Hundreds of people gathered in the central Kansas town of Lucas to take part in the grand opening of the town’s quirky new public restroom.

Organizers said the Bowl Plaza Grand Opening was the culmination of a four-year dream to build a downtown restroom in Lucas. But Bowl Plaza, built with the help of a grant from the state Department of Commerce, never was intended to be a typical restroom.

The rectangular men’s and women’s building is shaped like a toilet tank, and the oval-painted entrance resembles an upraised toilet seat lid.

The Salina Journal reports that the walkway to and from the restrooms is shaped like an unfurling toilet paper roll.

The daylong event Saturday included a toilet seat toss and Tubular Olympics with empty toilet paper rolls.

Google Street View cars have been seen moving around Kansas this week taking photos.

Cars in Google’s Street View fleet have 15 lenses taking 360 degrees of photos. Motion sensors track the camera’s position, a hard drive stores the data, a small computer runs the system and lasers capture 3D data to determine distances within Street View imagery.

Google’s cars have been mapping Reno, Harvey, Sedgwick and Wyandotte counties recently. The cars started driving in the southern states and move north as it gets warmer.

When data goes back to Google, signals from several sensors in the car, like GPS, determine the car’s exact locations. When the signal is blocked by a tall building, data from other sensors help fill in the gaps.

Warnings sent directly to cell phones and broadcast over the airwaves can provide a detailed heads-up before dangerous storms. But for many parts of Tornado Alley, storm sirens remain so ubiquitous that one official says the pole they sit on could almost be called the state tree of Kansas.

Many who live where tornadoes are most common rely on storm sirens — despite the risk of mechanical problems, damage from the same storms that trigger the sirens and the oft-repeated warning that people should not expect to hear the wailing tone inside well-insulated, modern homes.

Even as emergency management officials and meteorologists also urge the use of weather radios and subscriptions to phone weatheralerts, sirens remain an important part of communities’ warning systems. So much so that some cities and counties are considering upgrades.

Work started this past week on a roughly $200,000 project in Joplinthat involves upgrading, replacing and adding tornado sirens. It comes about a year after a deadly storm killed 161 people in the southwestern Missouri community. Elsewhere, officials in Cole County, which includes the Missouri Capitol, are considering whether to place sirens in rural areas outside Jefferson City.

In Kansas, Sedgwick County is completing an upgrade that will allow sirens to be triggered individually. That project was originally expected to cost about $1.25 million but now is expected to be completed for around $900,000.

Andy Bailey, the warning coordination meteorologist for the NationalWeather Service in Pleasant Hill, Mo., said too many people fail to realize the warning sirens are not aimed at people who are inside or asleep. But he said sirens still have a role in protecting communities.

“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with a community maintaining and improving their siren systems,” Bailey said. “The public is not going to allow you to remove them, so I think your best course of action is to make them as modern and as reliable as possible. So communities that are investing and spending money in those sorts of things is actually a good thing, and they’re doing their part.”

Sirens are anything but foolproof.

Shortly after a deadly tornado earlier this spring in Woodward, Okla., officials said a tower responsible for sending a repeating signal to the community’s sirens was knocked offline by lightning. Residents reported hearing mangled sirens before the community was struck by a tornado. The town’s police chief said it seemed the “hand of God” helped prevent further destruction given the crippled sirens and the twister’s nighttime arrival.

During the same weekend outbreak, the police chief in Creston, Iowa, said he first learned of the weather danger after receiving a call from a local hospital where the storm already had damaged its roof and blown out windows.

Despite the limitations, many still expect to hear a warning from sirens when ominous clouds turn dangerous.

Demands from residents in one Wisconsin community prompted aMilwaukee suburb to move forward with plans for a $100,000 upgrade. Officials briefly had considered whether the required changes were worth the expense given media coverage of weatherand new methods for communicating warnings.

Brookfield, Wis., Mayor Steve Ponto said it was clear many residents believe sirens are necessary for safety.

“I think some people think that the media sort of overhypes theweather. And what they really count on is when the government starts these sirens. Then they know it’s serious,” Ponto said. “It was a question of if there is a more effective way of notifying people, giving them more specific information. But in fact, people want this.”

Other communities also have made improvements such as adding backup power sources and better monitoring systems. One manufacturer of weather, tsunami, industrial and other early warning systems said there has been interest in communities fromWisconsin to Texas to update sirens that may be decades old and sometimes date back close to World War II.

Ralph Nichols, sales director for Massachusetts-based AcousticTechnology Inc., said outdoor warning sirens play an important role in an emergency system that should include multiple ways to get alerts. Sirens provide warning to people who do not have mobile phones or cell phone reception and don’t require people to sign up for special services. They also can be programmed to repeat verbal instructions.

“When you hear something, that really generates a response — whether you’re crazy enough to want to stay and see a tornado or head for shelter,” Nichols said.

Improvements to the warning system are a priority in Joplin, where the city commemorated the first anniversary of last year’s destructive tornado and is seeking to prevent a repeat tragedy.

Keith Stammer, the emergency management director for Joplin and Jasper County, said sirens can be tested silently, reducing how often they are sounded and preventing people from becoming desensitized to them. The sirens also will be connected to the electrical grid, have solar panels and a battery backup.

