A therapist who stalked a soldier she was treating and led police in a high-speed chase through Fort Riley has been sentenced to three years of probation.

U.S. District Judge Julie Robinson on Monday followed prosecutors’ recommendation when sentencing 44-year-old Rachelle Santiago. The Manhattan woman pleaded guilty in September to criminal restraint, fleeing and eluding a police officer, criminal threat and illegally entering military property during events over three days last January.

Defense attorneys argued that Santiago’s behavior was influenced by a steroid she had taken. Psychiatrists who evaluated her concluded she had suffered an acute psychotic episode.

The plea deal requires Santiago to give up her professional license.

Holiday shoppers still seeking desk chairs or flat-screen computer monitors might consider browsing at the Kansas State Surplus Property office in Topeka.

Lori Myers manages the state surplus office, which has a warehouse of sale items that have been discarded by government agencies. The goods include outdated computers, unused office equipment and mass-market artwork that had hung on state office walls.

The rule on state property is pretty simple: other government agencies have first dibs. After 30 days, items are for sale to the public.

Myers says laptop computers are so popular she had to create a waiting list. Most of the money from surplus sales goes to maintaining the state surplus office, which is self-sustaining.

A grandfather of a northeast Kansas man who killed an Atchison police officer says the shooter was angry at police and the criminal justice system.

Twenty-5-year-old Skyler Barbee shot and killed himself after fatally wounding Sgt. David Enzbrenner on Friday. The officer was working on a codes enforcement call across the street from 1 of Barbee’s relatives.

The Rev. Leo Barbee Jr., of Lawrence, told The Kansas City Star that Skyler Barbee was angry because his father is serving life without parole at a Louisiana prison for armed robbery after prior convictions. The grandfather says that Skyler Barbee believed the life sentence was more appropriate for rape or murder.

Skyler Barbee had been sentenced earlier to 45 days in jail for battering a law enforcement officer in August.

The family of a Fort Riley soldier that was shot and killed in Ogden is offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to an arrest in the case.

Relatives of Sgt. Ronald Evans Taylor posted information on the reward and a sketch of the suspect on a billboard along Fort Riley Boulevard in Manhattan Friday.

Taylor, a 28-year-old Army X-Ray technician, was shot to death Oct. 14 as he drove his car a few blocks from his home on the post.

WIBW reports that Taylor’s brother says there is still no clear motive or suspect in the shooting. He says his family hopes the reward will prompt someone with information to come forward.

By Matt Unruh ~ Great Bend Post

33-year-old Shawn Ney of Hoisington, who was being held at Barton County Detention Center on charges of murder and attempted murder, died early Saturday morning in the Barton County Jail.

The Kansas Bureau of Investigation is conducting an investigation in Ney’s death. Ney was charged with the murder of Steven Calderwood and attempted murder of his estranged wife Sarah Ney after an altercation on July 10^th 2010.

After allegedly shooting Calderwood and Sara Ney, Shawn Ney was arrested after a standoff at his house in Hoisington. He had set fire to the home  during the standoff, reportedly tried to kill himself, and was on suicide watch after his arrest.

A Hutchinson tea party group says its depiction of a skunk as the new symbol of the U.S. president is satire and people don’t have to look at it if they don’t want.

Patriot Freedom Alliance says on its website that like the president, the skunk is “half black, half white, and almost everything it does stinks.”

The Hutchinson News reports local NAACP president Darrell Pope sees no humor in the depiction, which he calls a blatant statement of racism.

Local tea party supporter Chuck Sankey says former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin has been the target of worse insults than what’s on the website.

Patriot Freedom Alliance meets regularly and has hosted rallies in the Hutchinson Sports Arena.

Army leaders are trimming their payrolls, reassigning positions and leaving others vacant as they cope with declining federal spending on military operations.

Col. William Clark, garrison commander at Fort Riley, says the installation has trimmed its payroll from 1,100 employees to 1,040. The goal is to be at 960 civilian employees by the end of the federal fiscal year.

Fort Leavenworth had a target of 125 positions.

The reductions are being achieved by early retirements and attrition. In areas where employment is more than the desired amount, workers are being offered the chance to be reassigned elsewhere on the posts to maintain jobs.

Army officials said Thursday the cuts are in line with spending reductions approved earlier this year by Congress and President Barack Obama.

Kansas Department of Transportation officials say the loss of 152 employees to early retirement could make it more difficult to battle large snowstorms this winter.

The department lost the second-highest number of employees to the retirement program. It has received permission to fill about 36 positions, and will consider using temporary employees.

Jerry Younger, deputy transportation secretary, tells The Topeka Capital-Journal that it might be difficult to find enough drivers for snowplows if a blizzard strikes a big area of Kansas. He says basic highway maintenance also has been affected by the employee losses.

The Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services lost the most employees, when 344 agency people took early retirement. SRS Secretary Robert Siedlecki said his agency’s work will not suffer because of the retirements.

Patient advocates and nursing home administrators say federal prosecutions against three Kansas nurses for drug tampering highlight regulatory gaps in the oversight of nurses – particularly those working in the long-term care facilities that serve some 90,000 Kansans.

Kansas law doesn’t require nursing homes to do criminal background checks for licensed medical personnel. But the state board which licenses about 56,000 nurses was given legislative authority to do background checks and fingerprinting just three years ago and then on new licenses only.

The state requires hospitals to report violations of the Kansas Nurse Practice Act to regulators, but does not require nursing homes to do the same.

The Kansas Board of Nursing receives between 1,500 and 1,700 complaints annually on nurses. Roughly 80% relate to drug or alcohol abuse.

A Larned man and a Great Bend woman were airlifted to Wesley Medical Center after a Friday night car accident in Larned.

According to the Kansas Highway Patrol, David Dinning, 41, was northbound on Course Avenue in Larned around 9:55 pm when, for unknown reasons, he rear-ended Sharla Durrett, 47, who was stopped at the intersection of Course Avenue and US- 156.

Dinning was flown from the scene of the accident to Wesley and Durrett was transported to Pawnee Valley Community Hospital and then transferred by Life Watch to Wesley.

No other details were released.

Atchison County authorities say a city police officer was shot and killed by a man who then shot himself.

Atchison County Sheriff John Calhoon says Sgt. David Enzbrenner was shot Friday afternoon while serving a nuisance order at an Atchison house.

He said the alleged shooter, 25-year-old Skyler Barbee, came “out of nowhere,” fired at the officer and then shot himself.

Enzbrenner was a 24-year veteran of the Atchison police department.

Calhoon says it’s not clear if Barbee lived at the home where the order was served. He says an investigation is continuing.

The Kansas Star casino is making last-minute preparations as its Dec. 26 opening date nears.

General manager Scott Cooper told reporters Friday during a tour of the site of a temporary casino that the casino is expected to draw more than 2 million people and ring up some $150 million in revenues in its first year.

The casino has already signed up nearly 26,000 players from 39 states for its Players Club promotion.

Meanwhile, construction of the much larger permanent casino is under way. The 170-acre site will eventually include five restaurants, a 300-room hotel and an equestrian center.

Cooper says the Kansas Star is expected to draw 3 million people a year once the entire project is completed.