said Federal Aviation Administration official Bailey Edwards.

“It was a great flight and I can’t wait to do it again,” said Sturckow, who flew on the space shuttle four times.

Virgin Galactic’s development of its spaceship took far longer than expected and endured a setback when the first experimental craft broke apart during a 2014 test flight, killing the co-pilot.

“People have literally put their lives on the line to get us here,” Branson said. “This day is much for them as it is for all of us.”

More than 600 people have committed up to $250,000 for rides that include several minutes of weightlessness and a view of the Earth far below. The spaceship will also be used for research: NASA had a science experiment on the test flight.

The endeavor began in 2004 when Branson announced the founding of Virgin Galactic in the heady days after the flights of SpaceShipOne, the first privately financed manned spacecraft that made three flights into space.

Funded by the late billionaire Paul G. Allen and created by maverick aerospace designer Burt Rutan, SpaceShipOne won the $10 million Ansari X Prize. The prize was created to kick-start private development of rocket ships that would make spaceflight available to the public.

When Branson licensed the SpaceShipOne technology, he envisioned a fleet carrying paying passengers by 2007, launching them from a facility in southern New Mexico called Spaceport America.

But there were significant setbacks. Three technicians were killed in 2007 by an explosion while testing a propellant system at Scaled Composites LLC, which built SpaceShipOne and was building the first SpaceShipTwo for Virgin Galactic.

Then, in 2014, SpaceShipTwo broke apart during a test flight by Scaled Composites when the co-pilot prematurely unlocked its unique “feathering” braking system and it began to deploy. The co-pilot was killed but the injured pilot managed to survive a fall from high altitude with a parachute.
During descent, the craft’s twin tails are designed to rotate upward to slow it down, then return to a normal flying configuration before the craft glides to a landing on a runway.

New versions of SpaceShipTwo are built by a Virgin Galactic sister company and flight testing is now in-house. Its previous test flight reached 32 miles (52 kilometers).

Branson isn’t alone in the space tourism business: Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin is planning to take space tourists on trips, using the more traditional method of a capsule atop a rocket that blasts off from a launch pad. SpaceX’s Elon Musk recently announced plans to take a wealthy Japanese entrepreneur and his friends on a trip around the moon.

The Salina Post contributed to this story.