By Fred Gough ~ Hutch Post

A 63-year-old man who was struck while riding his bike is fighting for his life.

The man was struck by a truck at 4 th & Severance just before 3 PM Wednesday. He was initially coded blue which means he wasn’t breathing when emergency personnel arrived, but was later reported to be in critical condition.

Police Sgt., Thad Pickard said he was taken first to Hutchinson Regional Medical Center, then taken by Lifeteam helicopter to a Wichita Hospital.

The name of the victim has not been released as of yet.

by Randy Picking ~ Salina Post

The 18-month old girl that was life watched to Wesley Medical Center after being found unresponsive Monday has died at a Wichita hospital.

Authorities announced Wednesday morning that 18-month-old Bre’elle Jefferson, the daughter of Robin Harrington of Salina, passed away at Wesley Medical Center in Wichita Tuesday.

Medical crews were sent to the 600 block of Gypsum about 3:40 Monday afternoon to the report of the toddler not breathing. The girl was taken to Salina Regional Health Center and then life watched to Wesley Medical Center.

No charges have been filed in the case, but authorities are conducting an investigation and are awaiting the results of an autopsy.

The Kansas Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services is disputing claims from a military boarding school that the agency investigated and found no validity to abuse allegations made by a 14-year-old former cadet.

The boy suffered two broken legs during four days in August that he attended St. John’s Military School.

SRS spokeswoman Angela DeRocha told The Associated Press its investigation is under way and the agency has reached no conclusion.

Saline County Attorney Ellen Mitchell said Wednesday that Salina police asked her to review the case for possible prosecution. Mitchell says she concluded there was insufficient evidence to show a crime was committed beyond a reasonable doubt.

The teen is among seven former cadets whose families are suing the school. St. John’s has settled nine abuse lawsuits since 2006.

 

A mistrial was declared in a Topeka murder case after a newspaper reporter sent a courtroom photo via Twitter that showed a juror.

The trial for 20-year-old Austin Tabor will be rescheduled. Tabor is charged with killing 20-year-old Matthew Mitchell in 2010 near a Topeka high school.

Shawnee County District Attorney Lee McGowan says the photo sent with a cell phone by a Topeka Capital-Journal reporter showed one or more of the jurors. The judge had allowed camera phones in the courtroom but ordered that no pictures be taken of the jurors.

Topeka Capital-Journal publisher Gregg Ireland said the photo contained a profile of a juror in the background. He says the paper regrets the error and will use it as a training tool for employees.

The Kansas Supreme Court is being asked to settle a legal dispute between the state and the owner of a gentlemen’s club outside Topeka.

The court will hear arguments Wednesday on whether the women who dance at Club Orleans are employees of the business.

The club contends they’re tenants who rent its stage and control their own schedules and performances.

The Department of Labor disagrees and wants the club to pay a tax based on the dancers’ wages to help finance unemployment benefits.

The club doesn’t pay the dancers, but the state considers their tips to be wages. According to court documents, the club sets a minimum tip of $1 for a stage dance, $10 for a lap dance and $20 for a private dance in the so-called champagne room.

An ethanol plant in Oakley will receive a $5 million federal grant to build a machine to improve the process of converting ethanol into fuel.

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced the grant in a news release Monday. It will provide funds for a biogas anaerobic digester at the Western Plains Energy plant in Oakley.

Western Plains currently produces about 50 million gallons of ethanol every year in Oakley.

The Topeka Capital-Journal reports the digester is expected to replace 90 percent of the fossil fuels Western Plains uses to process the fuel with waste from a cattle feedlot.

The project is expected to create 15 permanent full-time jobs and almost 100 construction jobs.

The grant comes through USDA Rural Development’s Repowering Assistance Program.

A Wichita delivery driver got more than cash when she brought a pizza to a customer at a hotel. Tucked among the bills the man handed over was a plastic bag containing a suspicious white substance.

The Wichita Eagle reports the 22-year-old Pizza Hut driver called police after making the discovery late Monday upon leaving the Sunset Hotel.

Police tested the substance and discovered it was methamphetamine. Officers went to the hotel and searched the customer’s room, where they reported finding meth and cocaine.

The 35-year-old man was booked into jail pending charges. Police say they don’t believe the man realized he had given the Pizza Hut driver drugs along with cash.

On the 75th anniversary of the disappearance of Amelia Earhart, competition to solve the mystery has reached fever pitch.

Two parties with diverging theories hope to lay to rest later this year the issue of what happened July 2, 1937, when Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan disappeared.

Jon Thompson says he will be the sonar operator this fall, when an expedition headed by David Jourdan and the deep-sea exploration company Nauticos begins a third mission to search near Earhart’s destination, Howland Island. They will search depths of 18,000 feet.

In July, Ric Gillespie, a longtime Earhart seeker, heads to an island where he believes they may have survived for a short time. He has a photo analyzed by the U.S. State Department that appears to show a landing gear.

Some Kansas lawmakers say a political rivalry is holding up a bill designed to improve the diagnosis of breast cancer.

The Kansas City Star reports the bill would require medical personnel to inform women that their dense breast tissue could hide cancer detection during a mammogram.

The measure was unanimously approved in the Senate in February, but has stalled in the House.

Critics say it’s stalled because Rep. Brenda Landwehr, chairwoman of the House Health and Human Services Committee, wants to run later this year against the bill’s sponsor, Jean Schodorf. Both women are from Wichita.

Landwehr says the bill was simply in line behind bills related to Medicaid reform.

Schodorf says she suspects politics is the reason Landwehr won’t give the bill a hearing before her committee.

Kansas health officials say 13 rabies cases have been confirmed so far this year, a 300 percent increase over the same time period last year.

The Kansas Department of Health and Environment says it had only four confirmed rabies cases in the same time period in 2011. Kansas has averaged 68 confirmed cases of rabies a year since 2007.

WIBW reports state health officials have confirmed rabies in a coyote, a raccoon, four skunks, two bats, two horses, two cows, and one cat.

KDHE officials say the cases are most prevalent in skunks. They encourage the public to watch their pets and livestock and be aware of wild animals. And they encourage owners to vaccinate their animals against rabies.

A Colorado pilot is hospitalized in Wichita after the crop-dusting plane he was flying crashed in southwestern Kansas.

The Kansas Highway Patrol says the 1999 fixed-wing plane went down around 9:30 a.m. Monday about two miles east of the Kearny County town of Lakin.

The pilot is identified as 58-year-old David Burr of Montrose, Colorado. He was taken to Kearny County Hospital and later to Wichita’s Via Christi-St. Francis Hospital, where he was listed in critical condition Monday afternoon.

The patrol says the aircraft’s right wing clipped a support line on a 305-foot cell tower. The plane hit the ground nose-first near U.S. 50 and flipped over.

The Hutchinson News reports the crop-duster was registered to Tri Rotor Spray and Chemical, in the southwestern Kansas town of Ulysses.