A Kansas man was sentenced to nearly 20 years in prison for the death of his girlfriend’s 19-month-old son.

Twenty-8-year-old Chad Carr of North Newton was sentenced Tuesday to 241 months in the death of Vincent Hill.

Carr pleaded guilty in November to second-degree murder, aggravated battery and child abuse. The boy suffered blunt force injuries and likely died by suffocation.

The boy’s mother, Katheryn Nycole Dale, is serving a 3-year sentence after pleading no contest last July to child abuse and aggravated child endangerment in her son’s death.

The Wichita Eagle reports that after being released from prison, Carr will be under state supervision for three years. And he will have to register as a violent offender.

Two Democrats in the Kansas Senate want to raise the salaries of state workers who earn less than private-sector employees with similar jobs.

Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley and Sen. Laura Kelly, both from Topeka, have proposed that the state complete a 5-year plan to boost the pay of such workers. The state funded the first three years of the pay plan but stopped with the current budget.

The cost in state tax dollars would be $17 million over two years, beginning July 1. Hensley and Kelly contend the state could fund the plan with half of its savings from an early retirement program started last year by Republican Gov. Sam Brownback.

Kelly is the ranking Democrat on the budget-writing Senate Ways and Means Committee.

The Environment Protection Agency is honoring the University of Kansas Hospital in Kansas City and the Hutchinson Correctional Facility for their recycling efforts.

The agency’s regional office in Kansas City, Kansas planned to present a 2011 WasteWise Gold Achievement Award to officials of the medical center Tuesday. Officials from the Hutchinson Correctional Facility will receive their award Wednesday.

The EPA says that since 2010, the KU Medical Center has diverted more than 540,000 pounds of solid waste from local landfills.

The Hutchinson Correctional Facility is the only mattress recycling center in Kansas. Since 2010, the prison has recycled more than 17,000 mattresses. The facility also recycles inmates’ used jeans, turning them into quilts that are donated to charities.

Officials at Wichita State University say a student has tested positive for tuberculosis, an infectious disease that usually attacks the lungs.

University officials released little information about the student Monday, but they say the person has been quarantined. KWCH-TV reports the university could not say if the student lives on or off the campus.

Wichita State has been on winter break since mid-December. Officials believe the exposure of other students to the ailing person has been limited.

Classes at the university resume Tuesday.

The fate of a proposal to require first-time Kansas voters to prove their citizenship when they register beginning June 15 is tied to a state computer project.

The proof-of-citizenship rule is currently scheduled to take effect in January 2013. But Secretary of State Kris Kobach wants to have the requirement in place in time for this year’s presidential election.

House Elections Committee Chairman Scott Schwab said Monday that legislators first want to be sure the state is ready to scan and store electronic copies of documents such as birth certificates and passports. A $40 million computer project in the agency that issues driver’s licenses is supposed to make that possible.

A Shawnee County judge has dismissed a breach of contract lawsuit against a Kansas couple filed by a Colorado man who held the couple hostage.

Jesse Dimmick is serving an 11-year sentence after bursting into Jared and Lindsay Rowley’s Topeka-area home in September 2009. He was wanted for questioning in a Colorado man’s beating death and a chase had begun in in Geary County. The couple escaped after Dimmick fell asleep.

The Topeka Capital-Journal reports Dimmick filed a breach of contract suit in Shawnee County court in response to a lawsuit the Rowleys filed in September. Dimmick contends that he and the couple had a binding, oral contract that they would hide him for an unspecified amount of money.

The judge dismissed Dimmick’s lawsuit Jan. 9.

by Matt Unruh ~ Great Bend Post

Local authorities were involved in a high-speed chase on Sunday night. Great Bend police were dispatched to the Great Bend Wal-Mart on Sunday evening in reference to a theft. Upon arrival, they observed a black male, later identified as 32-year-old Marcus C. Taylor leaving in a Chevrolet passenger car.

Officer’s attempted to conduct a traffic stop but Taylor refused to stop. Officer began to chase the vehicle through Great Bend and left the city limits. Once deputies from Barton County were able to take over the chase, Great Bend officers were called off. Barton County deputies continued the chase through Stafford County and into Pratt County. Spike strips were used on Taylor’s vehicle during the chase, and his vehicle eventually struck a utility pole in Pratt, ending the chase.

Taylor was checked by Pratt EMS for minor injures, and then he was taken into custody. Evidence was seized from his vehicle. Taylor was taken to the Pratt County Jail, and booked with charges still pending in Barton County.

Assisting in the chase were Stafford County Sheriff’s Office, Pratt County Sheriff’s Office, Pratt Police Department, Macksville Police, St. John Police, Pratt EMS, and the Kansas Highway Patrol.

The Saline County Sheriffs Office is requesting assistance from the public in locating an imate that was released by the courts to attend a funeral, but did not return to Jail Friday afternoon.

43-year-old Scott Paul Cordell was being housed in the Saline County Jail on a body only warrant for Failure to Appear on a drug related case. Cordell was released Friday morning from the jail to go to a funeral in McPherson County and return to jail by 3:00 pm Friday, but Cordell did not return.

He now faces additional charges of Aggravated Escape From Custody. If the whereabouts of Scott Paul Cordell are known, call 911, the Saline County Sheriffs Office at 785-826-6500, or Crime Stoppers at 785-825-TIPS.

A 24-year-old Columbia man has received $50,000 to settle a lawsuit against the city police department and two officers over their stun gun use.

The Columbia Daily Tribune reports that Cadilac Derrick settled his federal civil suit earlier this month. The case was then dismissed from Missouri’s Western District U.S. Court after it went to mediation.

Derrick was pulled over by two Columbia officers in a Feb. 24, 2009 traffic stop. A patrol car dashboard video shows the man being subdued with a Taser after he didn’t immediately respond to a request to leave the car. Derrick’s girlfriend and her 3-year-old child were also in the car.

Criminal charges filed against Derrick for resisting arrest were later dismissed A police internal affairs investigation found the two officers acted appropriately.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has been trying to gauge public understanding in Salina about a site at the former Schilling Air Force base that may be contaminated from chemical warfare training decades ago.

Tim Rogers, executive director of the Salina Airport Authority, where the site is located, said the investigation is separate from negotiations over groundwater contamination at the former base, which closed in the 1960s.

A Corps of Engineers contractor surveyed area officials recently to determine their interest in and knowledge of the site and its potential contamination from two types of chemicals used during training exercises more than 50 years ago.

The Corps of Engineers office in Kansas City says survey results would be used to develop appropriate public meetings about the site for the community.

Three people were killed and three were injured in a rollover accident on I-135, 4 miles north of McPherson, Saturday around 11AM.

According to the Kansas Highway Patrol, seven people in a 2004 Chevrolet SUV were southbound on I-135 when the driver indicated that he fell asleep. The vehicle left the roadway and entered the median, then weaved down the roadway and rolled multiple times, ejecting 5 of the 7 occupants.

The driver, 48-year-old Luis Medina, 26-year-old Augustina Medina, a 4-year-old and a 1-year-old, all of Shuyler, Nebraska, were transported to local hospitals with injuries. Their conditions have not been released.

45-year-old Martha Q. Medina, 36-year-old Adrian M. Quezada, and a 10-year-old were killed in the