Police in Kansas City, Kan., are investigating a fatal shootout between people in two motor vehicles.
Residents called police around 11 a.m. Monday to report people shooting at each other from the two vehicles. Police say a passenger in one of the vehicles was hit during the rolling gun battle and died at a hospital.
No arrests were immediately reported.
The victim’s name was being withheld while he was positively identified and family members were notified.
The 150-year-old Lecompton jail is being moved one stone at a time so it can be closer to the Constitution Hall Historic Site downtown.
The Topeka Capital-Journal reports a local building company began disassembling the jail Sept. 10 in preparation for its move down the hill from its current site to property purchased by the Lecompton Historical Society.
Society president Paul Bahnmaier says the move will make the jail more accessible to the public.
A spokesman for the company moving the jail says the restored facility will last several hundred years.
A Heritage Conservation Council grant is paying $55,000 of the $69,000 cost to move the building, a memorial fund is providing $8,000 and the rest is being covered by members of the historical society.
26-year-old Brandon Brown died Saturday night from injuries he sustained from an apparent beating early the morning of September 16th in McPherson.
Police have arrested a 19-year-old Alton Franklin, of Dallas TX, in connection with Brown’s death. The orginal charges of aggravated battery that Franklin was arrested on Saturday were amended Monday to aiding and abetting in 2nd degree murder. Bond is now a half million dollars.
The Tabor College student body and campus community will honor the life of Brandon Brown with a memorial service on Tuesday, Sept. 25 at 11 a.m. It will be held at the First MB Church in Hillsboro, 300 Prairie Pointe. The public is invited and welcome to attend.
The family has set up a fund for Brown’s young children as well as to help pay travel expenses for the family. To donate, contact Emprise Bank, in Hillsboro.
Scarce mental health resources across Kansas are swelling the ranks of local jails with inmates who might be better served in psychiatric institutions.
Jails in Johnson and Shawnee counties have special pods for prisoners with mental illnesses, but no such facilities exist in the state’s second most-populated county.
The Wichita Eagle reports Sedgwick County Sheriff Robert Hinshaw, who lost his re-election bid in August, has been pushing for years to build a dedicated pod for inmates with mental illnesses.
But with expected first-year operating costs pegged at $750,000 in 2009, no funding has been provided for such a pod.
Hinshaw says the average length of stay in Sedgwick County’s jail is 28 days, but for 49 inmates he would house in a special pod, the average is 165 days.
A Dodge City girl has died and five other people were injured in a rollover accident in southwest Kansas.
The Kansas Highway Patrol reports that the child, Esella Vasquez, died after the vehicle she was in swerved into oncoming traffic, rolled and landed in a ditch. The accident occurred Saturday afternoon on U.S. 50 about 14 miles west of Cimarron
The highway patrol says the injured were taken to hospitals in the area and in Wichita.
The patrol says child killed in the accident was not wearing a seatbelt.
The abrupt demise of a popular state program that helped Kansas communities revitalize their downtowns has left officials in many cities disappointed and perplexed.
State Commerce Secretary Pat George announced the immediate shutdown of the 27-year-old Kansas Main Street program in an email Thursday to directors of the 25 local Main Street programs around the state. George said the move was part of a department restructuring.
Kansas Main Street offered training sessions, technical guidance and zero-interest matching loans for small-business development.
In northeastern Kansas, Holton Main Street executive director Bob Carlson said the loans kept some small towns from drying up commercially. Carlson says most of the local programs will continue to exist, but the training and guidance from the state program will be missed.
Some Kansas winery owners are concerned about a new state law that cuts the percentage of Kansas-grown ingredients that wineries are required to have in their products.
The new law went into effect in May and cuts the amount of Kansas products required in Kansas wine from 60 percent to 30 percent. The new provision applies to a winery’s overall products, rather than each bottle. Under the law it would be acceptable, for example, for a winery to make one type of wine using 100 percent Kansas grapes and two other types with no Kansas grapes.
The Lawrence Journal-World reports supporters say lessening restrictions promotes growth of Kansas wineries.