Not improving sirens “would leave a hole, just like not having aweather radio in the house would leave a hole, just like not having some form of communication to your phone would leave a hole,” Stammer said. “What we’re trying to do is do overlays of methods of warnings and communications in the hopes that we can catch everybody.”

A former suburban Kansas City high school teacher has been put on probation after pleading guilty to having sex with three male students.

The Kansas City Star reports that a Johnson County judge also said Friday that 28-year-old Michelle Preston, of Lenexa, will have to serve 32 months in prison if she violates her 3-year probation term. She also has to register as a sex offender for 25 years.

Preston taught psychology and world geography and coached cheerleading at Shawnee Mission West High School in Overland Park before she was suspended after the allegations surfaced in 2011.

She pleaded guilty in April to three felony counts of having unlawful sexual relations with a student. The students were 17 or 18 when the sexual encounters took place at Preston’s home.

A 9-year-old riding a bicycle was killed around 6PM Friday, after being struck by a semi in Liberal.

According to the Kansas Highway Patrol, 9-year-old Caleb Garcia was riding a bicycle southbound on New York, approaching U-54.

Troopers say that he failed to yield to an oncoming semi when pulling onto the highway, and was struck.

By Brett Regan ~ Little Apple Post

Riley County Police Department officials are currently searching for the whereabouts of a 15-year-old female who is a possible runway from Riley County.

Telisa Adel Molina was last seen at approximately 10 p.m. May 26.

Molina is a white Hispanic female with brown hair and brown eyes. She stands about 5’1″ and weighs about 95 pounds. The 15-year-old is a placement from Dodge City and is supposed to be in SRS custody.

Molina recently made contact with her grandmother, Lena Pena from Austin, Texas, by telephone indicating she would arrive in Texas by bus on Saturday. Molina’s whereabouts are currently unknown, but Pena is cooperating in locating her

Authorities in Douglas County say a body found in a wooded area south of the Wakarusa River is that a former University of Kansas student.

The Lawrence Journal World reports 23-year-old Yelekal Alemu was reported missing May 12 after he missed a family gathering. His body was positively identified Friday, one day after it was discovered by a police officer in the same area where his car had turned up.

Sheriff’s Sgt. Doug Lewis says there’s no indication of foul play. The cause of death has not been released.

Alemu had been enrolled at the university last fall and recently worked as a restaurant cook.

U.S. employers created 69,000 jobs in May, the fewest in a year, and the unemployment rate ticked up. The dismal jobs figures could fan fears that the economy is sputtering.

The Labor Department also says the economy created far fewer jobs in the previous two months than first thought. It revised those figures down to show 49,000 fewer jobs created. The unemployment rate rose to 8.2 percent from 8.1 percent in April, the first increase in 11 months.

Dow Jones industrial average futures, which were already down 100 points before the report, fell an additional 100 points within minutes of its release.

The yield on the benchmark on the 10-year Treasury note plunged to 1.46 percent, the lowest on record, suggesting investors are flocking to the safety of U.S. government bonds.

The price of gold, which was trading at about $1,550 an ounce before the report, shot up $30. For much of the past three years, investors have seen gold as a safe place to put their money during turbulent economic times.

The economy is averaging just 73,000 jobs per month over the past two months — roughly a third of 226,000 jobs created per month in the January-March quarter.

Gov. Sam Brownback has signed legislation clearing the way for conversion of a former boys’ home in north-central Kansas into a minimum-security prison.

The bill signed Friday allows the state Corrections Department to buy the former St. Francis Boys’ Home in Ellsworth. The purchase is expected to cost around $350,000.

Plans call for using the building to house 95 minimum-security inmates. That would free up space for medium-security inmates at the Ellsworth Correctional Facility.

Concerns about prison space in Kansas became especially acute in April after four state inmates broke out of the Ottawa County Jail. They were among 22 men being held there because of overcrowding at the Ellsworth prison.

A southeast Kansas man has been given to two concurrent life sentences for causing a double-fatality crash while he fled from police.

The Joplin Globe reports 25-year-old Kaston Hudgins of Galena was sentenced Thursday for the 2009 deaths of 41-year-old Teresa Kemp and her 13-year-old daughter, Taylor, both of Pittsburg.

Prosecutors say Hudgins was drinking when he fled from a Cherokee County sheriff’s deputy and hit Kemp’s vehicle south of Pittsburg.

Teresa Kemp was a teacher in Riverton, where Taylor Kemp was a student.

Hudgins was convicted in March of 2 counts of first-degree murder and one count of fleeing police.

Before his sentence, Hudgins read a statement in which apologized and said he hoped the Kemp family could forgive him someday.

Police have cancelled the amber alert for a missing 12-year-old Kansas girl after she was found safe in Michigan.

Brandy T. Gray, of El Dorado, was reported missing Thursday. She was reportedly traveling with 20-year-old Kenneth Steward McGill of Ontario, Canada.

McGill who is suspected of contacting the girl over the internet.

ORIGINAL: Police say a missing 12-year-old girl from El Dorado might be with a man she met on the Internet.

Police say Brandy T. Gray may be with a 20-year-old man named Kenneth Stewart McGill. He was registered at an El Dorado motel early Thursday and was later seen driving near Cassoday.

McGill is from Ontario, Canada and is driving a white 2006 Chevrolet Impala with Canadian license plates BMZH 238. His parents reported the car stolen earlier this week.

No further information is currently available.