Opponents say fostering regionality in the wine is more important than spurring large numbers of new wineries.
by Randy Picking ~ Salina Post
Two Nebraska residents are killed Saturday morning when the car they were in was struck by a train in northern Kansas.
According to the Kansas Highway Patrol, A BNSF train with 99 cars was northbound about a mile north of Webber in Jewell County, when it a 2002 Suzuki as it exited a Farm Entrance Drive and crossed the tracks.
The driver of the car 43 year old Tracy Core of Lincoln Nebraska , and 22 year old Bradley G Cusatis Jr. of Beatrice Nebraska were killed.
The crash occurred about 10:30am.
No one on the train was injured.
The stalled plan for the National Bio- and Agro-Defense Facility in Kansas may be regaining traction in Washington, D.C.
Gov. Sam Brownback says he’s encouraged by reports that the Department of Homeland Security is eager to discuss releasing $40 million for a utility plant for the $1 billion NBAF lab. It would research foot-and-mouth and other dangerous animal diseases that can be passed to humans.
Progress has slowed since a site next to Kansas State in Manhattan was chosen in 2008.
Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., brought up the delay in releasing federal funding for NBAF construction during a Senate committee hearing Wednesday.
The Topeka Capital-Journal reports that Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano responded by telling Moran the agency proposed meeting with Kansas officials to discuss NBAF cost issues.
A spokeswoman says officials at Kansas’ Wolf Creek nuclear power plant take safety seriously and have corrected a problem that led to a January shutdown.
Jenny Hageman commented Friday after the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said it dropped its rating for the plant in the east-central Kansas town of Burlington. The NRC says it plans additional inspections.
The Jan. 13 shutdown followed a loss of off-site power. The NRC blames an electrical short caused by improper wiring.
Hageman says the plant’s operators did extensive inspections to make sure a similar problem did not exist elsewhere.
NRC spokesman Victor Dricks says the agency has dropped Wolf Creek into its third-lowest rated category of licensed nuclear reactors. Only seven other of the nation’s 104 reactors have the same or a lower rating.
A California attorney has filed a lawsuit in Kansas challenging President Barack Obama’s listing on the state’s Nov. 6 election ballot.
Attorney Orly Taitz has promoted the discredited notion that Obama is not a U.S. citizen in other states. Her lawsuit in Shawnee County District Court also says she’s representing a registered Kansas voter named Roger Walters but doesn’t say where he lives.Taitz filed her lawsuit Thursday, and a hearing is scheduled for Oct. 3.
The defendants in the lawsuit are the State Objections Board and Secretary of State Kris Kobach, its chairman.
Earlier this week, the board closed a review of whether Obama should be listed on the ballot after the president’s birth-state of Hawaii authenticated information in an online copy of his birth certificate.
A woman from Mexico has been sentenced to 46 months in federal prison after she was arrested in Russell County, Kan., with more than 12 pounds of cocaine, U.S. Attorney Barry Grissom said Friday.
Monica Carrillo, 28, Nogales, Mexico, pleaded guilty to one count of possession with intent to distribute cocaine.
In her plea, she admitted that on Feb. 28, 2012, she was stopped by a Kansas Highway Patrol trooper in Russell County, Kan.
A search of the car turned up a hidden compartment containing 5.45 kilograms (more than 12 pounds) of cocaine.
She told investigators she was promised $1,000 to transport the drugs from California to Chicago.
Two jail inmates who claim they were sexually assaulted by a deputy are seeking $1 million each from Sedgwick County.
Sedgwick County recently received the claims for $2 million in damages. They’re a first step in possible lawsuits alleging civil rights violations and negligence.
Over the summer, the county received another $20 million in claims from two inmates alleging they were assaulted by the same deputy, David Kendall. The 22-year-old resigned in late June and is facing 12 criminal charges.
Eleven of the 12 charges accuse him of sex crimes against six inmates. Kendall is free on bond.
The Eagle obtained copies of the claims through an open records request. Sheriff Robert Hinshaw has said his department is cooperating with an FBI investigation.
